This is hard. Talking about the Bulls is hard, especially in advance.
There’s nothing kind to say. It’s like having to explain to your kid that you’re taking the dog to live on a farm far away and Samantha will never get to see it again while the dog is just wagging its tail and playing fetch. It’s not dead yet. It will be.
I decided the best way to represent everything going on with the Bulls is with an important clip from a television show called “The Simpsons.”
Editor-in-chief Ian Levy supposes that “Lauri Markkanen is the tie, GarPax are the bloated neck and Cam Payne is the bottom hot dog.” It’s hard to disagree with him because that would entail taking the time to form an opinion on the Bulls, and I don’t want to do that to myself. That’s not to say you shouldn’t, however. I’m not going to tell you how to live your life.
I will, however, tell you how to extend it. You need to construct a bomb shelter around your heart. You need to make a panic room within the bomb shelter. That panic room should be filled with enough food and warm memories to last you until June. What’s coming for you this season is not safe. You need to take your safety into your own hands.
The safest thing is to cut yourself off from the world, physically and emotionally. You might be around people who will want to discuss basketball, and that might bring the thought of $24 million for Dwyane Wade into your head. Or it might spark memories of Jimmy Butler and how he was traded for a Wendy’s coupon and a small bag of rocks. Or you could see GarPax, crouching at the foot of your bed like BOB in Twin Peaks.
These are all bad outcomes. Personal interaction will only cause suffering. Avoid it.
But if you’re not that kind of person, you’re going to have to go through the hurt rather than around it. There are ways to make this less of a shock. Watch tape on the Nets of the last two years. There’s also a lot to learn from the 2011-2012 Bobcats season. Try to picture yourself as a fan of one of those teams. Focus and really internalize the feelings. If you feel yourself starting to cry, then you’re doing it right.
You’ll also know rather soon if this is something you can handle. If it get’s too intense while it’s still in the world of fiction, then maybe basketball isn’t for you this season. There’s no shame in being a fairweather fan when the weather is a sharknado mixed with a localized rapture. This is self-preservation as much as it is fandom.
What’s the point of sports if you can’t have fun? Follow up question: Is it possible to have fun watching the Bulls this year? It depends on how many “maybes” it takes to make a “no.”
Maybe last year was just a steep learning curve for Kris Dunn. And who knows, maybe on the big chart basketball chart they call life, this was like a 10th percentile outcome for him. Just maybe a new place and a new system could make him the player his fellow rookies thought he would be last year.
And who knows, maybe Wade will play well, or better yet take a nice discount on a buyout. We all want Jerry Reinsdorf to save money, don’t we?
And maybe possibly Zach LaVine’s record of making the team worse when he’s on the floor is just a series of bad coincidences. He was athletic pre-surgery, and for a brief period of time last year he was nailing his 3s. Also dunks. Maybe pretty dunks can be a win this year.
And maybe Markkanen’s big Eurobasket performances mean more than what he did and didn’t do in Summer League. That player was real good. Not Jimmy Butler good but a bright spot like one of those holes behind Sarah McLachlan in the “Building a Mystery” music video from the mid 90s. The Bulls were good back then. You remember that?
And assuming Mirotic ever gets around to signing a contract, maybe that wonderful month he had his rookie year can come back and be the rule rather than the exception. Remember how exciting it was when he was coming over? Those were good days.
And what about if Hoiberg can finally install some of that slick Iowa State stuff he’s been unable to run so far in his tenure? Maybe there’s a good coach lurking somewhere within the man-shaped sock that’s been in charge of the team for the last two years.
And maybe not.
Next: Five big questions for the NBA’s rookie class
I counted six maybes before it became too much. You can hold out hope. I’m not. Their only national TV game is at 7:00 PM on Feb. 9. I think I’m going to schedule myself for a small kitchen fire as a distraction. This Bulls season will be nothing good. You’re best off making it nothing.