Carlos “Booze Cruise” Boozer seems to be a good player, if you just look at his stats. 22 points! 16 rebounds! Holy buckets! However, Bulls fans hate his guts. How could a player who averages 16 and 10 be an object of such deep consternation? I took to the internet to find out. Below are some juicy quotes from his “fans”.
“But realistically the idea of defense cannot be drilled into [Boozer’s] head at all…I almost expect him to look at things and yell at them instead of doing anything. ”
“Booz isn’t athletic and doesn’t have good defensive instincts.”
“It’s like a surprise party at a karoakee bar when you can’t sing at all. Everyone expect Boozer to sing but even if he does he’s still going to suck at it.”
“It is funny though to see Carlos look at some unguarded wing player drive to the basket and he doesn’t have the foot speed to run and cover him. He keeps yelling at one of his team-mates to run and cover them rather than trying to cover them himself.”
“Whenever I see Boozer out of position on a PnR or fail to give weak side help I cringe.”
“Boozer’s defense seems to suck much of the time.”
So there you have it. Boozer can’t play defense. But he can hit his high-arcing jumper from anywhere inside the three-point line, and every time he makes one, it reminds you that they don’t call basketball “defendball”.