According to K.C. Johnson of the Chicago Tribune: “The Bulls began a busy week of draft workouts Monday at the Berto Center with Duke’s Gerald Henderson, Arizona’s Chase Budinger, USC’s Taj Gibson, Maccabi Tel Aviv’s Omri Casspi, Virginia Tech’s A.D. Vassallo and Alabama Birmingham’s Robert Vaden in for a spirited session. John Paxson, Gar Forman, coach Vinny Del Negro, Del Negro’s assistants and the entire scouting and personnel departments viewed the workout. … The workouts resume Wednesday with two sessions, including Pittsburgh forward DeJuan Blair and Notre Dame forward Luke Harangody. On Thursday, Kentucky guard Jodie Meeks heads a workout of six lesser known players.” Pippin Ain’t Easy has the full schedule, in case you want to see it.
In case you forgot, the Bulls own the 16th and 26th picks in the June 25 NBA draft.
Brian Hanley of the Chicago Sun-Times feels like there’s a good chance the Bulls could take Casspi with their second selection. And Omri thinks sounds pretty sure of himself: “In Europe, we work more on fundamentals [than in the NBA]. Here the guys are really athletic, fast and strong. So it’s different, but I’ve been playing overseas with a lot of Americans, a lot of NBA guys. So I feel comfortable playing both sides. … Most of my game is one-on-one penetration, so I feel comfortable even more here than in Europe. The most important thing for me is that I can help a team by coming in as a rookie and [playing].”
It’ll be really interesting to see what the Bulls do in the draft. Currently, their needs include 1) a big man who can score inside, 2) a backup for Ben Gordon (or, potentially, a replacement if they don’t re-sign him) and possibly 3) depth at the point guard position (assuming the team plans on trying to dump Kirk Hinrich’s contract either before the season or by next February’s trade deadline). It also wouldn’t hurt to add a perimeter defender or maybe even a crack three-point shooter.
Of course, I’m not-so-secretly hoping they can package their picks (and maybe a player or two) and trade them for an established vet. But who knows? There’s a lot of intrigue surrounding this draft for the Bulls. Will they simply be content to add one or two fringe rotation players via the draft or will they make a move to push an up-and-coming team to the next level? Stay tuned.
K.C. Johnson of the Chicago Tribune has some Bulls news from the NBA predraft camp, but this part jabbed me in the funny bone: “[Arizona's Chase Budinger] said the Bulls administered a ‘very interesting’ psychological test and that, at one point, they made him build things with blocks. Another time they had him stare at a picture for a long time, then covered it up and asked him to draw an exact replica. ‘And I’m thinking, ‘What does this have to do with the NBA?’ Budinger said, light-heartedly. ‘But I really enjoyed getting to know that organization. They were thorough.’”
According to K.C. Johnson of the Chicago Tribune, the Bulls secretly worked out Jonny Flynn over the weekend. In case you didn’t know, most mock drafts have Flynn pegged as a lottery pick. According to ESPN’s Chad Ford: “Over the past few weeks, a number of GMs seem to have been warming to Flynn and he looks like a potential lottery pick at the moment. A number of teams in the lottery including the Kings (No. 4), the Wizards (No. 5), the Timberwolves (No. 6), the Warriors (No. 7), the Knicks (No. 8), the Bucks (No. 10), the Pacers (No. 13) and the Suns (No. 14) all need point guards. And after speaking with at least one source from every team, I learned Flynn is in the mix for all of them.”
The Bulls currently own the 16th and 26th picks…so why are they working out somebody who should be long gone before they get the chance to make a selection? Are they hoping that all those other teams will balk at Flynn’s size? (According to Ford: “Syracuse has listed him, generously, at 6 feet for the past two seasons. Standing next to him, it’s easy to see that Flynn will be lucky if he can crack 5-foot-11 in shoes. A measurement of 5-foot-10 is a better bet.”) Or are they planning to trade up for a better pick? And even if they do get Flynn, don’t we already have an All-Star point guard in the making in Derrick Rose? It seems a little early to start grooming his replacement. I suppose it’s possible that the Bulls would draft him and then immediately package him in another trade…but who knows?
Still, considering that the team is set at the point and we hardly need to worry about splitting up minutes between two lottery picks, I don’t see Flynn becoming a Bull. Still, here’s his profile at NBADraft.net. Oh, and here’s some video of him making a poster…
