So it turns out this is kind of hard. Not that I ever thought it was easy for Matt to find stuff to post during the offseason, but it is harder than I expected. The local beat writers aren't putting much, if anything, out. Draft coverage hasn't hit high gear yet. One of the main stories of the playoffs so far has been the refs, but that feels pretty stale at this point after suffering through our own reffing controversies during the first round.
Well, how about Google? Surely at least one of the players is doing something interesting someplace, right? Only not so much. Kirk and Brad keep showing up in articles about the latest foul controversy, as if Rondo's physical assaults are something we want to keep reliving. Derrick's been dropping pucks, but that's been covered in the FanShots already (although that's a nice article about him at bulls.com). Some other dude (side note: when I proofread this I found that I'd written "some other dud." I swear it wasn't intentional) named Aaron Gray recently lost his mother to lung cancer - which is really sad, but not Bulls related. Anthony Roberson and Lindsey Hunter show up about as often on Google as they did in the Bulls' boxscores. Vinny did a job this year.
But surely Ben will save us, right? He always steps up in crunch time, so how could there not be a great story just waiting to be Googled and posted here for our discussion? Can I make something out of him liking lobster flatbread and truffles? Maybe send you over to our old friend Andrew's blog to read his lengthy recap of Ben's "Bulls MVP" season? Or there's some dud (intentional this time) out in San Francisco offering this:
The team that ponies up even $10 million a year for Gordon, a one-dimensional scorer, is likely to regret it.
Gee, there's something we haven't debated before. And does anyone else get a little indignant when non-Bulls fans want to offer their opinions on Ben and his contract situation?
So I've got nothing. And having nothing, I resort to my old friend, statistics. I thought this was kind of fun, seeing all these stats for everyone in this format, and if nothing else it's highly colorful. [Edited to add - as has been pointed out in the comments, the chart really is nothing but colorful; it includes full season stats from guys that were traded to Chicago midseason and leaves out stats for guys who were traded away. The game-by-game charts are cool, though. Oh, well - kind of fits the mood of the rest of the post now! :-)]