ByeBye Bench Mob

After the Houston Rockets offered Omer Asik a huge $25M deal, Bulls management seems like its scraping and scrounging for newer, cheaper additions to the roster. This means letting go of overpaid non-producers. But are all these moves good ones? Wasn't it the Bench Mob that won so many games this last season with the numerous injuries to star players like D. Rose and Deng? Lets just go over the things we know and see if there were some better options.

C.J. Watson

First they picked up free agent PG Kirk Hinrich, who agreed to comeback to the bulls for about $3M a year. Not a great deal, especially since Hinrich is so prone to injury. But he's a good veteran combo guard which gives Chicago some added depth at the both guard positions and hes a pretty legit defender too. This move gave to Bulls the opportunity to pass on C.J. Watson's option(about $3.4M per year).Also the addition of PG Marquis Teague through the 2012 draft helps with not retaining Watson, Teague is definitely not as seasoned, but Bulls' management seem to have faith that he can run the floor, and provide offense off the bench. Watson has just signed with the Brooklyn Nets to back up Deron Williams. Thats one Mobber down.

Ronnie Brewer

Then we said goodbye to SG Ronnie Brewer. Again the Bulls decided not to pick up Brewer's option worth over $4M a year. This move is also acceptable because while Brewer is a great defender, rebounder and totally disruptive to the oppostion, he struggles to score. But last year's draftee Jimmy Butler seems ready and willing to take over Brew's spot in the lineup. This kid has a motor and a drive to win. He's just as good a defender as Brewer but can really attack the basket and score as well, he's even a pretty decent threat from long range. Right now Butler is currently leading the Bull's Summer League team in scoring and has had 3 games of 20+ points. Bye Brew, hello Jimmy.

Kyle Korver (just as disappointed as everyone else)

Kyle Korver(sigh)......I do not know why this move was made. Kyle Korver was traded to the Atlanta Hawks for cap space and a trade exception. NOTHING ELSE. Yes, Kyle made about $5M a year, but thats worth it just for his 3point shooting. But then when you add his speed and slipperyness off of screens, a sweet mid-range jumper, a brilliant passing game, and this last season he showed everyone that he is a great defender too. All that for $5M, that's just fine. This trade would have been fine if the Bulls were able to get a Courtney Lee or a Ray Allen out of it (which they were'n't).Instead  the Bulls decided to pick up Vlad Radmonovic, a stretch power forward......sharpshooting big dude......whatever. The Bulls just signed him for the veteran's minimum salary. That's three gone.

John Lucas III is close to a deal with Toronto to backup the PG spot behind Kyle Lowry, I'm sure this deal will not be matched. This would be the fouth member to leave.

Omer Asik

And with the latest agreement of Nazr Mohammed, backup center from OKC, to sign for the veteran's minimum as well, I'll take that as a sign that Asik is on his way out for sure. While its wise to let Asik walk, there were so many other big men much more capable of replacing him. Robin Lopez could have been a good choice. Good defender, young, and capable of being a solid backup for about 15-20 minutes a night. There are some players in the summer league who are showing they can ball like pros who will come cheap: Malcolm Thomas, averaging a double-double in pts and rbs, seems like a more athletic Taj Gibson. He could be a perfect fit in Chicago, hopefully they dont wait around while he gets snatched up. Also Henry Sims, an undrafted C from Georgetown, not a great offensive threat, but he's a sold 7 footer who can block shots, defend, and rebound. Sounds like Asik. I would much rather see a young guy who is driven and has something to prove to himself and to the rest of the NBA, than an old washed up vet who is probably just going to spend most of his time on the bench.

Free Agency: Chicago Style

With teams like Miami, Los Angeles, New York and Brooklyn building and adding to their already impressive repertoires. This leaves many Bulls fans to bite their nails in fear of the super teams we will have to face in the 2012-13 season. Now normally, any Bulls fan would say "Whatever man, bring that shit! We got D. Muthafuckin Rose!". But after his ACL injury in game 1 of the first round, now we are forced to say "Wait leave some good players for us guys!".

