On the John
Appreciating Johnny Fishsticks
Originally completed March 18, 2009
It was about 4:15 in the afternoon when I heard that Andres Nocioni had been shipped. I was driving to work and it was raining hard, the weather a full yuckiness, and when the man on the Score said that Noce was going to Sacramento, I yelped. A year earlier, in an effort to move Ben Wallace, we ditched out on Adrian Griffin (a fan favorite) and Joe Smith (a reliable big man having a terrific year) and took on Drew Gooden (decent) and Larry Hughes (mope). Now, in an effort to move Gooden and Hughes, we were ditching out on Nocioni.
I was not prepared for that. Duhon I expected, disappointing as it was. But Noce? I was at Game 1 of the Wizards series when the rookie from Argentina started in place of the rookie from Sudan, racking up 25 points and 18 boards and bringing the house down in the pro-cess. NO-CI-O-NI! Clap—clap—clap-clap-clap. NO-CI-O-NI! Clap—clap—clap-clap-clap.
Wave goodbye.
Fine. But why? That’s what I needed. I can handle seeing a dude I love get traded or cut, but I want to feel secure about it, to trust that the man pulling the strings—Senator Paxson, Governor Paxson—is sending our man Noce to Sacramento for a specific reason. And I was fuzzy. Was Pax using Nocioni to corral these specific players, or was he using him to unload Gooden?
Nocioni and Gooden for Brad Miller and John Salmons. A good trade? I couldn’t say. An exciting one? Definitely not. It seemed to me a standard case of NBA teams moving equally unhappy, talented players so that they can temporarily regain their happiness before losing it again and having the new team trade them away, ala Wallace and Hughes.
Brad Miller—we liked him: former Bull, former All-Star. But this wasn’t exactly the return of Pippen (or even Marty Booker), and Miller most definitely is a former All-Star. So that part of the deal was boring, though with a brief tinge of recognition excitement.
But John Salmons? Who? I have a general knowledge of most NBA players, but this one was a haze: I think he was on the 76ers…but college ball?...Maybe he went to Temple?...he’s not real tall but not real short?...is the ‘l’ in Salmons silent?...I had no idea.
The guys on the Score were talking about Salmons. “He’s a scorer.” “He’ll challenge Deng for minutes.” “Played his college ball at Miami.” Oh. For some reason, somebody nicknamed him “Johnny Fishsticks.” I wasn’t sure why.
And so it came to be that my team acquired one guy we’d had before, and one guy I didn’t know. Now they were Bulls. That’s all there is to it.
******
On February 28th, I was at the UC for a Bulls-Rockets game. I had been given two tickets by my bosses, so I called my mom and the two of us headed over to the stadium. On our way in, we reviewed players.
“OK,” I told her, “there are perhaps four guys on this team I expect you to know.”
“Alright,” she said, thinking. Her eyes got big. “I got one! Gordon! Ben Gordon!”
“Very good!”
“Now I’m stuck.”
So I gave her a hint. “One is a rookie point guard who is awesome, and the other two are guys who have been on the team for a while. A white guy with shaggy hair and a black guy from Africa.”
She got Rose, finally got Deng, and was furious with herself when she missed Hinrich.
“Hinrich! Kirk Hinrich. Of course,” she said, dragging out the ‘or’ in ‘course’ the way mothers sometimes do. While in line for some pre-game popcorn, Mom spotted a kid with NOCIONI 5 on his back. “Oh! Oh yeah! What about Nocioni? I know him.”
“He’s gone. They traded him about a week ago.”
When we took our seats and watched the players warm up, I pointed everyone out. “There’s Hinrich. That shorter guy with the ball, right there—that’s Rose. Number 1. That’s Gordon. You remember him. And there’s Deng over there.”
“Who’s that?” she asked about Johnny Fishsticks.
“That’s John Salmons. We got him for Noce.”
“Is he good?”
“I don’t know.” I thought a bit. “I mean, he can score some. He’s been playing alright for us.” I thought a bit more. “I really don’t know the guy.”
Before the game began, there was a moment of silence and a Jumbotron tribute to Norm Van Lier and Johnny “Red” Kerr, two Bulls-lifers who had both passed two days prior. The Bulls are Jordan and Pippen and Love and Sloan, yes, but they are also very much Stormin’ Norm and Red, and as we stood in the darkened United Center and looked at their photos, the crowd cheered and clapped and whistled for two men who gave their talents, time, and hearts to this basketball team we love so dear.
The game itself was nearly a bust. Former Bull Ron Artest—“Oh! I remember him!”—damn near dismantled us: 32 points including 6 three pointers on 12 attempts. A three point Houston lead at the half was up to 17 at the end of the third, and it looked like we were headed home a disappointed bunch. But the rookie Rose did his Derrick Rose thing, scoring 16 in the fourth capped off by a jumper that gave the Bulls their first lead of the night, 104-102. The red-hot Artest then missed a three…the rebound to Salmons, who was fouled and split a pair…and then with time running down, it was Salmons blocking Artest’s final shot. The Bulls had closed out on a 23-3 run, winning by a scant three points.
“Oh my!” Mom exclaimed as we high-fived. “That was fantastic!”
“Didn’t I tell you this kid was terrific?” I said.
“He sure was. And Gordon too.”
“Rose was great. Gordon was great. The new guy played well.”
“Boy oh boy.”
