Here's a thought -- with Dwight Howard ostensibly remaining with the Magic through to the summer of 2013, what are the chances the Bulls could make a run at him as a free agent that summer?

Of course, it is a source of continuing frustration and incredulity for myself (and plenty of us, I'm sure) that the Bulls were not on Howard's famed list of teams he was willing to be traded to, but on the off chance that he changes his mind and considers Chicago an attractive destination, could Chicago be a player for Howard in the summer of 2013? As an added bonus, getting Howard as a free agent involves amnestying Carlos Boozer! Yay!

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[Thanks to bigintangibles for today's game preview. GameThread up at 7:08 -ed.]

Tonight, the Bulls host the Utah Jazz (19-20), a team that had been outperforming expectations earlier in the year, but seems to have settled into its expected course -- at or around .500 (Sportsbook.com put the Jazz's over-under at 31.5 wins before the season).

This will be the two teams' only meeting this season; the Jazz will be playing the tail-end of a back-to-back, and their third game in four nights, with the game against the Bulls being their last on a five-game road trip on which they have gone 2-2 after last night's loss to Philadelphia. The Bulls, on the other hand, will be playing the second game of a six-game homestand with a night of rest on either side.

Getting a win would be huge for Utah, in particular because though it is only 1.5 games out of the 8th seed in the west playoffs, John Hollinger only gives them a 22% chance of making it. The Jazz mirror some of the Bulls statistical strengths (notably: crashing the offensive glass, rebounding in general, and general offensive efficiency), though they are not as good at any, while the Bulls still hold key advantages in other areas.

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Bradford Doolittle of Basketball Prospectus has put together a new statistic that gives us all some more fuel to the fire that Keith Bogans should not be starting and, appropriately, he has named it BOGANS (subscriber).

Poll

Who should be the Bulls' starting SG?

6%

Keith Bogans

19 votes

26%

Ronnie Brewer

76 votes

38%

Kyle Korver

111 votes

1%

CJ Watson

5 votes

26%

ABB - Anyone But Bogans

78 votes

289 votes | Poll has closed

Continue reading this post »

Four new Bulls, only two of them useful.

Some Hollinger scouting on them all after the jump.

Poll

Which new Bull are you most excited about?

25%

Hakim Warrick

104 votes

5%

Flip Murray

23 votes

8%

Joe Alexander

37 votes

2%

Acie Law

9 votes

58%

Cap space

241 votes

414 votes | Poll has closed

Continue reading this post »

I thought I'd start a new post to detail Chicago's chances of getting the 6th seed, following the results of the Detroit game -- given that the top 5 East seeds are now set in stone, most of my previous post was irrelevant.

Poll

Where will Chicago finish in the East standings?

90%

6th seed

130 votes

9%

7th seed

14 votes

144 votes | Poll has closed

Continue reading this post »

Hopefully this is of use to someone -- I was interested to see how the playoff seedings/tiebreakers would break down (and primarily the implications it would have for the Bulls), so thought I might compile this in case anyone else is interested:

Continue reading this post »

Nearing the half-way point of the season, suffice to say we're all disappointed with how the season's turned out so far, but I'm putting my 2-0 record of posting game threads on the line tonight against a team that's frequently cited as a potential trading partner with the Bulls.

Hopefully the Bulls (16-23) can put together a two-game win streak, and kickstart a playoff push tonight, with Matt in attendance in Memphis (11-29).

At the moment, the Bulls are two games out of the eighth playoff spot, and after playing the Grizzlies, the Bulls have a four-game homestand followed by a six-game road trip. Shortly after that road trip, we have the trade deadline, so we're entering a critical part of the season.

Blogging With The Enemy:
3 Shades of Blue

NBA Preview:
Chicago Tribune

Bill Simmons puts Luol Deng at the 32nd most-untradeable player in the league (and the only Bull in the top 50) in his annual trade value column.