I'm not saying that the group the Bulls have currently is bad, in fact, I think they are one of the deepest teams in the league, if not THE deepest. But their weeknesses were definitely shown during last years playoffs against the 76ers. No D.Rose = No offense. That's simply it. The entire 6 game series came down to which team could defend more and just barely squeeze enough points out to win each game.

So now we must evaluate the weaknesses, moves some pieces around, and maybe try to bring in new talent to help out.

1. We need a strong 2 guard, preferrably one that can create his own shot. This was somewhat addressed at the beginning of last season with the addition of Rip Hamilton. He's great at coming off screens for jumpers, runs well in the open court especially with Rose, and he's also a great defender, but after last season all he proved to me was that his bones were made of pretzel sticks cuz that dude was always injured. Kyle Korver can play the same role at the 2 and can also slide over to the 3 as well. He clearly has been working on his defending as well and it shows. The Bulls are currently mulling Korver's $5M contract over and questioning whether or not they should bring him back. But to me, its no question. Kyle has starting quality skills and can always be that spark off the bench, keep him. This way you can have Rip/Korver at the 2 and Deng/Butler at the 3. The beauty part is that Korver and Butler can play both the 2 or 3, thus eliminating the need for a moreexpensive Ronnie Brewer who is less capable on the offensive end.

2. The point guard situation. Until Rose returns, there is uncertainty at the 1 spot. Lucas is a streaky shooter and doesn't care if he's not on fire, he'll keep on chucking up the bricks. Watson's decision making is questionable (especially after the game 6 loss to the 76ers) and he disappeared in the post season. I also think hes highly overpaid at about $3.4M a year. So what? Drop them both? Yeppers. Because we are witnessing the return of Captain Kirk! Kirk Hinrich has agreed to come back to the Bulls at starting PG until Rose gets better. Then he can come off the bench or even slide over to the 2, thus adding more depth to that position. He is a great 3 point threat, a great defender and is apparently very excited to be working with coach Thibs. And he's doing it all for about the same amount that we were going to pay Watson. A 2 year contract at about $3M a year according to Bleacher Report. The Bulls also added some insurance with the 29th pick in 2012 draft, they selected Marquis Teague out of Ketucky. Good pick, a slashing point guard who is super quick and works well with defensive big men. Sounds like Derrick Rose to me. Now I'm definitely not saying that he's going to be the next D.Rose, but hope fully he's as good as his brother Jeff (PG, Atlanta Hawks, basically a lame version of Derrick Rose).

3. Maybe the biggest issue the Bulls are going to face this year is the salary cap issue. With big contracts like Rose, Boozer, Deng and Noah. The Bulls front office has to be mighty thrifty or fall victim to the dreaded luxury tax. This means questioning whether or not we can resign Omer Asik, who was offered a pretty big deal by the Houston Rockets, because doing so would put us into the luxury tax and the team gets fined an extra $30M if they are even $1 over that limit.

So there are two options with Asik, who is definitely a valuable asset to the Bulls frontcourt and defensive second unit. One would be to match Houston's offer (a 3 year deal, about $25.1M), and hope for a chance to trade him before that third year where his salary would balloon. Or they can just let him walk and sign a cheaper free agent. Tough decision indeed. Asik is good and his tandem with Taj on the defensive end is unmatched in this league, but Asik by himself and on the offensive end, is not worth the amount of money the Bulls would be spending.

Free agency is still just in its beginning stages, and no moves are final yet with any teams. But stay tuned for further news, and updates. :)

Much Has Changed

Ok so I've been out of the picture, partly due to the stresses of work and school, partly because I'm just now getting over the horrible sack of shit that history books will call the 2011-12 NBA season.

