| « Short Hops | The Various Merits of Joakim Noah » |
Bulls Mon Jan 12 2009
Not a Bull Market
You can lose to the Lakers or the Cavaliers and no one will bat an eye. It's to be expected. You can lose to Atlanta or Detroit and people will point to your relative inexperience as an excuse.
But losing to Oklahoma City? Expansion Oklahoma City? 5-32 Oklahoma City? (Well, 6-32 now.) That's Suck Territory, boys and girls.
Yes, the Bulls managed to pull off that dubious feat, at home no less, Sunday night adding to a woeful stretch that included losing three of their last five and gettign booed by their own home crowd.
To be fair, the Oklahoma City Thunder aren't THAT bad. They do have Kevin Durant, sixth in the league in scoring. And they are in the middle of the pack in rebounding in the league, averaging 42 boards a game.
But this was a Bulls team that was supposed to be improving this season, thanks to the addition of Derrick Rose and veterans like Drew Gooden, to round out a roster that included Luol Deng, Kirk Hinrich and Ben Gordon.
They've looked like anything BUT an improved team in the past month. Granted a lot of that lackluster play can be attributed to injuries (to Deng and Hinrich) but injuried have had nothing to do with a lack of aggression under the boards (anyone seen Joakim Noah lately?) and selfish play. The cry now is that the team lacks leadership. Really? A team with three assigned captains is lacking leadership.
Hopefully the loss will be a wakeup call for the Bulls and neophyte coach Vinny Del Negro. They'll find out tonight when they take on the Portland Trail Blazers 22-14) tonight at the United Center.
Brian Lauvray
/ January 12, 2009 4:25 PM
Okay, let's calm down, Ken. The Bulls DID lose to OKC, but, c'mon, you've got rooks, Vinny DN as coach and Rose running the ship. Plus, you gotta love Russel Westbrook in the Thunder's backcourt, dude's AWESOME! Seriously, AWESOME.