ESPN Predicts Bulls To Finish 11th in the East; Why That Won’t Happen

ESPN Predicts Bulls To Finish 11th in the East; Why That Won’t Happen

As we head into September, not much going on around the league. It’s of course getting to be about that time where the national media outlets start putting together their projections and predictions for the upcoming season based on what we know as of today. And so far, yeah, these predictions have not been too kind for the Bulls. Most outlets have the Bulls falling outside of the plane in the bottom five of the Eastern Conference. ESPN specifically having the Bulls finishing 11th with just 36 wins for the year, which to be fair is to be expected. I don’t agree with this prediction, which I’ll explain why in this video, but it doesn’t surprise me that the national media is low on the Bulls given they don’t have any clear stars. They finished ninth last year, only winning 39 games. Giddy still remains unsigned. They traded Lonzo this summer. We don’t know what the future for Vuchovic is. And yes, there were a lot of other teams around the East that got better with their offseason additions, most notably the Magic Hawks. I guess you could say the Raptors if they’re able to stay healthy, even though I still don’t know what the hell that team’s doing. But regardless, I can see why there are a lot of people who are down and out on the Bulls, especially if you haven’t been paying close attention and watching this team night in and night out like us dieh hard fans have been doing. But I’m going to explain why in my opinion whether this is good or bad depending on how you view things and whether you prefer draft positioning, but I’ll give my take on why I think the Bulls will be better than the 11th seed in the Eastern Conference this season and why the Bulls will actually be better than most people expect. So, what’s going on everyone? You’re listening to Bulls Central here. Hope you’re all doing well. Now look, it’s no secret the Bulls aren’t going to be contending this upcoming season. Like even in the best of the best case scenario of Modis breaking out into an all-star, Kobe gets even better. Giddy continues on that streak that we saw from him at the end of the season post all-star break. Somehow Asen is ready for the league at age 18 and is better than expected. Everyone stays healthy. No one gets injured. Best case scenario, we still know this team isn’t winning the title. However, and of course we know this already. It’s a common phrase going around. The East is wide open, right? The Celtics, they’re not going to be the team we saw last year. No Tatumat, Porzingis, and Drew Holiday. They were traded. The Pacers, Hallebertton out for the season. They lose Miles Turner in free agency. The Bucks, they’ve got Giannis, so they’ll still be good. But even with Giannis, you’ve seen that’s only gotten them so far. And of course, they also wave Demi Lillard. He’s no longer on the team. You look at the rest of the roster, and there’s absolutely nothing to get excited about there. An injury to Giannis, and they’re in the lottery. The Sixers didn’t even make it to the playin last year. Now, yes, you would assume with Embiid, Paul George, maybe they won’t sustain the same amount of injuries that we saw last year. But who’s to say that they won’t? Both injury-prone players on the wrong side of 30. And even when they did play, they didn’t look great. The Miami Heat, I’m not sold on them. I like that they made that trade for Norman Powell, but they didn’t get that much better and finished 10th last season behind the Bulls. Even though, yes, I’m aware they beat the Bulls in the playin. The Atlanta Hawks, I’m not sold on the Hawks either. Like, I don’t get why everyone is actually so high on the Hawks. People are much more high on the Hawks because of the great move they made in trading for the Pelicans unprotected first round pick on draft night, which was an amazing trade for them, by the way. I still can’t believe the Pelicans did that just to trade a few spots up in the draft. But that doesn’t even impact their roster for this year. We’re talking about a mid team that’s been mid for quite some time now. And oh great, they added an injuryprone Christos Porzingis to their lineup. ESPN had them finishing fourth. And actually, let me just pull up where they had each team in the East. So they got Cavs, Knicks, Magic. Also not sold on them either, but at least they’re a young team with the Star and Bonero. And they added a player to fix their shooting problems, but then the Hawks, Pistons, Bucks, Celtics, Sixers, Heat, Pacers, Bulls, Raptors, Hornets, Nets, and Wizards. And yes, I realize in those teams that I just listed that I’m not sold on. I’m highlighting some of the worst case scenarios for them. But even