Good morning, Chicago.
Well, the Bucks did come through Chicago, and they left me in a puddle on Madison Street, face down, on the way out.
Yet another Monday was filled with temporary regret over how much time and energy I invest into sports teams.
The key word is temporary.
Then I saw seemingly half of the world lose their fucking minds over who would be overseeing Twitter in the future, and I came to the realization that caring about the Bulls is a far better output of my energy than the people both celebrating and weeping into their pillows over billionaires jockeying for a social media site that every user should probably spend less time on.
Letting a sports team ruin nearly your entire weekend is certainly one thing, but giving anything more than a “hmm, that’s interesting” to the Elon Musk Buys Twitter news is another.
As long as I can keep sending out tweets like this to my 246 followers, I have no qualms about who’s running the show:
I’m not sure what’s more embarrassing. The above, alcohol-induced tweet, the time I “pumped up the crowd” earlier in the season as I lost control over my motor functions during a Bulls rally, or that I actually got in a verbal argument with a Milwaukee Bucks fan Sunday and for a couple seconds considered the fact that, because I had higher ground, I could easily pummel him due to basic warfare principles.
At the very least, following the last thought, I also thought about the consequences: not that I’d get in trouble, but that he was on the glass of the front row in the upper deck, and that I certainly wouldn’t want him to die. At least from something I did. If he died when he left, well … moving on.
Yes, I attended both Bulls games this past weekend, and got about as close to witnessing a win as Kyrie Irving did to Allah during Ramadan while simultaneously telling random people to suck his dick.
On Friday, the United Center scene was about as cool of a sports setting I’ve ever witnessed. And then I looked back up and the Bulls were down 16.
It’s never a good sign when your “gotta cut it to __ by __” keeps getting larger and later. “If we cut it to 14 by the 10 minute mark of the fourth…” Come on, pal.
It sucks how quickly things turned from bad, to good, to bad for the Bulls.
I mostly feel bad for all the fans in attendance (including me) who had not one real moment of feeling like the Bulls were going to pull either game out. On the first night, a young man about my age sat next to me, clearly by himself, ready to take in the first home playoff game in five years.
That’s the guy I feel bad for. And not because he was alone — I kind of love that move — but the fact that he made that jump and it was all for naught. It would be like finally getting yourself to go to the movies solo, and then once you get there, seven teenagers call you a lonely loser and start throwing popcorn at you.
In Game 4 on Sunday, the crowd was so ready to erupt that when the Bulls hit a three to bring it within 12, the place went absolutely ballistic.
It only made the in-arena entertainment worse, as some loser with a microphone kept shouting dumb shit to the crowd and also asked us whether we wanted to hear Lil Nas X or Taylor Swift during the time out. How about silence? We’re down 18 in Game 4 with 15 minutes left, asshole.
But in this world, you can’t expect everyone to care as much as you do. I can’t make every fan in the United Center as devout of a Bulls follower as me, just like the maniacs can’t get me to sign a petition or talk about Elon Musk for 45 minutes over dinner.
To each their own.
It’s just tough to see a Bulls season end this way after all the promise it once showed. After 1-seed aspirations, the Bulls will likely go out in five games in the first round, with Zach LaVine in COVID-19 protocols for the third time in a calendar year.
After seeing that news Tuesday, all you could really do is laugh.
The silver lining is this: If the Bulls had not gotten blown out the prior two games and say, it was 2-2, I would have lost my absolute mind at that news.
It just makes no sense that a player — who is vaccinated — should have to miss time on three separate occasions in one year. If that would have truly decided the Bulls season, I may have never recovered.
So, with that consideration, I’m actually grateful.
And man, it’s probably best that LaVine is (likely) done for the season. Frankly, for a guy who apparently wakes up with a swollen knee every single day, he’s played quite awesome.
It’s obvious, though, that he’s not near the same guy. He can’t drive and can’t elevate, which has completely changed his game.
But here’s something I’ve been thinking about. Look around the league. Ben Simmons hasn’t played for a full year in the heart of his prime. Kyrie Irving has played just over 100 games in three years after Brooklyn threw a party because they signed a petulant child. James Harden plays when he wants to, and when he does, his tits sometimes sneak out of his jersey depending on his level of apathy that week.
Kawhi Leonard hardly plays basketball anymore. Zion Williamson does windmill dunks before games and then sits on the sideline laughing during hard-fought playoff games — all after spending the rest of the season in a completely different state.
It seems like half the league has demanded a trade in the last year.
