July 16, 2014: The Hate Files VI

Has there ever been a player on one of your teams that you have hated?  A guy that you find it hard to cheer for, one that you can’t wait to be off of your team.  A big addition that fell flat, well short of expectations.  I can think of a handful.  To celebrate amnesty day here in Chicago, this one goes out to you Carlos Boozer.

I will not HATE anybody that plays on one of my teams.  Yes, I will boo players if they do something horrible, or consistently play like crap, but I will still support them in the end, because they are on one of MY teams.  I’ve had this discussion with people before, regarding the booing of players on your team.  I feel like I have the right to boo.  I live and breathe this stuff, and sometimes think I care more about the outcome of a game then the players do, so yeah, I can boo whenever the mood strikes.  Again, although I may boo, and curse at players throughout the years, I will not completely turn on them; I will still cheer for them, root for them to get out of the dumps, hope that they turn things around, because they play on one of MY teams.  However, once that player leaves, all bets are off.  This is the first Hate File of this type, but I’m sure it won’t be the last.  Now, I’m going to take Carlos Boozer to the woodshed.

Flashback to 2010, and the acquisition of Carlos Boozer.  I was one happy man.  We’re finally getting a low post scorer.  We’re getting a hard nosed player, a double-double machine, who will rule the paint for the Bulls.  Maybe my expectations were a little high, but I thought we were getting a solid player; someone who can lead the team some nights, someone who can be a piece of a championship team.  He wasn’t that bad out of the gate, at least statistically speaking.

His first year with the Bulls he averaged 17.5 and 9.6.  What a great statistical year, although he DID average 5 points per game less in the playoffs.  I guess number wise in the regular season, he was like Alfonso Soriano; the stats show a pretty decent player.  For Bulls fans that watched every game, there was much more behind the numbers…

First off, he was NEVER an inside presence.  This low post, back to the basket threat that we were getting, turned out to be a player who fell in love with the mid-range jumper, one who gathered the majority of his rebounds on the defensive end; he never averaged more than 2.2 offensive rebounds per game.  Here was a guy that would hit his first outside jumper, then never look to go to the hole again.  He would just keep throwing up those rain makers, which eventually led his FG% to drop 5.4% from his first year with the Bulls.  But would he have done that much better driving to the hole?

To my second point… he goes up weaker than anybody I have seen in the paint.  Yeah, there were maybe 10 times in an 82 game season where he actually dunked the ball, and I was in shock.  Seriously, he had only 16 dunks last season!  Most times, however, he was weakly throwing the ball towards the rim.  Half the time he would get rejected, and then look for a foul.  To have one of the strongest finishers in the NBA in Taj Gibson on the same team, playing the same position, must have made it worse for him.  Here’s a guy going up posterizing people (89 dunks last year), while Boozer is tossing the ball up like a hot potato.
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Thirdly, his defense.  This is the most talked about aspect of his game.  I wasn’t on his ass year 1 about his defense.  I wanted to give him time under defensive guru of a coach Thibs, to learn how to play defense.  However, when he’s making the same mistakes in year 4 that he did in year 1, I wanted to kick his ass.  Again, with Noah and Taj defensive monsters, this guy looked like a bull fighter out there, as guys stormed past him to the hole.  He was late on rotations, never averaged more than 0.4 blocks per game, and was constantly taken advantage of when he was on the floor.  Teams knew how to exploit our defense by singling out the weakest link.  This is why he wasn’t on the floor in the 4th quarter.

Yes, he finally complained about that, but nobody was on his side.  He was turned into a cheerleader on the bench in the 4th quarter; he did do a good job at that.  Although why the heck was he always yelling stuff on the court?  That got annoying pretty quick, just like he would grab the ball after a FT and check the pressure (?), or how about when he would stretch out by hanging on the net.  He was just one annoying dude.  It’s one thing to have a guy vocal on the court, we like that here in Chicago (see Joakim Noah), but you have to back it up.  You can’t talk a big game, then play a weak game;  you can’t disappear when it matters most.

The final straw came this year in the playoffs against the Wizards.  He had to know this was it for him in Chicago, and it appeared he mailed it in, especially Game 5, the last game the Bulls played.  In a close game, at home, fighting to survive, Boozer finally got his chance to play in the 4th quarter because Taj sprained his ankle.  It was then that it was official; the Boozer era in Chicago was done.  He looked lost out there, and justified every decision that was made surrounding his 4th quarter position on this team.  This was how it ended for a guy that was brought in with so many expectations.

So when you heard the BOOOOOs echo through the stadium when his name was announced at the beginning of each game, you know what I meant.  Now that he’s finally gone, I can make it official.  I can publicly demolition him.  I can start a new thread of Hate Files with ex-Chicago players that we all can agree to hate.  Sorry Carlos, this one was a slam dunk.