As November rolled around, the most frustrating year in Chicago sports history was still finding new ways to aggravate. After the Bears had opened 2002 by losing their first playoff game, and the Blackhawks had likewise made the playoffs only to lose in the first round, and the Cubs and White Sox had both seen their entirely valid playoff hopes crushed early in the season, and the Bears had brought failure full circle by winning their first two this fall only to lose their next six, no other hopes were left to crush. But the Bulls–the lowly Bulls–won their first two games of the season for the first time since the Michael Jordan glory years of 1996-’97. Here was final proof that the Chicago sports world had been turned on its head. What was next, some boob of a Democrat being elected to the governor’s mansion?
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It remained to be seen how improved the Bulls really were. The Celtics had reached the Eastern Conference finals last season, but they’d made some dubious off-season moves, such as bringing in power forward Vin Baker, and after losing to the Bulls had been slaughtered by Jordan and the Washington Wizards. The Bulls played some utterly unexpected defense in the final quarter against the Celts, surviving four missed free throws down the stretch by ballyhooed rookie point guard Jay Williams. It was a typically ugly opening game, and the Bulls’ home opener against the Hornets, who’d relocated from Charlotte to New Orleans over the summer, didn’t figure to be a whole lot more beautiful.
But there was excitement. The crowd was slow to arrive, but eventually only a smattering of seats in the lower levels and the higher rows and corners of the upper balcony were left vacant. Tyson Chandler won the tip, and after a few missed shots–as if to remind everyone this was November basketball–Williams glided into the clear to draw first blood. When center Eddy Curry, looking thinner and quicker than last year, spun down the lane for a slam dunk, the game was tied at eight. Moments later, Jalen Rose grabbed a rebound, dribbled out, and spotted Williams speeding down the sideline like a wide receiver. Rose hit Williams in stride, and Williams sliced through fast-break traffic for a lay-in like a sports car cutting across three lanes of the Dan Ryan to make an off-ramp. Now the Bulls were up 11-8. Clearly, this season’s team, unlike too many Bulls teams of the post-Jordan era, had what the kids–or, rather, the poseur editors of pandering niche newspapers–might call skillz.
Until that happens, they could be surprising. Boom-Boom and I put our prodigious hands of steel to work applauding the Bulls in the late moments, and we weren’t alone. The others at the back of the mezzanine weren’t exactly boisterous, but they were avid and involved, the woman in front of us urging on the Bulls with pleas of “Come on, Jay baby” and the like. If the Bulls’ 2-0 start was a mirage, given the wasteland of Chicago sports this year a mirage would do.
