The Jordan Rules

     Recently, I finished the book "The Jordan Rules," by Sam Smith. From it, I learned several things that I not only didnt know about the Chicago Bulls, I also learned about specific things that occur throughout the league itself. To be completely honest, it changed the way I thought of a lot of things about the NBA and its legends. For example, although most great players are portrayed as ideal role models, several players had particular qualities about them that made them hard to deal with at times. I believe that Sam Smith sought out to  inform us of these kinds of things throughout the book so  at the end we could conclude and see how things compare to our expectations and inferences.
     Michael Jordan was the best player to play the game. He started his career in the early eighties and from the on skyrocketed. However, the road to greatness for him and the Bulls was very rough and tougher than most people know.  For example, Jordan received a lot of critiscm for the number of shots he constantly took, some games completely relying on him shooting an unfundamental amount of shots. However, it was severely exaggerated as Michael had been an underrated passer, who liked to penetrate and the pass out the ball to open men.  Another unknown aspect of the NBA is the true advantage of playing on your home court. For example, game balls are either overly or underly pumpmed with air, according to the preference of the home team. Magic Johnson used to prefer a high dribble, so the Lakers always pumped their balls up to 11-17 pounds of air.

The Jordan Rules: The Winning Formula

    "The Jordan Rules," is a story of how the 1991 Chicago Bulls won their first NBA championship. However, things started out very rough. Problems that intruded with the chemistry between players on that team mainly include money, playing time, and downright ego displacement. For example, Michael Jordan can be very controlling and intolerable of the faults of others. This caused several conflicts between players such as Bill Cartwright, Horace Grant, and Stacey King. Also, the stubborn antics of former Bull's  general manager, Jerry Krause, made being on the team Itself hard to enjoy with the constant difficulties in trying to negotiate contracts. Scottie Pippem himself was the sixth highest paid athlete on the team, although his play was worth much more. These problems and more probably serve to explain why the Bulls only went 2-3 in their first five games that season. I believe that several things must go right in order for a team to do well,.
    Months into the season, improving an excellent record of 37-14, the Bulls as a team resolved most of their chemistry problems. Jordan, although very overconfident, began to see the error of his rants and acted towards helping the team rather than putting it down. He evolved as a leader, and that made things much easier for the coaching staff and players alike. This conflict and resolution situation contains a commentary on life itself. For example, you can't let yourself try to control extraneous things without a negative consequence. If we just let things resolve themselves or if we do things in a reasonable way, then all problems would be resolved.

The Last Olympian by Rick Riordan

    "The Last Olympian," by Rick Riordan is a very interesting book in several ways. Being the final book in the Percy Jackson and the Olympians pentology, it closes out and finalizes the series. It also concludes several conflicts within the story. However, when one reads this book and comes to the end, the surprising g twist in which Luke Castellem, the son of Hermes, sacrifices his life to rid his body and the world of the should of Kronos, who was planning a full on attack of Mount Olympus. This somewhat renders the fact that Percy was the actual hero of the Great Propechy. This Propechy is super relative to the "Hero's Journey," storyline authors like to use. I find that this leaves the reader unaware that a plot twist can be iminent, since they assume that the relativity between the prophecy and the Hero's Journey is so close.