Zach LaVine isn’t just clearly in pain, he’s also about two months from locking up generational wealth. It would have been extremely easy for him to pack it in, call it a year, and wait for that signing bonus to hit his bank while his knee heeled.
He opted to not do that — and while I once did beg for an all-or-nothing approach, sitting out or not discussing the knee at all — I’ve seriously changed my tune as I’ve gained more perspective.
The NBA is as awesome and talented as ever, but in an era when players control nearly everything (which isn’t exactly a negative), and dictate which days they want to work and which days they don’t, LaVine deserves a boatload of credit for zigging as other superstars zag.
The season is likely not going to end how we hoped it would, but we have one star in DeRozan who is of the 1990s in that he plays every game, and only sits if the team demands him to, and another who has fought through a significant — though vague — knee injury that has clearly altered his game heading into unrestricted free agency.
So, while the Bulls need to make adjustments to their roster this offseason — a topic that will be discussed once the season is officially over — at the very least we’ve got guys you want in your foxhole.
I’d rather root for a good team with great dudes than a potentially-maybe-if-everyone-is-playing great team that has more headlines regarding off-the-court issues than on the court.
I just thought that needed to be said, especially as the “do we really want to give LaVine that money?” questions start popping up.
I’ll let that idiotic question remain unanswered for now. But even though the Bulls are losing, at least it’s because — and only because — they’re simply the worse team. And, believe it or not, you can take solace in that.
That piece of shit Grayson Allen got us like I said he would, didn’t he? No more victory laps for me. We all probably saw that coming from a mile away.
(I ran into a man in the bathroom at one game who had a white T-shirt with I HATE GRAYSON ALLEN written on it in sharpie. He proceeded to say “we just need someone to break his knee cap.”)
Allen will go out on top as Alex Caruso — who is in concussion protocols — likely will end the season on the bench.
It sucks, man. But even without Middleton, the distinction between a championship-level team and just a playoff team was more on display than I ever thought it would be in Games 3 and 4, after what we saw in Games 1 and 2.
The Bulls defensive rotations were just not there. The Bucks got wide open three after wide open three. And they hit them.
On the other end, the Bulls got wide open threes, and rarely hit them. That was the key we discussed heading into the series, and as always, water found its level.
Without a healthy LaVine and Lonzo Ball, the Bulls had no chance in matching a hot three-point shooting team. That’s especially the case when you’re having to sink on Giannis as he drives, knowing he’s a willing passer with good three-point shooters around him.
The Bucks have six lockdown defenders: Giannis, Jrue Holiday, Jevon Carter, Wesley Matthews, and Brook Lopez.
Then they have a couple other good ones. Then they have about six other guys that can make both open and contested three-point jumpers at ease.
The Bulls have about two in the former category, and maybe three in the latter category.
There’s little gripes here and there — I would have loved for Javonte Green to play more, for Pat Williams and LaVine to fake less three pointers and instead shoot them, etcetera.
But in the end, the Bucks are just too much to overcome at this stage of the Bulls trajectory. That would have been obvious to anyone before the season, but love is blind sometimes.
As for the rest of the series, I give the Bulls exactly zero chance if both LaVine and Caruso aren’t playing in Game 5, and about a 1% chance if Caruso is playing in Game 5 and LaVine is back for a theoretical Game 6.
1% may be a little generous.
And while the hyped-up newsletters of yesterweek seem overzealous in retrospect, let me tell ya, it was fun as hell writing them in the moment. And it was fun as hell entering the UC on both Friday and Sunday, with hope that the Chicago Bulls may be on their way to a miracle series win.
Those feelings are fleeting, but they still existed.
The Bulls are 12-point underdogs in Milwaukee tonight. DeRozan will be carrying a massive offensive load, and this time, he’ll be going through Holiday, who has done a fantastic job neutralizing him over the prior two games.
Hopefully we’ll see some younger guys step up and make this one competitive. And maybe, just maybe, the Bulls can shock the world and bring this back to Chicago.
Remember: If you’re scared, get a dog!
If the odds prove correct and the Bulls season does come to a close either tonight or this weekend, at least we’ll have the baseball season to shift gears to.
Right?
Ah. Not only are the Cubs and Sox playing on May 3rd and 4th, so early in the season that it frankly seems unAmerican, they also both suck right now.
But, alas, we’ll pack up our bags at the United Center and head to the North and South.
Summer seemed too far away, but with the Bulls now on their way out, it almost seems too close.
For hopefully not the last time… LETS GO BULLS!
Andrew, thank you for making this Bulls season fun! I won't let the ending change the way I feel about it. They were fun to watch and will continue to be.
The summer is not looking good! When does football begin?