******
It must be a weird thing, being traded. Especially for a guy like Salmons. Shaq gets sent to Miami: The Heat have landed Shaquille O’Neal! The Bulls send Brand to the Clippers: What??!!! We’re trading away Elton Brand? But did Sacramento fans have any emotion about Salmons leaving? Were they heartbroken? Were they thrilled? And did Bulls fans know anything about this guy? Brad Miller and Tim Thomas were returning, Noce, Gooden, Hughes, and Thabo Sefolosha were out. Meanwhile, at 18 points a game, Salmons was quietly having the best season of any of them.
But did we know? We were still learning how to pronounce his name, grappling with the fact that Deng was hurt and having a lousy season, and now here was this Salmons guy taking his starting job, and the first Bulls memory we have of him is getting the ball swiped by Dwyane Wade for Wade’s game-winning three on March 9th. Salmons knew what kind of player he was, but now he was playing for home fans who didn’t even know he was on the home team.
Well, now we know.
Bulls 127. Celtics 121. The St. Paddy’s Day win over the defending champs. The night John Salmons became a Chicago Bull.
Tyrus started things off, scoring 14 of the team’s first 30 points. The Bulls led by eight after a quarter but trailed by a point at the half. Behind their seven-time (and current) All-Star Paul Pierce, the C’s pushed the lead out to 13 with six minutes left in the 3rd. It looked as if our Bulls were cooked. But the team in green finished strong against the team of green, and when the 3rd quarter came to a close we were right back where we’d started 12 minutes earlier: Boston 90, Chicago 89.
I first took notice of Salmons’ big night as he was lining up for a free throw at the end of the first half. The TV told me he had 18 points. “Whoa,” I said. “Salmons has 18.” Now, as we started the 4th quarter, Salmons had 29. Pierce, the 7-time All-Star, had 24. Rose had only two, but consecutive layups around the eight-minute mark gave the Bulls a 100-97 lead. Both of these lay-ins continued Rose’s season-long knack for the spectacular, but the second one was particularly mind-bending, as Number 1 paused himself in mid-leap on a defender-ducking double-clutch, waited for the defender to drop, and then calmly flipped it in for the bucket. The United Center roared with appreciation.
Meanwhile, Brad Miller was a rock—during one sequence, he scored eight straight, matching baskets with Eddie House and Kendrick Perkins to keep the Bulls up by one.
Gordon, Hinrich, and Tim Thomas all made timely plays as well, supporting actors as Miller and Rose commanded the spotlight. But then came the play of the game, by our new friend Salmons, and with it a little moment that put a true face on an NBA player.
Under three minutes left, game tied at 113 after two Miller free throws, and when the second one splashed home, the United Center was rocking. The Bulls and Celtics were putting on a show, basket upon basket. After Rose’s pair of layups put the Bulls up three, the next five minutes featured five ties and five lead changes, with no team getting up by more than three. That last tie was the Miller free throws, and after Rose secured the board off a Ray Allen bricked three, Salmons took over on the wing.
Allen guarding Salmons near the three-point line. Miller under the basket, guarded by Pierce, and then Miller darting up to Salmons’ left to set a screen on Allen. Pierce followed, and now the basket was open. Salmons made a quick shake to his left as if accepting Miller’s screen, prompting the slower, older Allen to freeze just a bit.
In a flash, Salmons took off to his right, moving along the baseline as Allen tried to recover. Salmons averted Allen’s block attempt by going under the basket and swinging around for a reverse jam with his right hand, giving the Bulls a two point lead and sending the UC crowd to the rafters. The fans were screaming, the place was bonkers, and here’s where it happened: as Salmons came down from his dunk, his right hand transformed from a dunk grip to a quick ‘number one’ index finger point towards the stands.
This wasn’t like Pippen’s ‘number one’ three pointer against the Knicks in ’93. That was a traditional “we’re number one.” This was a point to the fans, one that, I think, was as much about Salmons as it was about us.
See, back when he was a rookie, John Salmons was the kid returning home. After four years in Miami, the Philadelphia native was drafted by the hometown 76ers, a chance to play for a city that knew him well. But the Sixers were Allen Iverson’s team, and then they were Andre Iguodala’s team, and after the 2006 season, the (still) little-used and (nationally) little-known Salmons signed a deal with the Kings. But the Kings were terrible, and Salmons was still developing. He finally hit his stride this season: 53 games played, all of them started, second in scoring at 18.3 PPG. Yet still he remained unknown, and then he was sent off to Chicago, to a team with 71 million already committed to the starter at his position, a team with more questions than answers.
And that’s why I loved his point. With the game on the line, the champs in the building, a special day with special jerseys and a monster dunk that had everyone’s attention, Salmons must have known right then that at long last, a new city would remember his name.
I saw the same thing during this past Bears season when Danieal Manning returned the opening kick of the Saints game for a touchdown. When he broke free and was sure to score, he started pointing towards the fans, as if to say: “Forget about Devin Hester, as good as he is. This is my moment, and I want you to recognize me.” Salmons’ point was the same way, and both were really kind of gentle and sweet, like a kid who gets a big hit in a Little League game and immediately shoots his head over to his parents to see their reaction. Not bragging or showboating. Just the desire every kid has to be appreciated, to finally have an opportunity to be seen. “See? See what I can do? I did that! I told you I was good!”
We see you Johnny. Welcome home.
Copyright 2009, jm silverstein