I have one shameless plug and one cautionary tale to begin today’s bullets.
First of all, I have a podcast. Episodes were a bit spotty over the past few weeks due to some unforeseen circumstances, but a new episode did hit the interweb yesterday! The show – called Points in the Podcast – is an opportunity for me to speak a little bit more about the NBA as a whole, as well as talk with some fun friends in the industry. It also doesn’t hurt that I get to re-channel all my days hosting a subpar radio show in college. #IlliniDriveForLyfe
If you like any of the content here and ever thought, ‘I wish I could listen to Elias Schuster speak these words into my ears,” then feel free to subscribe on Spotify and/or Apple. Dropping a review is also always appreciated. Now, if you have zero interest in this, that’s completely fine too! I’ll only slip into a stage of self-doubt and agonizing insecurity for about 3 hours.
As for the cautionary tale, Twitter is crumbling before our eyes. While I doubt that it actually disappears, changes to the site could cause me to change how these bullets look a little bit. So, if you start to see a more hyperlinks and a fewer embedded social media posts, you’ll know why.
Ok … let’s talk about the stinky Bulls!
The Bulls will sport their new City Edition uniforms for the first time tonight. They have already started to grow on me a bit, but the real test will be how they look under the United Center lights. Anyway, in case you missed the backstory about this new design, check out our previous post here.
New uniform, new Bulls? Let’s hope so. While Chicago has played two good teams over the past two games, there is still no excuse for the way they performed. They arguably couldn’t have looked more disorganized and apathetic, and it really raised a lot of questions about where this team is headed. You can read a lot more about my concerns here.
If the Chicago Bulls can’t get a win tonight, I might have no choice but to grab my axe, shatter the glass, and smash the panic button into oblivion. The Orlando Magic are 4-11 and have one of the most extensive injury reports in the league. Paolo Banchero, Cole Anthony, Markelle Fultz, Mo Wagner, and Jonathan Isaac all remain on the sideline. The team holds the 25th-ranked net rating and turns the ball over the 3rd-most in the NBA. They are dead last in fastbreak points per game and second-to-last in points off turnovers. Don’t get me wrong, I love how young and fun this roster is, but this is the kind of team that Chicago simply has to beat.
Using this as some kind of get-right game would be in the Bulls’ best interest. Rest days might begin to stack up, but the competition isn’t necessarily getting any easier over these final two weeks of the month. The Bucks, Celtics, Thunder, Jazz, Suns, Warriors, and Kings all rest ahead. The last six of those games will also all come on the road.
I’d particularly like to see a game where the Bulls’ offense goes nuclear. We saw how threatening the trio of LaVine, DeRozan, and Vucevic could be at times last season, and it’s pretty surprising that we have yet to see a truly big night from all three thus far. All it can take is one game to find a rhythm, so let’s hope this three-man combo can start to improve their ugly 102.8 offensive rating.
Where does Billy Donovan’s job security stand? If some Bulls fans had their way, he would be dangling from his feet over a pit of alligators, sharks, and electric eels. But the truth is that he’s likely still in lockstep with this front office, and NBC Sports Chicago’s K.C. Johnson said as much in his recent column:
“And as for disgruntled fans seeking a coaching change, Karnišovas has just as much respect for and confidence in Donovan as when they first formed their partnership,” Johnson wrote.
Meanwhile, The Athletic’s Zach Harper went on to talk about where each head coach stands within their respective organization. He threw Donovan into the “potential fall guy if things don’t go well” tier, but it didn’t seem to come from a place of thinking he’s on his way out any time soon.
Did they put together this roster thinking it was a championship contender some day, or did they put it together to just be good, in the mix and maybe try to pounce on acquiring a disgruntled star at some point? If it’s the former, then Donovan would absolutely be the fall guy when the Bulls are not even making it to the conference finals. If it’s the latter, then he’ll probably be fine there — barring players just tuning him out.
I think we can all agree it’s the latter right now.
Keep those legs fresh, Dalen!
lol this man can’t catch a break …
Bulls city edition >>> Blackhawks retro
NO. HE’S MINE.
NEWSLETTER
