The Bulls' First Quarter: OK, you've got my attention

Needless to say, with a star player unlikely to play for a majority of the season, hopes have not been real high for the Bulls this season. Sure, the team sits atop the division at the moment, good enough for a fourth seed in the Eastern Conference if the playoffs were to start today. Still, as admirably as Chicago's effort might be on a nightly basis during what has arguable been the softer part of its schedule, there's little reason to believe that the Bulls will be much of a threat to the defending champion Heat, let alone several other "contenders" in the East.

While I was merely going to be content to note that Chicago is at least leading its division once again and not think much of it, Yahoo's Adrian Wojnarowski went and reported a little story this week that suddenly gives Bulls fans quite the reason to begin dreaming about ripping that championship window wide open. If Kevin Love indeed wants out of Minnesota, then it is awfully hard not to recall what team he was quoted as admiring last year.

While Love does not become a free agent for another two years, a suddenly disappointing Bears season provides the perfect time to begin speculating about all of the players we'd be willing to part with to acquire this All-Star forward (translation: everybody except Derrick Rose). The idea of having two 24-year-old players of that caliber on the same squad should be enough to make any fan excited.

The idea about possibly acquiring Love helps fans ignore the team that is actually on the court right now. For the most part, it still isn't very pretty. With the exceptions of Joakim Noah and Luol Deng, most every Bulls player has had more bad moments than good. Carlos Boozer has had some encouraging nights, but some games where you could be forgiven for assuming he did not even make an appearance. Nate Robinson can drive you nuts, Kirk Hinrich seems to be on pace to rival Rip Hamilton for most injuries in a year, and even Taj Gibson has been relatively underwhelming thus far. Then there's a whole variety of other players filling out the roster who have been equally forgettable.

So yeah, for the time being, we'll be happy to talk frequently about trying our damnedest to bring Love to Chicago.

Here's the bigger graphic I made for this quarter's thoughts, using a Kevin Love Bulls jersey you cannot actually order from most NBA stores because using other player names on teams that they don't play for is not allowed. I ask what happens if a fan's surname matches a player on another team? Shit out of luck, I guess, for all the Smiths of the world.