Deng comes in just higher than Shawn Marion and Joe Johnson, and just below Caron Butler and Josh Howard.

Hinrich drops off the top 50 altogether (from no. 28 last time), and Ben Gordon is nowhere to be seen.

Normally, I'd put this down to Simmons' sometimes unreasonable hating of the Bulls, but I can't say I disagree with these particular observations, at this point in the season.

[UPDATE: Tyrus Thomas is suspended for tonight's game. -Matt]

[Thanks to prashantrao for the game preview. Important game-time strategy update: Isiah is going to try zone. Skiles is telling the fellas to try harder. -Matt]

Since a disastrous start, it appears the Bulls have at least started beating the teams they're "supposed" to beat, so tonight's game against New York is a reasonable test of whether the team has truly turned a corner, or whether the last few wins have just masked continuing problems. Having already played New York once this season, and turned in an absolute stinker, it will be interesting to see if the Bulls have made tangible improvements.

The Bulls and Knicks both last played Wednesday night, both having lost (the Knicks to the Sonics 117-110, the Bulls to the Pacers 117-102).

Blogging with the Enemy:
KnickerBlogger.Net
Posting and Toasting

Game Preview:
Stats LLC

[Thanks to prashantrao for tonight's game preview. Our first look at the Pistons since that woeful playoff series should be a good one. Here's hoping the Bulls can finally put one in the win column. -Mike]

Just when it seemed like us Bulls fans could be reasonably certain of the team this year putting together a strong season, contending for the conference title and basically just improving on last season, we've been subjected to the 0-4 start.

Despite that, I'm not too down -- there are several past examples of teams (not just the Bulls) starting slowly and putting together good seasons. The most recent example, of course, is the 2006-07 Dallas Mavericks.

Now, say what you want about the Mavs last season, but they did win 67 wins, run away with the tougher conference and were among the favourites to win the NBA Championship -- until the debacle against the Warriors. The thing about that 67-win season, though, is the Mavericks started 0-4, albeit against a tougher schedule than the Bulls have had so far (San Antonio, @Houston, Golden State, @LA Clippers). Among those four season-opening losses was a 31-point loss in Houston, and an 18-point loss to the Clippers, all after the disastrous 2006 NBA Finals.

Other notable relatively recent examples include:

• The 1996-97 Phoenix Suns started 0-13 and finished the season 40-42, good for the 7th spot in the West Playoffs.
  
• The 1995-96 Cleveland Cavaliers started 0-7 and finished the season 47-35, earning them the 5th seed in the East.
  
• Of course, as we all know, the 2004-05 Bulls started 0-9 and finished 47-35, good for 5th in the East.

Even last season's Bulls team started 3-9.

My point? It's a long season, and bad starts can be overcome. There's little evidence to show that this particular Bulls team is one made up of players with fragile confidence, so tonight against Detroit could just be the start of a very good season.

Behind Enemy Lines:
Need4Sheed.com
Detroit Bad Boys
PistonsNationBlog

Game Previews:
Chicago Tribune
Detroit Free-Press

SI.com has posted its annual NBA preview articles on its website, and it has also put up its "Enemy Lines" feature -- where an opposing scout talks to Ian Thomsen and offers some analysis of the team in question.

The Bulls analysis is here.

On Kirk Hinrich:

A lot of times he just plays too fast. It's to his benefit to play fast, but he should play at operational speed -- a speed where he can still think and play. As a result, they do turn the ball over a lot as a team because Skiles tells them to push the ball and because Hinrich goes too fast at times.
[...]
He's the identity of their team. As a defender, he's tenacious. Some players don't respect him so much because they think he gets a lot of accolades as a white guy trying to guard, but he's an annoying defender. He beats you to spots a lot, he pressures the ball, he's longer than you think and he's more athletic than he's given credit for.

