“And now for something completely different…”

Hello, dear reader. My name’s Matt McHale. Welcome to my new blog about the Chicago Bulls. Right now, you might be asking yourself: Who’s this “Matt McHale” guy and why is he blogging about the Bulls? And I guess those are pretty reasonable questions.

Regarding the “who”: I’m the co-fouder and lead author of Basketbawful, a blog that parodies the best of the worst of professional (and non-professional) basketball. I’ve been running that site since January of 2005. I also spent most of 2008 covering the NBA for Deadspin and the last several months co-authoring Footbawful. But, believe it or not, I’m not just a blogger. I spend the daylight hours fulfilling the full-time obligations of my Clark Kent job and the nighttime soaring across the Chicago skyscape on the dark wings of justice. No wonder I don’t floss as often as my dental hygienist recommends.

As to the “why”: There are a lot of reasons, I suppose. The desire for a new challenge, my status as a denizen of Chicago, the fact that I’ve never covered an individual NBA team before. Oh, and mighty Zeus came down from Mount Olympus and told me to do it. Or else. So here I am.

I plan to use the same sarcastic/irreverant/insane humor and basketball acumen I’ve displayed elsewhere to shine a spotlight on the Bulls. Mind you, I’m not claiming to be an “expert.” In fact, I believe in basketball experts the same way I believe in the Tooth Fairy and Rod Blagoevich. As far as I’m concerned, there is (as of this writing) no exact science to the sport of sports, only a large pool of communal folk knowledge. Sure, basketball analysis continues to increase in sophistication — particularly through the growth of APBRmetrics — but in the end, what does all that fancy brainstorming and number crunching tell us? Nothing definite. Every October, dozens of experts and mathematicians crunch numbers and then publish articles that predict which teams will do what during season and then, in May or June, they get to publish follow-up pieces that explain how and why their original predictions were so ridiculously wrong.

So don’t expect “truth” and “expertise” here. Just expect the ramblings of a passionate fan. So hop on this crazy train with me and hopefully we can have a few laughs together.