The 2001 All-Star-less Chicago Bulls

I present to you part 3 of staff writer/never nude Jim Cook’s eleven part series on the years between Chicago Bulls All-Star selections.

If you missed the 1999 team click here.

If you missed the 2000 team click here.

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If you had reviewed your notes before coming to today’s Chicago Bulls history lesson, you’d remember that there were some really awful teams from the previous two seasons.  And if you understand anything about the Bulls and this blog, you know why Collin begged me to write this God damn encyclopedia to illustrate how bad the Bulls have been in between MJ and D-Rose.  Fortunately for entertainment sake, this was the absolute worst season the Bulls had during the 11 year All-Star drought.  And it was a fun one.

The Bulls had such great luck the previous year, landing the #1 overall pick and double-double machine Elton Brand, Jerry and co. got burned and had to settle for the 4th overall pick.  Marcus Fizer was the lucky selection at that selection.  I once saw him in a high school 3 point contest and he had goggles and was about 180 pounds.  He played his NBA career at 262.  You figure it out.  To Jerry’s credit, he did an excellent job of turning older, crappy players the Bulls had on the roster into high draft picks that would turn into crappy players.  He took fan favorite, Toni Kukoc, and did the greatest favor a man has ever done for Mr. Kukoc (did I tell you that story about him yet?) and traded him for the #7 overall pick.  With that pick, he selected Jamal Crawford, a freewheeling shooter from Michigan, where they paid players and stuff (well, technically, he picked Chris Mihm at 7 and swapped him for the 8th pick who was Crawford and like a box of doughnuts.  It’s basically Bird for Magic.  Everybody wins).  Other draft picks include Khalid El-Amin (he was fat), Dalibor Bagaric (basically Vikadis from Semi-Pro), AJ Guyton (nice college player, poor pro player), and Jake Voskuhl (white).  Just a point of clarification on this one…this draft was AWFUL.  The best player from the group is Michael Redd who went in the second round.  Jamal Crawford has the second highest ppg average out of the ENTIRE draft.  It really was terrible.  Check it out for yourself.  http://www.basketball-reference.com/draft/NBA_2000.html So you can’t completely blame Jerry that everyone sucked.  Well, he probably should have recognized that everyone sucked and not stockpiled draft picks for that season.  Maybe that’s just me.  Oh yeah, this was the year Ron Mercer signed on to replace MJ.  More on that in a bit.  On to the dissection…

Coach

Tim Floyd.  I doubt he was even trying at this point.  Once again, the Bulls were the lowest scoring team in the NBA at 87.6 per game.  That’s just not really good.  Some college teams average that in 8 less minutes per game.  Oddly enough, they were second in the league in home attendance.  Can you believe people showed up to watch this JV shit?  Or did people really think Jordan, Pippen, and Rodman were going to play for 6 more years?

Record

15-67, which was worse in the NBA by 2 games.  That’s a .183 winning percentage.  You got to think that they accidentally win one game out of ten and then play good enough to win another, right?  Forget it, they sucked.

Longest win streak

2, twice.  Once they beat the Hawks and the Heat back to back.  How the hell did the Bulls continually have the Miami Heat’s number?  They keep showing up in this category.  Odd.  Additionally, this squad won their last two games of the year.  Timmy must have given a real fiery speech to get the troops rallied to finish strong.

Best win

This one was basically no contest as they beat Western Conference Finalist the San Antonio Spurs 105-104.  This home romp was impressive as they beat the Spurs at full strength, and it was a solid effort all around for the home squad.  Ron Mercer, free agent prize, scored 33, Bryce Drew had a double double (12 points, 11 assists), and Elton Brand threw in 22 points and 6 boards.

Longest losing streak

16.  Ouch.  A lot of these weren’t even close.  You could say this is where the Bulls may or may not have been eliminated from the playoffs or it might have to do with them starting the season 3-24.  Not really getting after things early.  C’mon Timmy.

Worst loss

The game after beating up on the Spurs, the Bulls came out and JITP and promptly got beat by 27 by the New York Knickerbockers 95-68.  Led by a roster of Latrell “Housewife choke” Sprewell, Larry “not the football player who fights women” Johnson, Glen “pork fry” Rice, and Kurt “Oswald” Thomas, the Knicks put the Bulls back in their place.  Bryce Drew, hero the previous game, contributed 0 points this game in 23 minutes.  Nice consistency chump.

Best Moment

The free agent bonanza of that year was going to be the summer that Jerry found the cornerstone of the franchise and was going to piece them with their young players to start making playoff runs.  The names were impressive (at the time): Grant Hill, Tracy McGrady, Tim Duncan, Kobe Bryant.  Not bad, huh?  The Jerrys (Krause and Reinsdorf) rolled out the red treatment and had them picked up from the funport, with a marching band and cheerleaders and stuff.  Whose fucking idea was it to bring a marching band?  Do you think Tracy McGrady gets excited about a stupid marching band?  Anyways…they lose out on ALL of them.  So what do they do?  Break the bank for Ron “Mercy” Mercer.  Which name doesn’t belong?  Bryant, McGrady, Duncan, Hill, Mercer?  I’ll give you a hint, one of them played for the Bulls and now is out of the league.  It’s Mercer for all you losers that don’t know basketball.

Funniest player to start 25% of the games

We had 3 white guys start at least 37 games this year, Bryce Drew, Fred Hoiberg, and Brad Miller.  I’m going to say Bryce Drew is the funniest guy to start in the NBA because his whole career was based on the shot his daddy drew up for him to win their first round NCAA Tournament game while at Valparaiso.  Kevin Gyunn went to Valpo, I wonder if they knew each other.  Anyways, needless to say after he left the Bulls, he never started another game again.

Other bozos on the roster

Steve Goodrich, Corey Benjamin (x2), Dragan Tarlac, Khalid El-Amin, Jake Voskuhl…lets be honest, they were all bozos

Leading scorer

Elton Brand (20.1 ppg)

Leading rebounder

Elton Brand (10.1 rpg)

Leading giver

Bryce Drew (3.9 apg…that’s not a lot at all.  Humiliating.  I think Air Bud had more apg than Drew did)