The Bulls Are Who We Thought They Were
I asked a question about 2 weeks ago if the Bulls were for real or fugazi. It appears we know who this team is – a team that has made the playoffs for the 1st time since 2017 but also a team that continues to shrink against the NBA’s elite. After tonight’s blowout loss to the defending champion Bucks, the Bulls are now 2-19 against the top 8 teams in the NBA. It’s not even about the Bulls losing to the league’s elite but rather how they lose. These losses haven’t been close. The Bulls’ defensive identity has been stripped away and with Lonzo Ball out for the rest of the season I don’t see a way for them to regain that defensive pressure with their backcourt. The other problem with the Bulls is their lack of size in the front court. With Giannis Antetokounmpo, Joel Embiid and Bam Adebayo wreaking havoc in the East the chances of the Bulls making it past the 1st round are almost null & void.
Going into the off-season Bulls VP ArtÅ«ras KarniÅ¡ovas and GM Mark Eversley are going to have to figure out how to move forward. They obviously know they will need more size & toughness in the front court. They also know they will need add more shooting depth. Will the front office keep all of their young talent or will they pursue a trade? Will Nikola Vucevic be in a trade? The biggest question will be what will they do with Zach LaVine? They know they would like to keep him but that price tag is going to be around $200 million. This is going to be a very important summer for the Bulls. The Bucks, Sixers, Heat, Nets and Celtics aren’t going anywhere and will continue to make life difficult in the Eastern Conference.
The Good, Bad & Ugly: WrestleMania 38
The Super Bowl of Wrestling wrapped up the two night extravaganza Sunday night in Dallas. All in all I was thoroughly impressed with the WWE and WrestleMania. I thought all the performers worked their butts off to put on what was widely considered a really good WrestleMania event. There was a lot I liked, some of it to me was meh and some of it was bad. Here’s the good, bad & ugly of The Show of Shows:
- The Good
- Becky Lynch vs. Bianca Belair – I thought this was the match of the weekend… and probably should’ve main-evented Night One. Both women were at their best as they told a physical, personal story. Lynch was the egotistical champion hellbent on doing whatever was necessary to keep her RAW women’s title while Belair played the role of the person looking to right a very embarrassing wrong. Both brought out innovative offense and matched it with physicality. I have watched this match 3 times already. It was just that good.
- Edge vs. AJ Styles – This match should’ve been on Saturday night as the way the match went fit what was happening on Saturday night better. Both men brought their A-game and both knew how to work the psychology into the match. The big surprise happened after the match as Damian Priest aligned himself with this much darker version of Edge
- Kevin Owen vs. Stone Cold Steve Austin – I thought this would be a segment where Owens would run down SCSA only for the Texas Rattlesnake to open up one last can of whup-ass and Stun K.O. all over the place. What we got was an actual match and a No Holds Barred match at that. This type of match would conceal SCSA’s age and ring rust but to my surprise Austin was up to the challenge even taking some wicked bumps. SCSA getting his revenge sent the fans home happy on Night One.
- Naomi & Sasha win gold – While the Fatal 4-Way match was not a 5-star classic the end result was what everyone wanted. Naomi & Sasha captured the Women’s Tag Team titles and more importantly Sasha Banks picked up her 1st WrestleMania win in 7 tries. Here’s hoping with a popular team like Banks & Naomi that WWE Creative will actually use this to strengthen an incredibly weak women’s tag division.
- Pat McAfee – This guy is a STAR and not just on the mic. The former NFL punter showed off his wrestling prowess on the biggest stage and showed himself to be more than capable insider the ropes. McAfee got quite possibly the biggest pop of the entire weekend with this insane move.
- The American Nightmare vs. The Visionary of Drip – Seth Rollins knows how to perform on the grandest stage of them all and Saturday night was no different against the returning Cody Rhodes. The two of them put on quite the show and Rhodes showed why he is a major player.
- RK-Bro Rolls On – RK-Bro retained their RAW tag team titles against the Alpha Academy & The Street Profits. I thought the Profits might go over and begin the implosion of RK-Bro but apparently we’re not there yet. All 3 teams put on a helluva show and got Sunday night off to a hot start.
- Acknowledge Him – Sure… the match between Roman Reigns & Brock Lesnar wasn’t the “biggest WreslteMania match of all-time”. As a matter of fact it wasn’t even close to it. What that match did do was establish Reigns as the undisputed face of WWE. It’s time for all of us to acknowledge The Tribal Chief.
- The Bad
- Johnny Knoxville – I know… I know this is supposed to be harmless, ridiculous fun and I’m going to sound like the “get off my lawn” wrestling purist but I just didn’t get into this match. Credit to Sami Zayn for being such a good sport but I just feel there are other ways an immensely talented wrestler like Zayn should be used.
- Charlotte Flair vs. Ronda Rousey – Now hear me out on this one. The match wasn’t bad. In fact it was a good match. So why is it in The Bad section? Simple – the chemistry just wasn’t there. I didn’t like the screwy finish and for me it never had that big fight feel. I always felt that belonged to Becky & Bianca.
- Fight Night vs. The New Day – These men deserved better. First they were completely cut from Night One due to time constraints. They make it to Night Two but were only given a grand total(not counting intro time) of 1 minute, 40 seconds. It was a squash match that nobody deserved to be in.
- Drew McIntyre vs. Baron Corbin – This was a match not really worthy of the WrestleMania stage(the same can be said of Omos/Bobby Lashley). This was a waste of two extremely talented men. I’m a big Baron Corbin fan and the way he’s being used here is not to my liking. Drew did his job but this was story was DOA.
- The Ugly
- Vince McMahon Gets A Match – I really liked the Pat McAfee match with Austin Theory. What happened next though… not so much. Vince McMahon books an impromptu match with McAfee and totally derailed McAfee’s moment by beating him. Even the save by Stone Cold Steve Austin couldn’t keep this from being a disaster. McMahon is 76 years old and had absolutely, positively no business being in a match. I’m sure there were plenty of people sitting back in catering going WTF to Vince having a match.
- The endless video packages – Unless you lived under a rock there was no reason for that many video packages. The people who were in AT&T Stadium and those watching know what’s going on. Just get to the wrestling!
- No Intercontinental or U.S. Title match at WrestleMania – I still find it jarring that neither title was defended at the Showcase of the Immortals. It’s a clear sign WWE willingly chooses to focus on a handful of wrestlers. I actually had to look up who the respective champions are(BTW it’s Ricochet with the IC Title and Finn Balor with the US Title).
Final Thoughts
- Congrats to the Kansas Jayhawks on winning the National Championship after overcoming a 16-point deficit against my North Carolina Tar Heels. Even in defeat I couldn’t be prouder of this Carolina team. Here’s hoping they’ll be back next season.
- Diana Taurasi is GOATED for this(WARNING – NSFW):
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