Chicago Bulls Season Opener

The much anticipated Chicago Bulls season opener was last night. Let me tell you, I've been following the Bulls since a child and avidly since the Chicago Legend Derrick Rose was drafted back in 2008. I've been through the crazies of Bulls teams led by the likes of Ben Wallace, Drew Gooden, Ben Gordon, Derrick Rose, Jimmy Butler, Pau Gasol, Dwayne Wade & freaking Lauri Markannen. I saw lineups include the likes of some dude named Lemon Jr, Denzel Valentine (ugh) & Cristiano Felicio (even more ugh). We saw coaches like Vinny Del Negro, Tom Thibodeau, Fred Hoiberg & Jim Boylen. We went through many torturous years of the GarPax front office and their terrible trades & free agent signings. The only thing that has stayed consistent throughout these brutal years would be the elite & legendary commentating of Stacey King. Finally, have we Bulls fan struck gold; Artūras Karnišovas & Marc Eversley were brought in to replace the dreadful GarPax finally ending that era. Artūras was well known in the NBA community, specifically for rebuilding the Nuggets into a borderline finals team they're known as now. Billy Donovan was brought in after the much anticipated firing of Jim Boylen & lastly, a Zach Lavine led team filled with talented all-stars, borderline all-stars, defensive prowess & quite frankly-- a squad. 

Enough of the history jargon & let's move on to my personal thoughts on the game. 

Maybe I was too excited. Maybe I expected too much. Can you blame me though? The starting five of Lonzo Ball, Zach Lavine, Demar Derozan, Patrick Williams & Nikola Vucevic is easily a playoff caliber team, despite what Nick Friedell has to say. After seeing the excellent play on both sides of the floor shown in the four preseason games, I expected the Bulls to start out hot for their first regular season game. A bad Detroit Pistons team who also happened to be missing the #1 overall pick in this past draft, Cade Cunningham, should've been an easy win-- that was not the case. The Chicago Bulls started off quite cold on the offensive end but looked pretty solid on the defensive end. Shots were not falling for Vooch or DDR but those were shots that I can't see them missing in the future. DDR missed a handful of layups (although a lot of times he was fouled) and Vooch just didn't hit his usual post-up shots. The officiating was downright atrocious as well as there were Bulls players constantly on the ground but no calls; on the other end however, Pistons seemed to be getting the calls that the Bulls should have been. Still, no excuses. The Pistons simply aren't a good team & the Bulls still should've played better. Lonzo looked good both offensively and defensively, PWill looked okay but he has been injured & Alex Caruso was monstrous with his intangibles but boy was Zach Lavine looking spectacular. Lavine clearly showed how much he has learned from last year alongside his experience with the Olympic team. He was scoring in the second quarter when they needed it & closed the game with crucial rebounds and free throws. His attitude post game was different too, he knows he's on a team that's made to win but he still may have nights where he needs to lead them to win. 

The rotations looked pretty good to me. I haven't been a fan of Donovan's rotations last couple years but last night looked good. One thing though, DDR should not be running with the second group. Lavine should be subbed out a little earlier in the first and put back in with the bench guys; this way they'll still have good scoring along with the intangibles that those guys' have to offer. We still have to wait for the return of Coby White & how he can take up more a scoring guard role off the bench. Ayo Dsonmu looked good, he didn't seem to force anything like a rookie usually would do-- he might actually have a legitimate role in the rotation moving forward. Rebounding is going to be a group effort on a nightly basis but I'm okay with that since the smaller lineup allowed for the Bulls to constantly run out on fast breaks and get easy buckets-- something that was difficult in the past. Of course the addition of Lonzo is what makes that so easy. 

Overall, the Bulls looked good & they'll only get better. I'm excited for this new era of Bulls basketball and all Bulls fans should be as well. Lavine is & will remain the star of the show but as the others start getting into the groove of things, the Bulls might become a force to be reckoned with-- especially in an overall weak Eastern Conference. I look forward to the home opener this Friday against the New Orleans Pelicans. Stay tuned for my post game analysis.