Quick Halloween Thoughts (Bulls-Kings 10/31)

Sorry folks, no time for a full credit post. Going to have to keep it abridged tonight.

-My worst fears came true tonight with Taj. No contract reached because the Bulls lowballed him (4 years, 32 mil? DeMar DeRozen got 4 years 40 mil tonight.) Now the Bulls as an organization have a vested interest in Taj's numbers not getting too high. I'm not saying that's why he only saw 19 minutes tonight, but he changed the game defensively in those 19 minutes. I know Joakim and Boozer (!) both played well tonight, but if Nazr Mohammed is only going to play for 3 minutes, then there's 93 big man minutes available. I'd like to see those a little more spread out, for the good of all three of those guys long term. (Omer Asik played 33 minutes tonight for the Rockets. Just saying.)

(Just as I was getting ready to post this, this tweet came across my feed:

38 million over 4 years. He left a little on the table, in my opinion, but I'm ecstatic it got done.)
 

-I enjoyed seeing both Boozer and Joakim taking the ball to the basket tonight. The Kings aren't known for their post defense, so hopefully this keeps up when we play games against teams with decent defensive big men. We're going to need it as long as our best creator out of the backcourt is Nate Robinson.

-Speaking of NateRob...he's one of our five best defensive players now? Really? That's...foreboding.

-I really don't care that Marco Belinelli hit a three and got fouled on another. I want JFB playing those minutes. If Jimmy's going to be part of the rotation going forward, he needs to play more than 11 minutes a game. At least we'll have some semblance of perimeter D.

-There's been a lot of blogosphere backlash against Kirk Hinrich. And I understand why, he probably got a good deal more money from the Bulls than he would have got anywhere else, and they could have been smarter about fitting him in monetarily with the trade exception. But from a pure basketball standpoint, I think he's a good fit. He'll run the offense at least competently until Derrick comes back, and I think he'll be an upgrade for the 2nd unit once that happens.

-Speaking of Derrick...remember what happened last time Derrick played the Kings?

Sigh...I miss him so much...

2012-2013

Welcome back, everybody. Before we jump into the depressing sadness that is everything that happened since about 2:50 PM last April 28th, let me get to a few housekeeping type things:

-The goal right now is to move to a self-contained website. I don't have nearly the technical know-how to pull this off right now, but I'm hoping to teach myself over the course of the year, in what little free time I do have. But if anyone with the skill wants to collaborate...

-Speaking of, it's always nice to have more authors, so if you're reading this and want to contribute, just let me know.

-As should be quite obvious by now, I clearly only have the motivation to write about the Bulls. So if/when I move the site, I need a clever Bulls-related name. If anyone has any ideas, again, let me know.

Now on to thoughts on 2012-2013

-I still have no faith in Thibodeau. I think this year might be even worse, really, since he'll be even more reluctant to turn to the bench, the starters are going to play some ridiculous minutes. I wouldn't be surprised to see Deng's minutes somehow go up, along with Rip, Kirk until Derrick is back, and maybe even Joakim. This as we should be aware by now, is not a recipe for long-term success. I'll come into the season with an open mind, maybe TT will prove me wrong. But I doubt it.

-Even worse was the front office decisions. I know we couldn't have kept everyone, but by dipping into the luxury tax a little (which we could have easily afforded), we wouldn't have gone from having our greatest non-Derrick-related strength (the Bench Mob) turned into our biggest non-Boozer-related weakness. I love JFB, but it worries me that he's now our seventh best player (well, maybe 6th, Boozer), and it's a steep drop to number 8 (Nazr Mohammed? Or Nate Robinson?). I had no idea I'd miss JL3 this much already.

-Speaking of the front office: Pay Taj. 4 years, 40 mil. He is absolutely worth it. I know they can let it ride and match in restricted free agency, but then the Bulls once again have a vested interest in not seeing Taj putting up huge numbers this year. Which is absolutely moronic. The worst part is the number one argument that people keep making against Taj is that he hasn't shown he can keep his production up with starter's minutes. Simple solution: PLAY HIM STARTER'S MINUTES. I can't believe I need to tell you that, TT. It has been mathematically proven to make your team better. If he's good enough to play in the 4th quarter, he's good enough to play in the 1st quarter.

-Marco Belinelli is going to make all you Ronnie Brewer haters (you know who you are) missing the glory days of the baseline ninja by halftime of the opener tomorrow night. He's not good at anything, and is somehow going to be asked to play 12-20 minutes a game. Hopefully, if TT insists on playing Deng 44 minutes a game, we see some JFB at the 2 with the second unit. Of course, then our entire offense will be run through Nate Rob, but...that's just the kind of year it's going to be.

-Sigh...Go Bulls.