Good morning Chicagooooooo!
The last time the Bulls were in the playoffs, I was galavanting around Munich on Papa’s Dime, drinking steins and throwing up after partaking in carnival rides while intoxicated seeing all the great wide world has to offer.
Rajon Rondo had turned into Playoff Rondo, and the Bulls were on the brink of a 1-8 matchup upset. I had stayed up that week in my apartment in Dublin watching games 1 and 2 until 3 a.m. local time, unable to go to sleep after due to my excitement over a 1- and then 2-0 series lead.
The next day, the rest of my classmates, as they droned on and on about inconsequential shit like the British Empire’s effect on the early modern era, had no idea what I was going through.
The Bulls had thrown their undesirable “three alphas” teams together — comprised of Dwyane Wade, Jimmy Butler, and Rondo — and it was largely a failure. Until then.
I knew across the Atlantic it was warming up, there was that smell in the air that’s filled with “baseball practice aroma,” the city was coming alive again, and the Bulls were on TNT playing meaningful basketball.
I knew that feeling, and that there was nothing better. And here I was sitting in a classroom across the world, in one of the “best” European universities, listening to some professor thinking he knew everything about the world, not realizing he knew nothing.
🎵 Do they know it’s playoff time at alllll? 🎵
Life was hard. Especially as I was wrapping up class and having to think about packing for my upcoming trip to Germany, where I’d be meeting my friends to celebrate Springfest in Munich, the first of my kin to step foot on that soil since my grandfather did over a half century earlier at the end of World War 2.
It’s hard to think who felt more on edge as we each embarked on our respective trips to Germany: me or my grandfather. Frankly, who’s to say.
It is clear, however, who left feeling worse.
As soon as that feeling came, it left. As I was sucking down pilsners with fake John Lennon glasses on and a backwards paddy cap — surely looking like an all-time asshole — I got the news. Rondo, the leader of the 2-0 surge, had broken his thumb.
Life was already hard and things had gotten even worse. The Bulls season was over, and there was no chance I’d be back seaside for even a single playoff game that year.
But, surely, they’d be back the next year. Or the year after?
Wrong. Since that point — the 2016-2017 season — the Bulls have not been back to the playoffs. You have to go a year further back to find their last winning season. And you have to go back a year before that to find the last time they were a top-6 team in the playoffs.
Fast forward five years and life is even harder. I have to do things like go on grocery runs, and my stupid little grocery list keeps getting more expensive. Something called “inflation”??
There are no carnival rides, ancient churches, or endless trips across Europe. My father has even cut off the Papa’s Dime Fund, a heartless decision he has not yet provided a reasonable explanation for.
It turns out, even if life was hard back then, it can always get worse. I think a few thousand people have told me that life does get harder as it goes on, but as the American novelist William Saroyan said, 'Everybody has got to die, but I have always believed an exception would be made in my case.' I always though I’d be the exception.
Now I know those people were telling the truth. But one thing they weren’t telling the truth about, dear reader, is that sports become less consequential as you grow old.
Not even close. Sure, my little brother no longer screams bloody murder when the Bulls give up a three in the first quarter, prompting my mom to rush downstairs thinking something devastating has happened. (First off, MOM, something devastating has happened — we need better closeouts!) That’s true.
But at the same time, it was not that long ago that my father shattered a remote control after Purdue’s Kyle Orton threw a touchdown pass against Notre Dame, and ordered me to clean up the pieces as my mom was walking up the back steps.
The reality is that, sure, while sports may have been the only thing you had to worry about when you were young — and that is no longer the case as an adult — it is also one of the few things you look forward to.
If the Bulls lose in the playoffs when you’re 12, you eat pop tarts the next day and have recess at noon. If the Bulls lose in the playoffs when you’re 26, you’re left with a 6:30 a.m. wake up call and a dreadful invention dubbed the “Google Calendar” waiting to ruin your next day.
