The Chicago Bulls Are Finally Good Again

The Chicago Bulls Are Finally Good Again

All right, what is going on everybody? Welcome back here today to Texas Straws and today I want to just basically talk about the Chicago Bulls. I mean, this team makes no sense but all the sense in the world. The Chicago Bulls right now are at the top of the Eastern Conference. They just came back and beat the Philadelphia 76ers last night and this team is now 6-1 on the season. The Chicago Bulls are the number one team in the Eastern Conference this far into the year. Who expected this whatsoever? If you went to any and like you cannot lie about this. If you went to any prediction going into the season, I don’t think I found one person that had the Bulls as a top six seed in the Eastern Conference. Not one. I don’t think you could find many that had them at seven or eight making out of the playin and then you can maybe find somebody that had them at 9 or 10. I didn’t. I had them I think finishing the third worst record in the Eastern Conference or fourth. It was like Brooklyn, Washington. it was Charlotte. Maybe Chicago and Charlotte were like neck andneck right there. That’s how low I was on the Chicago Bulls and all the like underlining data was there. This team was probably going to get worse throughout the year. They were going to maybe trade away some guys. They moved away Lonzo Ball in the off season. I know they were good in this like towards the end of the season last year, but man, I take the month of March with such a grain of salt because if you’re healthy in March, you’re probably going to be just fine and you can have a good record because when you’re watching any game in March and you’re watching like half the league try to like quiet tank and you’re just playing so many two-way guys, so many 10day contracts throughout the rest of the year, I’d take it with a grain of salt because the competition is never the best when you get that late into the season unless you’re playing like an OKC Thunder, Denver Nuggets, a New York, something like that, right? Chicago was good in the second half last year and this team kept most of the roster, right? Like Lonzo Ball for Isaac Aoro happened in the offseason. They drafted Noah Essen. That was pretty much it. Like most of the guys we were seeing play for this Bulls team. We saw them play last year and they’re currently six and one without their best player without Kobe White. Uh Zack Collins hasn’t played yet either. So you’re seeing a ton of Jaylen Smith, Nicole Vuch is playing 32 minutes a night. And this team like doesn’t have the worst resume either. like they’ve beaten some pretty good teams this year. Uh they’ve beaten the Atlanta Hawks, they’ve beaten the Sacramento Kings, they’ve beaten the Detroit Pistons, the Orlando Magic, they beat the Knicks, they lost to the Knicks, like that was their only loss, but it was basically playing them twice in two, three days. So like the Knicks had a good game plan around them. Um and then they ended up just beating Philadelphia after being down for basically three and a half quarters and coming back in the fourth quarter. And this team just flat out scores as well. Like the Chicago Bulls this year are seventh in offensive rating and to their credit to did not think they were going to be good defensively. They were 12th right now in defensive rating, seventh overall in net rating. Now, you could expect like at the start of the year they were allowing a decent amount of open threes and just like the Pistons were not hitting them. Maybe not the best three-point shooting team. The Magic weren’t hitting them. The Hawks weren’t hitting them. The Kings weren’t hitting them. And you thought that was going to eventually regress, right? Like these teams were eventually going to start to hit their shots. And the Bulls were no longer going to give up 110 points a game. and that could go up a little bit more per night basis. And that was kind of happening against Philadelphia. Philadelphia was knocking down a ton of threes in the first half. Tyrus Maxi looked like the all-star AllNBA Tyrus Maxi he has looked this year. And it just kind of comes together for Chicago. Like Josh Giddy, I want to just talk like I’ll just get into Josh Giddy because I’ve enjoyed watching Giddy so much this year. I don’t even know if that was his best performance last night. He played 37 minutes, 29 points, 15 rebounds, 12 assists. Josh Giddy has been unreal this year for the Chicago Bulls. Like every day on Twitter, I kind of post like my thoughts from the night before just because I’m able to watch all the games in the morning now. I’ll watch like the condensed 40-minute games. And somebody asked me like, “Matt, like where do you think Josh Giddy would be in an MVP like ladder right now?” And it’s so early in the year. It’s six or so games, six or seven games through the season. Yeah, I said it. So, it’s like I you can’t put him ahead of Giannis and Shay and WBY, but like he’s top 10. The fact that we’re even like considering Giddy in the top 10, top seven really goes to show you how much fun he’s been um as a bowl this year. He’s averaging 23 points, 10 rebounds, and nine assists. I