Chicago Bulls 1984-1985 Preseason Press Conference

[logpmess]

Good day, everyone!

Welcome to our facility as we recap the past, talk about the present, and look forward to the future.

Let's look at the past. Last season was a great success. We started making moves and never stopped. We liked the build of our team, but were always looking to get stronger, so we brought in Tree Rollins. Like a redwood, he was a solid force in the post. His leadership on such a young team was present from day one. We entered the playoffs as the three seed. We won our first round game, but then got decimated with injuries in our second round. Our floor general Mo Cheeks went down and then our scoring leader Alex English went down. We felt good about our depth, but in the second round of the playoffs, you need your best players on the court. Our team battled to a game 7, but everything caught up to us. We are very proud of our team, and hope to build on this success.

The present is looking good. We made some moves to try to maintain our strength, but also get a little younger. First, we traded Mark Eaton for Purvis Short. As an older rookie player, Eaton was a great person to have on the team. However, we don't see him as someone that will be valuable on the second contract. We cut ties a little earlier than we wanted to, but we got a great player back in Purvis. He will fill right into the shooting guard role. We did lose Marques Johnson in FA. The Bullets were talking to us about a possible S&T with them regarding Johnson, but they outbid us by $40,000. I can't blame Marques. He was a 6th man on our team, and I think he wanted more time on the court. We wish him luck and know he will continue the success that he had with the Bulls. At that point, we wanted to return most of our players in FA. Supermax for Mo Cheeks was easy as I think he is the best true point guard in the league. George Gervin on a team friendly deal was a great asset. Alex English deserved the max that we got. Now onto the big surprise this offseason: the trade with Kansas City. We were a little worried after last season about having too many stars and not enough role players. It was hard to find enough shots for English, Gervin and Johnson. We were approached about acquiring Calvin Natt for English and Gervin. That would mean we would flip our top three scorers from last season. The ultimate appeal was the age of Natt.We are building a team of players in their prime, and will be able to compete for the seasons ahead.

Now onto the future. We are very impressed with the development in the training room for our guys. Thompson developed nicely and is really working on increasing his foot speed to be able to stay in front of elite scorers like Kevin McHale. Our two new scoring stars decided to challenge each other and are putting in extra work on defense. We see our starting five being:
C- Tree Rollins
PF- LaSalle Thompson
SF- Calvin Natt
SG- Purvis Short
PG- Maurice Cheeks
We think this line up can compete and we can challenge for the division as well as the conference.

With that we will open it up to questions.

[JNR]

GWR: Craig Hodges has the potential to be one of the best bench players in the league. What’s your strategy in utilizing him to his full effectiveness?

[WigNosy]

Steve Duin, the Oregonian…

Calvin Natt is the clear offensive powerhouse on this team. Where do you see the scoring punch coming from amongst the supporting cast?

[AngryBanana]

Chet Youbetcha, Dimmadome News: I am glad you felt the supermax for Cheeks was an easy choice (I was more apprehensive of it), do you worry about his lack of size at all when it comes to playoff time?


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[Mike Lowry]

You made excellent moves last season and kept building all the way to the deadline.
What kind of moves do you think are necessary to complete this build?
And how do you feel this year's squad compares to last season?

[logpmess]

GWR: Craig Hodges has the potential to be one of the best bench players in the league. What’s your strategy in utilizing him to his full effectiveness?

Craig has fallen in the unfortunate situation where he is on a team for the second year in a row with elite players. He is still very young. Even though his development has come along nicely, we still see him as just below the starter level. he will be a sure fire fill in for any injuries. He will also be playing a good amount of minutes in relief for the starters. Not doing anything in particular with him, but he is an integral part of our team.

[logpmess]

Steve Duin, the Oregonian…

Calvin Natt is the clear offensive powerhouse on this team. Where do you see the scoring punch coming from amongst the supporting cast?

Purvis is our other big scoring leader. We look at Natt and Short as 1A and 1B this year. Similar to how English and Gervin were last year. Either one can be leading scorer on any given night. We do like Cheeks and Hodges to put the ball in the basket. It's not as essential for them to score, but they can add double digit points each night to make us a top level team.

[logpmess]

Chet Youbetcha, Dimmadome News: I am glad you felt the supermax for Cheeks was an easy choice (I was more apprehensive of it), do you worry about his lack of size at all when it comes to playoff time?


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We had him last year and his size was never an issue for us. We took care of business in the first round. His problem was durability. We have a little more depth at PG this season, but while he was out, Kenny Higgs kept our team in the series. He is a similar size to Cheeks.

We like the leadership that Cheeks brings to the floor and he will definitely thrive when given the opportunity.

[logpmess]

You made excellent moves last season and kept building all the way to the deadline.
What kind of moves do you think are necessary to complete this build?
And how do you feel this year's squad compares to last season?

Last season we acquired an assortment of talent. We didn't look as much at the fit next to each other. We still think that we need to develop a better PF that can keep up with the elite talent there in terms of quickness, but we keep giving LaSalle the extra workouts to develop that lateral movement. We did lose some depth, but our depth did develop in TC.

In terms of moves, we definitely are in the market for a backup C and a backup SF. If we find those two talents, we are two deep at every position.

[Eazy P]

Do you feel have enough to pieces to make a deep playoff run?

[logpmess]

Do you feel have enough to pieces to make a deep playoff run?

I do. We have a little more natural fit for our starters, which will make them more eager to play at that given position. We do need a little more depth, but if it does not come, we have a team that can compete with any one else's in our conference.