It’s episode #10 and we’ve got our Bulls Media Day Summary, a Preview of Pre-Season: What to Look for, Make it or Break it season for a number of players on the roster, the Latest developments with Jimmy Butler and Minnesota and iTunes reviews from you, the listener.
Welcome to the Bulls Podcast, coming to you from BullsPodcast.com. This is where we’ll be bringing you the latest news, reviews, rants, rumors and opinions on the players, coaches and front office of the Chicago Bulls.
Introducing Edward Shuler
We’d like to welcome this week’s special guest. He’s the host of the Bulls Gold podcast, Edward Shuler. Like us, his show is relatively new with 13 episodes released, so it’s one that you want to pay attention to and make it a habit to listen to every week. Edward and his co-host Salim Suterwalla focus on the past, present, and future of the iconic Chicago Bulls franchise with weekly discussion, game recaps, and segments.
We’ve got a lot in store for you this episode. Including:

Bulls Media Day Summary
Preview of Pre-Season: What to Look for
Make it or Break it season for a number of players on the roster. We’ll discuss who we feel may be on the bubble early in the season.
Latest developments with Jimmy Butler and Minnesota
iTunes reviews from you, the listener

BULLS MEDIA DAY
Gar/Pax
Media day began with John Paxson giving an assessment of the summer and the season to come. “I said earlier this summer after we went to the draft and through free agency that we were pleased in terms of where we are in the rebuild,” said Bulls Executive Vice President of Basketball Operations John Paxson. “With that said, we also understand that we have a lot of work to do. There is an excitement with the group. (But) you’re not going to hear us talk about wins or anything like that; the expectations for us are to see this team come together. Our goal is to be the best basketball team we can be, and that’s through this group coming together. We have talent, I believe that, and how it comes together, how we play, will determine what kind of win total we end up with, but we’re not going to focus on that.’
When asked about the Jimmy Butler / Minnesota debacle, John Paxson politely said it was not their concern. They are concerned about the Bulls, not the Timberwolves drama. When pressed on the issue, they weren’t about to take the bait, even when they are very close to claiming a major victory with the deal.
“It’s never about vindication,” said Paxson when asked about the Butler trade. “We did exactly what we thought was the right thing for the organization last year to rebuild. We walked out that night and we were comfortable then and we’re comfortable now.”
The Bobby Portis contract extension is active in talks with Bobby’s agent and they hope to get it wrapped up soon. This is great news for Bulls fans if the deal can get done. According to general manager Gar Forman, the Bulls and Portis’ representatives are working on an extension as he moves off his rookie contract.
Gar Forman on the Bobby Portis contract situation: ‘‘We’ll continue those conversations up until the deadline,’’ Forman said. ‘‘We value Bobby. We look at Bobby as part of our core. He has continued to improve each year. All of us up here love the energy he plays with, the work ethic he has, what he brings to the practice floor and game floor. That’s why we’ve been having conversations.’’
Coach Fred Hoiberg
Fred was relieved that they were 2 deep in every player position and that training camp would be “ultra competitive” for every starting spot on the roster. “Every position is open at this point”
Coach Hoiberg admitted his players already are starting to get tired of hearing about how suspect they are defensively. ‘‘I think that you certainly hear it,’’ Hoiberg said. ‘‘It’s hard in this era when things are said to not hear it.

Welcome to the Bulls Podcast, coming to you from BullsPodcast.com. This is where we’ll be bringing you the latest news, reviews, rants, rumors and opinions on the players, coaches and front office of the Chicago Bulls.
Before we get started, I want to confirm what you just heard in the new show intro. That’s a voice that is in Chicago Bulls history forever, it’s the voice of legendary 6-Time world champion stadium announcer RAY CLAY! We’re happy to weave him into the fabric of the Bulls Podcast and can’t thank him enough for helping us out and providing that to us.
We wanted to start featuring and highlighting others within the Chicago Bulls fanbase that are doing great work out there, and today we’re happy to have K-Dub from the Bullseye group on Facebook. He’s the founder and admin of the group that contains 2,000 rabid Bulls Fans in it. K-Dub, welcome to the show!
And we talked about him last week in our favorite bloggers segment of the show as one of the best Bulls Bloggers out there, from Da Windy City blog, we’re happy to welcome Patrick Sheldon to the show!
We’ve got a lot in store for you this episode. Including:

Jimmy wants OUT of MINNESOTA! And he’s not coming to Chicago.
State of The Bulls Fan – Part 2
Listener Questions
More trades to think about with the ESPN Trade Machine

