The Bulls First Summer League Game Was…..Oof

So hopefully the Bulls first summer league game isn’t an indication of what’s to come for the Bulls in this upcoming season because uh that was pretty horrendous to watch seeing these guys go out there and get absolutely worked even if it is just a meaningless summer league game. I’ve watched a lot of basketball games in my life at all levels, mainly the NBA, but I’ve seen my fair share of international basketball. I was really into college basketball back when I was in college. I played high school basketball and I don’t believe I’ve ever seen a game where a team committed 33 turnovers. Now, they kept saying 37 turnovers on the broadcast and then when I looked at the box score, it showed 33. But regardless, that’s an insane amount of turnovers for any level of organized basketball. Give the Summer League Raptors credit though. I mean, they were tenacious on defense. Even when they were up big and the game was already over, probably because a lot of these guys were fighting for contracts, so they’re going to play hard no matter what. So, yeah, I’m sure in a real NBA game, you would see the level of defensive intensity ease up a bit when you’ve got a 30-point lead, but boy, that was embarrassing. I mean, lazy passes, lazy drives to the basket where they were just committing offensive fouls like it was nothing, stepping out of bounds on a cut. I mean, the only thing that was keeping me from turning this game off was I wanted to see Noah Sing and see what he could do. I wanted to see how Modus fared in a summer league game in the lineup as you would expect him to potentially ball out as one of the best players on the team. Not one of, actually, he is the best player on the summer league roster. And to be honest, they both didn’t really show up that well. I mean, that’s why I watch summer league because the games themselves really mean nothing. Individual stats, highlights, none of it really means much. Denzel Valentine was a summer league legend who looked like he was going to tear up the league. And then you had Derrick Rose who didn’t play very well in the summer league. It really doesn’t mean much. But for me, I’m looking out to see how guys like Mus Buselis, Noah Essen, even to an extent Lachland, guys that are actually going to get minutes for the big league team that isn’t purely going to be garbage time. I’m looking to see how they move, their feel for the game, their level of aggression, their IQ and awareness on the court, and above all, how confident they look and how they’re impacting winning. And for a Senate, a rough first outing. That said, I’m not going to overreact and put much stock into one summer league game for an 18-year-old who was the second youngest player in this draft and one of the youngest players to ever enter the league. We knew that he was a raw prospect. We knew he was going to be a project. We know that it’s going to take him time to adjust and adapt to the physicality and speed of the NBA compared to what he was used to playing in professionally overseas. I mean, you look at the kid’s frame and you can see he still needs to get a lot bigger. He needs to put on more muscle, even more so than what we saw from Modis Buselis last season. And one summer league game is not going to define him obviously. And all you can hope for is that, you know, with every game in summer league and going into training camp, he gets more and more comfortable with the speed of the game, how physical the game is, and seeing some marginal improvements by the final game of the summer league. He played in 24 minutes, had more turnovers than points, five points, seven turnovers, was two for seven from the floor, three rebounds. I did like what I saw from him on defense, though. He’s got great instincts on that end of the floor, playing offball defense. That was nice to see. But yeah, what I will say though is we’re probably going to see a Senate play a fair amount with the Windy City Bulls this season. He’s just not there yet, which we shouldn’t expect him to be and knew that would likely be the case when the Bulls first drafted him. Now for Modus, I would have expected a little more dominance from him playing against mostly nonNBA level players when he’s clearly an NBA player with how he showed up last season. That said, like I mentioned earlier, the Raptors, this Raptors team really made you work to get your offense. And while Modus was physical and was able to get to the line by drawing contact, which we need to see more of from him this season, but he wasn’t able to finish as well as we would like to see and his three ball wasn’t falling. He ended up finishing with 17 points on four for 14 shooting and five rebounds. And then uh Olrich, you know, I mean, yeah, I see a lot of people going in on him on Twitter, but like he was the 55th pick in the draft. What were you expecting? But yeah, I wouldn’t expect this guy to be getting much time with the Bulls this season. This might be another one of those Marco Simonovich type picks. Uh, hey, Javon Freeman Liberty, Bulls summer league legend. He was tearing it up at least. Really the only player on the roster that had a decent game. But anyway, I’m not going to read that much into this game. Really not going to read much into summer league in general, considering past individual performances in summer league have carried very little weight into a player’s career in the NBA. I just hope we see a little bit of progress and improvement going into their next game, which is tomorrow, I believe. But the bar is set pretty low after a game like this. I’ll be curious to see if Modis plays again. I know they mentioned he likely would only just play in one game, but you could tell he was not very pleased with his performance. Said it himself, he was a bit rusty. He’s probably going to want some revenge and have a game where he just balls out. But we’ll see. I also wouldn’t want him running the risk of getting injured as he did have a hard fall at the end of this game. That scared me a bit. But yeah, let me know what you guys thought of the game. I’m probably not going to do a postgame video for all of these Summer League games. But because it was the first one, I wanted to react and share my thoughts. So, let me know in the comments what you guys thought. As always, be sure to subscribe and I will see you in the next

Recapping and reacting to the Chicago Bulls first Summer League game against the Toronto Raptors

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26 comments

  1. First game and we're here already 😂😂. Once again keep your expectations very low with chicago, when last did we have a good summer league team that gave hope for the season

  5. I wanted to see Noa go up against Collin Murray-Boyles, but he was out with an injury. The highlight of the game was off the court, when the camera had cut to Billy Donovan and Marc Eversley, having a spirited discussion. Whatever Marc was trying to convey, Billy wasn't hearing it. 🤨😆

  8. this summer league roster is awful. matas is an NBA player. the rest of the dudes can barely make a g league team.

    the guards are awful.

  10. If today’s Summer League embarrassment didn’t scream ‘pay Giddey,’ nothing will. Keep playing hardball and lose him—then buckle up for another five years of lottery irrelevance and empty seats. You’ll wish $30 million was your biggest problem.

  13. Yeah, Raptors playing like they were all competing for the last roster spot. Bulls weren't expecting it. Give credit to them. Bulls Freeman-Liberty still can score. I hope he has a chance at a roster spot if one of the Bulls guards is traded.

  19. Well im not making excuses but its also not helping that we have an ass of a guards in the summer league who are just chuckers and not doing well distributing the ball to our guys specially noa and matas. They literally have to create by themselves during that game. And thats not gon help noa whos shot creating and offensive game is still raw. Yuki kawamura did a better job off the bench that game. Pushing pace, pressing full court defense. If yuki have started maybe our guys would have a better rhythm from the start. Dont judge the kid also by this game its the summer league for godsake its not the end of all.

  20. I don't know if the Bulls ask their players to go through the motions since Denzel Valentine; they don't seem to care very much. I can't even watch these games. I remember the overhype for a Marko; this dude was not even a NBA player. I kept leaving comments that he wasn't good but people just overhyped him. There is even overhype for the G league. Matas doesn't know why he is there and neither do the Bulls. Three more games, it can't get worst, right?

  21. Essengue is Pat Will all over again.. they LITERALLY keep drafting based on potential they only THEY see😂😂JUST like when they FORST drafted Pat ima say this again.. BUST!

  23. Raptors picked up full court for the whole game, and had long hands in everything. Credit to them because it rattled the raw guys and made just getting into an offence tricky. I'm going to bet that game was a kick in the guts and a wake up call to all of the Summer League Bulls. Hardly any, if any of them looked comfortable, not even Matas. Here's hoping they regroup and see what they were doing and grow.

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