Some good things to take away from the Bulls weekend split of the two otherwise meaningless games in which many of the best players involved hardly played or DNP at all. (Yeah I know I am an optimist). Here are the biggest .
First was the Nocioni’s performance on Saturday night. In under 20 minutes, he dropped in 20 points, (7-9 from the field) and 4-5 from behind the arc, 4 rebounds, a blocked shot, steal and assist, and numerous hustle plays. The UC resumed its chants of No-Ci-O-Ni in the preseason which were notably missing from last year’s playoffs. Speaking of the playoffs last year, leaving the United Center after Game 6 against Detroit, numerous people were talking about how bad Noc was, and how we ought to cut him. I remember thinking these guys must be crazy. The poor chap(u) was playing injured last year for goodness sake. I think he along with a few others are gonna have a breakout season.
Aaron Gray. Is he the plug for our biggest hole with an inside scoring threat? I say it’s too early to tell, and these pre-season games will not give us the answer. But it sure does give us home hope. If he can average 8-10 points a game in the paint, that would give us the flexibility to go inside-outside. Maybe Skiles ought to throw him in the running for the 1-starter-spot-still-open-b/w-Noah-Thomas-Smith-Nocioni-andnowGray.
And finally, Tyrus Thomas played well, made his free-throws and turned in an all around solidperformancee. It’s tough to imagine all the guys getting good playing time once the season starts, but Tyrus ought to be up near the top in reserve minutes played on this Bulls team. On a side note, after watching the WGN news, it does not appear Luol Deng has anything serious going on with his hand, but rather just precautionary measures are being taken.