Chicago Bulls Offseason Moves

As we all know the Bulls season was cut short this year due to the devastating ACL injury to Derrick Rose. The Bulls were ousted in the opening round against the lowly Philadelphia 76ers team. The Bulls lost Rose in the opening game to an ACL tear with a little over a minute to go in the fourth quarter. Then, Joakim Noah went down with an ankle injury in game three which put the dagger in the Bulls' hearts. The Bulls lost in game six and were eliminated from playoff contention. The 76ers went to the second round and lost to the Boston Celtics in seven games. Just watching that series showed me how easily the Bulls would have gotten to the Eastern Conference Finals at full strength. The Bulls should be playing the Heat and not Boston. The Bulls are now in off season mode and they can begin making trades at any point, although it is unlikely until around the draft and beyond. The Bulls have a lot of situations to address. The first thing that I think should be done is picking up head coach Tom Thibodeau's contract for next season and giving him an extended contract. He has led the Bulls to the best record in the NBA for two straight years and he has only been a head coach those two years. The Bulls are a great team under his tutelage and he should remain the coach for at least a few more years. In those two seasons the Bulls have had injuries to Carlos Boozer, Joakim Noah, C.J. Watson, Derrick Rose, Luol Deng and Richard "Rip" Hamilton. The Bulls have rarely been at full strength in these past two seasons due to all of their various injuries. Even with these injuries the Bulls were the number one seed in the East both seasons and they had the best record in the NBA both seasons. It is scary what this team could do at full strength for an entire season. The next thing to address is the contracts of Mike James, Brian Scalabrine, John Lucas III, C.J. Watson, Kyle Korver, Ronnie Brewer and Omer Asik. Asik is a restricted free agent and the Bulls are expected to match any competitors contract so the Bulls can keep Asik. Brewer, Korver and Watson all have player options and all of them may not get picked up. I believe out of that group, the one that would be picked up would be Korver as he provides a spark off the bench. Let's say Lucas III, Watson, Brewer, Scalabrine and James all leave the team. The Bulls would not have a point guard as Derrick Rose will miss a lot of time next season. Luol Deng may miss time as well if he elects to have surgery on his left wrist after the Olympics. The Bulls may also move on from Hamilton as well who missed over half of last season with a list of injuries. If I was the GM, here is what I would do:

-Give Thibodeau a contract extension
-Decline the options of Watson and Brewer
-Pick up the option on Kyle Korver
-Let Lucas III, Scalabrine and James all go
-Make a trade that nets Pau Gasol from the Lakers
-Sign Chauncey Billups
-Sign O.J. Mayo
-Release or trade Richard Hamilton

The Bulls would either have to trade Deng or Boozer to get Pau Gasol from the Lakers. Everyone would love to see the Bulls trade Boozer or release him, but I do not think the Bulls will do that. Although I would hate to see him go, the Bulls may trade Luol Deng to get Pau Gasol. The Bulls lineup with my additions would be Billups, Mayo, Gasol, Boozer and Noah. Seems pretty solid to me until Rose comes back and replaces Billups. The Bulls are very close to the salary cap limit as their core players are making a lot of money. This gives the Bulls little room to sign anyone without releasing or trading away some of their larger contracts. This will be an interesting off season for the Bulls as they will have a lot of decisions to make. Let's hope the Bulls can improve this team and maybe swing a blockbuster trade that brings the Bulls another superstar player.

Meeting Randall Cobb, Jordy Nelson and Greg Jennings

On Saturday May 12, my girlfriend and I traveled up to Waukesha, Wisconsin, to meet three Green Bay Packers players. I have yet to meet any Packer players until this day, so with me being a big Packer fan this was pretty amazing. The ride was about two hours long and it was around 120 miles to get up there. On the way up, we passed by Miller Park where the Brewers were playing the Cubs. It was funny to see all of the Cubs fans walking out of the game as the Cubs lost to the Brewers that day, 8-2. We got up there after I passed the place up and had to call them to figure out where they were located. We got there and I could not believe my eyes when I walked in. I saw so many Packer autographs all over along with all types of Packer fans. I felt like I was with my people, there were people who were in from Green Bay for this Packer signing. It is always interesting to see what people bring out to get signed by these players. It ranges from footballs to mini helmets to canvases to cleats. The first thing we did was walk around and experience all of the autographs they had and try to keep the credit cards in our pockets. This was tough because living in Chicago, there are not many Packer autographs around; especially at stores. It was time to get into the autograph line, the first person that was signing was Randall Cobb from 12:30-1:30, then Jordy Nelson from 12:45-1:45 and finally Greg Jennings from 1:00-2:00. We got Cobb first and got to take a picture with him, then after that we hopped right in line for Jordy Nelson and got him pretty quickly and got a picture with him as well. It seemed as though everyone was there for Greg Jennings. So once we got Cobb and Nelson, we got in line for Jennings. Jennings did not show up on time, in fact he was about a half an hour late to the signing. We watched as the line started to move and I was getting more and more nervous as Greg Jennings is my favorite player in the NFL. We saw Nelson and Cobb in a back room signing all types of helmets, pictures, footballs, etc. for people who mailed their items in or for the store itself. Finally it was our time to meet Greg Jennings and I walked up and shook his hand and he stood up for everyone to take pictures with them. We then got a picture with him and I was super pumped up. We then went back in the store and walked around tempting ourselves with great autographs. We both, reluctantly, decided to leave the store with no more autographs. After that, we stopped at McDonald's on the way home and had lunch. We got home and then went bowling for our final day of our fall league. All in all, it was a great day and a pretty awesome signing. After meeting LeSean McCoy, my second favorite NFL player, and Greg Jennings, my favorite NFL player, I would say that I am pretty happy with meeting them two and getting pictures with them. Jennings was actually my 60th autograph signing that I had been to and I plan on going to many more in the future. Here are the pictures from the event: