Since Gordon’s too short to even deserve the QO, the Bulls should bring him back to keep TT and the rest of the youngsters in line. Heck, I think Adrian’s 6’5", he’s big enough to be the SG next year.

Everyone knows Thabo isn’t mysterious. He’s just the reincarnation of Scottie Pippen circa 1994, only the short, selfish, megalomaniac Ben Gordon stands in his way.

I don’t mean better in terms of playoff seed, and to a lesser extend win totals, I’m talking more in terms of the team just being better. They won 33 games last year and were awful on both ends.

And while the Simmons school of championship building sees no difference in being .500 and fighting for an 8th seed and being a sure-fire lottery team, I do.

We’re not going to be great, but our competition will be less than stellar. At the very least, we’re about a thousand times more interesting wot watch this season.

I agree that we can’t put too much faith in D Rose (nickname, ideas, anyone? How bout “Flower Power” or “The Thorn” as in, “you want the rose, but you get the thorn, sucka!”) at the start of this season. He’ll need time to adjust and I don’t see him playing more than 20 mins/night.
At the same time, I don’t think “we’ll suck for a while!” I’m a man of science, and simply looking at the numbers (assuming past performance predicts future results), I think the Bulls will vastly improve if they return to their non-suckiness. Deng, Hinrich and Gordon would all improve their scoring numbers if they simply return to the mean. Noah should be better this season. Gooden can actually play. Thomas is an X factor, but he played well in limited minutes last season and, if nothing else, we should get that.
I know the Bulls may not make the playoffs, but we won’t suck, even if The Thorn isn’t sticking it (get it?) to people every night.

Saying they will suck every other day does give you lots of “I told you so moments” every time there’s a failure.

Let’s take Durant as some kind of random example. He was pretty horrid for the 1st half, finding his way in the league and asserting himself as a leading scorer. After the ASG, he was on fire, and captured the ROY award. I see Rose having a similar initial struggle with trying to be a leader, distributor, and scorer. However, he is committed, and the Bulls are obviously putting a lot of weight into his abilities. I suspect he’ll play like an All-Star once January/February rolls around, and challenge Oden for the ROY.

Gasp Optimism on BaB!!!!!

for the position, it was 14.7 PER.

And actually, I think that’s high, considering somehow they have Hinrich with a 15.1 PER at the point even though overall he was 13.1

Basically, both Hinrich and Duhon (11.1) were below average. It’s a pretty low bar for Rose.

will be an immediate upgrade over

last years Hinrich and Duhon.

With only one starting position set…Deng…every other position there will be a significant debate…

Players departing: Childress(arguably the best 6th man in the NBA, cleans up for low percentage jump shooters)

Players arriving: Maurice Evans, Flip Murray, Randolph Morris, Thomas Gardner, Othello Hunter

do better in chicago because of the rest of the league paying more attention to our outside shooters.

how the team preferred Duhon to Hinrich last year because of his point guard skills?

well even if Rose doesn’t become a massive star this year, he should bring an immediate upgrade for the rest of the team as a true point guard.

Also, Rose is much more nba ready and skilled then say Tyrus. (Think rookie impact of Gordon and Deng)

That means that Rose Deng and Gordon makes us a three headed scoring monster (as opposed to the occasional Hinrich, who now comes in as a very good bench upgrade)

This doesn’t even speculate on what the younger, less offensive talented players will have developed for this year. (Noah, Tyrus, Thabo)

or even what a full training camp involving gooden will bring…

last year were equally misleading. I don’ t think we will be as bad as they say. After all, last year we were not as good as they thought we’d be. They seem to be wrong a lot. We have a lot to prove now, Deng’s signed contract, new motivation, hopefully some trades yet to come, a top draft pick, new coach…I’d say there is a lot of potential there. If we fail, well, that is what they are predicting. I think we will do better than that, but likely won’t pick up steam until after all the nightmare road trips in the first half of the season.

I lean away from the “pick’em” category though.

Tyrus potentially a 2nd pick hasnt made an impact. Durant, 19 year old didn’t do much to will his team to playoffs. Things happen. Oden hasn’t made a impact towards winning a game yet in the NBA.
Now your second point (coach situation) has merit!

Congrats to them; hope everyone is doing well.

What a bust!

Morty-murr

any games.

for your comments…dotdotdotdotdot