| 15 April 2010
My Bloguin colleague Don, from the Lakers blog With Malice, came up with an interesting concept. Read below:
April 14th: ‘Unsung Player Day'... we should recognize the guys who toil and work hard every day, for no recognition. Well, today's your day. In reality, these guys are just as responsible for making the NBA what it is today - every team needs role-players, guys to come on and give that valuable 2-5 minutes. Without them, there is no NBA. I would encourage NBA bloggers to put up an ‘unsung player' on their blog on April 14th.
What's an 'Unsung Player'? A role player who gives his all in the 2-5 minutes he gets per game (try to be definitely under 10 minutes). Someone who doesn't get a lot of recognition...
This was especially hard for me considering every rotational player that Vinny lets into the ball game averages at least 10 minutes a game. Even freakin' Jannero Pargo is averaging 13.3 minutes a game this season, not that I would have picked that bum for this esteemed award anyway. And I hate most of our bench players anyway, so I would never give them unnecessary props just to give them props.
However, when looking through our roster, one name for this award stuck out to me. Mr. Acie Law IV. Acie Law was traded to the Bulls at the trade deadline. Since the deadline, he has only appeared in 12 of 29 games. Of the twelve that he's appeared in, the Bulls have only won 2. In the 12 games that he's appeared in, he's averaging 11.1 minutes per game. The only reason he even appeared in 9-10 of those games is because Derrick Rose was injured, and Kirk Hinrich missed a few games as well. However, when Acie Law was given minutes, man...did he take advantage. He scored 18 and 22 points in two consecutive games in mid-March. He had some spectacular plays in several stretches, with a bunch coming in this close one against the Mavs:
And he really got zero credit. Vinny never rewarded him with more minutes. In fact, the game after he scored 22 points, he only played 10 minutes wtih Derrick Rose still injured. Instead, Vinny opted to play the awful Jannero Pargo for about 40 minutes. VDN, ladies and gentlemen. It absolutely never made sense to me how a guy like Jannero Pargo is ahead in the rotation over a bigger and more talented guard like Acie Law. Ever since he had those outbursts when Derrick got injured, I've been campaigning strong for Vinny to play Law instead of Pargo. I honestly can't imagine how a head coach chooses Jannero Pargo over a younger better player, but I've beat this issue to death. And even though Law didn't help the Bulls actually win any games, he was the only reason those games were close in that awful stretch where Rose and Noah were injured. And that's why I've been saying he should be moving up in the rotation...he's definitely shown he can play with the big boys, definitely moreso than Jannero Pargo (and maybe even Flip Murray).
So congrats to the Chicago Bulls only true unsung player...Acie Law IV.
