Chicago Native Jabari Parker Can Make Hometown Proud
A couple of weeks ago, I tweeted from this blog’s handle that I was headed to Disney World. For most of that trip, I stayed out of the sports loop. After all, the point of a vacation is to forget about what’s happening in the world. Heck, Walt Disney called Disneyland a place where “you leave today.”
On my last night in Florida, I was sitting at the bar of a bowling alley at Disney Springs when I saw a dude with an Orlando Magic cap sitting next to me. Being the basketball mind I am and having no one else to talk to at the moment, I (somewhat in jest) asked the man if he thought the Magic will surprise people this coming season. One thing led to another, and pretty soon, we were talking all things NBA, going from one direction to the next. As it turned out, the man was Hennessy (not Tennessee) Williams, a prominent air guitarist.
Eventually, Hennessy and I got to talking about the Bulls and soon, the subject turned to Jabari Parker. After confirming with me that Parker is from Chicago, he brought up the tough but fair point that any prominent Chicago native who plays for the Bulls these days turns out disappointing. It was tough to argue against. Derrick Rose never was the same player after tearing his ACL, and Dwyane Wade had begun his decline when he arrived for his only season in Chicago.
Still, it’s difficult not to be optimistic about Parker. He has the potential to challenge Lauri Markkanen as the Bulls’ top scorer and plays with a style that makes him difficult to defend when healthy. Though it’s fair to question his defense, the Bulls badly needed offense, and even a player like Parker can contribute something despite having to rebound from a pair of ACL tears. Sometimes, perception is all you need when you’re trying to round out a young team, and Parker probably has a better idea of how his body will allow him to play.
Parker already has caught Bulls fans’ attention with his words. His recent piece for The Players’ Tribune shows how much growing up in Chicago meant to him. Even if you’ve never been to the parts of the city where Parker lived, you can totally relate to what he’s saying because so much of what he talks about is so closely identified with the Windy City. Sure, there are a lot of sketchy areas around those parts, but it’s also the home of such things as community basketball programs and camps, not to mention where artists like Common and Chance the Rapper had their beginnings.
You can tell Parker breathes Chicago more than his native predecessors on the Bulls. Rose grew up in a bubble that his brothers created for him (granted, to shield him from the harsh realities of neighborhood life) and was hardly around in the offseason while a Bull. By the time Wade returned to Chicago, he was tied to Miami a lot more and still had a home there. Though people take pride in having both Rose and Wade come up around here, they don’t see them as connected to Chicago anymore than they see Isiah Thomas connected these days.
With Parker having a firm grasp on what being in Chicago is all about, it can only serve as extra motivation for him to excel. Of course, the pressure to return to being a respectable basketball player sits on top of that. And you also have the clause in his contract that allows the Bulls to opt out after half of his two-year contract. Needless to say, this upcoming season will be the biggest of his career.
This potential feel-good story is one Bulls fans need. Though Markkanen’s big rookie season was nice, the tanking overshadowed it. Little else about the team generates real excitement unless you’re one of those people giddy at the thought that it could sneak into the playoffs as a low seed in the Eastern Conference. One solution is to latch onto Parker.
It will be a disappointment if the 23-year-old Parker fails to achieve half the expectations he had when he was arguably the top high school player in the country. He knows he’ll be letting his own city down, not only his team and himself, if that happens. But as long as he isn’t reckless in trying to become something he no longer is or ever was, that’s all we can reasonably ask for. After all, it’s not as simple as adjusting player ratings in NBA 2K.
Until training camp opens, let’s be giddy at the possibility of Parker being the hometown boy that did the hometown team well. Not since Rose’s MVP season have we been filled with this much anticipation over one of our own playing for our team. And we’ll take another opportunity to dispel the notion that players from Chicago ultimately don’t work out here. Besides, what more does anyone have to lose?