A brief view in retrospect, in case you forgot:

1. Compressed 66 game season, due to lockout.
2. Injuries hobbled many teams if not all of them, especially the Bulls.
3. In spite of this, the Bulls still grabbed the best record in the NBA
4. Bulls became just the 5th number 1 seed in league to be defeated by an 8th seed.
5. This helped to clear the way for LeBron to grab his first championship with the Heat

Oh and......http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OiJoWXQ5sMw

6. Derrick Rose tore his ACL, and maaaay not be able to play until midway in the 2012-13 season. Best case scenario.....

Sorry for the cynicism, but this was supposed to be "The Year" right? Wrong.
Rose, like many other players this year struggled with injuries. But that all seemed to be over going into the playoffs, he was rested and looking good in game 1 against the Philadephia 76ers. The Bulls were up by about 20 points in the 4th quarter and Rose was playing great with 23 points, 9 assists, and 9 rebounds. But that all changed when with about 1 minute left in the game, when he drove the lane, jumped up for a shot, and immediately had to kick it out to boozer because of the pain. Rose collapsed to the ground and writhed in pain for about 3 minutes while the United Center watched in silence, it was later announced that he tore his ACL and would not return for the rest of the playoffs.

Ok......so this leaves us in a tough spot, with many questions, and almost no answers.

How fast will Rose recover?
Will he even be the same type of player?
Will the Bulls even get passed .500 next season, or be a playoff contender?
What about Deng? Doesn't that fool need surgery too? Ahhhhhh!!!

These things have been in my mind, but I couldn't bring myself to write about them until now.
But D. Rose's surgery went well and he's rehabbing, training and getting back to work. So should I.
The draft is over, free agency has begun, and there's some hope for the Bulls this season.  But with teams making huge moves and getting even stronger, lets just keep our fingers crossed.

Bulls vs. Mavericks

Daaa Bulls pull off a very solid win at home vs. Dallas. Rose makes a calm and controlled return. Deng and Rip stepped up as great scoring options. Yeah. It was a good day.

Derrick Rose made yet another return to the line up, and honestly, this was the perfect game to do it. Dallas was resting two of its stars in Jason Kidd and Jason Terry, this was probably the reason why Thibs allowed Rose to play. Kidd makes the Mavs' offense flow smoothly while Terry adds speed and a devastating 3 point shot, and with these guys not playing, basically all they had to do was contain Dirk Nowitzki, make their rotations, and rebound. Thats exactly what the Bulls did.

 First lets talk about D. Rose, he played perfectly. Many would say that he was very rusty after looking at his stats, but those people are not seeing the big picture. Rose ended the night with 11 points on 5/9 shooting. He also had 8 assists and 1 turnover. You could tell he was just focussed on the speed of the game, and keeping his assist/turnover ratio down. He did what was needed of him, and in this game, we didnt need him to go into beast mode and drive the lane every other play (actually he only did that a handful of times).

 Most of the night he was slowing down the game and running set plays, and trying to avoid the explosive bursts in his transition game. But that didn't stop the bulls from scoring in transition, the rest of the guys got out there and ran for some easy buckets, many of which came from some spot on bullet passes down court care of D. Rose. It was like the rest of the team knew that he needed to take it easy, so they came in and played hard and fast the way he normally does.

It was aside from the giant lead after the 1st quarter, the Bulls outscoring the Mavs 21-8, it ended up being a pretty close game. That's because in the 2nd the Bulls' offense was a bit stagnant, and they seemed to get a little cocky and stop playing defense giving up 30 points in that quarter. It wasn't until the end of the 3rd quarter that they (mostly Deng) started getting serious and making big shots including a sweet buzzer beater to end the 3rd with a little confidence. Then the offensive rebounding showed up (the Mavs were actually winning the battle of the boards until the 4th) and the Bulls started playing like the rough gritty Bulls we know and love, better late than never.

Stats that ensured the victory

                 

                 Bulls    Mavs

Assists:        29   -   12

Turnovers:  10    -   12

3 pointers:  9/20  - 4/15

Overall, it was a great team win for the Bulls, Deng had 22 points, Rip had 19, and Noah, who really turned it on in the 4th ended the night with 8 points, 14 rebounds (4 offensive), and 8 assists. He needs to continue to play at this level for the Bulls to be successful in the playoffs, especially if they are to get past the Miami Heat (whose big men are not good passers or rebounders).

With the win against Dallas, and the Heat's loss to Washington, the Bulls now have a 2 game lead for 1st place in the conference. There's only 2 games left in the regular season for Chicago, Wednesday @ Indiana, and Thursday vs. Cleveland.

