I eat fruit in bed, but only after I’ve cut it in the kitchen first

Hopefully this serves as some sort of warning or something for the Chicago Bulls.

Hire someone to serve as Derrick Rose’s personal assistant/butler/errand boy. Basically, his shadow.

Look, D-Rose is the franchise now. Heck, by playing for his hometown Bulls in Chicago, he’s almost more than that. You can’t let him cut apples in bed. That’s how stitches end up being required — like the 10 in his left arm. Thank goodness is wasn’t worse. Geoffrey, Jeeves, or whomever needs to be on his beck-and-call 24/7.

You can’t take ANY chances.

If Rose is on the can and he runs out of toilet paper? Bam! Dude grabs him some TP.

If Rose wants to clip his toenails? Bam! Dude is right there clipping them for him.

If Rose sneezes? Bam! Dude gives him a Kleenex, orange juice, cough medicine, and a blanket. No chances, remember?

Seeing headlines that indicate anything bad has happened to Derrick Rose is unacceptable. He needs to be healthy and taken care of.

That’s because he needs to keep doing stuff like any of the following, of course:

Suspension slop

Isn’t a six-game suspension a little too harsh for calling an ex-girlfriend “sloppy seconds?”

Sure, the phrase is kinda dirty and graphic — the Philadelphia Inquirer ran a parenthesied “former girlfriends” in place of it — but Sean Avery’s comment about a former ladyfriend really had nothing to do with his team or league.

I’m sure the NHL has some sort of positive, upstanding image it’s trying to project or something, but still: one game would be too harsh for a comment unrelated to anything league-related. A single game might be more justifiable, but it’d still be too harsh.

Seriously: were people that offended?

NHL players may as well not be allowed to have opinions on politics, music, or what restaurants to visit for dinner.

It must be Avery’s history of being ornery, wanting to be a fashion designer, and forcing rule changes for obnoxiously exploiting loopholes in the league’s rules.

Either that, or the NHL recognizes that most people probably wouldn’t have heard about the incident if Avery weren’t suspended for it. Take an overly-aggressive moral highground, suspend your league’s most controversial player, and get some pub.

Any publicity’s good publicity, right?

Out of all of this, though, one aspect I found highly amusing was how Avery’s apology didn’t address the sloppy second in question, Elisha Cuthbert — a.k.a. Jack Bauer’s daughter.

So maybe the six-game suspension was a pre-emptive measure.

Afterall, the NHL sure doesn’t need Jack Bauer on its bad side.

The Giants apparently don’t want to suck

While they had Barry Bonds, the San Francisco Giants surrounded him with crusty veterans on the down sides of their careers.

Since letting him walk after he broke the all-time home run record, they’ve tried to infuse sucky young players — not including Cy Young Award winning young buck Tim Lincecum, that is — with the remaining crusties.

They did sign CF Aaron Rowand last year, though, to make it look like they weren’t totally giving up.

But now, one day after signing reliever Bob Howry, the San Francisco Giants have signed SS Edgar Renteria, giving them another above average veteran to go along with Rowand and another above average player, catcher Bengie Molina.

With that group of above average vets to go with Lincecum, it looks like the Giants are actually trying to do something. Or, at the least, not completely suck.

Now all they need is a position player superstar to build around.

College player of the year Buster Posey can’t be fast-tracked fast enough.

If I were that Pregnant Man dude, or, well, any woman in Chicagoland and Northwest Indiana, I’d offer to have Derrick Rose’s children

This holiday season I’m thankful for the gift of Derrick Rose.

He’s the gift that keeps on giving.

Usually he gives you at least one highlight reel play every game. But yesterday vs. the Sixers, he turned in three, including two that required victimizing poor Andre Miller in various fashions.

Oh, Derrick Rose.

You’re my hero.

You’re making me yell with joy and disbelief at my TV again.