don’t know if any of you guys play fantasy basketball, but Giddy’s got to be just an unreal fantasy basketball player for you, especially if you ended up taking him not in round one, not in round two. Maybe you took him in like round four, five, six probably. And he is somebody that has just been unreal as a playmaker, as a downhill driver. I think when you talked about Giddy, there was some gripes about Giddy in his last year in OKC where he became too much as a spot-up shooter, which made sense. Shay was going to handle most of the ball creating abilities. But now that Giddy, like with especially with Kobe White out, is kind of the main offensive engine of this team. He’s allowed to play like Fron Vagner. If you remember, this was like a conversation that he should play more like France Vagner a couple years ago and less like a Damen Wilower type that he would try to do at times cuz he’s 6’8. He’s got a great wingspan, a great touch around the rim. This guy is going to be guarded by 6’2 guards, 6’3 guards, 6’4 guards. He’s able to use that height difference to attack these guys downhill. That’s what he was able to do against Tyrus Maxi and maybe Jared McCain last night at times. He’s averaging 23 10 and nine on the year. He’s shooting 50% from the field, 49.6, 42% from three. Yeah, Josh Giddy shooting 42% from three and 75% from the free throw line. If Josh Gy was able to knock down his free throws a little bit more, he’d be able to average like 25 points a night, which would be, I think, a mindblowing number to some people because he’s getting to the free throw line around six times a night, 6.3. He’s knocking down 4.7 of his free throws, so that puts him at 75%. But he is shooting about 52% on twos, 41% on threes. He’s turning the ball over a little bit more, but I actually just love his decision-making this year cuz he’s an incredible passer for somebody at 6’8. And if the three-point shot is falling, this is something you could be very encouraged encouraged about going forward if you’re Chicago. Because if you remember last year, Giddy got off to a really good start shooting the ball. Um last year in the 2025 season, he was shooting from three to start off the year, 58% throughout his first like eight or so games in um how many games was this in October? Five games or so. But then that dipped kind of into uh November. And then he would go on to shoot 29% from three in November, 22% in um December, 36.7% in January, 53% in February, 35% in March, and 40% in April. So for most of last year’s season, Josh Giddy was an efficient three-point shooter. And what did he end up finishing last year at? Because I think he it was like 35 37.8% from three. And if you look into like the Yeah, like if you look at his three-point percentage, it’s gone up every single year. 26% as a rookie, 32 to 33 to 37 to 41. I don’t think he shoots above 41% from three this year, but if he shoots 37 plus like he did last year, this is one of the more dynamic point guards in this league. And I mean, anybody could have offered Josh Giddy a contract in the offseason. You could have created some cap space. And I’m sure if you gave Giddy 30 million a year, the Bulls were going to be very hesitant to match that because he did not end up signing with the Bulls till very late in the offseason. They kind of realized that, oh, nobody else has cap space to offer Josh Giddy anything. We have all the leverage here. They agree on basically a 4-year, $100 million contract, rough average of 25 million per year. And this is one of the best guard contracts in the league right now. Like, he is a lot more effective and impactful than other players making 25 million a year. Like, DeMar Rozan is making 25 million a year. It’s it’s like Anthony Simons is making a decent amount. that was obviously on his previous contract, but still like RJ Barrett is making that much. Manuel Quickley is making over 30 million a year and I’d much rather have Josh Giddy right now what he’s able to do for your team. So, Giddy has been a revelation this year. I I definitely recommend to watch any Bulls games that you can um because he has really carried this team on the offensive end of the floor and it really elevates the Bull ceiling. I still don’t know if Chicago wants to be like that good this year. Maybe they’re okay playing in the playoffs. Um I think Giddy like he’s 20 what three years old? He’s tw he just turned 23. He’s gonna be 23 throughout this whole season. Yeah. This is maybe a franchise player and I I’ll eventually get to Matas, but like Nicole Vuvich has been great this year. I know Chicago has been wanting to get rid of him for a while. He’s been a lot of highs right now. There’s going to eventually be some lows watching Vuvich this year. uh 35 years old, still not a great defender, but if you watched the game against Philadelphia last night, he outplayed Joel Embiid in the final five minutes of the fourth quarter. Embiid, like I wouldn’t say Vuvich was playing like lock down defense on Embid. Embid was able to get like okay looks, but he was not completing them whatsoever. Vuvich obviously uh was able to hit that big-time three late in the game as well on just like an unreal pass