Boos for Boozer Are Unfair
When it became apparent very early in Ben Wallace’s brief and beleaguered tenure with the Chicago Bulls that the team’s higher-ups may have wasted $60 million on a big-name free agent who wasn’t living up to the hype, Bulls fans turned on Big Ben, and fast. Not even a year into his deal, and the city was calling for his head. It wasn’t pretty.
Already Bulls’ fans are losing patience with another, more recent big name signing in Carlos Boozer, whose defense this offseason has been admittedly frustrating, and now due to a turf toe injury is starting to see his offense suffer, as well.
And what happens when fans aren’t happy with a player, especially a fan base as devoted and vocal as the ones in Chicago? They boo. And that’s what they did Wednesday night whenever Boozer missed a bunny or had his shot blocked. Even worse, when head coach Tom Thibodeau pulled him out of the game, the arena went into uproarious cheers.
"Sometimes our home crowd is a tough game to play," Joakim Noah said in defense of his teammate. "We have a lot of love for our crowd, but through tough times, we got to stick together. I’ve been in that position before, my rookie year, where I’ve been booed. It’s tough to be booed in your home crowd."
It was a Shame-On-You-Chicago moment in the post-game press conference, but it was the kind of support Boozer deserved. In the wake of the boos, Boozer himself didn’t say a whole lot. But his teammates certainly did.
"I’ve had the turf toe before," Luol Deng said. "It’s tough. It’s a tough injury. We all know he’s having a tough time with it, but he’s going out there and playing for us. And guys have been doing that all year. I’ve had the turf toe. It’s one of those things that bothers you, whatever you do. As long as he’s out there and playing as hard as he is for us, that’s all we need."
Taj Gibson, who stepped in for the struggling Boozer and really gave the team a boost on the defensive end, as he’s done all playoffs, also stood up for his veteran partner.
"Me and him are close, so I know when (he’s having a hard time)," Gibson said. "But that’s my job to pick him up, that’s Joakim’s job. Everybody on the team is going to help him get through it. He’s been hurting at times, but he’s still playing well, playing solid."
Ronnie Brewer, a teammate of Boozer’s both in Chicago and previously in Utah, didn’t seem to think the crowd’s ill response Wednesday was going to affect him in the long term.
{AUTHOR_BOX}"It comes with the territory," Brewer said. "It comes with the contract. It comes with being in a market like this. I think he’s a strong-willed individual that has the standpoint that he wants to go out there and play well for his teammates, that’s he’s going to come back and do everything he can to get treatment and go out there and have his A-game next game. Whenever he has a performance like this I always look forward to the next game because I know he’s going to go out there and try to play as hard as he possibly can so he doesn’t have a letdown for his teammates."
As for Noah, who is easily the most outspoken player on the team, he wanted to be very clear that Chicago shouldn’t be treating Carlos Boozer the way they treated Ben Wallace, even if the latter might have deserved it.
"We’re trying to represent the city as well as we can, but with Carlos, people have to understand he’s playing through an injury, and he’s giving us what he’s got," Noah said. "He’s somebody who has an unbelievable presence, and he opens up a lot of things for a lot of us. I think sometimes people are quick to bash one player. But this is a team, and we know we need Carlos to get to where we want to go."
Whatever happens this offseason, and however good or however poorly Boozer plays, he’s on the books for another four years. Whether or not Bulls fans will have the patience to learn to love the guy in that amount of time is up for grabs, but Boozer’s coach and teammates love him already. That’s not going to change just because of an injury and a string of some bad games.
Boozer has been and will be an integral part of this team’s success the next few years, and Noah and the rest of the Bulls are probably right that Chicago fans should be a little more forgiving. Maybe a couple of good road games will put Boozer back in their good graces for Game 5.
And the bright side, Carlos Boozer is not Ben Wallace.
Loading ...
