I don’t mean to ‘diss these Bulls

Dude, I’m tellin’ ya……….

It really just dawned on me last night that so far this season, I really hadn’t talked about the Chicago Bulls at all.

I did make a prediction about them in my Dirty Dozen prophecies. I said they will be 43-39 at the very best this year. They are actually more of a .500 team or a 42-40 team. So I figured 43-39 at best. They will make the playoffs, but by no means will there be a long postseason run. Or the thrills and excitement of last year’s playoff surprise. I see them making the playoffs and losing in the first round, or getting run out of the second round in quick fashion.

That’s not to say that I don’t like the Bulls. Not at all. I’m a big Bulls fan. Was a fan before Michael Jordan ever set foot in Chicago. I just keep my expectations of sports teams realistic. I have to keep an unbiased outlook on team and player potential if I am going to make any money playing in my fantasy leagues. All fantasy players who stock up with individual players from their favorite team usually don’t fare too well. Unless their favorite team is the friggin’ New York Yankees. You have to have a discipline in truly assessing a player or a team on their skill and merit.

And in maintaining such a discipline, you can’t have unrealistic, grandiose expectations about your local teams (or your favorite out-of-town teams) overall talent. If you have this discipline, you are not like a die-hard Cubs fan who firmly and sincerely believes every season that the team has “a great shot at the World Series“.  They don’t. No team does. {Except maybe those damn Yankees}.

I don’t want to start a whole WhiteSox fans / Cubs fans type of argument here. I’m just saying that Cubs fans have a wonderfully optimistic view of the team as each season nears…..but serious, realistic, stat-crunching, successful fantasy-playing fans know that those Cub expectations are usually bunk. Same as they are for Sox fans who think the same about their squad. It is bunk just based on looking at the lineup from 1-8, or on the starting rotation, or the bullpen, etc. Not from any dislike of the Cubs. Or the Sox.

And that’s how I view the Bulls this year. Very realistically from a personnel standpoint.

I’m a huge Derrick Rose fan. I’ve always been a pretty good fan of high school basketball. And I watched him play on TV while winning the back-to-back state titles with Simeon. After the first title Derrick’s junior year, I told my father to watch for this kid’s name for years to come. That he would be a college and NBA star like one of my favorite little players ever, Rod Strickland (of DePaul). See, my dad retired out to Vegas some years ago and he misses Chicago sports very badly. He used to watch the high school state tournament for years. So I have tried to keep him up-to-speed since he moved.

So when Simeon won the state title Derrick’s junior year, I told my dad all about their star player. I said keep your ears open for this kid’s name. When Simeon won the state title in Rose’s senior season in what was an easy tournament for them, Rose was now a well-known commodity. He went to college at Memphis for one, single season and led them to the championship game. I’ve been following him since he was about 16 or 17 thanks to the fact he was a local boy. So I’ve always been a big fan of his.

With Rose leading the way, these Bulls would be the best young team with the brightest future in Chicago—-if not for those awesome Blackhawks. But we are one of the youngest teams in the league. Joakim Noah, Tyrus Thomas, Rose, Luol Deng……all pretty young. I was hoping we would pick up a really good player to take the departed Ben Gordon’s place on the roster. I mean, if Gordon was making 6.4 million last year or even just 5 million (I have no idea what he made)……I always expect a team to pick up a player in the same salary range to replace the departed one. That didn’t happen with these Bulls.

However, in this past off-season, I’m completely willing to let that slide. Next year is perhaps the best class of NBA free agents in the history of the league. So if the Bulls not picking up a solid player this year means we can land a Dwayne Wade next year, I’ll take it !!

But that did mean we were heading into this season with the same roster as last year—-minus Ben Gordon. Instead of a new talent, we have a more seasoned Rose in his second year + a healthy Luol Deng, who was mostly a non-contributor last year.

Which all adds up to a 42-40 season. Or a 43-39 at the very best. It is a nice group of players with the ones I’ve already mentioned plus John Salmons and Kirk Hinrich. They hustle. They play defense. They’re fun to watch on most nights. So far, they are 6-4 this year as they play the LA Lakers tonite. But there are many teams better than them. Talent-wise.

Now next year…..if we were to take our extra salary-cap money (from not giving a mint to Ben Gordon) and add Dwayne Wade to the backcourt with Rose entering his 3rd season in the NBA…….then we might really be looking at something special.

But this year, just enjoy the team’s good nights and be happy with a .500 record.

After all, it’s better than the Bears are going to give ya.