I have been meaning to write about this for a while so I apologize for the aged relevancy you are about to experience.

When I was growing up my family ate dinner together around the dinning room table. There was no TV, no radio and only our own participation in the conversation to occupy ourselves with. A lot of you might think that it was a different world that I grew up in but the truth is my parents made few exceptions when it came to eating dinner together without any distractions. But there was one distraction in particular that we seemed to almost always allow for, Chicago Bulls basketball.

I grew up in northern Illinois during the nineties when Jordan and Pippin lead the Bulls to their 6 championships. During the first three championships there were only a handful of games that I did not watch. As I progressed in the high school years my schedule began to fill with sports that I was participating in rather than watching. Still, I would make what time I could to watch the Bulls, maintaining a near perfect viewing record of the playoffs.

Then Jordan retired, a second and final time from the Bulls. In the shadow of that, I began to hold onto a feeling that the era of the league was diminishing for me. The influx of European ball players meant more steps (traveling) and a great proliferation of flopping. What ever happened to players who would rather put the other team on their butts rather than end up on their own? It just wasn’t the same game that I grew up loving to watch and play.

Then there was the silent era. I would watch some basketball, mostly playoffs, but the rules kept changing. The defensive 3 seconds, a couple extra steps for everyone, among other rule changes made me feel like all the stats and games I had watched couldn’t be compared to the new game that was being played. I began to dislike the pro game more and more.

Fast forward to this years first round of the Chicago Bulls against the defending champions. It was like life had been breathed back into my passion for the game. Players challenging each other and every shot seemed to be bigger and more clutch than the last. Finally, basketball that was something like what I had remembered. One team, scrambling to maintain their championship status, was trading blows with a young upstart and neither backed down. The flopping was happening but the refs seemed uninterested. The walking was overshadowed by the blocks. The game flowed like a suspense novel with every twist and turn pulling you to the edge of your seat.

Now, mind you that HD helps a great deal when it comes to making sports must see TV but the drama unfolding on the court was so intense that I found myself unable and unwilling to miss even a minute of it. My only two complaints for the series was the Rondo face slap on Miller which cost the bulls the game and possibly the series and the fact that Glenn Davis is called “Big Baby”. Aside from that the series was what the league needed to get me back.

Everyone wants to talk about the potential of a Lebron/Kobe match up but I don’t see it being nearly as compelling as the first round match up. I will take my Ray Allen 3 pointers and Ben Gordon’s domination, please. While it is nice to remember the memories of watching the games with my family growing up, I am excited to watch basketball with my own kids someday, now that I am watching it again.