Bulls Beat Bobcats...Big Surprise.

I think everyone saw this coming, everything just pointed to it. The Bulls were coming off of a tough loss to the Wizards. The Bobcats are the worst team in the league and trying for the worst team in history when i t comes to winning percentage, and I think its fair to say that they're tanking hard to make sure they get a great draft pick.

What can I say? The Bulls did every thing right for once, but again, it's Charlotte. It was like watching a scrimmage.

Ok, ok. Good win fellas, now on the the next one.......Miami.

The Bulls can only hope that their two All-Stars are healthy enough to play in this one. But personally, i think that Derrick Rose should sit this one out as well. I know everyone wants to see him come back and go crazy, but Thibs needs to err on the side of caution for a bit longer.

They keep holding Rose out for the easy games and popping him back in for the tough ones, in which he seems to play his heart out as usual. But we just cannot afford anymore injuries with the playoffs two weeks away. The only downside to this plan would be that if the Heat win tonight, then they would be in an even closer position to clinch the No.1 seed.

So what do you do?

Play it safe tonight against Miami, even with a Heat win tonight, the Bulls could still finish at no. 1 if they play well in their final three regular season games.

Bulls' Luck Running Out?

Not this time guys...with the Bulls last two wins coming in overtime, they fell to the Washington Wizards Monday night. Once again, it was a nail biter but they just couldn't hang in there. Final score: Bulls 84 - Wizards 87.

With the playoffs looming, there is still one giant question revolving around this team: Can they stay healthy? Derrick Rose and Luol Deng both missed Monday's game against the Wizards, both with injuries they sustained Sunday against the Pistons. Rose, aggrevated the ankle injury he's been struggling with the past two games, while Deng has some bruised ribs after taking a hit from Ben Gordon.

Even with their two best players out, it seemed likely that the Bulls could still get a win against one of the weakest teams in the NBA........at home. Ugh. Especially since they've been winning all season long with so many injuries to key players. But it was a hard fought battle all the way down the stretch, with turnovers and fouls hurting the Bulls' cause. And one more key element serve to help Washington in their victory.....they made their free throws. Not all of them, but the crucial ones.

It just seemed like the Bulls lacked the drive they've been playing with all year. Maybe they were upset because yet again they were without their all stars. Or Maybe they thought they had this one in the bag before they even set foot on the court (I know I thought that). Either way, the Bulls have really been lacking energy and enthusiam the last couple of games. But this time, Rose or Deng weren't there to lead them out of it.

This was a sloppy game from tip-off, the Bulls had 17 turnovers and 7 of those came in the first quarter alone. The Wizards turned it over 12 times, but they are younger and more athletic, therefore they are able to get back fast enough to defend the fast break. And vice versa, the Bulls just couldnt keep up with John Wall and company on the fast break. Also they were outscoured in the paint 48-22, very unlike this team.

The Bulls will get as shot at redemption on Wednesday when they face the Bobcats. Before the last few nights, I would have bet my last 10 bucks on a Bulls blowout. Now? Not so sure. The Bulls' lead on Miami for 1st place in the conference has been reduce to 2.5 games. And the two teams just so happen to be meeting on Thursday.

Rose Injured......Again.

Rose will miss Monday's game against the Wizards, yes just as we thought he was not only back in action, but back in rhythm.


Sunday's game @ Detroit left Rose battered and bruised. It was a very physical and hard fought game (for some reason), but the Bulls managed to pull off a win in OT. Rose took several bumps while driving to the hoop, including one from Charlie Villanueva that left him with a gash on his nose. Also he was reported to have a new injury to his foot by many sources, but it was later confirmed by Neil Funk and Stacy King that he re-tweaked that sprained ankle one more time. Luol Deng was also injured when he took a shot to the ribs via former Bull Ben Gordon.

Though both injuries have been brushed off as anything serious, Thibs will sit them today in order to get them ready for the Heat on Thursday. This will be the final regualr season meeting between the two Eastern Conference leaders, Miami will be looking to tie up the series at home.