This week our three Twitter campaigns found themselves quite busy, as it was also a hectic week in the NBA and for the Chicago Bulls. There were no breakthrough tweets coming from @ChicagoBulls, but I did see a good example of how the team uses Twitter for promoting purposes and would just like to elaborate on it.
This tweet from the Bulls intrigued me, because they took to Twitter to share something about someone who had no affiliation with the team besides being a fan. I found it a bit strange on why the Bulls would take the time to help this Chicago-based comedian, who I personally had never heard of before, so I investigated it. After clicking on the link, I quickly learned the answer. As it turns out, @LeonPhelps, whose name is actually Tim Meadows is going to be on hand on the United Center on February 12th for An Evening with the Chicago Bulls, the team’s annual charity gala. The link takes you to an article on the Bulls' website, which first gives a little information about Meadows, and then advertises the charity event encouraging fans to purchase tickets. All proceeds go to Chicago Bulls' run charities, so in this case its a good thing, but I did feel a little deceived by the fact that the tweet makes no mention of the event, until after clicking on the link. Though it is nice of the Bulls to make mention of Tim Meadows via Twitter, what they are really doing is promoting their own event as if it is some form of "subliminal marketing." Props to the Bulls, they had me fooled.
On to basketball. This week, the Chicago Bulls played four games, going 2-2, alternating from losses to wins; both @JayPatt and @NickFriedell and had a lot to say about it.
Let's start with Patt. As I told you all earlier, Patt is a diehard Bulls fan like myself and is also a writer for SB Nation, an independent sports blog website. He provides in game analysis throughout the entirety of Bulls games via Twitter and also submits his own original articles from time to time, but he is mostly known through Twitter. After taking a quick scroll through his Twitter feed, I found two tweets that show why our friend Jason Patt could never have Nick Friedell's job (not that he even wants it).
Jay is a Kirk Hinrich hater. Hinrich is a player for the Bulls who was on the team from 2003-2010 and then brought back last year to fill in for the injured Derrick Rose (who I will get to later). In all honesty he is not a bad player, but he certainly isn't amazing.
The first tweet (bottom) comes from the beginning on a game vs San Antonio. Jay is commenting on a quote by one of ESPN's national TV broadcasters that he found to be so baffling, he calls it "a real thing", as if any praise to Kirk Hinrich shouldn't be "real." As the game goes on, Hinrich ends up playing pretty well that even Jay compliments him on Twitter (above). Kirk Hinrich clearly proved Jay wrong during the course of the game and Jay had no choice but to contradict his earlier tweet to avoid looking dumb.
The issue with Jay is that he is a big-time Bulls fan and lets his emotions interfere with his analysis. It isn't necessarily a bad thing if your reading him in order to get a fan's perspective as I do, but this undoubtedly makes his interpretation biased and that is something readers/followers need to be aware of when checking him out.
The Bulls ended up winning the game, so Jay was a happy camper. Check the blog out next week and I'll show you what happens when they lose.
Our other friend Nick Friedell had a multitude of tweets this week, but I selected one particular tweet that I felt had much significance and appropriately demonstrated the type of person that he is.
Kirk doing a sterling job of setting up the offense right now.
"When healthy, one of the better guards on both ends of the court" - A real thing just said about Kirk Hinrich
Jason Patt Jay is a Kirk Hinrich hater. Hinrich is a player for the Bulls who was on the team from 2003-2010 and then brought back last year to fill in for the injured Derrick Rose (who I will get to later). In all honesty he is not a bad player, but he certainly isn't amazing.
The first tweet (bottom) comes from the beginning on a game vs San Antonio. Jay is commenting on a quote by one of ESPN's national TV broadcasters that he found to be so baffling, he calls it "a real thing", as if any praise to Kirk Hinrich shouldn't be "real." As the game goes on, Hinrich ends up playing pretty well that even Jay compliments him on Twitter (above). Kirk Hinrich clearly proved Jay wrong during the course of the game and Jay had no choice but to contradict his earlier tweet to avoid looking dumb.
The issue with Jay is that he is a big-time Bulls fan and lets his emotions interfere with his analysis. It isn't necessarily a bad thing if your reading him in order to get a fan's perspective as I do, but this undoubtedly makes his interpretation biased and that is something readers/followers need to be aware of when checking him out.
The Bulls ended up winning the game, so Jay was a happy camper. Check the blog out next week and I'll show you what happens when they lose.
Our other friend Nick Friedell had a multitude of tweets this week, but I selected one particular tweet that I felt had much significance and appropriately demonstrated the type of person that he is.
This tweet is came off the heels of a bad loss to Los Angeles and Friedell didn't shy away from letting us know. It was a bad game on all cylinders, and rather than detailing the game as it was just another loss, he compared it to another horrible game earlier this year versus the same team; I just so happened to watch both of those games and I couldn't have agreed more. The previous game that Friedell was referring to in his tweet happened to be a blowout loss in LA the day after the Chicago Bulls' announced the news that their best player, Derrick Rose would be sitting out for the second year in a row, with an injured right knee. To help you understand this a little better allow me to comment on who Derrick Rose is and what he means to Chicago.
Derrick Rose is the Chicago Bulls. He is a hometown kid, who grew up in a rough neighborhood on the South Side. If you are unaware, Chicago has a very bad gang problem, with a lot of the violence taking place on the South Side. Derrick Rose grew up in this environment and remarkably overcame the presence and pressing influences of gangs to become an NBA star. He truly defines rags to riches.
The Bulls selected Rose with the first pick in the 2008 NBA Draft after they improbably won the Draft Lottery with a 1.7% chance. As soon as Derrick Rose became a Bull, he became a star in Chicago. Winning the MVP in 2011 only further solidified his status as a Chicago icon among the likes of Michael Jordan, Barack Obama and others. If you come to Chicago and ask a random person on the street, which athlete or celebrity currently means the most to the city, the answer will be Derrick Rose 99 times out of 100.
In 2012 the Bulls were the best team in the league, the playoffs had just begun and they were hosting the Philadelphia 76ers in the first round. With about two minutes left in Game 1, and the match being all but over, Derrick Rose jumped in the air to go up for a shot and landed with a torn ACL. I was at the game myself, and I will be the first to tell you that it was as if death had come to the arena. Perhaps this Adidas commercial will help you better understand the situation.
It was complete devastation. The Bulls ended up losing in the first round, and our arch-rivals the Miami Heat took the crown at the season's end. The severity of the ACL injury caused Rose to miss the entire 2012-2013 campaign as well, where the Miami Heat took care of the Bulls in the playoffs on their quest for another title. The inspirational like return shown in the commercial never ended up happening.
After over 500 days away from pro basketball, Rose finally returned in the beginning of this year, but of course, it couldn't happen in a smooth manner, playing only 10 games until injuring his other knee in a game against Portland. Again, the desolation hit hard, and as Rose blew out his knee, out the window went the Bulls' championship hopes.
This is the kind of devastation that resonates in bad losses like the one this week. This is what Friedell, wants his followers to connect with, because frankly, Friedell tells it how it is, even when we don't want to hear it. He is pragmatic in his approach and sometimes it hurts, but it is what it is, and it is his job to relay that. It wouldn't be fair to Bulls fans if Friedell gave us false hopes, saying that everything was alright when they aren't; at the end of the day it's just a game, right? Perhaps, but come to Chicago, connect with the culture, the people, and ask about the Bulls, it might have you considering that maybe, basketball in my city is more than a game.
Matt
