Chicago Bulls 2021-22 Media Day Primer

Media Day is upon us!

This means real Chicago Bulls basketball games that mean something are just around the corner. And this year is going to be interesting, with an almost entirely reconfigured roster that, dare we say, could actually be good?

The best part of Chicago Bulls Media Days these days is we don’t have to listen to GarPax spout garbage for 20 minutes. It was a waste of time, nothing substantive came out of any of the interviews, and the two former Bulls executives absolutely refused to hold themselves accountable for even their most blatantly poor decisions, which was infuriating.

So no matter what happens at this Bulls Media Day, it can’t be worse than the ones we’ve seen in the past. Like the one where the Bulls forgot to give some of their guys names and numbers on their jerseys and when Cameron Payne rolled in on a scooter.

We do have a last-minute training camp addition to report:

Here’s the full roster:

And here’s how you can watch:

Training camp begins on Tuesday and then the Bulls will play four preseason games before opening night Oct. 20 versus the Pistons.

Optimism?

When was the last time you were this excited about Chicago Bulls basketball?

The earliest you can say without being blatantly facetious is the 2014-2015 season when Pau Gasol and European star Nikola Mirotic joined a healthy Derrick Rose, rising Jimmy Butler, and fan-favorite Joakim Noah for what would be Thibodeau’s final run with the Bulls. Chicago entered the season with championship expectations, which fizzled out at the hands of a familiar foe in the second round of the playoffs.

Since then, every season we’ve either dreaded actually having to try to make it through the season or conjured up some fake optimism because you can’t spend your whole life letting negative emotions about the Bulls control you.

So, if nothing else, it’s nice to enter a Bulls Media Day again with justified optimism about where this team is going and how good they can be this season.

Of course, it isn’t all sunshine and rainbows in Chicago. Patrick Williams has gone down with an injury and Coby White is dealing with a long rehab after surgery to repair a torn labrum in his left shoulder this summer.

The NBA investigation into possible tampering charges against the Bulls in their acquisition of Lonzo Ball continues as well. This is another thing to keep an ear open to see if we get any sort of update.

How about that offseason?

When was the last time the Bulls did this much in an offseason to try to improve the team?

The complacency of the GarPax era has been replaced with the assertiveness of AKME over the last year. The roster is almost completely revamped with players we can actually get excited about.

The Bulls needed a point guard? AKME went out and got Lonzo Ball. They added one of the summer’s top free agents in DeMar DeRozan. It was also in this calendar year when the Bulls got Nikola Vucevic via trade.

There are questions about how some of the pieces fit together, and it’ll be interesting to see how AKME and Billy Donovan address this on Monday. But the Bulls are at least trying to get better now, and they aren’t doing it halfheartedly like in past seasons.

Bulls basketball is back, and this season fans have legitimate reasons to be excited.