Reasons Bulls should 100% shut it down for rest of year...

We can still make the playoffs. Playoffs = money for JR and entertainment for fans. Argument over.

I’m not convniced that you haven’t stumbled on management’s master plan.

There are 13-15 games left in the season for the relevant teams. (Toronto = 15, Chicago = 14, Clippers = 13). Bulls are 2.5 games out of 8th in the East and 5.5 out of 10th place in the draft. It just makes sense to try and tank right now.

we are too far ahead of the next lowest team to realistically get a worse record than them. Being 5 wins behind with only 13 games left to play is huge. That would mean us losing every single remaining game (which would be a 24 game losing streak!), losing twice to the Nets who are on pace to have the worst record in NBA history, and for the Clippers to go 5-8 at least. It’s not going to happen and there is nothing we can do about it. Short of getting lucky again and landing one of the top picks, that pick is going to Milwaukee. The best case scenario for us is getting Rose and Noah healthy enough to steal the 8th seed from Toronto, not going the other way and tanking.

So how can we explain that we are better situation than the Knicks? Injuries is a bad excuse.

1. We make the playoffs for some of that playoff money. Also, it will give us some more exposure to our stars like Rose and hopefully Noah. It also puts in a winning desire for our young guys.

2. We don’t make the playoffs, we need to shut down our stars, Noah, Rose, Deng (already out for season, 2-3 weeks) and sit Taj, dont make him worse than it is.

Now with that said, as a fan, I want to see playoffs. If we can scratch and get in, great. It will come down to the last few games as we are getting wins rarely (tonight) and Toronto falling hard. So I say, push for the playoffs, but sit Noah, or keep him 10 min. or less like they did tonight. Don’t extend his minutes. If Taj and Rose are suffering, sit them. This year is a wash, playoffs or not. For those who watched the game tonight, Rose was visable favoring his left wrist. At times he lost the ball when he went to his left, but quickly regained control. He shot well, but in the effort, I was a little worried of re-injury.

The Bulls looked really good tonight. Rose started and tore up Philly. Noah was on the court and looking like his foot was holding up. The defense seemed to get motivated with Noah available again.

Plus – Playoff experience is important – Rose, JJ, Taj, etc can use the games as a warm up for next years Championship run!

I can’t even believe some people are even entertaining this suggestion.

1. If the Bulls do not make the playoffs it will truly be understandable with all the injuries. Free Agents are not going to look at this team as a non-playoff team, because they will know it was likely due to injuries they didn’t make playoffs.

But you’re advocating holding out guys even after they might be healthy again, which would be tanking. Free agents will not understand our problems to be due to injuries, but due to not letting healthy players play. They’ll look at us as a bunch of douches. If we don’t tank, we can still point to the fact that our guys missed significant time, so we actually can use the injury excuse. If we do tank, it undercuts that excuse, and maybe teams just think we don’t have any pride and sitting out our best players and getting our asses handed to us

2. The Clippers are only 5 wins behind the Bulls for the 10th worst record. With the bulls have a top 10 protected pick with the trade with Bucks they could get a solid draft choice.

The Clippers will be trying to lose too. Making up 5 games in 14 is very unlikely.

3. Toronto and/or Miami may get swept in the first round anyways so Bosh/Wade really wont care if the bulls make the playoffs or not.

!

4. With Deng and Noah both possibly out for season the bulls would have ZERO chance in playoffs anyways.

But they’re not for sure.

5. James Johnson, Acie Law are getting some solid run and managment is able to evaluate if they are rotation players for next season.

Well ok, there’s a good reason to avoid several million bucks worth of playoff revenue and prestige.

6. Finally, and most importantly, as a Bulls fan I’d rather see them not make the playoffs because of injuries/resting players vs just sucking!!!

Injuries and resting players are two different things. So this is basically just reason 1. Which is silly, because it reduces to somehow saying it’s better to lose because you just sit on your ass and not try than to strive and compete but come up short.

NEVER pack it in or it will bite you in the ass. I.E. The Portland Trailblazers.