Turning the page, The Next Chapter: The Official Chicago Bulls 2019-20 Season Thread

[Trot LaRoc]

That defensive rating feels like fools gold to me.

I think Chicago has had maybe the weakest strength of schedule so far. Theyve played a lot of bottom feeders so far....they're about to have their schedule get way harder esp in the upcoming month.

Also their blitzing style does generate a lot of turnovers but it gets them burnt a lot too....lots of open 3s.

 

[beenz]

connaughton!!!

 

[Barnett114]

Started out but getting no free throws in the first half and not showing up in the 3rd this game was lost.

As Norm Van Lier used to say, you need a complete 48 minutes.

 

[KingB137]

Drose all over this.

 

[jwinfield]

The Oral History of the Baby Bulls

Smith: Ben Gordon, he’d had this incredible workout with the Bulls. I heard stories about it. Apparently he hit, like, 50 straight 3s or something, from everywhere on the court. Never missed. Hands in his face and everything.

Smith: The Bulls initially told Chris Duhon, “We don’t need you on the team. We’ve got enough guards coming in.” They told him to go to Europe. Back then, teams would pick guys from U.S. colleges and tell them to go overseas for a couple of years. Duhon said, “Screw you! Not only am I not going to Europe, but I’m going to come to camp and beat out your guys. I’m going to make this team.” And he did! That was Scott’s kind of guy. Duhon would end up being part of the starting backcourt that season.

Chandler: Duhon came in and it was clear he was a winner. Coming from under Coach K, you saw that influence. He didn’t get rattled playing pickup. He was vocal off the top, leading at the point guard position. And then Luol, I saw his defensive gifts and knack to score. I just started to think, “Finally! We got a roster! We got guys in every position that can play!”

Andrés Nocioni (Bulls forward, 2004-09): The training camp was a really rough one. Really, really physical. Really competitive. And I knew almost zero English. I could probably say “hello” and “thank you.” I took English lessons after practice every day.

Duhon: Coach wanted to build our foundation defensively and make us one of the NBA’s best defensive teams. So practices were very intense: one-on-one drills, learning how to close out, a lot of running and conditioning.

Jared Reiner (Bulls center 2004-05): Antonio Davis set the tone for that whole season in a preseason game against the Washington Wizards. On a fast break, Larry Hughes shoved Kirk Hinrich into Luol Deng, sending Luol crashing to the floor. When Kirk got in Hughes’s face about it, the Wizards’ Brendan Haywood went and shoved Kirk.

Davis: When I saw that happen and realized somebody could’ve gotten hurt, I was like, No, I’m not gonna let that slide. That whole season, especially at the start, I felt like Papa Bear. I felt like I had to protect those young guys. I was acting completely out of instinct.

Reiner: Antonio swooped in and ended up body-slamming and punching Haywood. When those two were on the ground, Eddy came in and threw punches.

Griffin: Antonio Davis, he was the enforcer. No one messed with AD.

Davis: We talked about it in the locker room after the game. I said, “Listen, no matter what happens, the guy next to you has to know you got his back. Period. It’s us against the world. The only thing that matters is us in this locker room.”

Hinrich: I appreciated what AD did. It told us young guys, here’s a guy who has been through a lot in this league and now he’s looking out for us. That’s something we look back on and laugh about now. We were fighting in a preseason game!

Davis: Eddy and I got suspended for the first two regular-season games. But sitting out wasn’t a big deal to me. I definitely would have done it all over again.

Johnson: What I remember more than any main problem is how impressed I was with the defiance of such young players. Gordon and Duhon and Deng and Hinrich—they were pissed about losing. They were like, “We’re not used to this.” I was impressed by their refusal to accept losing. It signified a big change from the Bulls teams of the few previous seasons.

Chandler: Skiles and I, we didn’t get along. I respect all my coaches. But it felt like he had something personal against me. The hard practices and the discipline? That stuff I liked. I was cool with that. I thought Skiles brought a great edge. I thought he whipped us in shape, built a defensive identity, held guys accountable—all of those things I thought were great. But at some point that turned from a guy coming in to change a culture to him just being too much, taking things too far.

Smith: Skiles was on Chandler and Deng a lot, because they weren’t his kind of players. They were more finesse kind of players. He did succeed in getting them to play tougher and harder, but it was painful. Chandler used to come into Paxson’s office crying sometimes from Scott yelling at him so much. As difficult as that was, I think Tyson years later was appreciative of Scott’s tough love.

