The 2016-17 Chicago Bulls League Pass Ranking is Out

Continuing a favorite annual tradition of basketball nerds everywhere, Zach Lowe of ESPN posted his annual rankings on Thursday and the Chicago Bulls League Pass ranking is pretty far down the list.

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League Pass: It’s one of the very best and worst things about the NBA. For a reasonable price, you can watch just about every game of the entire NBA season on your smart phone, laptop, desktop, Xbox One or whatever device you might have. That can be difficult for the average person to accomplish.

Lowe’s pieces are, in general, some of the best basketball writing that you can read on the internet. He was doing a great job before and during the Grantland years and he hasn’t skipped a beat since making the move to the ESPN flagship.

One of the best things about lists and rankings is that everyone has their own opinion and is free to disagree. Lowe is, however, one of the writers who generally gets things right when it comes to our beloved sport of basketball. That being said, when Lowe ranked the Chicago Bulls as the No. 21-ranked team on his League Pass list, you can be sure that everyone, including the staff at PAE, had an opinion on it.

Here’s the short of it, Lowe ranked the Bulls too high on the list. If you’re a Chicago fan who lives in the expensive metropolis that is the namesake of the team, you probably have Comcast, WGN, and/or ESPN. If you don’t, you probably have a favorite place to go watch or a friend that doesn’t mind when you invite yourself over to check in on Rajon Rondo dishing to an inattentive Jerian Grant while Tony Snell and Nikola Mirotic battle to see who can lose their shooting confidence faster.

With the news that Bobby Portis would get the starting nod at power forward for Chicago’s preseason matchup against the Pacers on October 8, this bit from Lowe seems particularly pertinent:

"The frontcourt is filled with exciting players who boost the comedy score. Mirotic and his sweaty beard are good for at least three ridiculous, infuriating pump fakes every game. Portis is going to be good. Fred Hoiberg has been starting Taj Gibson early in preseason, but Mirotic deserves first crack at that power forward spot; you can’t roll out lineups featuring zero guys who shoot 3s. Don’t sleep on Portis as a candidate to snag that spot for a stretch."

There is no disagreeing with Lowe’s assertion that the Bulls have also made a major upgrade to their court design. The updated look of the floor in the United Center might be the most exciting aspect of watching this Chicago team for any basketball fans that might not be part of Bulls Nation.