I will not lie to you, dear reader. Things are not good around here in Chicago. I am not qualified to discuss those things. The Bears are an elaborate prank played on all of us by a trickster god. The next two weeks will see two national TV games, with the whole country laughing and being bewildered by us. For the third time in a decade, everyone is just looking at their watch and waiting for an announcement of firing and hirings that we can talk ourselves into meaning it will be different this time, before they actually have to make a free agent signing or draft. We are stuck in the middle of purgatory and football's hell.
The Cubs are disgusting, and despite the excitement of actual movement in the signing of Marcus Stroman, one can't shake the feeling that it's just a distraction by ownership to try and hide their vampire squid ways. Their only chip to hide behind is the one they have to deny.
The White Sox are good, except it never seems like fans enjoy that fact, worrying about the signings they didn't make or how they don't measure up to other teams when the playoffs are random. The Hawks? Even though everyone has been fired, they still score 0.3 goals per game. They are barely noticeable because they are folding into themselves at a rate that is so slow.
If we treat the Chicago Bulls like a video game system you got for Christmas, you will have to excuse us, even if your grades don't warrant it. The Bulls remind us that good things can happen if we work hard.
They have the most victories in the Eastern Conference. They have beaten the Nets twice and are only behind the Nets on percentage points. The Bulls blew their ass out of the building without DeMar DeRozan and Alex Caruso and a couple others due to COVID protocols. They have missed seven games. Patrick Williams only played five games. The Bulls don't care. They will beat the piss out of whoever is out there if Billy Donovan tells them what he has to work with that night.
We have seen good Bulls teams before, but they were not very good. They were teams where every offensive possession looked like it was stuck in the washing machine and you didn't know whether to push or pull the thing to get it going. At the peak of those teams, it was Rose driving and the rest trying to rugby scrum whatever he didn't make into the basket.
Bulls fans like to think that it doesn't really matter, because if he had eaten his lunch again in the playoffs, he would have eaten it again.
But these Bulls? Here is some shit.
And more.
The heart of this is a young man. We love our locals around here, and that's why we're so fond of Ayo, who is from here and went to college down the beaten path. I have better things to do than watch college basketball, so I didn't watch him at Illinois. How good could he be if the Illinois team spit it against Loyola last year, as my friends who are Illinois grads have said all the time? They were just looking at the world through glasses.
No one has told him if he isn't good. He isn't listening if they did. A second-round pick is supposed to avoid the tumbleweeds. Last night with the Bulls shorthanded, he played 42 minutes as starter and forced his way into the rotation. I don't know if Ayo has a plan or idea for what he's going to do. I know it doesn't matter.
In the 4th quarter, the team's two best players, LaVine and DeRozan, pull their ass out of a sling. They go nuclear. Nope, not tonight. LaVine is going to get to the rim or rain fire from beyond the 3-point line, while DeRosa is going to hit all kinds of jumpers. Some guys seem to get a wave from playing in the Olympics. They might think they belong there if they are put around the aristocracy for a few weeks. It seems like that happened to LaVine this year. Two players are in the top six. This is a video game.
I am not a big basketball fan. I was a hockey writer for a long time, so I didn't see much for a long time. I used to be a fan of the Bulls because of my punk rock tastes, but as a kid I thought they were dumb. They apply a Bears fan mentality to basketball and end up worshiping players who make theater out of working hard instead of being highly skilled. Joakim Noah was the only one of the four to get his ass shaved immediately in the playoffs, and he is a god here. People still pine for Jimmy's fraud because he puts too much time into producing.
You cannot help it with this team. This is not about muckers or grinders. They can play defense when Lonzo Ball is manning the perimeter, but it is more than that. It is the poor-man's Joki act that goes with LaVine and DeRozan. It is Ball's jumper that launches daggers into opponents. Or Ayo was barely controlling his fury.
How long can it last? I don't know. They need a big on the bench. I don't know if the Bulls will be able to make enough threes to open up driving lanes for LaVine and DeRozan in the spring. At some point, Ayo will hit a wall. They could be crushed on the boards.
For another day, those are problems. The ride is over. As our winter sets in, I will keep myself warm as long as I can.
