As you may have noticed, things have decidedly slowed down a bit around here. And as much as I'm enjoying the Bears and Blackhawks this year, and would love to write more about them, nothing inspires me like the Bulls, and the pall of not having an NBA season has been giving me writer's block.
But no more! Thank you players and owners for reaching an agreement (and after having read the key points of the agreement here, it doesn't seem to me like the clear cut loss for the players that people are saying.)
So here are the top 5 things I'm excited for this NBA season:
5. The lack of training camp time benefits teams with low player turnover
There are a few teams that are going to look drastically different when the season starts, due to just general free agency and losing players to locked-in contracts overseas (sorry, Denver Nuggets fans). But look at this list of potential free agents over the next two offseasons. For the Bulls, it's Rasual Butler, Big Sexy and White Mamba this offseason. For contrast, look two teams down at what the Mavs have to deal with.
The future looks solid, too. Other than Derrick (who will undoubtedly receive the max deal possible), is there anything to be worried about for the future? Without delving too much into the finances (aka, I'll wait until someone with a firmer grip of the CBA breaks it down for me,) I feel like they should be able to resign Turkish D to a modest deal as well after this season. They have the amnesty clause to use on Boozer if he doesn't figure out how to play defense soon, so it looks like Foreman and Pax have a little bit of flexibility to use, too.
4. A solution to the shooting guard situation
I was firmly on the "don't-change-a-thing" bandwagon, but I came around to many of your lines of thinking during the Heat series last year when we couldn't, you know, hit an outside shot to save our lives. Personally, I think Jason Richardson meets our needs perfectly. Consistent from the outside, but the ability to create his own shot as well. And while he wouldn't provide the defense of Bogans and Brewer, he wouldn't be a huge drop-off (like JR Smith) or mess up chemistry on the offensive end (like JR Smith).
3. More Bench Mob!
As we saw in 1999, NBA players aren't always the best at staying in shape when they don't have teams holding them accountable. And while I'm sure this doesn't apply to any Bulls (right, Joakim?) there is definitely going to be an advantage to having a deeper bench this year. Enter the Bench Mob. The schedule is going to be a little condensed, so if your team can go 10 deep for significant minutes, it's going to help a lot, especially when the playoffs come around.
2. A rematch with the Heat
Not much else to say here, except I think I hate the Heat more than any other professional team right now (which is saying something, when you consider how the Cardinals and Packers have been doing recently.) I just know I want to see the Bulls get revenge on the Heat more than anything else in sports right now.
1. The MVP
I think the hardest part of the lockout for me was seeing Derrick's Adidas commercial all the time. I would get a little bit excited just to see him cross over matadors. I literally can not wait to see him do more of this:
Screw it, we might have to liveblog opening day. I don't care that it's Christmas. I'll sneak it past Sam somehow...maybe...
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