As for the trades – Salmons needs the ball in his hands to score, to create for himself. The Bulls do not need that, Rose is that player. Hinrich can be a set shooter, Salmons was an easy fix to make room for FA’s. I think Hinrich is a great leader, and if he is not traded he will be a perfect backup for Rose. Having Hinrich lead the second squad would be a perfect fit. We just need a starting SG.

I’m not disappointed, I knew what we were about this year and before the injuries we were in the 6th spot and movin’ up..nothing to be disappointed about. I like the good young core we have and any FA that is stupid enough to pass on something special being built, it’s their loss.

Anybody notice what Tyrus Thomas did in Charlotte’s playoff appearence? No great shakes. Basically he was the same player he was with the Bulls (all potential and spotty reality).

It will be interesting to see who is still on the Bulls roster next season. The only locks are Rose, Noah, Gibson, Johnson, Deng and Hinrich (or whom ever they might be traded for). It would be nice to see Miller come back at an appropriate cost. But I believe the rest of the roster is up in the air.

My complaint, and it’s a pretty big one is that the Bulls will be a position to sign only one legit FA, most likely Bosh. Unfortunately even by adding Bosh/Boozer/Amare we aren’t legit championship contenders without adding a legit SG. In retrospect we should’ve kept Salmons and traded Hinrich.

You’ll notice that earlier in this very post, I wrote: “And let’s face it, management chose specifically not to invest in this year’s squad in hopes of building a better team through free agency this summer. That’s right: Even the people running the Bulls left them for dead…and I mean from Day 1 of the season.”

I would hope that makes it pretty clear I’m not handing out unicorn stickers to the front office. Forget the fact that Paxson had a scuffle with Vinny, Vinny couldn’t write a play out of a timeout to save his children, etc. The players fought and overachieved based on what were pretty grim circumstances. I really don’t think fans could have expected anything more out of Rose and company…they pretty much maxed out their relatively limited potential.

Now, it remains to be seen whether management will actually build up from this or whether we’re going to get stuck with another year of waiting, another year of hoping the team will overachieve, another year of slow starts and eking into the playoffs, so on and so forth.

They did Chicago proud.

If you’re talking about the players only, then I agree.

The “Chicago Bulls” organization has nothing to be proud of, as ‘going down fighting’ means far less than being ‘against a vastly superior opponent’ in the first place. Noah himself said post-game that he doesn’t want to be known as ‘the team that tries hard in the first round’, yet it seems that some fans are content with that.

This season was an extreme disappointment, the only caveat being one could be disappointed in July and then figure everything from then on was expected. They intentionally took a step back to (supposedly) take two steps forward, but the step back still sucked. The steps forward better be worth it.

I love the game of basketball deep in my heart, but through discerning thought, I know the game is a sham.