Betting on Derrick Rose's Return and Musing on a Changing Sports World

By Paul Grossinger

It is one of the beauties of the 21st century world: with the click of a button, you can place a bet on anything and everything in the sports universe. In fact, any time, night or day you can find available nba betting lines at Topbet.

My friends and I have decided to bet on the likelihood of Chicago Bulls star Derrick Rose to return for the NBA Playoffs.  Rose, who tore his ACL last April but was declared medically healthy in February, has still not decided if he will return to help his No. 5 seeded Bulls defeat the No. 4 Brooklyn Nets.

In the midst of making this strange but important bet, we got on to the topic of the changing sports world.  How, exactly, is this even a debatable question, for instance?  Twenty years ago - or even ten or five –no team would have ever let its star player sit out the playoffs while healthy.  Indeed, the notion would have been inconceivable.  Better yet, no star player would have ever considered sitting out the playoffs and watching his team crumble while healthy.  In an alpha-driven league, no star would have accepted the shame.

Our conversation drifted from the abstract to, predictably, Rose's best Chicago comparison – Michael Jordan.  Beginning with Jordan's immortal "Flu Game," we reminisced on how things have changed since basketball's glory days in our city.  Rose's decision to sit, while only one example, is a particularly strong exemplifier of what has changed in the ensuring two decades. In 1995, Jordan came out of retirement, two years out of practice and out of shape, just to try and will the Bulls through the NBA playoffs.  In 2013, Rose became healthy in February and, despite his team's entry into the playoffs, may not grace the court.

What caused the change?  Is it the money?  The players' greater power and franchises' embarrassing pandering to their wishes and needs? My friends and I, while astute betters, could hardly tell you exactly why things have changed, only that they are, self-evidently, very different.  Conjecture aside, it is a fact that, in 1995, no one would have been betting on whether Michael Jordan would return for the playoffs after being healthy for two months.

That is not a bet.  That's a fact.

Top of This Page