The Story of the day: Jimmy Butler apparently wants out of Minnesota, immediately elevating Gar Forman and John Paxson to Genius Level Status!
Minnesota Timberwolves shooting guard Jimmy Butler has reportedly requested a trade ahead of the 2018-19 NBA season.
On Wednesday, Shams Charania and Jon Krawczynski of The Athletic reported Butler has provided the T-Wolves with a list of the “one to three teams” with whom he’d be willing to sign a contract extension.
According to ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski, Butler’s three preferred trade destinations are the Brooklyn Nets, Los Angeles Clippers and New York Knicks.
In July, Joe Cowley of the Chicago Sun-Times reported Butler was “frustrated with the nonchalant attitudes of younger teammates—specifically Karl-Anthony Towns—[and] does not intend to sign an extension with the Timberwolves.”
Per Cowley, the four-time All-Star selection is also keen on linking up with Boston Celtics point guard Kyrie Irving next offseason—both players can decline player options in their contract to become free agents in 2019—to create a potential superteam in the Eastern Conference.
Krawczynski noted Timberwolves head coach Tom Thibodeau was “initially resistant” to the idea of a trade, but Butler remains hopeful of moving to a new team as the new season approaches.
Krawczynski also reported the request has “very little” to do with the reported issues with Towns and Andrew Wiggins and is more related to contract concerns.
Butler is scheduled to receive a $18.7 million base salary for the 2018-19 season, which ranks 12th among shooting guards, seven spots behind Wiggins, per Spotrac.
It’s unclear whether there’s enough time to complete a major trade before the campaign gets underway in less than a month. The Wolves are set to open the preseason against the Golden State Warriors on Sept. 29, and their regular season begins Oct. 17 when they take on the San Antonio Spurs.
State of the Bulls Fan, Part 2
There’s something going on within the Bulls fan base this offseason. It’s a cloud of negativity that festers like an open wound. Some of you may have even seen the brief Twitter flame war I had with Jordan Maly of Locked On Bulls this week. It’s the fact that Bulls fans think our defense will be the absolute worst in the league and we will never make the playoffs and not win 40 games this year.
It wasn’t too long ago that we had a group of complete scrubs for a Bulls lineup,

It’s Episode 8 and we’ve got our top bulls blogs to bookmark for the season, Zach Lavine says he’s back to his old self, More iTunes Reviews from you, the listener, Thibs is getting the “TimberBulls” band back together and more trades to think about with the ESPN Trade Machine.
Welcome to the Bulls Podcast, coming to you from BullsPodcast.com. This is where we’ll be bringing you the latest news, reviews, rants, rumors and opinions on the players, coaches and front office of the Chicago Bulls.
TOP BULLS BLOGS:
We want to pay some homage to some of the Bulls Bloggers out there that are keeping the fire lit for our favorite team. We appreciate all the hard work that these folks are doing and want to give them some recognition for their efforts. We have links to all of these in our show notes at BullsPodcast.com. These are listed in no particular ranking or order. We want to praise and support them all equally.
Pippen Ain’t Easy/Fansided
https://pippenainteasy.com/
This is one off the long time favorite Bulls blogs. They have a ton of new content every day. Even in the off season, the content will never ran dry for Pippen Ain’t Easy. Daniel Greenberg and Luke Askew are a great tag team of Bulls Bloggers. Throw in Aymin Bakr in there and you’ve got yourself one of the top Bulls Blogs there is. We highly recommend it.
Blog-A-Bull/SBNation
https://www.blogabull.com/
Jason Patt, Paul Steeno, Vijay Vemu and Mark Karantzoulis (from BullsHQ) do a really good job of getting lots of Chicago Bulls content out there. It’s one of my favorites for sure. They do a really good job of getting lots of Chicago Bulls content out there every day. It’s been a blessing to read in this dry desert of an offseason and we’re thankful that they keep the Bulls content going without a let-up.
Hoops Habit/Fansided
https://hoopshabit.com
James Gilmore is a great Bulls writer and contributor over at Hoops Habit. He’s a great writer with a lot of content about the Bulls on the site. It’s another great resource to bookmark when you’re looking for Bulls content. Make sure you follow him on social too, because he has some great insights that happen real-time. You don’t want to miss that.
Da Windy City/Fansided
https://dawindycity.com/
Patrick Sheldon is a great writer on the Bulls over at Da Windy City. We’ve used some of his posts as topics on the show in the past. He’s always looking for the deeper topics, and we really appreciate that. It would be easy to just do the same stuff everyone else is doing, but Patrick does a great job of mixing it up. He’s certainly one to bookmark as the season goes on.
Is there a Bulls Blog that we missed? Let us know on Twitter, Facebook or Instagram! We’re happy to add them to the list.  Next week we’re going to feature some of the top Facebook groups for Bulls fans. We’ll even have a couple of the founders of those groups on next week’s show as guests, so make sure you stay subscribed for that one.
Zach Lavine says he’s feeling like his old self again
http://nba.nbcsports.com/2018/09/11/zach-lavine-says-i-got-my-speed-back-my-jumping-back-aims-to-be-all-star/
Fansided recently did a piece with Zach Lavine in which he said he feels like he’s back to normal again.
“I got my speed back, my jumping back,” he says. “Once you get off an ACL injury, you’re lifting and eating. So I got up to, like, 210 pounds. I’ve never been that heavy before. I’m not a post-up player. I’m fast, a more athletic guy. I got back down to the weight I need to be at [185 pounds], but still I feel strong. I feel really good, man. I’m excited for the season….