The actual game may mean less to you, but the surrounding buffers — as I’ll put it — are far less. Or bumpers, maybe. Yeah, bumpers. When you roll the playoff basketball ball down the alley as a kid, and it goes awry, there’s bumpers to put you on track. When you’re an adult, you hit the gutter hard and keep rolling into the pit.
All of that is to say… it’s Tuesday. And I’m dribbling up the proverbial court that is the NBA playoffs. Get the hell out of the way, so help me god. I don’t have a mismatch but I’m taking this sucker to the hole.
I’ve tweeted “LETS GO BULLS #LOCKIN”, largely into an abyss, before every Bulls game this year (except for the 15 or so times I forgot to). Lord knows, before the first playoff series since Rajon Rondo was our point guard, I’m going to be locked in.
I don’t have time for shenanigans, as I had no time for Irish men and women whining about the British Empire. I got real things to worry about, and let me tell ya, it doesn’t look good.
This week, the Bulls will be in the playoffs. Do you not get it? The Bulls will be in the playoffs!
I don’t have time for Sox fans to tell me I need to give Eloy Jimenez a treat and a pet on his fatter-than-usual belly because he caught a ball in the outfield as a major league baseball player — and didn’t impale his star center-field counterpart with his cleat after being called off in left center — while doing so.
Congrats Eloy! There you go.
I don’t have time for any causes this week. I’m taking my privilege in all of its might this week and wacking unrelated world conversations out of the way.
From here on out, I will be mentally and physically preparing for 5:30 CT on Sunday.
Here’s what I’ll be doing to prepare:
— Watching Derrick Rose’s three dunks against the Miami Heat in the 2011 playoffs
— Watching “Michael Jordan to the Max” and “The Last Dance”
— Helping my mom prepare for a jewelry show. And no, this isn’t a distraction. I arrived home from school once and my mom had a white board set up on the back porch that had the Heat-Bulls game time on it (Shaq era), key matchups (not sure she got them right, but good on her for trying), and a dinner menu, which included pizza she had ordered for me. Paying her back for this is a part of the process and good karma.
— Watching highlights from Game 1 of the Pacers-Bulls series in 2011
— Watching highlights from Game 1 of Bulls-Celtics 2008
— Yelling “playoff week!” at my roommates to get their minds right, too. This is a team effort.
— Writing a thesis on why people always say Milwaukee is a “cool town” — because it’s often one of the cities they can go to easily from Chicago, and to not make people who are from there feel bad.
The Bulls have lost 16 of their last 17 games to the Bucks, their first round opponent. But, as the old adage goes, it’s hard to beat a team 20 out of 21 times!
I frankly would be far more nervous if the Bulls were going into a series in which they were favored. They are instead playing the defending champs in a series where no one expects anything out of them. They are +600 to win the series, and +10 in the first game.
I may take unpaid leave on Friday because 1) I need to get my mind right 2) I won’t need the money after the Bulls lose by 7, and not 10, in devastating fashion after putting up a fine effort in Game 1.
We all know the Bulls have fallen off this year. I can’t help but wonder what they could have been had they had a healthy team — including Zach LaVine, Lonzo Ball, Alex Caruso, and Pat Williams — that had the chance to mesh over the course of the year.
But we are where we are. The Bulls were one of the best teams in basketball — that was not a fluke. They did beat good teams during that stretch, too, including the Utah Jazz and Brooklyn Nets. They beat teams they were supposed to, and honestly, just rarely lost.
Then, they lost their guys, and things changed. Some tight wins gave them the impression that nothing needed fixing and that they would be fine when everyone returned. But there is never a point where everyone returns. Because, well, Ball never came back. Caruso returned hurt. Williams came back… as a second-year player. And all the while, LaVine got hurt.
The Bulls were at the top of the east and 26-10 on January 7th. They had won 9 games in a row and 13 out of their last 15. They were a top-5 offense in the league and a top-half defense in the league. Since then, both sides of the ball have deteriorated, and the Bulls have played as a lottery team more than a playoff team.
