The final weeks of the Chicago Bulls’ 2018-19 season have been brutal, but Walt Lemon Jr. is starting to making things fun again in the Windy City.
The Chicago Bulls have been a rollercoaster ride this season. They’ve had a plethora of embarrassing losses and a small chunk of impressive wins (but still, somehow, more impressive wins than one might expect).
As this long season comes to a conclusion, the games get less and less important for the Bulls. They’ve already clinched being one of the bottom four teams in the league and it would be tough to catch up to the bottom three. The tanking game is almost irrelevant at this point.
But luckily for fans that still want to see the Bulls tank, this team doesn’t have to work very hard at losing. Lauri Markkanen has been shut down for the rest of the season and it looks like Zach LaVine, Kris Dunn and Otto Porter Jr. won’t be touching the court anytime soon.
Basically, watching the Bulls lately has been about as much fun as going to the dentist. It’s not horrible, but it’s not something you look forward to. That changed, though, when Chicago signed Walt Lemon Jr.
Lemon, a Chicago kid, played in 33 games this season for the Windy City Bulls (the Chicago Bulls G League affiliate). Per K.C. Johnson of the Chicago Tribune, Lemon shed some tears when he found out the Bulls were signing him. That’s the type of passion that Bulls fans want to see. And that’s definitely the type of passion that head coach Jim Boylen wants to see.
The excitement of being signed by an NBA team is one thing, but getting the chance to show you belong in the league is another. Last night, Lemon took advantage of every opportunity he was given.
The Bulls lost by 23 points to the playoff-bound Toronto Raptors, but it was still a special night for Walt Lemon Jr. He finished the game with a team-high 19 points on 8-of-15 shooting from the field to go along with six assists, four rebounds, four steals, one block and only one turnover in 31 minutes of action. He even had a fancy scoop layup worthy of some attention.
Anyone in the UC have peanut butter? pic.twitter.com/Jn7hoMfJEE
— Chicago Bulls (@chicagobulls) March 31, 2019
Sidenote: the Bulls’ official Twitter account making a peanut butter and jelly joke is phenomenal stuff.
It’s tough to find reasons to watch the Bulls right now. Their lineup is made up of mostly fringe NBA players, they likely won’t be competitive in any games for the rest of the season (you know, given that most other NBA teams have a roster made up of actual NBA players) and they aren’t playing for anything other than pride (which is still hard to come by for this team). But Walt Lemon Jr. is giving Bulls fans something to cheer for.
Everyone loves a come up story, especially when it’s about a Chicago kid getting the chance to live out his dream.
Walt Lemon Jr. is doing the impossible: he’s making this last stretch of Bulls basketball fun.