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.
DraftExpress.com profiles:
A.D. Vassallo
Chase Budinger
DeJuan Blair
Gerald Henderson
Jodie Meeks
Luke Harangody
Omri Casspi
Robert Vaden
Taj Gibson