In a previous fan post, T.O.E. implied that the Bulls management is incompetent based on the number of our draft picks since '99 that are currently on our roster. In a vacuum, only having 4 players out of 15 picks ('99-'08) sounds like a low number. However if you look at the league as a whole, we compare favorably on the number of our own first rounf draft picks retained.

Continue reading this post »

These new ads that are appearing on every page - the streaming ones from Tinker (at least, that's who they seems to be) - are absolutely killing page load performance on the SB Nation web sites.

A page will load, but I will not be able to scroll up or down, or click through any links, etc unti after the Tinker streaming ad has received its streaming data from the its data source.

Can we get this fixed some how? I am willing to deal with ads on the sites, but not when they lock up my browser window.

Two Free Tickets!!!

Thought I would throw this out there for everyone - if anyone here is on Twitter, the team's has an account there - it is @NHLBlackhawks. They are giving away two tickets for Game 5 to a Twitter follower who comes up with the funniest prediction for Game 5 that will not come true on Saturday.  Check out their Twitter feed for more info.

And if anyone cares (not expected) - @Torch02 is my username at Twitter

[Note by your friendly BullsBlogger, 03/24/09 2:00 PM CDT : Thanks to torch for today's game preview -ed.]

After last night's near loss to the Least of the East, it is hard to rustle up any optomism for our game tonight against the Pistons. However we can take solace in tow things: 1) A win is a win, and 2) the Pistons might be more beat up than Boston was a week ago.

Tonight begins Operation Toyota, our quest to pass Detroit and acquire the 7th seed in the playoffs.  Hollinger currently has us in the 8th seed in the East, with the same record as Detroit (40-42).  We currently sit two games behind them in the standings, having played two more games than they have.  More importantly, we play them tonight and again in three weeks. The only tough game we have remaining on our schedule is against Miami this Thursday at home and we only have two road games left. Detroit has a home game against the Lakers on Thursday, while also traveling to both Cleveland and Miami later this season and they have seven games away from Auburn Hills remaining.  If we take care of business tonight and on April 13th, we will be percentage points ahead of Detroit in the standings while holding the head-to-head tie breaker.  From there, we only need to win one more game than they do over our remaining schedule.  As far fetched as it may seem, this is reasonably within our reach

On to tonight's game: According to the Detroit Free Press, Rasheed Wallace and Allen Iverson are out for tonight, with Rip Hamilton being very doubtful. Besides the depth issues this poses Detroit, it also benefits us on the defensive end, as our guards won't have to chase Rip around and our bigs can stay closer to the paint, not having to guard Sheed at the time line. This makes tonight's extremely winnable, especially at home. Accuscore has us as a 3:1 favorite tonight.  Let's prove the computers right!

Blogging with the Enemy:

Piston Powered
Pistons Nation Blog

Game time: 7:00 PM CDT
Coverage: TNT, ESPN Radio 1000

[Thanks to torch for today's game preview. I was briefly invigorated after the trade deadline, but now I look to games with a bit of dread thinking of what VDN is going to do. He's benching Derrick Rose! -ed.]

With the tragedies of yesterday, it will be hard as a fan to focus on a simple game that's getting played tonight in our nation's capitol. But I think we can say with some certainty that both Johnny and Norm would want nothing more than the boys to play basketball tonight.

To the game - it's hard to predict how this game will turn out. We should beat a team like Washington, but expectations have been turned on their heads with wins against Denver and Orlando followed by losses to Indiana and New Jersey over the past week. The Wizards are currently fighting Oklahoma City for the second most ping pong balls in the lottery this summer.

Position by position we match up well - Rose/Deng/Noah easily out-class James/McGuire/Songaila.  I'll give them PF with Jamison (their only consistent weapon) over Thomas.  I'll leave it up to the reader to debate Bulter versus Gordon.  When it comes to bench depth, we easily win the battle.  The Washington bench has combined for only 60 points over their last three games.  A lot of that has to do with injury (Arenas and Haywood out, Butler and Songaila missing time), but it is that injured team we are playing tonight.

We always seem to have rough battles with Washington, so this one will likely come down to who wants it more.  Let's hope that the post-game discussion is talking about how we bounced back from those disappointing losses this week, rather than debating whether Vinny has gone crazy with his new toys.  Accuscore has us as a 2:1 favorite. We may even get some support from the President on this one.

Blogging with the Enemy:
Bullets Forever
Washington Wizards Blog
Wizards Talk

Game time: 6:05 PM Central
Coverage: Comcast SportsNet, ESPN Radio 1000

Hopefully tonight will be the third time in a row that I've watched the Bulls win in the Verizon Center.
I'll be the guy in the 1984 red Jordan jersey just a few rows behind the Bulls bench. Enjoy the game!