The Fan

In case some of you still don’t know, I am a dedicated basketball fan. I follow the regular season in any way I can, on magazines, on TV, on the Internet. Now since it’s the preseason, I'm going back to work again. Watching summer camp games, monitoring the free agency, watching for activity around the league, trades, free agent signings, the NBA draft. I hope I'll see Kobe in an orange prison jumpsuit soon.

Revamped Bulls

I am a true blue Chicago Bulls fan; I don’t care if you say they are a legitimate losing team, screw that idea coz I still believe in them. I watch them year in and year out even after the post-Jordan era. I watched them on TV, I watched with excitement and hope when Elton Brand got drafted and won the ROTY award, I watched Jamal Crawford pour 50pts against Vinsanity and the Raptors, I watched Dalibor Bagaric make 10pts in a row during garbage time against the Lakers, in other words I watched them when they won and I watched them when they sucked and I'll still watch them even if the Bobcats will beat them by one point on Okafor’s game-saving block on Tyson Chandler (that’s as far as Charlotte will go to get a win).

Since the NBA draft, the Bulls made significant changes in their lineup. They added first round picks from the draft, Ben Gordon (move over Okafor and Howard), Luol Deng (Read: Grant Hill w/o the bum knee) and Deng’s college teammate Chris Duhon. But they also traded their scoring leader Jamal Crawford to the Knicks just when he was showing that he was capable or exploding (re: the 50pt game) and sputtering the next game (14pts on 5/17 shooting or 29.4% from the field). In return they get a bunch of players whining for playing time and whose contracts are about to expire next season, with that said the Bulls will be able to offer big contracts to big “soft” men Curry and Chandler, whose contracts expire next season.
The only significant player they got in the trade was four-time Defensive Player of the Year, seven-time All-Star Dikembe Mutombo. But he’s already 38, his knees are catching up, he’s been limited to 65 games last season and he’s not the intimidating man mountain that he used to be.

I heard from the rumor mill that he might get traded before the season begins, I think its possible that the Bulls will trade him along with Eddie Robinson and Paul Shirley (who?!) to the Kings for sharp-shooting Peja Stojakovic and one other veteran player preferably a backup center who could last longer than Eddy Curry on the floor when he’s already getting owned by Greg Ostertag.

But still there's more to rave about than Chris Jefferies possibly seeing more playing time, which is not about to happen soon. The emergence of Kirk Hinrich (pronounced as Hainrik) as one of the top rookies from last year brings together an exciting backcourt combination. Hinrich plays the point, has good court vision, has the pass-first mentality rarely seen in legitimate point guards, can knock down that three straight up top and is an underrated end to end defender, additionally he can also lay the two spot when coach Skiles needs to mix things up.

And get this LeBron and Melo fans; Hinrich is the only rookie from last year to ever record a triple double (11 points, 12 rebounds, 10 assists in 48mins against Golden State, while playing cat and mouse with Nick “The Not So Quick” Van Exel). Throw in Ben Gordon in the mix, the standout guard from UConn and top college forward Luol Deng and you have a buncha kids making a formidable backcourt. That’s scary; imagine being chased around by your little siblings around a big room, them pulling your pants and you trying to shake them off. Of course you might do a good job of avoiding them at first but at one point or another you’re bound to not see where you are running and then find yourself gluing together the pieces of your mom's dear china. My point? they're capaple of running down a team given the right attitude and as long as the energy of the young guys stay up. Just like those pesky 'lil kids.