Remember how you felt the first day back at school each fall? The summer was over and “it’s business time again. Only this time, the real business was the summer itself. It seemed like the shortest NBA off-season in history, simply because it was the most exciting one that we could ever have.
Cherish it, we’ll never see a July like that again. The Chicago Bulls were a major player in that offseason, and although they failed to land any of the primary prizes available, they still made some huge improvements on last year’s team.
And even if they hadn’t nabbed Carlos Boozer, Kyle Korver, Ronnie Brewer etc. you couldn’t fault them for first liquidating their assets and “backing up the truck” to buy. Because you miss 100% of the shots you don’t take. The Bulls were indeed among the most active deal-makers on the trading floor when the exchange opened for business July 1.
They didn’t acquire the blue-chippers, but they certainly augmented their portfolio of holdings.
By Paul M. Banks
Basically, the Bulls became Utah Jazz East this summer as 1/4 of last year’s Jazz roster is now part of the Chicago Bulls organization.
GM Gar Forman was the first man to rock upon the mic and rock the mic right, giving a 3-4 minute opening statement and then answering about 15 minutes of questions. Here are some of his observations:
“We have a feeling that we could really have something special here long term…Carlos (Boozer) is a guy that can play inside and outside, he’s a guy that could make a good complement to Derrick Rose because we’re a team that will play a lot of pick-and-roll and pick-and-pop.”
“Derrick (Rose) came back from Turkey and just raved about the experience he had…James Johnson has lost about 20 pounds and is really committed to his conditioning.”
Rose helped Team USA get the gold in the 2010 FIBA World Championships, and he mentioned that it was the first championship he’s won since high school. Rose answered that there was no Bosh-Wade-James 2008 Team USA style collusion to one day all join the same NBA team together…by any of the members of this past summer’s Team USA .
But what about Brewer-Boozer-Korver colluding in Utah? The question was asked, and Korver said it’s coincidence not calculated.
This leads us into the topic of the day.
Over/under on Miami Heat references made at Bulls Media Day: 74. I’m guessing every Media Day around the NBA today was a sort of de facto Heat Media Day.
“Everyone wants to focus on Miami, but it’s misguided if you don’t look at the rest of the division and the rest of the league,” new coach Tom Thibodeau said.
“They haven’t won anything yet.” the newly acquired Keith Bogans told me.
“We don’t focus on Miami, it’s you guys who focus on Miami,” Boozer said to the media during his time at the microphone. And he’s entirely right. There was too much Heat discussion today, at least for my taste.
With a couple hours worth of soundbites from numerous players, expect a lot of upcoming articles between now and the season opener. We’ll certainly touch upon the once again burgeoning rivalry with the Milwaukee Bucks, who on paper will be co-favorites with Chicago for the Central Division title.
Written by Paul M. Banks, President and CEO of The Sports Bank.net , a Midwest focused webzine. He is also a regular contributor to Chicago Now, the Chicago Tribune’s blog network, Walter Football.com, the Washington Times Communities, Yardbarker Network, and Fox Sports.com
You can follow him on Twitter @thesportsbank