Bulls Podcast #32

April 4, 2019 admin Podcast 00:46:33 Comments Off on Bulls Podcast #32

It’s the Chicago Bulls Podcast #32 with Marcus Couch and Wyse Black with guest Kenyatta Wright. We cover the Bulls-Wizards post-game, A State of the Bulls allmost end of the season edition and a preview of the last remaining games of the season.

Welcome to the Bulls Podcast, coming to you from BullsPodcast.com. This is where we bring you the latest news, reviews, rants, rumors and opinions on the players, coaches and front office of the Chicago Bulls.

We’re joined once again by friend of the show, Mr Kenyatta Wright. He’s a columnist for Hypefresh.co and administrator of the Bullseye Facebook group.

We’ve got a lot in store for you this episode. Including:

  • Bulls vs Wizards Post-Game
  • State of the Bulls Roundtable, Almost end-of-season edition
  • Preview of upcoming games with Our Win Predictions!

Come TANK with us!

Before we get under way…

Celebrating Episode 32, there are a number of former Bulls players that sported #32..

Will Perdue 1989-2000, Eddie Robinson 2002-2004, C.J. Watson 2011, Richard Hamilton 2012-2013, Jimmer Fredette 2014, Kris Dunn 2018-2019

This week in Bulls History…

April 3, 1998 (21 Years Ago)

Michael Jordan reached 29,000 career points in a 107-93 win over Minnesota. At the time, Jordan joined Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Wilt Chamberlain as the only players to reach that plateau.

April 6, 1975 (44 Years Ago) – Bob Love Leads Bulls to First Division Title

Coming off an All-Star season, Bob Love lead the Bulls to a 47-win campaign and their first division title in 1975. The Chicago defense was stifling and the backcourt duo of Norm Van Lier  and Jerry Sloan was enough to take the Bulls to Game 7 of the Conference Finals.

Last Week’s Overall Predictions: In the last 3 games, we both predicted a 1-2 record.

[Wyse Prediction] 1-2 for the week

[Marcus Prediction] 1-2 for the week.

Sat March 30 – Bulls vs Toronto Raptors (LOSS) (Wyse L, Marcus L)

Newcomer Walt Lemon Jr., the Chicagoan called up from the G League Windy City Bulls the previous day, led them with 19 points and added six assists and four steals against the Raptors. Timothe Lawawu-Cabarrot added 18 points and 10 rebounds, Shaq Harrison had 15 points and eight rebounds and Antonio Blakeney scored 12 points as the Bulls lost their fourth consecutive game to stay within two games of the Cavaliers (19-58) for the third spot in the draft order.

Mon April 1 – Bulls @ NY Knicks (LOSS) (Wyse W, Marcus W)

It looks like the Bulls out-tanked our expectations in New York, losing the Battle of the Tanks against the Knicks! Lemon Jr., Shaq Harrison, Timothe Luwawu-Cabarrot and Wayne Selden were starters.

Former G-League Windy City Bulls players Rawle Alkins, JaKarr Sampson, and Brandon Sampson made up a big portion of the team’s bench.

Yet the one regular who actually suited up for the Bulls on Monday did what he could to keep his team close, or at least, competitive. In fact, it was his best offensive effort of the season, as Robin Lopez went for 29 points in 30 minutes of action, all of which came on his birthday.

Those efforts still weren’t enough for the very short-handed Bulls even against the struggling Knicks, who led the majority of the game in a 113-105 victory that snapped their six-game losing streak.

Wed March 3 – Bulls @ Washington Wizards (WIN) (Wyse L, Marcus L)

Bulls vs Wizards Post Game Analysis.

The Bulls took on the Washington Wizards in DC. The Bulls WON the game by the score of 115-114 on a limited roster for the Bulls. This game was actually close the whole way with the Wizards clearly lowering their play down to the level of the Bulls.

For the Wizards:

Our old pals Jabari Parker and Bobby Portis played their usual game. By usual, I mean Parker went 0-5 in the first quarter and left with a left knee sprain. Portis, in his effort chipped in with 20 points and 10 Rebounds in the game.

Jabari probably ended his season a week early with that injury, and probably won’t be back for the Wizards next year, as that player option for next year would cost the Wizards $20 Million for next year. We’ll see Jabari looking to join a team next year, and we wish him well in that regard.

Last week we highlighted Tomas Satoransky as someone to keep an eye on as a potential free agent addition to the Bulls next year. Tonight he went 2 for 8 on 25% shooting with 8 points and 4 assists.

But the efficiency leader for the Wizards was Bradley Beal with 19 points in just 22 minutes of action.

For the Bulls:

Walter Lemon Jr. continues to impress for the Bulls with his very unique, high-arc jumpshot that Stacy King has named the “Lemon Drop”. He had 24 points and 8 assists in the game.

Arizona standout and Lauri’s #SavageLife co-conspirator Rawle Alkins had an NBA career high 11 points and 5 rebounds in an equally impressive outing. Not sure if this is quite enough to gain a full time NBA spot, but time will tell.

Robin Lopez continued his reliable streak of scoring with 12 points and 5 rebounds in 24 minutes for the Bulls. Jakarr Sampson and Shaq Harrison put up 18 and 15 points respectively.

All in all, a slight hiccup for the tank with a win for the Bulls. We almost got the L.

Before we get rolling on the next topic… I ask for feedback every show, and Wyse and I have told listeners that we respect everyone’s reviews, both good and bad. To prove it, let me share an exchange I had on YouTube with our most recent episode, #31.