Somebody get David Lee a Superman cape

Finally, one of my favorite NBA players, Knicks forward David Lee, reaped the rewards of the Mike D’Antoni offense.

37 points

21 rebounds

David Lee could do this. Okay, probably not...

Those are Dwight Howard numbers, people!

Not to be outdone, Howard put up his own 30-20 on the same night. But then again, that’s just the kind of thing Howard does.

As for Lee, he’s just a hardworking scrapper. And I don’t mean that just cuz he’s some white dude with funky hair. He’s essentially a 10-10 guy who just gets his numbers in the flow of a game. He’s got touch, but most of his production comes from cleaning up around the basket.

"Now, if you'll excuse me, I must go put up monster numbers."

So give him something uptempo with a lot of missed shots and chances for easy baskets, either on putbacks or in transition — like last night’s Knicks game vs. the Warriors, another uptempo team — and David Lee’s gonna look like Superman.

Remember when Lee won the 2007 Rookie-Sophomore Game MVP?

Okay, probably not.

I barely did. But I recalled he had an awesome game.

And his MVP effort there came because those games are nothing more than glorified pickup games:

High-octane…

All-offense… 

The exact same type of game D’Antoni tries to force his opponents into playing.

That D’Antoni offense also led to a career-high and Knicks franchise record 22 assists for Chris Duhon.

I never liked Duhon when he was with the Bulls, so I was glad to see him leave. Despite that, I’m not totally surprised by his 22 dimes. He’s a pass-first PG and going to the D’Antoni offense was bound to enhance his numbers.

In recognizing that, I can’t say I’m frustrated by him putting up that kind of total with the Knicks, while never having done so with the Bulls.

The only thing that frustrates me about that is how the Mike D’Antoni sweepstakes played out this past offseason.

The Bulls had a shot at him, but blew it.

If the Bulls had landed D’Antoni, Derrick Rose might be averaging 20 assists right now.

Okay, maybe not.

But close.

And then who knows which Bull would be having nights like David Lee?

Blake Griffin is this year’s NCAA beast

Even when he has a crappy game, it’s still an awesome game.

Purdue held Blake Griffin to 5-for-14 shooting in the Preseason NIT, but it wasn’t enough. Griffin’s 21 boards — as well as the season-low 18 points he mustered — helped lead Oklahoma to an 87-82 win.

Griffin had been shooting 75.4 percent coming into the game, but his poor percentage game vs. the Boilermakers doesn’t change the fact that he’s following in the footsteps of Kevin Durant and Michael Beasley from the past two years as big men putting up ridiculous numbers.

Griffin’s averages so far this year are just about double what he did last year as a freshman.

He’s this year’s beast.

But a beast nonetheless.

Oh: plus he’s 6-10 and a jacked 250 lbs.

Someone’s gonna make him the No. 1 pick in next summer’s NBA Draft.

Well, that is, if they don’t take Ricky Rubio first.

Dear Bulls: stash some cash, make a Bosh push

The NBA’s 2010 free agent class is amazing.

We know this.

But while everyone’s clearing space under the salary cap to make a run at LeBron James and Dwyane Wade, I’d be more than satisfied — ecstatic, even — if the Bulls did whatever they could to sign Chris Bosh, who also hits the market in 2010.

For a skinny guy, he’s an awesomely skilled young big who’s only getting better. He can score in the post, he can face up, and he can run the floor.

I challenge you to tell me he wouldn’t be an awesome complement to Derrick Rose.

Or at least way better than the slew of interior flunkies the Bulls have assembled in recent years.

And for all the people repeating that stuff about how there’s no way LeBron could want to stay in Cleveland when he can go to somewhere so awesome as New York, I’d argue the same about being in Toronto vs. being in Chicago.

I mean, NBA players don’t like Canada, do they?

Maybe, like, one or two of them of them do — Steve Nash and Samuel Dalembert, that is — and maybe the Raptors do have a nice young core group of players, but, dude, Bosh could totally boost his status in Chicago.

