Chicago Style Hot Blog

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Just yesterday a friend of mine asked what I hoped from my Bulls this season. Needless to say it took about five text messages to answer that question and I still wasn’t satisfied. Therefore, I’d like to answer that question in a series of blogs here. If I was running the show so to speak this is the first area I would like to see addressed.

Get rid of the guards. Last year we were overloaded at power forward which took time away from our young nucleus of talent. After we traded Ben Wallace away, that problem was solved. Guys like Tyrus Thomas and Joakim Noah were finally getting their minutes needed to develop as prime-time players in this league. The only downside about the trade was we acquired Larry Hughes. By just stating the domain name of a website dedicated to him, you’ll immediately see the issue. This ball-hog was now taking time away from Thabo Sefolosha, our Swiss defensive specialist whose name sounds like you should say, “Bless You!” after you hear it. Then we drafted our point guard of the future in Derrick Rose to an already crowded back-court. It’s clear there is not enough minutes in a basketball game to please Derrick Rose, Kirk Hinrich, Larry Hughes, Ben Gordon and Thabo Sefolosha. It’d be easy if one was much better than the other, but not much separates this group in overall talent. 

I’d like to see the Bulls shop Hughes first. The man is getting paid superstar money after having one good season with Washington, so his contract is hard to move and has 2 years left on it. But I’m so adamant about getting rid of this guy that if we can’t find any takers, we simply need to buyout his contract so our new coach, Vinny Del Negro, can dish out minutes to the guards a little easier. Hughes is past his prime and is of no use to a team that is now being built around Derrick Rose.

That leaves Kirk Hinrich and Ben Gordon. I’m putting Sefolosha on the untouchables list due to his age and knack for shutting down players. I’m not being completely honest, his name is too cool to hear another announcer say it. But back to Kirk and Ben. These two looked to be the prime building blocks to our new dynasty, but each decided to peak in their rookie year. We can’t get rid of both because then we would be thin at guard. Kirk has already signed a new contract after his rookie deal expired that was front-loaded, meaning as time goes on, he gets paid less annually. Ben on the other hand is due an extension, however he wants superstar money and the man can’t play defense to save his life, coughs up the ball every time he’s double-teamed, is under-sized for a shooting guard. Kirk at least has decent size and can play some defense. Ben is an amazing player to watch shoot the ball when he gets hot, but only being able to shoot a beautiful rainbow into the basketball doesn’t make you a superstar in my eyes. He’s a great 6th man off the bench to provide a scoring bonanza, but he wants starter money and that would be a financially bad decision for the Bulls to make. With Rose and Sefolosha starting, we are young and inexperienced, but we are rebuilding and I feel those two have the best chance of making us complete. And since Kirk can play point guard and shooting guard, he’ll be able to give either of our young stars a breather when they need it. But what do I know, I’m just the biggest Chicago sports fan in the world.