The Bulls' Second Quarter: In which trade possibilities and free agency once again precede—possibly supercede—any genuine playoff optimism

I know things are bad when my uncle is joking (hopefully) about "adopting Memphis" as his new favorite NBA team.

My understanding is that the TV ratings for the team are actually better than last year, but I've also heard the topic of "Where's the outrage?" suggested more than once in regards to how Bulls fans are taking their usually sub-.500 team this year. I guess we're ignoring the continuing retardation of Derrick Rose by surrounding him with talent that "doesn't mesh well at all with his skill set." It seems to be OK since Rose is still young and the general consensus is that we're doing what it seems like Bulls fans do every year for as long as it's been since Jordan was called for pushing off made the shot that won us our last World Championship: We're relying on our next big acquisition. You know, that one move that'll put us over the top. I'm sure every city's got a similar franchise.

These days, that means the same Kirk Hinrich some people actually couldn't bring themselves to talk about moving for Kobe-fucking-Bryant a few years back is now back on the table when everybody plays fantasy GM. Tyrus Thomas is sort of the same story, but probably a tougher piece to move. And it's all about moving whomever we can to make cap room and hopefully land one of the many big fish, seeing as seemingly every game-changer becomes available during the much-ballyhooed free agent class of 2010. I think I've seen this story before, and usually all the biggest and best names from said "class" go to other teams and fans in Chicago are supposed to get excited about ... Ron Mercer. I'd try to think of a fine example of the sub-par talent I fear we're going to have end up settling with as what the front office will deem the best product they could offer, but that's ever-lingering thoughts on management that I was bitching about when I summarized my feelings after the first quarter of the season.

And since we last talked about the Bulls here on BMC, the team indeed still employs our man Vinny as the head coach. But just to point to one example that I'm not just another meatball blaming the front office without some real justification, Yahoo's Adrian Wojnarowski wrote up a fairly blistering piece following GM (kind of) Gar Forman's terribly awkward press appearance—amidst the daily speculation regarding Del Negro's job—in which he came out and basically told the media ... well, a couple lies and certainly not anything resembling a vote of confidence in that coach they have.

With a victory over the Spurs in San Antonio this evening, the Bulls have now won three in a row and are only one game under .500 on the year. The fact that this little winning streak (they had a pair of four-game winning streaks in this second quarter of the season) comes in the midst of a seven-game road trip is mildly remarkable, but as was said on the radio the other day, this year's Bulls team never gives you a feeling that they have something figured out that will translate to the consistency needed for, say, an extended playoff run.

And who's talking about a playoff run for these Bulls this season? The Cavs, as expected, will probably have the Central wrapped up by the time I'm done posting this and even if the Bulls do get into the playoffs (remember, it's actually harder to miss the post-season than make it since more teams get in than not in both the NBA and NHL), they'll be a lower seed that—at best—gives us another entertaining first-round series. Besides aforementioned Cleveland, then Boston, Orlando or even the Atlanta team that I had pegged as going out to the Bulls at the beginning of this year all appear to be squads that should have no problems with Chicago.

All of this, of course, assumes no roster changes despite the quiet hope for a move with slightly more news weight than today's shipment of Aaron Gray to New Orleans. The game that sadly leaps out to me the most from these past 20 or so contests since last writing about the Bulls would have to be the historic-in-a-bad-way loss to the Kings in which the team blew a 35-point lead.

But just to end on something of an upshot—and one of the most obvious reasons in regards to the players (besides Joakim, obviously) I keep coming back to the Bulls for this year—that Rose jersey is a lot more popular than I would have guessed. The kid keeps surprising me with what he can do every time I catch a game and at least one guy's already asked if his slam in the Suns game this weekend was the "Dunk of the Year?":

Conference Championship Picks: A Matter Of Trust

So I went back and did the little thing I do with red/green post-result-type-thing-a-madoo-hickey-bobber-ska-rinsky-poo on my NFL predictions (and, hey, "as long as I'm at it," last season's MLB picks too), and just to be clear, let me highlight how I did at predicting these playoffs at the beginning of the season:

Divisional Playoff Picks: Nobody's Perfect

One thing I started doing this season that I am utterly baffled as to why I wasn't doing last season was tracking how I actually did at picking a team correctly. Now, obviously the teams that win or lose only a couple of games a year are fairly safe bets. The St. Louis Rams, for instance, were picked by me to lose every single week of this year and last. Because they only won one game this year, that means I was 15-1 picking their record straight-up.

Of course, now that we're in the divisional playoffs, a good majority of my best teams are gone. Basically, three teams that have gave me the most difficulty got into the postseason—and two are playing this weekend.

