2003 All-Star-less Chicago Bulls

Let’s just keep chugging along with staff writer/Harvey Foster Peanut Party Planner Jim Cooks look at the year’s in-between Chicago Bulls All-Star selections.

Part I

Part II

Part III

Part IV

__________________________________________________________

Oh man.  Fuck me.  So I write these God damn novels in Gmail and spend a bit of time navigating back and forth between websites and sometimes have to save this thing to a draft and come back to it.  Well gay Gmail has the save button right next to the discard button and I accidentally discarded basically this whole article so I get to write it for you all twice.  Needless to say, I’m not a happy camper right now.  Not in the least.  But enough about my bitching…on to the season recap (again).

The 2002-2003 squad seemed to be taking steps towards respectability.  By being really crappy the year before, the Bulls were granted the second pick in the draft, meaning they were in the enviable position of being blessed with being able to draft either 10 ft 4 in Yao Ming or the consensus NCAA Player of the Year, Jay Williams (he was actually called Jason Williams at the time but decided to change his name so he wasn’t confused with this guy http://a.espncdn.com/nba/news/2002/0607/1392045.html or even this Jason Williamshttp://asianweek.com/2001_03_23/news1_jasonwilliamsapology.html Judging by these two articles, it looked to be a wise decision to shorten the name).  Anyways, since I don’t want to break down the whole Yao vs. Jay story again, I’m just gonna fast forward and let you know the Houston Rockets took the Bill Braskey-esque Yao and the Bulls gladly selected the Wooden and Naismith winning point guard from Duke.  The last time the Bulls took a high pick from Duke worked out pretty well, for two seasons, until they decided 20 and 10 wasn’t enough from Elton Brand.  Idiots.  Anyways, this seemed to have worked out perfectly for the Bulls.  Pairing a sharpshooting point guard with the bigs down low that they drafted in previous years gave fans something to be excited about.  Expectations were high for Jay, and in reality, he didn’t really live up to those expectations in his rookie season but he certainly proved he was going to be a productive player and would grow alongside the other high potential players of Eddy Curry, Tyson Chandler, Marcus Fizer, and Jamal Crawford.  If you don’t want to read anymore of this shit I keep writing, I’ll let you in on a little secret, none of them reached that high potential we all got excited for.  Anyways, Jay’s rookie year was plagued by a shooting slump but he still averaged 9.5 ppg and 4.2 apg in 26 minutes per night.  Not great, but not horrible considering he was surrounded by a bunch of young guys who partied like Prince.

 

As for the rest of the draft, the Bulls used the second pick of the second round to take Roger Mason Jr. out of the University of Virgina.  Some guy named Carlos Boozer from Duke went four picks later, like he would ever amount to anything.   And 3 picks after Boozer, a guy named Tito Maddox was selected.  Hahaha, Tito.  Shouldn’t he have just gone by Tim or something?  With the 43rd pick overall, the Bulls picked University of Maryland star forward Lonnie Baxter (if they were looking for another 6’8 forward, why not Boozer, who by many accounts “slid” in that draft?).  Baxter led the Terrapins to the NCAA Title that April and turned out to be a serviceable pro.  Until this happened http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/08/23/AR2006082301118.html.  I’m watching the All-Star game while writing this and its halftime.  Why is Shakira doing the halftime show?  Usher was cool, he even did “Yeah” even though that song is about 8 years old.  How many guys do you think took runs at Shakira?  I would have.

The Bulls were fairly quiet in the free agent market that summer.  Besides cutting some of the bozos from previous seasons, the team did sign Donyell Marshall.  Why, when they had about 14 big men they were trying to develop, did they sign him?  I don’t know (get Perdue a cup), but he actually turned out to be a big part of the improvement of this year’s team.  He averaged 13 and 9, which were about his career norms.  Talk about a real quiet almost double double guy.  Other than that, they mostly stuck to the kids and let them cut their teeth.

Coach

Bill Cartwright was given the reigns for the 2002-2003 season and it looked like he had things moving in the right direction.  Even though he had no previous head coaching experience, maybe Jerry Krause thought that because he sounds like Louis Anderson, the young guys would listen.  Did you know that he sounds like that because he was elbowed in the throat by an unnamed Indiana Pacer?  He knows who did it, but won’t reveal the name.  I don’t want to get elbowed in the throat.

Record

This year’s squad cracked the 30 win barrier for the first time since the MJ era.  A record of 30-52 was good enough to drag themselves out of their familiar basement spot in the standings, finishing 6th in the Central (not last) and 12th in the East (out of 15 so not last there either).  A 9 game improvement over the previous year, not too shabby, especially when its all rooks, 2nd and 3rd year guys handling a lot of the load.  Ha, load.

