It's been something of the elephant in the room in the NBA, a potential stain, even an embarrassment, that no one wanted to acknowledge. This great league with this great history didn't have a JaKarr. Perhaps now it will.
"If you go through enough ups and downs, I feel like everyone starts questioning," JaKarr Sampson was saying late Saturday night after his career-high 29 points wasn't quite enough in the Bulls 116-96 loss to the Philadelphia 76ers. "But if you stick with it, I am proof the outcome can be good. We'll see what happens with it."
Perhaps it finally will mean a regular job in the NBA for the G-league veteran who spent this winter commuting between Hoffman Estates and the Windy City Bulls and the Shandong Golden Stars in eastern China about 300 miles south of Beijing.