It’s part injuries, part not. But we’ve been locked in from the outset, and our hopes and dreams didn’t carry us this far to tap out now.
You don’t get excited and deranged about a team for a year — or, a lifetime for that matter — and then when they fall back to earth, fall back to earth with them. That’s what a rational person may do, of which I am not.
But I do have a rational basketball side:
— The odds are stacked against the Bulls
Back to the other side:
— Who gives a shit, let’s enjoy the Bulls in the playoffs with a great group for the first time in five years.
I thought I had tickets to Game 3. Regrettably, I do not. I have tickets to Game 4. All I am wishing for is anything but a 3-0 Bucks lead heading into that game.
I attended the Bulls-Hornets game Friday in person. Keep your “but, but”s away from me. I know.
Last time the Bulls were in the playoffs I was a stumbling, drunk fool.
For those of you that know me now, I am assuredly an adult.
A wavering fan, I am assuredly not.
LETS GO BULLS!
The rest of the Bulls-Bucks preview will follow at the bottom of the newsletter
The White Sox had the most predictable beginning of the season from a rabid fan’s perspective.
After coming off of a suspension, the man pictured above immediately doubled, then singled, and doubled again later on. As a guy who once thought he would fall off from his contending-for-the-hitting-title days, I feel stupid. And I especially feel stupid for doubting a guy like Tim Anderson.
At the same time, an hour after last week’s newsletter was published, it was announced that Yoan Moncada will be out for for three weeks with an oblique strain, the kind of mini-injury he seems so susceptible to. And even though he plays a lot of games, I don’t find him durable. I don’t think those two things are mutually exclusive.
Of course, there was the Lance Lynn news — he’ll be out for at least five, six more weeks in my opinion, as I think the team with rightfully take their time with him. Though it’s unlikely he’ll want to take his time.
Then Lucas Giolito left Game 1 and all of us were none the wiser, though we should have been. Abdominal discomfort.
Then AJ Pollock, after an awesome start, left with a hamstring strain.
I’ve written about this before — pertaining to the Sox and the Bulls (uh oh, hopefully that’s not a pattern) — but I never know how much to blame training staffs. I really don’t.
There’s people that swear that those men and women matter a whole lot when it comes to how many guys on your team end up on the IL. Then there’s others who swear they don’t matter all that much.
In all likelihood, it’s probably a mixture of a lot of things: whether the guys are durable, whether they work hard in the offseason to make sure their bodies are set for 162, and, yes, the training staff.
It’s my belief that the Sox should be fine — with or without these guys for now, with or without a trade. But man, it’s definitely a trend, and not an anomaly, at this point.
But still — and here we go back to the predictability — the White Sox are 3-1, and really should be 4-0. And that’s predictable, too. As is Liam Hendriks being one of the best pitchers in baseball, but still giving off the vibe that he may blow the game every single time he comes in.
Luis Robert is on one of the cleanest baseball player trajectories I’ve seen in a long time. Every year, there’s massive expectations for this dude, and every year he gets better. He’s not a defensive liability, and he just rakes. He single-handedly won the game for them yesterday.
And Eloy had a big boy catch! Now if only he could hit some home runs, so I could cash in my bet for him to win the home run title. See, I am NOT praying on his downfall, contrary to popular belief.
The Cubs have beaten the Brewers twice — who frankly, look like dog shit — and the Pirates once, who are dog shit.
That hasn’t stopped me from buying in on this mishmash of players. I wrote last week about what I was excited for this season, and thus far, they’ve all delivered.
Except for Frankie Schwindel. Frankie, was it too good to be true?
Frankie is turning into Frank before our eyes, and it turns out him and Patrick Wisdom may not be the revelations we once thought they could be.
That could be a massive problem for the Cubs lineup. And though it’s a small sample size for those guys, you could argue the larger sample size does not bode well for them either. After all, their streaks last year were the buyer’s-beware samples.
