Bulls Better Than Heat; LeBron’s Cavs the Team to Beat

July 12, 2014 @ admin → No Comments

The Chicago Bulls moved past the Miami Heat as an Eastern Conference title contender for the 2014-15 season. Without doing anything. Pretty impressive, huh? Yes, except for the fact that the Cleveland Cavaliers moved past the Bulls as the theoretical team to beat in the conference. That’s what happens when LeBron James decides to take his talents from South Beach back to the team that he first played for in the NBA. How can anyone — other than Heat fans (and face it, there weren’t a whole lot of those before James joined Miami and there won’t be a whole lot of those today than there were before he made his announcement Friday).

Video below of Argentina’s Yesica Toscanini.

* Speaking of the Bulls, at some point during the offseason they presumably will make some personnel changes. Nothing — short of Michael Jordan jumping into a time machine and returning as His Airness in his prime — will have the impact of James’ signing. Then again, a key addition here, a key addition there, the return of guard Derrick Rose to MVP form and other forms of wishful thinking could make the Bulls legitimate challengers for something. Maybe a team good enough to handle the Washington Wizards in the playoffs? Hey, if you’re going to dream, you might as well dream big, no?

* Speaking of Cleveland, the second-biggest sports story there Friday was the Indians defeating the Chicago White Sox 7-4. Meaning the Sox cannot catch Cleveland for third place in the American League Central before the All-Star break. OK, so it was an extremely distant second to King James’ return to Cleveland.

* Speaking of the Sox (44-50), they and the Cubs (40-52) can battle it out for the worst record for a Chicago big-league team and which team will finish further back in its division. At the moment (very early a.m. Saturday), the Sox are 10.5 back in the American League Central, while the Cubs are 11 back in the National League Central.

* Still speaking of the Sox, catcher Tyler Flowers did not strike out Friday. Of course, it helped that he did not play. He has 102 strikeouts in 249 at-bats, which the statistical-analysis around here says is 41 percent of the time.

* With the Cubs scoring a 5-4 victory vs. the visiting Atlanta Braves for their second consecutive triumph, they have more victories than pitcher Jeff Samardzija, whom they traded to Oakland on July 4. Samardzija (1-1) was the losing pitcher in a 3-2 decision against the Mariners in Seattle. He went eight innings, allowed five strikeouts, did not walk a batter and struck out five. So the Cubs can breathe easy about having more victories than their former ace at the All-Star break. And, despite the defeat, Samardzija can breathe easy about his chances to pitch in the postseason this year.

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