Waiting for the Bulls

Zion, Trae, Bradley Beal, Jeff Sanders

The Bulls wrapped a 2-4 road trip with 110-101 loss to Sacramento on Sunday, Chicago is home to take on Washington Wednesday before hosting Dallas on Saturday evening. The Wizards are fine and Dallas recently learned how to win on the road, either team could successfully down the Bulls without much pushback.

We all saw the strength of schedule tweet, it was supposed to keep us steady.

Krishna Narsu @knarsu3

Strength of Schedule accounting for injuries, rest, covid, etc. Example: the Nets playing the Sixers without Embiid, Harden and Maxey is given an opponent net rating of -1.655 as opposed to Boston who played Philly full strength and gets an opponent net rating of 6.848.

Nobody is steady.

The Bulls have good players and a good coach and no chance. The lineups are mismatched, beyond DeMar DeRozan the team’s list of most consistent players (Andre Drummond, Alex Caruso, Goran Dragic) is entirely made up of sixth men. The list of guys who need to pick it up (Nikola Vucevic, Coby White, Patrick Williams, Ayo Dosunmu) is also, entirely, cultivated from sixth men.

Any internal improvement relies on Lonzo Ball’s knee rehabilitation somehow also fixing Zach LaVine’s injured knees. Any championship hopes demand 21-year old Patrick Williams perform as consistently as someone a decade older, and Coby White (in trade rumors since his rookie campaign) strut with the assurance of a ten-year vet with a no-trade clause.