Libby John's Chicago Bulls fan blog

The hits just keep on coming. This whole season, it seemed that the Bulls kept missing out on golden opportunities and unfortunately, that is also carrying on into the off-season.

           Over the weekend, former Suns coach Mike D’Antoni signed a four-year contract with the New York Knicks. Last week, reports released assumed that D’Antoni, whose Suns team averaged 58 victories over four seasons according to the Chicago Tribune, was extremely interested in coaching the Bulls. General Manager John Paxson was also interested in the partnership even though D’Antoni has an offensive mindset and Paxson is more interested in defense.

           But like the potential deals for Kevin Garnett, Pau Gasol and Kobe Bryant, another team acted quicker and now, D’Antoni is responsible for cleaning up the mess Isiah Thomas created in New York.

Continue reading "The search continues . . ."

Although the Bulls season is over, there is plenty of basketball left in this season. The first round is about halfway done, and so far, there haven’t been too many surprises. I don’t think it is a shock to most people that the Spurs are over the Suns even with the addition of Shaq, Chris Paul is proving he is worth all the MVP-hype and the Lakers are back to being one of the most dominant teams in the league. The only series that is shaping up to be the most intriguing is Pistons vs. the 76ers, where the seventh seed holds a 2-1 lead over one of the top teams in the Eastern Conference.

           While assessing the series during the pre-game show before yesterday’s games on TNT, Charles Barkley said the Pistons are playing “cool” and not to the level that they can. The Pistons have been knocked off after every series after its 2004 championship, he said. They are just not playing hard and when watching the game, it is evident that the 76ers, simply, just want it more.

Continue reading "Pistons Facing Long Road"

According to a poll Comcast SportsNet conducted after the Bulls/Magic game last night, Bulls fans feel John Paxson should make Ben Gordon a priority in the offseason. Obviously, these results weren’t based on last night, when the guard scored three points after 18 minutes of playing time in a 104-84 loss. But it is interesting to note that Gordon, who turned down a reported $50 million contract over the summer and went from being a starter to bench player, is still one of the team’s most popular players.

           Creating offense is one of the team’s major problems, and Gordon the only player on the team that has the ability to get hot hand and can score 20 points in a flash. In his freshman year three years ago, he became the only rookie to earn the Sixth Man award because he was able to light up in the fourth quarter. That fourth quarter magic disappeared a little, but is still there when the team needs it.

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I saw something on Thursday I've waiting to see all season, the Chicago Bulls playing as a team. Even when they were down in the third quarter, they didn't throw the towel in, they played hard. There was no whining about playing time, there was no yelling at the coaches, there was no daydreaming about summer vacation. They went out there with one goal: to beat the Cavs.

This was not the only good game they had all year, but the Bulls are all but mathematically eliminated from the playoffs. When the playoffs start later this month, they will get a good view from their television instead of being out in the court. But this last game shows that not all hope is lost with these baby Bulls. The team management has a lot of tough decisions to make this off season, and while they can't -- and shouldn't -- forget the bad, they should also remember the good and the potential most of these players have.

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