Look, LeBron is LeBron anywhere and everywhere he goes. But Chris Bosh will never attain the kind of name for himself he could by moving somewhere of higher exposure if he stays tucked away in Toronto.

Come to Chicago, CB4.

Sure, you won’t be able to wear No. 4, since it’s retired — so you might have to change your nickname — but I’ll do what I can to get a group of people to walk around outside the United Center wearing “Bosh 2010″ t-shirts whenever Toronto comes to town, and get “We want Bosh” chants started at games.

If that doesn’t cut it, I can always take a page out of your book and pose as a used car salesman attempting to sell you on the Windy City and post it on youtube.

Drew Gooden’s beard is my BFF

As someone with the NBA League Pass package, I am often subjected to the opposing team’s broadcasts when I sit down to watch a Bulls game.

You wanna know what annoys me most about watching an opposing team’s broadcast?

No, not homer announcers.

It’s listening to the same game prep. and ”Did You Know?” information over and over again.

Over the past few years, here are stories I quickly tired of:

• Scott Skiles holds the NBA’s single-game assist record
• Skott Skiles tried to fight Shaq in practice one time when they played in Orlando together
• Luol Deng and Chris Duhon went deep into the NCAA Tournament with Duke
• Joakim Noah won back-to-back NCAA titles with Florida
• Kirk Hinrich played in the NCAA Championship game with Kansas
• Tyrus Thomas played in the NCAA Championship game with LSU
• Andres Nocioni won a gold medal in 2004 with Argentina
• John Paxson likes to acquire players who’ve won at other levels

This year is not unlike the past few.

However, of the Bulls’ new storylines available to repeatedly repeat, what’s getting old this year is not anything having to do with Derrick Rose, or the fact that he played in the NCAA Championship game last year with Memphis — let’s face it: no Derrick Rose talk gets old — but rather the comments having to do with Drew Gooden’s beard.

Sure, it’s a dreadlocked beard. It looks like what would happen if Medusa grew a beard. It looks like you can store items in it. It looks like some sort of mangy animal growing from his chin. Etc. Etc.

Look, Drew Gooden’s been doing weird things with his hair and facial hair for the last few years. And, despite all the stories of him being a genuinely nice guy, he’s wearing No. 90 — only basketball players who are crazy on some level wear weird numbers. That said, I don’t see how this year’s crazy beard is news at this point.

Okay, maybe it’s newsworthy that he’s given it a name. That’s reasonable. But that part rarely gets mentioned.

So, to the TV and radio announcers out there seeing the Bulls for the first time this year, if you must mention it, fine, but there’s no need to dedicate any more than 20 seconds to simply mentioning “his newest creation” and that he’s named it.

Fix the blackout rules

Well, the Detroit Lions sold out today’s Thanksgiving Day game afterall.

That means the game won’t be blacked out for those unfortunate enough to live within the Detroit viewing area.

I understand the logic behind not airing the local team’s game when it’s being played at home and it doesn’t sell out. Generally, though, it hasn’t really a big deal to me because I’m not a fan of the team whose area in which I live.

My problem is that rather than airing another game in its place, the local affiliate doesn’t air a game at all. I’m not sure if that’s the affiliate’s decision, the NFL’s, or someone else’s.

All I know is I’m a Chicago Bears fan living in the Detroit area. The last three Lions games have not sold out, and have thus been blacked out. But rather than getting the chance to watch my Bears — who generally play at the same time as the Lions each week — I get nada. I’m stuck with infomercials and crappy decades-old sitcoms.

So, to whomever’s in charge of deciding that no games air when the local team gets blacked out:

Please just show a game — any game — okay? A division rival’s game would make the most sense, but if not, even the worst game on the schedule is acceptable. Y’know, at least so I can just have football on in the background.

Well, at least the Lions don’t play on Sunday this week. Maybe I’ll get to see the Bears.