Pippen Ain't Easy
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Chicago Bulls 2016 Summer League Preview

By Daniel Coughlin

Oct 14, 2015; Chicago, IL, USA; Detroit Pistons guard Jodie Meeks (center) Chicago Bulls forward Bobby Portis (right) and Chicago Bulls forward Cristiano Da Silva Felicio (left) go for a loose ball during the second half at the United Center. The Detroit Pistons defeated the Chicago Bulls 114-91. Mandatory Credit: David Banks-USA TODAY Sports
Oct 14, 2015; Chicago, IL, USA; Detroit Pistons guard Jodie Meeks (center) Chicago Bulls forward Bobby Portis (right) and Chicago Bulls forward Cristiano Da Silva Felicio (left) go for a loose ball during the second half at the United Center. The Detroit Pistons defeated the Chicago Bulls 114-91. Mandatory Credit: David Banks-USA TODAY Sports /
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The 2016 NBA Las Vegas Summer League kicks off on Friday, July 8, and it will be the first look at several new faces and perhaps a few familiar faces as well.

If it seems like the NBA draft just happened, there’s good reason for that. You see, it did just happen last month, not even two weeks ago.

The timing of things in the NBA off-season tends to resemble Rustin Cohle’s theory of time as a flat circle. It acts as if the NBA Will is driving blindly into exciting basketball event one after another, needing to thrive, propelled to exist and to satisfy the desire for more basketball-related excitement. But, in this pursuit, we have stepped into madness and time blends in a singularity as wave (draft) after wave (free agency) after wave (three separate Summer Leagues) pound against the breaker of the mind, as the NBA Will presses us forward.

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Most people couldn’t tell you if the draft and free agency were actually separate events or just the fragmenting of their minds. But if the insanity of off-season excitement was already forcing your brain to forge new patterns and pathways to cope with the flurry of excitement, it gets a bit crazier to try and keep up with right as the Orlando Summer League is already under way before we even get to the Fourth of July. Just when you think there will be a pause, we get to the Bulls Summer League preview.

Orlando is mostly a quiet affair, played within the confines of the practice gym of the Magic and open to select eyes only. Up next will be the Utah Summer League which will also be brief and feature only a handful of teams from around the league.

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    • The big one is the Las Vegas Summer League. The Nevada edition of Summer League spans 11 days and will host a total of 67 games during that span. All of the best and brightest of the up-and-coming prospects, fringe players, D-League tryouts and guys who are still trying to catch on with an NBA team.

    The expectation is that the Bulls will bring Denzel Valentine, Cristiano Felicio, perhaps Jerian Grant, and a handful of other players. While possible, it is unlikely that we get to see Tony Snell or Doug McDermott.

    The official Bulls roster hasn’t been announced yet, but you can expect full player profiles for each member of the team once the announcement is made. The Bulls are scheduled to play three games in Las Vegas, beginning with a matchup against the Boston Celtics and, presumably, top draft pick Jaylen Brown on Saturday, July 9 at 6:00 PM EST.

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    Part of the new TV deal with ESPN and TNT, the Las Vegas games will be broadcast across the ESPN family of networks and on NBA TV. While the Summer Leagues have been available in the past to stream on League Pass, no such plan has been announced for the 2016 edition of these games.

    Last year, rookie head coach Fred Hoiberg elected to coach the summer team. This year, it would seem more likely that he will have one of his assistant coaches leading the team. The highlight for the Bulls will be seeing what Valentine will be able to bring in his first games in a Bulls jersey. The lowlight will be Tony Snell, if present, who is a skilled young player that hasn’t taken off up to this point in his NBA career and could be at the end of his time in a Bulls uniform and in the league.

    After the first three games, there will be a playoff system that allows for additional games to be played by teams that advance beyond the first group of matchups.

    If you’re looking for more of a draw than just Valentine and a seemingly hapless Bulls roster, Las Vegas is going to be packed full of all the top prospects from around the league, including Brandon Ingram of the Los Angeles Lakers and Ben Simmons of the Philadelphia 76ers who will face each other on Saturday evening, after the Bulls play the Celtics.

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