I'm more than happy to try and have a conversation about Bulls basketball. These Bulls issues have become almost like partisan political arguments to this point, so there doesn't seem to be much middle ground. The best course of action to have civil discourse is to try to not insult the other side and respect them and their viewpoints as much as possible. Once the insults start flying, well, that's never productive. The wrong reaction is anger and dismissiveness, although that's a easy road to do down.
K4E that is a terrific comment. Thank you. We all have our POV and that's the point of the whole thing here but devolving into troll/countertroll does nothing.
Ah! A bright new day! In case the dismissiveness comment was directed at me, I didn't think I was dismissive. I certainly didn't mean to be. In my mind, the civil discourse in this thread had degenerated into another one of those, "Our favorite team is gonna suck." "No it won't." "Yes it will." "No it won't."... Bottom line, it stopped being fun for me and when that happens, it's time to go. TB#1, shame on you.
It's not "our favorite team is going to suck" It's "our favorite team had difficulties with a more athletic team. Did they become athletic enough to overcome Washington's athletes?" They do have to play the games. We can't just hoist the banner to the rafters yet, eh?
Yes, they do have to play the games. I don't recall ever talking about banners. I'm just not particularly worried about the Wizards.
I don't ever recall saying the Bulls are going to suck either. I'm a half-empty kind of guy and always have been. I try to set my expectations realistically and not out of viewing my favorite team (for 4 decades now) through rose colored glasses. This year's Bulls would beat last year's Bulls, I do believe. Washington beat us with athleticism. Bigger and faster guys at every position who could jump higher and make baskets more often. I think the Bulls addressed the make baskets more often, but only a healthy Rose coming back makes us stronger on the athleticism side of things. I don't see that Mirotic or Gasol or McBuckets are super fast athletes who can jump out of the gym. We didn't add athleticism to the team with those guys.
I also consider myself a realistic fan...half-full variety. It doesn't cost me anything to look on the bright side so I do it. I confess that I don't understand the motivation to err on the side of pessimism. If it's not a conscious decision but some DNA-type wiring thing, that's too bad. We've been going round and round together for over 10 years now I think. First guy who dies loses.
I think we'll both be disappointed if we don't win the championship this year. I expect we won't, though. That may change after I see the team come out and win their first 30 games or something less impressive but impressive nonetheless.
To be clear, I expect the Blackhawks to win the Stanley Cup this season, but I don't expect the Bulls to win the O'Brien trophy this season. On one level, I'll be disappointed if the Bulls lose the last game they play this upcoming season...same as every season. However, bigger-picture-wise, I'll only be disappointed if the Bulls are relatively healthy and don't make the conference finals round. From where I sit right now, that would be underachieving.
I was disappointed when the Wizards beat us the first two games on OUR court. On the other hand, I expected 1-1 at best. I was only half as disappointed as someone who expected us to go up 2-0.
The Bulls performance in last season's playoffs was indeed disappointing. Took me about 35 minutes to get over it.
