Chicago Bulls S40 Preview

[garbageman]

by Sham Smith

With a second consecutive 60 win season in the books, the Chicago Bulls second round exit to the Atlanta Hawks was--to many--a disappointing end to a season with very high potential. With the Bulls wanting to step back from paying the tax, they lost Andrew Wiggins to a higher bidder, and getting under that tax apron was supposed to translate to lower postseason expectations. However, an improving core of Leroy Haugh, Patrick Edmunds, and Wanderlei Silva kept them just as strong.

The reason for stepping back from the tax, though, had to do a lot with the contract status of that very core. Haugh and Silva were expiring, and Patrick Edmunds had a player option many speculated he might turn down because his play would almost guarantee him a much larger contract (and he got it). This would put the Bulls in a position to load up on contracts before heading into Unrestricted Free Agency, giving them the depth and experience that could have been very helpful in the playoffs.

The Bulls front office was able to turn two late 1st round draft picks, cash considerations, and athletic rookie contract player Brian Spano into Logan Alpert, Karl-Anthony Towns, Nassir Little, and Harland Ellinger (bolstering both their passing game and their rebounding ability). Then, while lighting their cigars with burning hundred dollar bills, no doubt, they signed Haugh to a max contract and Silva and Edmunds to 5 year supermax contracts. The Bulls also brought back Van Grimaldi and promising young PG Epifanio Merino on team friendly one-and-one contracts, and while they lost out on signing Alton Hill, they were able to grab Daniel Bowens and Victor Eldred on much friendlier veteran minimum contracts to field an incredibly deep team.

Furthermore, the Bulls managed to put together a roster without sacrificing any future draft picks, including that 2030 Pistons 1st, so there's still the possibility of improving an already strong roster. After a pretty standard training camp, the Bulls looked strong in the preseason (sure, it's just the preseason), but expectations are very high. This is a $200 million dollar team, and while the Bulls are in the toughest division in the league, sights are set on adding some more banners to the United Center rafters at any cost. The only challenge heading forward is finding out how to split 240 minutes between so many versatile players who can't all get the time on the floor they want.

Representatives from our front office and coaching staff have made themselves available to respond to any comments to this article for the next 24 hours, so ask us anything!

[greepleairport]

Congratulations on putting together a deep squad this year. How do you, in fact, plan to manage the time of so many good players and keep them all happy??


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[garbageman]

Congratulations on putting together a deep squad this year. How do you, in fact, plan to manage the time of so many good players and keep them all happy??


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Hopefully, everyone's hungry enough to put the goal of winning a championship in front of personal glory. I plan on trying a variety of lineups this season, and we'll play people where they're most effective. That may mean lineups where we don't stack our 5 best players out there at the same time. I think we have guys who are hungry to win--nobody on the roster has won a ring yet, but most of them have come pretty close. If someone is unhappy playing a role that's best for the team, they're not the right player for any position on this Bulls team.

[false9]

What do you think led to the Hawks eliminating you in the playoffs? Were your offseason moves guided at all by that?

[garbageman]

What do you think led to the Hawks eliminating you in the playoffs? Were your offseason moves guided at all by that?

Well, there were a lot of factors. We were fouling way more than we were getting to the line. In 2 of the losses, Wanderlei got in foul trouble early, and Markus Nunez played more minutes than him. They were playing Mo Bamba in big minutes off the bench, and he was killing our 2nd unit. Denver was able to throttle the Hawks by playing extremely aggressive defense. They were able to mitigate the fouls by having a 4 or 5 man frontcourt rotation to mitigate foul trouble. While we'd like to stay out of foul trouble to get Silva more time on the floor, our frontcourt is very deep and versatile this year with Silva, Towns, Eldred, Alpert, and Bowens.

[Xist2Inspire]

What role will Harland Ellinger play this season? Jeffrey Duren's dominant postseason shows that leaning on an experienced veteran can still pay off.

[garbageman]

What role will Harland Ellinger play this season? Jeffrey Duren's dominant postseason shows that leaning on an experienced veteran can still pay off.

We can put him at either guard spot as a starter or both off the bench. As of opening day, he'll be in the starting lineup. We'll definitely have a team that's capable of high motion with Ellinger, Towns, Little, and Alpert on the team