from Josh Giddy in the corner. And Vuvich just has been solid for them again this year. He was really bad for them in 2024, but last year like you really value Vuvich as a four spacing five. 40% from three last year. He’s shooting 48% from three this year. Still probably not like the best center in the world to play 32 minutes a night, but Vuch has been a good center, objectively a good center for this team this year. One of my favorite pickups or resignings in the offseason was Trey Jones because what the Bulls played last year was such a fast style of play, a perfect backup point guard for this team was Trey Jones who was really solid for the Bulls in the second half. If you remember, he was involved in the dear Fox Lavine trade. He ends up getting rerouted from San Antonio to Chicago and he was a disappointing player in San Antonio. Now, they had Castle at the time. You had Chris Paul at the time. He wasn’t really having the highest workload like he did in 2423. He averaged 11 and a half points, five assists. Three-point shot was falling in the second half as well. Shot 50% on low volume. This year though, he’s kind of doing most of the same as what he did in the second half last year. He’s averaging six assists a night. Like, this is one of the best backup point guards in the NBA right now. And I think Trey Jones deserves probably a little bit more recognition because when you’re hearing about the Chicago Bulls, you’re hearing about Vu, Gaty, Bzelis, right? You’re not really hearing too much about Trey Jones, who’s actually started seven games, so ignore my backup point guard thing, but you get the point. He’s probably going to be a backup when Kobe White comes back. And Trey Jones and Giddy like have both been positive shooters for this team this year, which has been great. Matzel, we all talked and hyped him up in the offseason. any type of breakout video I did, I was always mentioning Montas Buzzel’s name for somebody that could really take a leap in year number two, still just 21 years old. And while every like this Chicago team is deep and they have some veterans that are getting their looks, Montas is still getting his touches out there, which is doing wonders for his development, being a part of a winning environment. He’s one of the best finishers around the rim for somebody that’s 21 years old right now. He’s 6’10. He’s got a great wingspan. He can use that to his advantage down low when he’s attacking the rim, especially on smaller wings or some power forwards. He’s averaging 15, four and a half, 47 from the field, 42 from three, 82 from the free throw line this year. And it’s just like the depth is showing up. This has been one of the better three-point shooting teams in the NBA. I’d assume just like a good bench scoring guard for this team. 57 from the field, 47 from three. He’s averaging 16 points per game this year. Kevin Herder, 49 from the field, 31 from three. But like I’m not worried about Kevin Herd’s three-point shot. I think that will regress in a positive way this year. Um or just progress in a positive way, I should say. uh 13 points right now on average. Isaac Aoro, good 3 and D wing. I think he was always like a solid enough like regular season wing in Cleveland and now he has a little bit more opportunity in Chicago and this is what they needed wing defenders and that’s what they’re getting out of Isaac Aoro. Maybe something they weren’t getting out of some of the guys last year, Ala Zack um and some of the other wings that were maybe just kind of cones out there for at times. Patrick Williams, if this is what he is, this is a fine player. Is Patrick Williams overpaid? Yes. But if Patrick Williams is going to shoot 40% from three, be a solid uh scorer around the rim and play good defense. I’ll take that. Should he be making probably 10 million less per year? Yes. But that’s not his fault. He took a great contract extension. He’s not going to become Kawhi Leonard like people thought he could be after the 2021 season, but this could be a good rotational player that’s still just 24 years old and is still kind of figuring it out what his role is going to be at the NBA level, right? Like this guy was kind of gifted the keys to the franchise at one point and it’s just not for him. That’s okay. He’s reidentifying himself in the NBA and figuring out his role. And this team, like I mentioned, is doing this all without Kobe White right now. I don’t know if Kobe White’s going to make them better. I don’t know if he’s going to mess up the flow of this team. Kobe White’s also a free agent at the end of the year. You know, he wants to get his touches, but you’re adding in another really good high volume three-point shooter, a microwave scorer. And I hope because I think Billy Donovan will operate with the best lineup rotations. You now have one of the best like guard depths in the Eastern Conference with Giddy, Trey Jones, Dunumu, Herder, and Kobe White coming back. That is like a very nice problem to have in Chicago. They are the second best three-point shooting team in the NBA. Shout out to the Houston Rockets. I mean, they’re shooting 42% from three this year. Uh, but on 16 less threes in one less game than