Bulls' Future Looking Up
Posted by Frank Isola on May 1, 2007 3:17 PM

The Knicks inability to beat out Washington and Orlando for one of the final two playoff spots was magnified on Sunday when the Chicago Bulls swept the Miami Heat to advance into the second round.

The Bulls, of course, own the Knicks' lottery pick so besides being a serious contender to reach the NBA Finals, Chicago has a small chance of landing the top overall selection in next month’s NBA Draft.

The Knicks have made two major sign-and-trade deals with Chicago over the last three years, acquiring Jamal Crawford and then Eddy Curry. The Knicks are convinced that both Crawford and Curry are building blocks for their future but those moves have yet to translate into a winning record much less a playoff appearance. Meanwhile, Chicago hasn’t skipped a beat since trading their two former lottery picks.

In fact, they have improved each season and Sunday’s win over Miami gave the Bulls their first series win since Michael Jordan led them to the 1998 NBA title. The Knicks have gone seven years without winning a playoff series.

By advancing past the Heat, Chicago not only gains valuable playoff experience and moves closer to a championship, the team has also increased the value of several players that could be used in a future trade. Plus, they have the Knicks' lottery pick as another trading chip.

Because of the assets the Bulls possess, Chicago could have the goods to land Kevin Garnett or Pau Gasol. A worst-case scenario for the Knicks would have the Bulls reaching the NBA Finals and then winning the rights to draft either Greg Oden or Kevin Durant. It would make a long summer even longer for the orange and blue.

this is like throwing salt on a wound.

These posts should be banned.

My opinion: The Bulls can win the TITLE for all i care. I just don't want them getting anything higher than #9.

Posted by franco12:

If the bulls land a top 3 pick, Dolan has to fire Isiah. no ifs ands or buts, and in spite of everything he's said in public about supporting Isiah.

Its like in the movies- your buddy's leg is broken and you have to leave him behind.

i don't know if anybody could recover from giving up oden or durant. that would be nuts and the entire summer would be crazy.

Yeah, you really have to just preay that it doesn't happen. The LB circus will be nothing compared to what we are about to experience should that happen. But the odds are that it won't happen. I hope.

Posted by TrueBlue:

LOL and you have some fans arguing that the Bulls ridding Crawford anf Curry from their roster didn't correlate to their current success.


Oh Well

Its less about who they got rid of and more about who they got. Crawford and Curry are nice talents- they're flawed, but nice.

I'd take Heinrich, Gorden, Deng and Wallace over them any day.

Posted by franco12:

If the bulls land a top 3 pick, Dolan has to fire Isiah. no ifs ands or buts, and in spite of everything he's said in public about supporting Isiah.

Its like in the movies- your buddy's leg is broken and you have to leave him behind.

while i agree with you, i think dolan will give zeek the balance of next year to show "further evident progress" unless the team pulls a really bad start to the season. i think it would take like a 1-10 start to fire him at this point. he will survive the draft tho IMO nomatter who the bulls pick.

Posted by RemBee76:

Seriously, what does this have to do with us?

The Bulls rebuilt "the right way" and it still took them nine years to get their first playoff series win. Bully for them.

We are in our third year and its looking like building around (with) Curry has promise. Crawford, maybe not, but all the Bulls got for him was a bit of cap space.

Some trades can be mutually beneficial, right?

We all know with our luck no way our 9th pick turns into Oden if we still owned it. So if others want to play the revisionist game I say have at it, I'll watch the ball going down on our court right now when judging the job Isiah has done.

No they built the right way the moment they drafted Hinrich. They were building the wrong way prior to by taking hopeful high school talents. You can't do that yr after yr. They also traded away or let go a ton of young talent in the process(Brand, Artest, Miller, Hassell). Technically it took them 8yrs but Officially more like 3yrs.

Posted by TrueBlue:
Meanhwile we acquire Curry and Crawford and regress from the seasons prior to obtaining them.

Did we regress because of Crawford that year or because we were missing Allan Houston? And with everything that happened under Brown, do you really want to pin that year on Curry? Really?

Actually, yeah, why don’t you give that a shot. I’m all ears.

Posted by TrueBlue:

Posted by kam77:

Ben Gordon and then Wallah

You either meant Wallace, or voilà. Either way it makes sense.



[Edited by - kam77 on 05-01-2007 5:16 PM]

No I meant what I meant.

Whats a wallah?

Posted by kam77:

Posted by TrueBlue:

Posted by kam77:

Ben Gordon and then Wallah

You either meant Wallace, or voilà. Either way it makes sense.



[Edited by - kam77 on 05-01-2007 5:16 PM]

No I meant what I meant.

Whats a wallah?

It actually should be Walla(As in Presto) but I'm putting the East Coast accent on it by adding the h.