Chandler: AD is the only reason I survived that season with Skiles. He was constantly in my ear and he helped me keep my head together. When I would get frustrated, he would always be right there at my locker afterwards, smiling, calm, bringing my focus back to where it needed to be. He’d tell me, “Hey, just don’t let that stuff get to you.”

Smith: Offensively, Eddy Curry was the Bulls’ most talented player, the leading scorer. He would have these great first halves, but he would get nervous at the end of games and didn’t want the ball down the stretch, so he often wouldn’t play much in the fourth quarter. Skiles coached around it. Down the stretch, he’d put in Ben Gordon, who began saving the Bulls. After the New Year, Gordon had this incredible stretch where he was making big shots all over the place, and they started winning. He became a feared scorer, despite playing off the bench. He had 21 double-digit fourth quarters that year, second only to LeBron James. That galvanized the group, like “Hey, we got a go-to guy, even though our go-to guy doesn’t start!”

Griffin: When Ben started winning games for us, I made a rule that he didn’t have to fetch donuts anymore. All the other rookies said, “Hey, that’s not fair!” I said, “Well, get us 20 points tonight and you don’t have to get donuts in the morning.”

Smith: Along with Gordon, Eddy Curry kind of exploded that season. He was a big part of the team digging themselves out of the 0-9 hole. He was as good a big man as there was in the NBA in that stretch. After all the difficulties under Tim Floyd, he had looked like a draft bust. But he bloomed that season under Skiles. Internally among the Bulls front office, the discussion was “We’re going to give Curry a maximum extension. He is who we thought.” Then, suddenly, just as the team was rolling, they lost the centerpiece of their offense when Curry went out with the heart condition.

Chandler: I remember when it happened. We were in Charlotte at the time. He was on the sideline and he was telling me that he felt a little weird. And that’s when it all started.

Davis: Eddy came up to some of us at one point before the game and he was like, “Man, look at my chest.” You could literally see his heart pumping. Like, you could see a little lump coming out of his chest. We were like, “What the heck?” He wasn’t panicked. He wasn’t hyperventilating or anything like that. He was concerned, but he wasn’t feeling bad. It was just weird that his heart was beating so hard and so fast.

Johnson: The Bulls traded Eddy after the ’04-05 season.

Davis: Once Eddy was gone, I knew that the team was going to be different. It wasn’t going to work unless you had both Eddy and Tyson along with the young guys, because they had depth at each position and could fill in the gaps with veterans. But without Eddy there, the whole team was just a different dynamic.

I forgot that we lost both Eddy and Luol.

 

[The G.O.D II]

Another second half collapse. And even tho Dunn has bolstered our defensive rating we still blitz and get beat on slip screens or mismatches. Bogdanovich was cooking in the post and Gobert was rim running all night

 

[cornercommission2k12]

Pretty tough schedule coming up , and I think most of us know, this will be the end of the season. We are still poorly coached and boylen still stinks at rotations. Other coaches make adjustments and smoke us it's almost inevitable a 2nd half adjustment will be made by the opposing team and boylen will do little to nothing to counter or make any 2nd half adjustments himself.

 

[Morethan1]

This team is so fukked. We're not getting a top 5 pick. The player outside of the top 5 are ass. Laurie has regressed and Lavine is not a star.

But we're in the middle of a rebuild

 

[JackRoss]

What is the issue with this squad?

 

[cornercommission2k12]

What is the issue with this squad?

Poor coaching, talent not as good as people thought they were, it's the downside of tanking players develop losing habits, and garpax gets another crack at building after they have failed before. Schedule gets tough our season is just about over already.

 

[Morethan1]

Gafford down now WCJ

FML

Edit I guess gafford is fine

 

[The G.O.D II]

So Denzel again can’t get minutes now? Not like Shaq or Dunn providing any offense as they get cooked by Doncic

 

[JackRoss]

Poor coaching, talent not as good as people thought they were, it's the downside of tanking players develop losing habits, and garpax gets another crack at building after they have failed before. Schedule gets tough our season is just about over already.

Good look. I haven't been able to catch much of them this season with my work schedule.

 

[god shamgod]

What is the issue with this squad?

The offense is trash that’s literally the only issue. Get a better pg bulls a 6-8 seed which is what these crybabies wanted

 

[The G.O.D II]

Gafford down now WCJ

FML

Edit I guess gafford is fine

Doofus Boylen didn't even call a TO to get him off the floor(Gafford) Lucky Rick bailed him out with a foul so he could come out