Chicago, but Chicago is up there with Philly, Minnesota. Like Toronto is the fifth best three-point shooting team in the league, which is kind of crazy as well. And I don’t want to like be negative to Chicago at all here. But it really makes me wonder why they drafted Noah SN. Maybe Noah SN is going to be able to play and fit into the style of play. Like he hasn’t played at all this year for Chicago and he’s currently playing for like the G-League Windy City Bowls. So I I just like I don’t know. This team could have drafted Derrick Queen. And that was one of my favorite fits in the 2025 draft was Chicago adding Derrick Queen who could play fast. Even though like Queen isn’t like the fastest player in the world, but his outlook like outlet passing as you maybe saw if you watched their game, their first win against the Hornets, he could see the floor extremely well for somebody that’s a rookie and could play that fast like running gun style play which Chicago really likes to do. So that was like my one gripe on them in the offseason. But hey, SN maybe figures it out over time. He has a chance to kind of figure out what it’s going to be going from like the German BBL league over here to the NBA style play in the G- League, which will be great rather than just kind of throwing him out there into the fire right now. Chicago has flexibility if they wanted to make a trade this year as well. They do own their first round pick. So, I don’t know. Put out a poll on Twitter on I think this was on Yes. Sunday. It was Sunday morning. I I tweeted out like where do you think the Bulls finish after their 5-0 start. So, this is right after they beat the New York Knicks uh which was on Halloween, right? And then they ended up losing to the Knicks this night on Sunday. Um a lot of people still said seven to eight playing. Uh top six seed was 32%, 78 playing was 48%, top three seed three and a half percent. And then nine or 10 seed playing or worse is where I had them going into the year. Still about 15%. Like I wonder if that changes. I really do if like how quick do we have to say this is like or when do we say this is a legit start for the Chicago Bulls? Cuz hey, it’s a seven game sample size. But like their check the schedule hasn’t been the worst. Like they’ve beaten some good teams like I said. like, yeah, maybe Atlanta and Orlando aren’t as good as we thought, but they still beat those teams. They beat the New York Knicks. They beat the 76ers who have been off to a good start as well. They’re undefeated at home. You can see like here in the Eastern Conference, six-1 right now. What do we do about the East? Like, I think at the end of the day, Cleveland’s going to finish with a better record than Chicago. I’ll still stand by that. I want to say that New York will finish with a better record than Chicago. maybe like Philly, Detroit, Milwaukee, Miami, but like I think I’m ready to say Chicago could finish with a better record than Atlanta and Orlando now. I mean, they’re only three and a half games apart between Chicago and Orlando. And two weeks from now, this can completely change when Orlando starts to figure out what they have because they have their own issues right now with how that offense is is flowing with like their Desmond Bane edition and Bane or excuse me and um Paulo’s slow start. But yeah, Chicago fun team to watch. I’ve enjoyed watching the Bulls this year. I think they’ve been one of the more exciting teams in the league because of Josh Giddy, Bzelis. The veterans have kind of stepped up. The depth is showing how important it is. Now, they don’t have like the toughest schedule in the world, but there are some notable opponents, right? Like they play Milwaukee on Friday. They get a nice like two-day rest. Milwaukee, Friday night’s going to be a fun game if Giannis plays. Saturday backtoback Cleveland, I I don’t love that for them on the second night of a backto-back. We’ll see if Garland Allen play uh plays in those if they play in those games. Excuse me. San Antonio, that’s a tough game. Detroit will be a tough game. I mean, maybe this I don’t know. You got to get through this stretch here which is going to be tough but like Utah, Denver could split those. Portland tough but winnable. Miami tough but winnable. Like Washington should beat. New Orleans should beat Charlotte. Indiana, Orlando. Then it gets a little bit easier. But yeah, they still have some tough, they have some easy games. It’s still so early in the year. It’s just like Josh Giddy’s been fun. Buzzel has been fun and the Bulls have just been back. So yeah, I hope you guys enjoyed this video just me talking just random about the Chicago Bulls and how much I’ve enjoyed watching them this year. And I think they’re one of the best storylines in the NBA so far. Let me know your thoughts and opinions on the Chicago Bulls down below. I should have I want to say a double upload today. I want to react to Bleacher Report’s new mock draft now that the collegiate season started. So, be on the lookout for that. And yeah, any other topics you guys want to see me talk about, let me know. Catch you guys in the next one. Peace.

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