Twenty-Nine and a Half
Vegas doubts the Bulls, Caleb Wilson finally takes care of the ball, and the whistle is the number nobody is talking about.
Vegas doubts the Bulls, Caleb Wilson finally takes care of the ball, and the whistle is the number nobody is talking about.
Las Vegas has the Bulls at 29.5 wins. Caleb Wilson's answer to the Sun-Times: "Honestly, nobody really cares on this team what Vegas says." Fair enough, kid. But the thing that decides that number won't be the dunks. It'll be the whistle.
My barber in Bankstown laughed at the line. "Twenty-nine and a half? Who's the half?" He reckons the half is whoever keeps fouling.
Good news first. Friday's preseason finale was Wilson's cleanest night yet: 16 points, 7 rebounds, 4 assists, two blocks 43 seconds apart and only two turnovers in about 23 minutes, after five in Denver and four in Milwaukee. Grain of salt the size of the United Center: Minnesota left most of its rotation at home, and the 133-116 win came against what the Bulls' own Sam Smith called the Timberpups. Wilson finished preseason at 15.8 points a night, shooting 43.5% and 31% from three. Tiago Splitter, the adult in the room, poured the cold water: "Not like it's the Caleb show every night."
Now the honest bit. Chicago got called for 30 fouls on Friday after 31 in each of the two games before. Minnesota's reserves went 28 of 40 at the line. Chicago went 21 of 25. That's the mechanism. A team without a rim protector reaches instead of walling up, and every reach is two free points for the other mob. Nic Claxton got his hamstring re-checked on Monday in Chicago and Splitter says he's out about two more weeks, so he misses Toronto and a handful after it. Splitter isn't hurrying him: "this is a very dangerous injury. The chances of redoing it are big." Zach Collins practised with no restrictions and hopes to play in Toronto. So Jalen Smith and, if that quad holds, Collins hold the middle until then.
Josh Giddey, the realist, wouldn't promise playoffs: "until you go through a losing streak, that's when you find out where you are as a team." Respect. Third season, a front office purge, a new coach, and so much roster churn that Joe Cowley reckons they should hand out name tags.
Rumour corner, now closed. The Lakers rang around about Dalton Knecht, the Bulls among them, but nobody bit, and they waived him on Monday their time before the roster deadline, per ESPN's Shams Charania. Chicago's own cuts on Saturday left its fifteenth chair empty. The shop calls it a seat for whoever's next.
Elsewhere, LeBron is 42, on a minimum in Philadelphia, and Joel Embiid says, "I'm against the concept of sacrificing." Four All-Stars, one ball. The barber put the clippers down for that one. "Somebody's sacrificing, mate. They just haven't been told yet."
Wednesday night in Toronto (Thursday morning here), count the fouls before you count Wilson's points. If Chicago keeps it under 25, that 29.5 starts looking soft. Join the List below and I'll tell you straight how the whistle treated them.
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Rico Holt · ricoholt.com
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