Bonafide Haters

"Chi-town for life!"

Last year I wrote a joint entitled "The Jordan Effect!" which talked about how Michael Jordan changed the Sports Marketing game forever. That joint has become my most read article of all-time! The reason I wrote it was because so many people were piling on Derrick Rose of the Chicago Bulls because he's very dull during interviews etc. I quickly reminded folks that Jordan didn't even talk in his first Air Jordan commercials because Spike Lee as Mars Blackman did all of it with his famous, "Do You Know, Do You Know, Do You Know?"

Keep laughing at my guy from the Southside of Chicago and saying that he has no personality. He just signed one of the most lucrative shoe endorsement deals in history, a package that could pay him more than $200 million across the remainder of his career, a source told Yahoo! Sports. The 2011 NBA Most Valuable Player, agreed to a 13-year deal to stay with Adidas that guarantees him $185 million. The deal includes incentives that could push the deal to more than $200 million, a source said.

Keep in mind that ole boy just signed a five-year, $94.8 million maximum contract extension with the Bulls before the start of the season. That means that he just scooped up $279.8 million dollars in guaranteed money with another $15 million hanging out there in incentives bruh! I just want to know where the hater's are that were teasing him a few years ago about not being able to pass the SAT?

During his rookie season I was at a Pacers/Bulls game and saw a guy holding up a sign that read, "Hey Rose, I took my own SAT's!" I immediately thought to myself that he should have gotten someone to take his joint because his seats were terrible. I tripped off of the fact that he bragged about taking his own test but it didn't get him floor seats.

Now I'm not justifying Rose cheating on the SAT. However, he wouldn't have been forced into that situation if the NBA hadn't forced a kid into school that clearly had no intentions of going in the first place bruh! So many narrow minded folks in the world think that the only way you can become successful is by going to college.

Well let me tell you bruh, the only reason that I have a college degree today is because I didn't have an option to make millions of dollars at 18 years old. So I went to college because it was safe. If you've got the ability to make a fortune at 18 then go make it. Not everybody is going to be born with the ability to become rich at something that just comes naturally.

How stupid would it have been to force Whitney Houston, Beyonce', Michael Jackson, Stevie Wonder or Justin Beiber to go to college? Before you say it, college wouldn’t have kept Whitney or Michael off of drugs. I know a whole lot of folks with college degree’s that got hooked on drugs bruh! There's only 4 things that a person really NEEDS to have the ability to do; read, write, count and have common sense! Let's keep it real or all the way 100, which ever comes first! If you're born with a special gift and it rears its head early in life. It's meant for you to use it then. Have you ever heard the colloquialism, "Use it or lose it?"

This guy just essentially made $279.8 and he's only 23 years old bruh! I was just graduating from college with a Bachelor's Degree at the same ago and was going into Corporate America for a measly $21K a year. According to Salary.com the average salary range of a person now with a BS is $41,849 - $78,653, for an MBA its $57,286 - $109,553, for a PhD its $62,204 - $115,196! Now keep in mind that these are only averages. There are plenty of people in those categories that exceed those numbers. However, my point here is that folks shouldn't be hatin' on a kid that has the ability to get paid playing a sport, dancing, singing or blowing a horn if given the opportunity.

 Don't trip on D. Rose or people like him if they were smart enough to see that they were blessed with something that very few possess and capitalized on it. Everybody has something to offer the world. Some people figure it out at 18 and others find it later in life. Unfortunately, some people go to their graves never being able to find it because they were too busy worrying about what other folks were doing with their lives.

I'm proud of Derrick Rose and others like him because they didn't just have to play basketball to make it. They had to survive all of the usual pitfalls of the ghetto first. Rose was born and raised in the Englewood area of South Chicago, one of the most dangerous neighborhoods in the city. However, with the help of his older brothers and a praying momma he was able to become the person he is today.

In 1984 Benji Wilson was the best high school basketball player in the nation from the same hood as Derrick Rose. He was murdered on his lunch hour because he bumped into a gang member across the street at the candy store bruh! It's just that easy to die in the hood even you are the best player in the country.


The media doesn't give guys like this credit for making it out of the war and still be sane enough to keep playing ball and conducting themselves accordingly in this world. That's why I ride so hard for cats like this because I know what the war zone looks like and have seen so many dreams perish in the ashes of the ghetto. So when a guy makes it he represents the hood to the fullest and gives some kid still in the war hope that he or she can get out too.

I'm always blown away by folks that are from the hood hatin' on guys like D. Rose or LeBron etc. because they have a complete understanding of what these guys have been though. So to analyze why a guy is doing whatever he's doing or why he did it, is worst than being a member of the media that grew up in the suburbs. At least the guy in the media has an excuse! They simply don't have a clue what it takes to survive the streets! However, the guy from the hood does and that makes him just a bonafide hater!

Holla At Ya Boy!
Jay Graves
Follow me on Twitter: @jaygravesreport