Rose - Got to give the people what they want: true stories and flagrant opinions from center court

In February of 2014, Jalen Rose and I were in New Orleans for NBA All-Star Weekend. Jalen had just turned forty-one, so we taped our NBA Countdown show and headed out for a belated birthday dinner in the French Quarter. I ordered a Moscow Mule (vodka, ginger beer, and lime), which arrived in a fancy copper mug. Jalen had already gotten wine, but he became jealous of my special mug and ordered one, too. (Just like that, Jalen had a new favorite drink. Hes that easy.) He also requested a well-done lobster for his entre, which happens at every nice Jalen dinner for three reasons: First, he loves lobster, but doesnt like when its squishy. Second, he grew up in Detroit with absolutely nothing, about as poor as a little kid can possibly be, which continued to be the case even after the Fab Five started printing millions for Michigan (Jalen and his teammates werent seeing a dime). You know what Jalen Rose wasnt seeing a lot of from age one to age twenty? Lobster. You dont have to be a psychology major to understand the symbolism there; even Jalen admits as much. He ended up playing in the NBA for thirteen years. At some pointand he doesnt remember exactly whenhe could afford fancy dinners, and he could afford the freaking lobster. Well done. Or hes sending it back like Mutombo.

Jalen is a creature of habit. He orders the same entres and drinks and junk-food items. He haunts the same eating and drinking establishments. He falls asleep on airplanes during the exact same time (about five minutes before it takes off) and wakes up during the exact same time (right before it lands). There are thirty funnier things that I wish I could list (but cant). Maybe for the next book. Hes the most unpredictably predictable friend I ever had. And that French Quarter dinner was the perfect example. I knew hed order the lobster, and I knew hed get jealous of my Moscow Mule and want one for himself. But I didnt know that one of Jalens friends would randomly deliver a homemade birthday cake that night, or that Jalen would be touched enough to cruise down Bourbon Street while lugging that unwieldy box. My biggest regret of my entire Jalen friendship was never snapping a picturethere was Jalen Rose moving through a swarm of mostly drunk people, all six feet eight and a half inches of him, holding a birthday cake box as people stared and shouted his name. It just seemed fitting and weird and funny and all so Jalen.

The man isnt even sneaky-famous; hes openly and undeniably famous. In the early 1990s, the Fab Five was just as well known as Arsenio, Tupac, Denzel, Snoop, and Dre. Something like forty million people watched C-Webb mistakenly call timeout in that Carolina game. Everyone who played basketball, at any level, started wearing baggier shorts and infusing extra swagger in their game because of Jalen and Jalen first. (And yeah, I include myself, a dorky white kid attending a mostly Irish-Catholic college in Massachusetts.) In 1998, Jalens Pacers took Jordans Bulls to the brink of a stunning Game 7 home defeat, the closest MJ came to blowing any of his six titles. In the 2000 finals, the Pacers gave Shaq and Kobe everything they could handle. Youre talking about twelve to twenty million viewers per night for any of those games. Its one of many reasons why people always approach Jalen just to say they named their child after himnot just male babies, but female babies, too. I stopped noticing after a while. Its just part of being around him. People loved those teams, and those games, and especially, him. He was always the coolest member of the Fab Five, their heart and soul, their trendsetter, their chief trash-talker, their best interview, their fearless leader and crunch-time creator.

I never knew him in college, but like so many others, I felt like I did. Hes been famous since he was eighteen years old, only he never went Macaulay Culkin on us. Fame suits him. He knows every famous black person between the ages of twenty-five and fifty-fiveliterally, all of thembut hed never brag about it. He loves being around all types of people. When he moves in crowds with people yelping his name (JAAAAA-LENNNNNNNN!!!), hes learned to never stop moving. Puts in the time, makes people feel goodbut never comes to an actual stop. If he stops, thats it. Hell get swarmed. Even on Bourbon Streetwhile wearing a suit and hauling a birthday cake. It made no sense at all, but it made total sense, because thats Jalen Rose.

We became friends because we love basketball, we love to work hard, we make each other laugh, we love early hip-hop, we love Good Times, we love our daughters, and we love Larry Bird. Thats really it. In so many ways beyond the obvious ones, were polar opposites. My dad is my best friend; Jalen never met his father. Im a Celtics fan; hes a Pistons fan. I grew up in a Boston suburb and went to prep school in Connecticut; he had the flip side of that experience in every respect. Same for our college experiences. Same for our professional experiencesme writing about sports, him playing themand then eventually, we crossed paths and became mismatched brothers for life. My favorite Jalen quality: his uncanny ability to slide into any social situation. Its truly remarkable, surpassed only by his generosity and steadfast determination to remain a role model for everyone back home. Everything hes done with his charter school in Detroit, the Jalen Rose Leadership Academy, will outlive him long after hes gone. And like everything else Jalen does, hes involved. Didnt just slap his name on the school and hand it over to people. He runs the thing.

When I found out Jalen was writing a book, I knew it would work because hes lived the most fascinating life, hands down, of anyone I ever met. (If youre keeping score, Jalen left out about 298 Jalen After Dark classics that would have sold more copies. Its really a shame. THE MAN STARRED IN THE NBA FOR THIRTEEN YEARS! AND WAS REALLY REALLY FAMOUS! For a married guy with two kids, there is nothing more exciting than Jalen saying the words I shouldnt tell this story) Over the past four decades, he crossed paths with hundreds of characters, overcame more adversity than anyone realizes, and somehow kept his trademark sense of humor the entire time. Jalen has no secrets; hes the most up-front person I know. Most exNBA stars avoid discussing life on the road, or the reasons behind petty feuds, or even the things most players really care about (like women, women, and also, women), but Jalen has been candid in his