Welcome to the Bulls Podcast, coming to you from BullsPodcast.com. This is where we’ll be bringing you the latest news, reviews, rants, rumors and opinions on the players, coaches and front office of the Chicago Bulls.
We’ve got a lot in store for you this episode. Including:

Who leads the team for NBA award consideration this year?
Wyse lays down “The BET” and will be back to Vegas to collect!
Listeners iTunes Reviews
What do the CAVS fans think of the young Bulls? You may be surprised!
More trades to think about with the ESPN Trade Machine

Who leads the team for NBA award considerations this year?
Reading Hoops Habit’s Latest projections, they indicate who on the Bulls would be most likely to receive one of the coveted NBA awards. This is very early in the season, but let’s explore who would be in consideration for the various awards if the circumstances were right.
https://hoopshabit.com/2018/09/02/chicago-bulls-best-candidates-for-2018-19-nba-awards/
Rookie of The Year: Wendell Carter Jr.
The Bulls’ best rookie is clearly Carter, but the chances of him winning the Rookie of the Year award are probably not all that great as he may be coming off the bench for a good portion of the season.
Most Improved Player: Zach LaVine, Jabari Parker
There a few players on the Bulls’ roster who could qualify for the MIP on the team. Kris Dunn took a huge step following an underwhelming rookie season in the Twin Cities. Bobby Portis turned in a pretty solid season (more on that in a bit). Lauri Markkanen, put together a solid rookie season as well and proved that he is more than just a shooter.
As impressive as this trio was, the two players that will be discussed are Zach LaVine and Jabari Parker. LaVine played in just 24 games last season following an ACL injury that kept on the shelf for nearly a year.
While both players have proven to be respectable scorers, neither of them is known for playing defense at a halfway decent level. If either of them shows noticeable improvement in this area next season, they would have to be the favorite to win the award as far as this Bulls roster is concerned.
Sixth Man of the Year: Bobby Portis
Bobby Portis’ 2017-18 season didn’t exactly begin on the highest of notes. In fact, he got into an altercation with former teammate Nikola Mirotic. The result was Mirotic missed 23 games with a concussion and multiple facial fractures while Portis was handed an eight-game suspension.
This incident could have been the beginning of the end for Portis, but he bounced back nicely, to say the least. He posted career highs in nearly every statistical category, and he extended his perimeter game to the 3-point line, knocking down 35.9 percent of his attempts.
In light of being one of the most consistent performers off the bench last season, it should come as no surprise that Portis would get the most consideration of any player on the roster. In addition to that, Portis was only one of three players to post 21 points, 10 rebounds and 1.5 3-pointers per contest on a 36-minute scale.
The other two players were Kevin Durant and DeMarcus Cousins.
Last season’s winner, Lou Williams, put up 22.6 points and 5.3 assists per contest in 60 appearances off the bench for the Los Angeles Clippers. Needless to say, those numbers are a bit beyond Portis’ range for the time being.
Even though he won’t win the league award, he should receive more consideration than he did a year ago.
 
Defensive Player of the Year: Kris Dunn
After being taken with the No. 5 overall pick two years ago, Dunn didn’t have a season to remember during his rookie campaign with the Minnesota Timberwolves. His averages of 3.8 points, 2.4 assists and 2.