Life without Chicago Bulls basketball: Day 14 thoughts

Two weeks into the NBA’s hiatus to the 2019-20 season, the Chicago Bulls had a fairly busy news cycle compared to usual on March 25.

Now that we’re two weeks into the NBA hiatus (with the last game played having come on March 11), it feels like a millennium since the Chicago Bulls last were in action. On March 25, the news cycle picked up a bit around the basketball landscape, but it still feels like we’re miles away from getting back to game action.

The novel coronavirus pandemic still commands the news cycle, and it looks as if it is going to for quite a while. But the Bulls are doing their best to help out while stemming the tide of positive thoughts for their fans. That is good since the Bulls weren’t doing a good job of that in the third year of this rebuild.

The theme of the day continued to be the NBA re-playing games both on NBATV and on their YouTube page. There’s always classic games to go back and watch for basketball fans all over the globe. That is the good news when the league is placing such a heavy emphasis on this.

But the COVID-19 pandemic is going to be in the back of our minds for a long time, and finding the positives where we can is essential.

What’s happening with the Bulls and around the NBA

United Center turning into a logistics hub

Some good news came from one individual Bulls player and from the stadium in which they call home within the last 36 hours. Shooting guard Denzel Valentine donated $10K to the Greater Lansing Food Bank. And the United Center is reportedly turning into a logistics hub for the time being as the city of Chicago tries to battle the spread of COVID-19.

NBA games being re-played

The NBA is re-playing some true classic games of the last two decades this week. One game that got highlighted within the last seven days was the breakthrough of point guard Derrick Rose in his 50+ point night with the Minnesota Timberwolves last season.

CBA delay not a good sign for the NBA’s timeline

A report from ESPN NBA insider Brian Windhorst on March 25 that the CBA (Chinese Basketball Association) would be delaying the re-start of their games to May is not a great sign for the NBA’s timeline. The CBA originally put their season on pause back in January. If the NBA has a similar timeline for restarting their season as the CBA does, then we’re looking around July for games to get going again.

It doesn’t help that the KBL (Korean Basketball League) reportedly cancelled the rest of their season entirely due to the COVID-19 outbreak.

Zach LaVine re-watching his own highlights

This is what the basketball world is coming to.

Shooting guard Zach LaVine is reportedly (NBA.com) now re-watching his own highlights of his own 49-point game. LaVine went off against the Charlotte Hornets for that 49 point night, and it resulted in a true classic game albeit between two bad teams. The Bulls would come away with the one-point win over the Hornets thanks to a LaVine walk-off three-pointer.