 

Longest win streak

3, vs. the Bucks, Celts, and VerlociRaptors.  The Celts and Bucks were playoff teams that year and the Raptors were one of the teams that finished worse than the Bulls in the East that year.  I’m going to say that was a legit win streak there.  Happened in the first quarter of the season when the games mattered too.  Donyell Marshall had double doubles in each game and Marcus Fizer had monster games against the Celtics and Raptors.

Best win

In the 7th game of the season, the Bulls, had not fallen into their typical early season shit-the-bed syndrome and had actually won 2 games up to this point.  The New Jersey Nets had gone to the NBA Finals the year before and were still stacked with talent, Jason Kidd, Kenyon Martin, Mount Mutombo, Richard Jefferson, all were back with the team that ended up as the 2 seed in the East.  Now that the David-Goliath scene is set, this was by far the greatest game that Jay Williams played as a pro.  Scoring 26 points, passing out 14 dimes, and grabbing 13 boards, Williams led the Bulls to a 100-93 victory, adding Viagra to Bulls fans’ boners over his great talent.  Furthermore, Jason Kidd also had a triple double that night, leading to the “Old vs. New” stuff.  I was visiting the University of Dayton my freshman year that night and remember being hammered drunk at a party sitting on a couch, by myself, watching that fourth quarter as Williams took control of the game and kept the victory safe.  People were getting drunk, trying to get laid, and I was watching the 4th quarter of a Bulls game while on a road trip.  Umm yeah…let’s move on.

Longest losing streak

9.  Shortly after that impressive victory over the Nets, the Bulls reverted back into their true form and dropped 9 straight against the likes of the Raptors and Cleveland Cavaliers, both teams who were shittier than the Bulls that year.  Not really sure what happened there.  Alicia Keys just came on stage and preformed…is she hot?  I’d do her, but is she hot?

Worst loss

Although the 24 point blowout to the Memphis Grizzlies, who were awful, was pretty bad, I think the honor of worst loss has to go to the culmination of that 9 game losing streak to the Toronto Raptors.  Coming off a loss to the Cavs, who were clearly tanking to get LeBron, the Bulls should have been pissed enough to finally snap the streak.  Instead, they lost by 14 to the third worst team in the league.  Jay Williams shot a very Jim Leone-like 1-7 and Jalen Rose put up a decent 4-19 effort.  Like I live my life, if you’re making, keep shooting, if you’re not making, keep shooting.  Vince Carter (I tried to spell Vince + Insanity but it didn’t look right) had 20/10/5, but the leading scorer for the Raptors that night was University of Minnesota superstar Voshon Lenard, who bucketed 23 points.  I hope someone got yelled at in the locker room for letting Voshon Lenard drop 23 in an NBA game.  I just checked his high scoring games and apparently he dropped 38 twice in his career with a whole bunch of other 30 point efforts so apparently he could score like me.  I’m too lazy to delete all that shit I just wrote so I’ll admit I underestimated him.

Best Moment

Although this came at the end of the season, I think it’s pretty obvious that the retirement of Jerry Krause as General Manager of the Chicago Bulls was the best moment of the season.  After blundering the whole break-up of the dynasty Bulls, followed by some questionable draft picks, being absolutely shut out of the free agent bonanza, to throwing bad money at bad players, it was time for him to move on.  Bulls fans were sick of the crap that was being dished out, especially after winning 6 titles in 8 years, that he decided to break up.  It was good while it lasted, except for the last four years, those weren’t good.  Remember this date as you’ll see some different capsules being written up from this point forward…TBC

Funniest player to start 25% of the games

Not really a season where there is one clown who started that makes you say “What the fuck is that scrub doing getting his name written in laser lights before the tip”.  I guess we’ll have to flex the rules here a little bit, because staying strict to the criteria means that Trenton Hassell would win the crown again.  But that’s not fun.  So we’ll give it to overpaid Eddie Robinson (no, not the Grambling football coach).  He started 18 games this season, and to return that gratitude, he responded with a season average of 5.7 points per game and a ferocious 3.1 rips per game.  Shit, you would have been better off rolling out the Grambling Eddie Robinson.

Other bozos on the roster

Dalibor Bagaric (x2), Rick Brunson (doesn’t it sound like he should be in porn or something?), Corrie Blount is back, Right Said Fred Hoiberg still on the roster

 

Leading scorer

Jalen Rose (22.1 ppg)

Leading board man

Donyell Marshall (9.0 rpg)

Leading dimer

Jalen Rose (4.8 apg…he’s basically like Oscar Robertson)