at a baseline of just saying things go as expected for all these teams, yeah, maybe they hit some injuries here and there. the players perform to their expectations. I feel like even with that assumption, the Bulls are higher than number 11. And here’s why. The Bulls, as they are currently constructed, we actually have a small sample size of what this team can do. We saw it last season after they traded for Zack Lavine. And then obviously a few games gap between when Herder, Trey Jones, and Zack Collins started playing post all-star break. I won’t even do the whole 15-5 stretch at the very end right after the break because the Bulls actually did not look that good coming out of the All-Star break. They struggled to get their footing with the new guys and also being without Zack Lavine. But let’s use that whole 27game sample size after the break as that’s when the newcomers actually started playing. The Bulls went 17- 10 in that stretch. They outscored their opponents 121 to 116. They had one of the highest true shooting percentages in the league during that stretch. They were a top 10 offensive team in the NBA post the All-Star break. They were getting the free line more, passing the ball better, bringing their overall assist numbers up, while also limiting their turnovers. They went from averaging 15 turnovers pre-break to 13 post break. Even their defense, which still wasn’t great, but their defense went from being 20th in the NBA to top 14 post all-star break, 14 specifically. I’m not saying these numbers are earthshattering or contentionworthy status if replicated, but the performance that we saw and even just those 27 games would suggest that this team is better than finishing 11th in a very weak Eastern Conference next season. Now, yes, say what you will, we all know it was March and April basketball. The Bulls played a lot of bad teams during that stretch, a lot of teams that were resting players, but they also did beat some quality teams that were in fact trying to win. And at the end of the day, it’s still basketball. The Bulls took what the competition gave them and won more often than not. And so outside of the Bulls adding a Sen and trading for a Cororo for a guy who didn’t play much last season for them anyway and in fact didn’t play in any of those games post all-star break in Lonzo Ball. Even assuming the Bulls performance at the end of the year was inflated. You’re adding a quality defender in Aora who is hopefully going to ground you more on that end of the floor. You hopefully see some natural progression from Modest going into year two who looked great when he was given proper minutes at the end of the year. Kobe White who was putting up all-star type numbers at the end of the season. I would argue the same with Josh Giddy and how he closed out the year. You’ve got IO coming back who missed the end of the season. Patrick Williams, well I guess this is one of those things where you can only go up from here, right? Uh Trey Jones was great for the Bulls before he got injured. Kevin Herder, he somehow found his groove again in being an offball catch andoot shooter. Yes, call it opium. Call it being overly optimistic. Yes, I’m aware things could go wrong where Giddy struggles like he did at the start of last season or Kobe for some reason falls off or god forbid there should be a major injury to someone. But with the East being wide open and knowing what we know from this team last year, a team that like to get out and run and punish teams with their speed and transition play, a team that even though maybe they don’t have the talent level that their opponent does, they’re going to make you work on the defensive end and wear you down to the end of the game. That team going into the season, if they can replicate that, will be better than the 11th seed in the East. I can promise you that. Now, maybe some of you don’t want that and would prefer the Bulls to finish in the bottom three, but I just know based on this front office, the coaching staff, and the players they have before, then they’re going to try to win. Where do I think the Bulls ultimately finish? I haven’t quite figured that out yet. I usually do my conference prediction videos during the preseasons. I like to see fully baked rosters and any potential injuries coming out of training camp, but barring any crazy unforeseen injury to the Bulls, I know they will be better than 11th next year. You can bookmark this video and save it until after this season. But anyway, let me know what you guys think. Let me know in the comments. As always, be sure to subscribe and I will see you in the next one.

Discussing the national media’s latest predictions on the Chicago Bulls and why they are wrong in their assessment

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