As everyone has probably already heard, Derrick Rose, the Bulls rookie phenom, not only cheated on his SATs to get into Memphis, but also may have had grades changed at Simeon in order to maintain his high school eligibility during their run to the championship a few years ago.

The question I ask is: Who cares?  I mean besides Rick Telander of course, who is just trying to stir the pot.  Different NQTC readers have been asking me to cover this story but I have been reluctant to do so.  The kid cheated in high school a bit for his own future.  It’s not like he wasn’t working hard or is a bad kid.  If anything Rose has proven to be a great guy, giving back to the community and by and large staying out of trouble  with the law.  Reader Bitternutz had some concerns about what it could mean for the Bulls franchise, however:

So its possible that our franchise player is close to brain dead.  I dont think that it makes a huge deal and certainly an NBA player can be successful without much of a brain, but it could raise some red flags if the bulls build a team and PR campaign around a man who cant read our count

His comments raise some interesting issues and he isn’t wrong to be worried about them.  In terms of a player being successful without having good test scores or going to college, I would offer this response: those test scores are bullshit.  For people like Bitternutz and I (and I’m sure many of you) these test scores have been our livelihood.  We have always been told our success hinges on them, so perhaps that has given us the false impression that they somehow are a good measure of intelligence.  They are not.  Rose and others (like LeBron, Kobe, KG, and many many others) never took those tests or scored very poorly on them and went on to have very successful careers.  Those tests only measure the ability of people TO TAKE THOSE TESTS.  That’s it.  A guy like Rose learned a different kind of intelligence, one that can’t be tested by some standardized test created by professors in an ivory tower away from the realities of the world.  So am I worried about whether he can be a leader on the court, and a representative of the team off it based on his SAT scores?  No I’m not.  It only reflects on one kind of intelligence, a kind that is probably completely useless in the sports world.

In terms of his morals and character, yes he cheated.  Is that completely okay?  No its not.  But that is how it works in this world, and it doesn’t make him a bad person.  Any of you would do the same if you were in his position.  Its not his fault that the NBA players’ union idiotically collectively bargained away the right for their players to make the jump to the NBA without one year removed from high school.

So let’s lay off D-Rose a little bit.  He seems like an intelligent kid on the court and a good one off it.  So what if he can’t do trigonometry?  While you were studying that to go to college, he was working on his handles to play ball and go on to a career in the NBA.  You were both working hard towards your goals and developing skills along the way.

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• New Kirk Hinrich Rumor; He’s Going to the Lakers This Time [And Other Bulls Trade Deadline Speculation] (1)
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Tags: Cheating, Derrick Rose, SATs, Standardized Tests are Bullshit