5. Guess Who’s Back: The Bulls, The Bulls
In an offseason that saw superstars switch markets and massive turnovers with the amnesty clause, the Bulls managed to retain almost exactly the same team they had last year. They lost a few pieces but to be brutally honest, they weren’t major pieces. I’m sorry if you’re a huge Jannero Pargo fan or a big follower of Keith Bogans but they were not detrimental to this teams success. The loss of Kurt Thomas will be felt but the Bulls were able to counter his loss with adding offense in the starting lineup by adding ex-Piston Richard Hamilton. But with most of the pieces and all the main pieces from last year’s team returning the Bulls have one of the best lineups in the NBA. With the edition of Hamilton it could even be argued that the Bulls have the best and most potent all around starting five in the NBA. Teams had to account for Derrick Rose’s explosiveness all season long last year and they began to figure him out in the post season. Now the double teams can come at Rose but it will free up Hamilton to score and if the pressure comes on both of them the option to dump it down to an open Carlos Boozer or Luol Deng becomes a serious threat and defenses will be working overtime. We saw in the first few preseasons games that the Bulls still have the unwanted ability to start out slow but with this lineup they quickly balance themselves and close teams out. They did it to Indiana, a team that gave them trouble in the playoffs and they are looking to do it to the elite teams they’ll face this year. This lineup returns bigger and better then last year and the fact that it contains basically the same pieces is a real testament to how good this team can and should be this season.