Regardless, I’ve got a +500 bet on the Cubs to make the playoffs, and I genuinely believe they can make it there.
The goal, though, is for them to be good enough at the deadline that we don’t see another fire sale like last year. Obviously, if and when that happens, the playoff dreams are dead.
Seiya Suzuki is already making history. He’s ripe, he’s new — all those caveats, he’ll surely taper off at some point — but he’s also awesome. His personality is vibrant, and he’s got three home runs in a young season. I’m absolutely ecstatic to have a guy like him, paired with some young talent, to root for over the summer.
I really do think this will be a fun Cubs season. Low expectations, with a lot to look forward to.
The Bulls need to make three pointers.
They make 10.6 per game, one of the worst marks in the league. Milwaukee makes 14.1 per game, one of the league’s best marks.
All else being equal (it’s not), that right there is an over 10-point advantage. Right off the bat. The Bulls are 10-point underdogs.
Now, the Bucks also have three All-Stars, the reigning MVP, and are the reigning NBA champs.
But the point stands. If the Bulls want to neutralize the Bucks advantages, they need to hit threes. And to hit them, you need to take them. Without those, they do not stand a chance.
Tristan Thompson cannot play more than 10 minutes per game. He’s not a good pick and roll defender. He’s not really a good defender, period. And he’s an awful offensive player.
Derrick Jones Jr. is capable of playing a small-ball 5. It will be tough in Brook Lopez’s minutes, but he should get Thompson’s minutes. Vucevic can fight that battle, but Jones Jr. has shown he’s capable of defending Giannis.
Look for a breakout series from Jones Jr., if he’s given the chance.
Nikola Vucevic has been an inconsistent mess most of the season. His variance has been almost impossible to put into words. He’s fantastic on some nights, and downright dreadful on others.
This series isn’t about DeMar DeRozan. He will get his.
This series is about LaVine and Vucevic. If they can’t play up to their potential — LaVine due to the knee, Vucevic due to whatever the hell happens to him sometimes — the Bulls, again, have no shot.
But let’s not act like the Bulls don’t have talent. And they’re getting a week’s rest. The excuses need to go the wayside.
Billy Donovan will have a good game plan in place, the question is, will the best players execute it?
No defensive breakdowns. No deflected passes out of double teams. The Bulls need to find the magic they stumbled upon early in the season.
Improbable? Yes. Impossible? No.
The Bucks have historically struggled in Game 1s. That’s the Bulls opportunity to put this series on its head.
Last year, they barely beat the Heat in overtime, then steamrolled them in three straight games. They lost Game 1 to the Nets. They lost Game 1 to the Hawks. They lost Game 1 to the Suns.
In 2020, they lost Game 1 to the Magic, then beat them in five games. They lost Game 1 to the Heat, and then lost the series.
If the Bulls have any chance in this series, they need to show out in Game 1. This series cannot go back to Chicago at 2-0.
At the blink of an eye, this team turned from good to bad. By that logic, at the blink of an eye, they can go from bad to good. Right?
One can hope. And I will.
LETS GO BULLS!
Credit: Maddie Meyer/Getty Images
First and foremost Andrew(and you knew you would get in trouble for this one), we always have time for Irish men and women to complain about the British! Your Great Grandfather was a great man and he hated the British and what they did to him on his farm. Read the History!
Also, aren't you planning to go to church and do the "Stations of the Cross" on Good Friday?
Lastly, you were eating and drinking on my dime because you picked up the pieces of the remote while I distracted mom. I owed you. My debt is paid.
Rule of thumb: if your reasoning for a city being cool is that "they have some cool breweries", that town is not fun.
Milwaukee is a suburb of Chicago. Might as well give Naperville a basketball team. The Bulls are going to win game 1 and likely drop the next 4. But I will be insufferable after they win game 1. I wish we had Nazr Mohammad to shove Grayson Allen to the floor and get the team going.
LOCKIN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!