On Ben Gordon:

The best thing that can happen is when he goes to point guard, because while he's a good passer, he's not going to create for other people, and when he puts the ball on floor, it's for Ben Gordon.
[...]
They may feel the need to trade Gordon for a frontcourt scorer, but I don't think Hinrich is as good without him. Defensively their pairing works because they can put Gordon on the ball and Hinrich can guard the bigger shooter. Gordon is not a terrible defender, but he doesn't want to get in foul trouble .

On Luol Deng:

He's a hard guy to guard. It used to be he would only drive right, and that he was a spot-up shooter. But he's improved a different portion of his game every year. If he's succeeded in doing that again this summer, then he'll be as good as a lot of the top guys in the league.
[...]
For Deng to become a dominating scorer, the ball will have to get out of Gordon's and Hinrich's hands, and they'll have to space the floor as spot-up shooters; I doubt whether Gordon's mind-set is to be content as a swing guy or spot-up guy.

Despite the fact that none of the stuff is truly groundbreaking, I love reading scouts' analysis of opposing teams -- I'm making my way through all 30 teams...

Prashant

In case you folks haven't noticed it, ESPN is offering Insider free for October 27-29.

Hollinger's much trumpeted Bulls preview is here. There's also a set of Chris Sheridan Bulls observations available.

They've almost convinced me to pay for it. Almost. This will probably take me through my weekend.

...means a higher draft pick for us.

I don't want to get hung up on the hope that the Knicks do badly this year, but thought I'd post this:

Thomas signed the former Washington swingman over the summer to strengthen a team that allowed 102 points per game last season, 27th in the NBA. Jeffries was expected to be the starting small forward.

Also, for the point of random conversation, there's the poll below.

Poll

How many games will the Knicks win in 2006-07?

44%

31-40

30 votes

1%

41-50

1 votes

0%

51-60

0 votes

14%

0-20

10 votes

0%

61-70

0 votes

38%

21-30

26 votes

1%

71-82

1 votes

68 votes | Poll has closed

Ok, I know I've posted about this, but basically the Fantasy League I set up is having LOTS of trouble filling open slots so again -- ANYONE who wants to join, please feel free to do so.

League Name: BullsLeague
Password: bsellers

Looking back, I made the league way too big, but I guess it shrinks to fit however many of us are in the league by the time of the draft (about this time next week).

So, to sum up -- PLEASE JOIN.

Boston looks set on getting really, really young, and Pierce might want out if they have a bad start to the season. He's a great scorer, good rebounder, can defend when necessary, and in a good environment, would likely have an extremely strong work ethic (I'm not entirely sure of it now).

Plus, he's $6 million cheaper than Garnett, is under contract for one more season, is a year younger and has played 300 less games, been just as far in the playoffs, and packs offensive punch that Garnett just doesn't.

I also think Boston'd want less for him than Minnesota would want for Garnett, seeing as they seem to be building around youth -- perhaps Gordon, Brown, Sweetney and a 2008 first rounder? Or is that wishful thinking?

Just thought I'd throw that out there, because all the talk seems to be centring around Garnett, who I don't think is the guy for us.

Dave D'Alessandro of The Sporting News speaks to four GMs who anonymously give their views on how four teams (including the Bulls) have done this off-season.

Pretty brief, and largely unremarkable, but worth a read at this time of year, including a comment from one GM who says: "Bar none, the best defensive team in the league. How can you not like it?"

Largely stuff we already knew, I guess, but thought someone might be moderately interested.

Prashant

Hey folks,

I, too, missed out on the fantasy league, so I set up a Fantasy Keeper League, which could be kind of fun if we kept it going.

Anyway, it's on NBA.com's fantasy system, so go here:
http://ufc.nba.com/signup/nba/nba_commish_choose_prod.asp

League Name: BullsLeague
Password: bsellers

Hopefully enough people sign up to make it a really good season. I assume all the rules are listed on the fantasy league's website, so I won't waste space going into them here.

Prashant