Michael Jordan was the ultimate celebrity when he was in the NBA. His presence alone made the Chicago Bulls a worldwide brand – a fact that now remains to this day. But since his departure from the league, the Bulls have produced plenty more star-level players.
The most notable of the bunch was Derrick Rose, whose connection to the city of Chicago made him a fan favorite. In turn, the Rose-led Bulls were one of the more popular teams in recent memory. With Luol Deng, Joakim Noah, Carlos Boozer, and others by his side, Rose brought the Bulls back onto the main stage.
During a recent interview with Betway, Boozer reflected on his time in Chicago with that group.
“We were like rockstars,” Boozer said. “It was cool being in Chicago.”
Boozer then went on to describe what it was like to play with each member of the squad, noting their individual personalities, styles, and talents.
“Joakim Noah – he’s like a hippie superstar basketball player, like a throwback player,” Boozer said. “If you think about people like Bill Walton in the 70s playing in early 2000s, that was Joakim Noah.
“Luol Deng was like an Iron Man, we had Scalabrine who was probably our 12th or 13th man on the team, but he was a great player. Taj Gibson really could start for most teams; he was that talented.
“We had Nate Robinson off the bench, he’s like a football player and I call him the people’s champ, but he’s like 5’7, 5’8 and he won the dunk contest. We had a cast of characters on that team and had a lot of fun playing together, we thought we had a chance to really win a championship in Chicago.
“Unfortunately, D-Rose got hurt a couple of years in a row and that kind of stopped our thrust but man, I played with some really, really good basketball players.”
Their best run was a trip to the Eastern Conference finals, but almost every Bulls fan looks back upon that group with a smile.