But here's how I did at predicting the records of all 32 teams this year (playoff teams in bold):

St. Louis Rams 15-1
Detroit Lions 14-2
San Diego Chargers 14-2
Tampa Bay Buccaneers 13-3
Seattle Seahawks 13-3
Washington Redskins 13-3
Atlanta Falcons 13-3
Cleveland Browns 12-4
Indianapolis Colts 12-4
Philadelphia Eagles 12-4 (12-5)
Dallas Cowboys 12-4 (12-5)
Minnesota Vikings 11-5
Kansas City Chiefs 11-5
Tennessee Titans 11-5
Buffalo Bills 11-5
Oakland Raiders 11-5
New Orleans Saints 10-6
Baltimore Ravens 10-6 (10-7)
San Francisco 49ers 10-6
Green Bay Packers 10-6 (10-7)
Miami Dolphins 10-6
Houston Texans 10-6
New England Patriots 9-7 (9-8)
Chicago Bears 9-7
Carolina Panthers 9-7
New York Giants 8-8
Jacksonville Jaguars 8-8
New York Jets 8-8 (8-9)
Pittsburgh Steelers 8-8
Denver Broncos 8-8
Cincinnati Bengals 7-9 (7-10)
Arizona Cardinals 7-9 (7-10)

I think you see what I did. It would have been nice to have had some green there, and you would think that I would've managed to get at least one of the four games right, but no sir—serves me right for having the same picks as Ron Jaworski, I suppose.

But I take comfort that at least after one week of the playoffs, we already know nobody will be able to say they got every game right. Here's how everybody's first round went:

1. Eric Allen, ESPN: 3-1
1. Jason Cole, Yahoo: 3-1
1. Michael Silver, Yahoo: 3-1
1. LEV, crazy colored glasses: 3-1
5. Mike Golic, ESPN: 2-2
5. Merrill Hoge, ESPN: 2-2
5. Chris Mortensen, ESPN: 2-2
5. Pete Prisco, CBS Sports: 2-2
5. Charles Robinson, Yahoo: 2-2
5. Mark Schlereth, ESPN: 2-2
5. Seth Wickersham, ESPN: 2-2
5. Wunderdog: 2-2
13. James C. Black, Yahoo: 1-3
13. Brian Burke, The Fifth Down: 1-3
13. Pro Football Weekly Editors: 1-3
13. Adam Schefter, ESPN: 1-3
17.Ron Jaworski, ESPN: 0-4
17. YOURS TRULY: 0-4

Yeah, I don't really know what to say about my own showing. Let's put it this way: I need to be perfect the rest of the way to beat last year's performance.

Everybody's got kind of the same picks this week for the most part, but let's pretend like this'll be suspenseful. I'll see you at the end of the scroll:

Jason Cole, Yahoo
Charles Robinson, Yahoo
James C. Black, Yahoo
Michael Silver, Yahoo
Pro Football Weekly Editors
Wunderdog
Eric Allen, ESPN
Mike Golic, ESPN
Merrill Hoge, ESPN
Ron Jaworski, ESPN
Chris Mortensen, ESPN
Adam Schefter, ESPN
Mark Schlereth, ESPN
Seth Wickersham, ESPN
Pete Prisco, CBS Sports
Brian Burke, The Fifth Down
LEV, crazy colored glasses

I'm still waiting on bro-in-law, but I'm sure it'll dawn on him shortly after I post this. As for my own picks? Well, what fun would it be to play it safe at this point, right? (Oh, I'm ditching the regular season records I had included last week, although I am still keeping the Power Ranking data—even though I'm kind of ignoring whatever it says.)

These are all supposed to be descending order of confidence, but really the first pick is the only one I'd put money on (if I did that sort of thing):

San Diego Chargers over New York Jets
+104/+7 : +95/78/+17 : +10/-9

There's a reason that nobody's picking the Jets this week—and it ain't just the Jets not being one of the better teams left. The Bolts haven't come into the playoffs with this kind of hype in quite some time, and while you have to wonder if the team's ever going to miss a beat after rattling off 11 straight wins, they're probably my sentimental favorite right now of the eight teams left. Of any team I'd like to see win it all, if I had to pick one, I'd vote for the Chargers because they really have felt like the best team in football for most of the year anyway.

Arizona Cardinals over New Orleans Saints
+28/-27 : +21/41/+62 : +85/-7

I guess that last year, Arizona technically avoided the No. 1 seed, but the whole scenario seems familiar and the Buzzsaw is finally getting a vote from me. I view it as a "can't lose" sort of situation because even if I'm wrong, at least I won't have them screwing with me next week. But if you're seeking legitimate logic here, then all I can tell you is that Kurt Warner has been playing out of his mind and I can't help but wonder if Drew Brees and the Saints don't take a drive too long to catch up.

Minnesota Vikings over Dallas Cowboys
+67/-4 : +63/6/+57 : +61/-4

Dallas is in an unmistakable groove ever since ending the perfect run of the Saints in New Orleans, but beyond the fans inside the Metrodome is still a very good Vikings team that doesn't really seem to fuck around too much when they play there. So I'm tempted to believe that the big performance they keep saying they'll need from Adrian Peterson is something they're going to get. I'm all for a good, low-scoring defensive struggle, and I'm preferring to think of this as another "can't lose" for me because I'll be happy to know that at least one of these two teams won't win at all. Next week it can be the other one, I hope.

Baltimore Ravens over Indianapolis Colts
+67/+4 : +63/24/+87 : +83/-4

We didn't do a playoff pool this year, but just because I'm remembering how fun it was last time, I'll take probably my biggest upset pick this week. I see the Ravens coming in with nothing to lose and the Colts dealing with more pressure than any other host team this weekend, mostly because of all the hoopla that came out of Jim Caldwell's decision to rest his starters for the playoffs. If I'm right, then the entire thing will be debated all through the off-season for Indy.