Jabari Parker was officially announced by the Chicago Bulls yesterday morning.
It was a cool moment for the Chicago native, who spoke about his time in Milwaukee, his plans to help strengthen the community, and Derrick Rose's legacy. Right after the press conference ended, Parker hopped on the Bernstein & McKnight show on 670 The Score to talk about his return home. The subject of defense was brought up by Dan Bernstein, who asked Parker if he believed that he could become a good defender if he put his mind to it. This was Parker's response:
"I don't know, I just stick to my strengths. Look at everybody in the league -- they don't pay players to play defense. I'm not gonna say that I won't, but to say that's a weakness is like saying that's everybody's weakness. I've scored 30s and 20s off of guys who say they try to play defense."Ok then. Bernstein then gave Parker a chance to clarify those comments, mentioning the importance of off-ball awareness and team defensive effort that Bulls executive vice president of basketball operations John Paxson literally demanded from Parker the day before. Parker responded:
"Certain guys have a (scoring) average, and no matter what you do they still get that average. They pay people to score the ball, and I would hope that somebody scores the ball on me if they paid them that much."Point taken, Jabari. Look, nobody is expecting him to take on the responsibility of locking up 20+ a game scorers 1-on-1. However, he should be expected to focus on improving an area of his game where he has ranked among the very worst players in the entire league over his 4-year career. Jabari comes off as a very confident individual, which is mostly a good thing, but that confidence shouldn't get in the way of reality. If Parker is going to thrive as a Bull he'll need to turn it up a notch defensively. Until he acknowledges that fact, it isn't going to happen.
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