You can go to BullsPodcast.com and see the bios of both Wyse and me. I’ve been a sports broadcaster since the mid 90s and a podcaster for almost 15 years. As a podcaster, I was the first to make a living at it and one of the few that has had his podcasts rebroadcast on both terrestrial radio and satellite radio. Wyse has a large following on YouTube and is among the most respected YouTubers out there creating Bulls content.

The only criticism that I would ever take personally would be that of other Bulls Podcasters. In our first year, we’ve made friends with everyone in the Bulls Podcast space and have the respect of every one of them.

But sometimes you gotta throw out some light if you want to get rid of the shade.. And sometimes you confront a bully by smacking them right in the mouth. I’m going to do both and let the listeners help fight back in the comments too. This isn’t the first negative comment we’ve received, but it’s certainly the most bold.

Hopefully this particular listener will join us on an upcoming show. I seriously doubt he will and am mostly doing this offer for the humor in it all. But you never know.

For the record, he has created NO content on his own channel and has 0 subscribers of his own. Despite this, I’m really interested in what he has to say and what his ideal outline is for the show. Who knows, I may just turn over the domain and social profiles over to him if he can prove to be a better content creator.

But I, myself have criticized NBA announcers and Bulls Reporters, so I’ll happily take my share of the shade directed at me as well.

 

State of the Bulls, Almost end-of-season edition

As we begin to wind things down for the last week of the Bulls Season, we wanted to highlight where we are right now as a team. Next week we’ll have our “Bulls Season in Review”, but today, we’re going to just take a quick snapshot of the team and talk about some of the rumors and goings-on within the team and the front office.

1) Shutting Down the Core Contributors

Unlike what the Bulls have done in previous seasons, this year they have decided to shut down the remaining starters in favor of rest, injury prevention and evaluating other players. Lavine, Lauri, and Otto Porter Jr have joined Wendell Carter Jr, Denzel Valentine and Chandler Hutchison on the sidelines to recuperate and get rest for next year.

This is a smart move for a number of reasons. Obviously, we want to keep our most important players healthy for our next step next season. We also have a tank to keep driving for the rest of the season to get as many percentage points that we can for the NBA lottery. Finally we need to examine and evaluate the role positions with G-Leaguers and our existing bench.  

2) The reason for Ryan Arcidiacono seeing limited minutes

So the Bulls and Boylen talk a big game about name across the chest and honoring the game. Playing to win. But in reality Boylen has spent the last month carefully monitoring the minutes of Ryan Arcidiacono in games. Ryan has been one of their best players this season. Why?

Money. You see Archie is scheduled to be a restricted free agent with a qualifying offer of $1.8 million. But here’s the catch. A player can reach what is called starter criteria if he starts 41 games or plays 2000 minutes. And then his qualifying offer goes to $3.6 mil instead.

3) Evaluating the newcomers for a possible bench role next season.

The G-League is the basketball equivalent of a Minor League AAA team in Baseball. Players not quite cut out for prime time NBA action are often shelved to the G-League for further development. With the end of the Windy City Bulls season, it’s open season for moving these players over to the official Bulls roster to evaluate how they handle the speed and complexities of the game at the NBA level. Guys like Lemon Jr, Rawle Alkins, Jakarr Sampson.

And at this point, Boylen can’t wait till next year.

“I’m really looking forward to training camp,” Boylen said. “I’m looking forward to the Summer League, [which] will be kind of our test site for some of the things that we’ll do and the preparation for that, and then training camp will ramp up.”

The Bulls obviously need a lot of work. They have to get healthy and stay healthy. And tremendous luck in the draft lottery seems pretty crucial at this point. It remains to be seen if Boylen is the right guy to lead them out of the wilderness. But after a painfully awkward transition after Boylen replaced Fred Hoiberg, a fresh start with a full offseason and training camp under Boylen figures to be beneficial.

“We’ve gotten a feel for our guys,” Boylen said. “It has been a season of discovery and a season of growth. And, overall, I think we’ve done a darn good job without a training camp. So hopefully we’ll do even better with one.

So now that we’ve gone over this snapshot in time for the Bulls season, what else is on your minds about the state of the Bulls at this present time?

 

Upcoming Games this week: (LAST 3 GAMES OF THE SEASON!!)

Saturday April 6th – Bulls vs Philadelphia 76ers (Wyse – L, Kenyatta – L, Marcus – L)

Tuesday April 9th – Bulls vs NY Knicks (Wyse – W, Kenyatta – W, Marcus – L)

Wednesday April 10th – Bulls at Philadelphia 76ers (Wyse – L, Kenyatta – L, Marcus – L)

Kenyatta Wright links:

 

  • Twitter: @kennywright31

 

Wyse Social Links:

 

 

Marcus Social Links

 

 

Everything show related you can find @bullspodcast. Please make sure you are connected with us everywhere we are.

Also remember to check out our compilation website where you can get all of the Bulls Podcasts from every single Chicago Bulls show out there over at http://bulls.fm

If you can’t remember any of these, you can check out our show notes for this show over at our website, which is BullsPodcast.com where we have all the links we mentioned in today’s show.

Remember Bulls Fans, our magic TANK-A-THON NUMBER is down to just 3 more losses, and we’re just 77 days away (June 20, 2019)  from the NBA draft and only 40 Days away from the NBA Lottery! So just like the 40 days that Jesus spent in the desert, we’ll be spending our own 40 days in solitude, praying for a ping pong ball and awaiting the second coming of Zion, the promised land of an NBA Championship!

Until next time, Thank you for listening everyone, Go Bulls!