Well, the latest I’ve been reading is that the really obvious high floor guys might be off the board. That is, Hansbrough and Henderson. Lawson is still my personal favorite, but I think there’s no way in hell the Bulls take him even if he’s there.

Blair might be there, but he’s festooning himself in bright red flags. Even leaving aside the weight loss, I’ve repeatedly heard from semi-creditable people in the past that the Bulls are skeptical about bringing in guys that have serious knee injury histories. I remember from way back in the day hearing that’s been a consideration when thinking about guys like Caron Butler and Brandon Roy, and possibly Spencer Hawes. I don’t have anything really hard and fast to back that up with, but it’s my impression.

So who’s left on the board when the Bulls pick?
If I’m right and those “finished product” guys are off the board, and we’re left with Blair (with flags), Lawson (wrong position), and a couple of guys like Terrance Williams and Earl Clark in competition with Mullins, I gotta think Mullins looks pretty attractive.

Clark doesn’t look like a wonderful prospect to me, and Williams looks like a pretty iffy fit for our team given his skillset. He doesn’t seem like the sort of guy who’s gonna work out great with Rose. I wouldn’t be unhappy with picking Williams, but I’m not super enthusiastic about him either.

So I guess my ranking of guys who seem likely to be available would be
Lawson
Mullins
Williams
Blair

but there’s very little space between Mullins and Williams. I wouldn’t hate picking Blair either, but I wouldn’t like it much.

UP, DOWN, UP, DOWN, LEFT, RIGHT, LEFT, RIGHT, A, B, A, B, Select, Start

The most effective he ever was with us was when Skiles figure out he could run that alley-oop play. The second best thing he did was pretty close to it, get the ball and immediately go up with it.

Any time Eddy brought the ball down or took a dribble, it was an adventure. The big comparison to Mullins, and why I think Mullins might not need a huge amount of work to be effective (if limited) is he seems capable of doing those things that Curry did well. Get him close to the basket, have Rose deliver the ball with the pinpoint precision he can deliver it with, and Mullins can dunk it.

I think Mullins can get that kind of position and I think Rose can make that kind of pass. And that’s all that’s necessary for Mullins to be a good option. That doesn’t mean he’s overall a good player, just that he can be effective as a weapon that way.

Back to Curry, I think Curry had more moves, but going back to Cartwright’s time, the Bulls always worked hard to have Curry involved and running things through him, which forced Eddy to be in a position to draw and pass out of double teams. He always sucked at that, and still does. So does Mullins.

That style of play is what people want from a great center, right? You want to run an offense through him, so he can create for other players by virtue of commanding a double team. That’s what everyone tried to do with Eddy. Problem is, Eddy was never able to do much besides score if he got the ball in the proper position. In fact, trying to generate doubles on Eddy and getting him to pass out of them was counterproductive.

If you lower your expectations and don’t try to run your offense through him though, he can still be an effective player. Instead of a midpoint in the offense, consider him an endpoint. Eddy generated doubles without even having the ball because it was obvious that if he got it close to the basket he was unstoppable.

That is, he made offense easier for other players without actually generating assists himself. I don’t think this was well recognized. People kept trying to feed him, then harped on his inability to get an assist.

Obviously he wasn’t a good passer, but the overuse of that approach was the problem. Instead of using Eddy as a guy who should catch the ball and make a decision, he should pretty much have only gotten the ball when he was in position to score.

By virtue of being a good finisher, he was often in position to score, and teams had to game plan just to keep the ball out of his hands, resulting in doubles and good shots for other guys.

Mullins is a similarly good finisher with good hands but crummy understanding and ability to pass the ball. But if you play to his strengths and not to that weakness, I think he could still be effective in the way I’ve (meanderingly) outlined.

Am I going to have to point out every single over-hyped, never-amounted-to-squat, athletic-but-uninterested-or-too-dumb-to-get-better 7-footer in the history of college basketball to refute your five case-in-points?

(I won’t, so please don’t say I have to.)