At the trade deadline last Thursday the Bulls made some moves that will allow them to sign a max free agent this summer.

The trades that the Bulls made should allow them to keep their playoff momentum. The Bulls lost John Salmons and Tyrus Thomas. I think Salmons will be missed some, as his improved play was one of the reasons for the Bulls’ turnaround this season. I don’t think that the Bulls will miss Thomas too much, and that the trade with the Bobcats will be a bit of addition by subtraction.

This is not to say that Thomas is a bad player. I think he will do well under Larry Brown in Charlotte. A coach, who is as respected as Larry Brown, is probably what Thomas needs to get his head on straight. Thomas always had talent, but he never really learned how to play within the system when he was with the Bulls. It will hurt to see Thomas reach some of his potential with another team, but we need to understand that for various reasons, he was unable to reach his potential here, and he was gone at the end of the season anyway, as keeping him would have prohibited the Bulls to sign a max free agent. The change of scenery will be good for Thomas.

In the trades, the key parts that the Bulls got back were Hakim Warrick and Flip Murray, two players who can score the ball. What is to like about this Bulls team is that their rotation consists primarily of veterans. Kirk Hinrich, Luol Deng, Brad Miller, Flip Murray, and Hakim Warrick are all veterans. The three young players in the Bulls’ main rotation: Derrick Rose, Taj Gibson, and Joakim Noah, are all very mature. As a result of this rotation, the Bulls should be able to limit the mistakes they make, which will be conducive to winning more games down the stretch of the regular season.

In the trades, the Bulls also received Acie Law and Joe Alexander. I don’t expect either of these players to achieve anything in their time with the Bulls, and expect both to not be on the roster next season.

The Bulls received a first round pick from the Bobcats, and gave the Bucks the option to swap first round draft picks, as long as the Bulls are not picking in the top 10 positions of the draft. The pick swap is no big deal, as the Bulls’ wisely put protections on it (unlike the Knicks when they made the pick swap with the Bulls in the Eddy Curry trade) and also, because the Bulls will likely be a better team than the Bucks.

One of the side effects from the Bulls trades is that they could help bounce Miami out of the playoffs. I think the trades that the Bulls made improved both the Bucks’ and Bobcats’ rosters and did nothing to make the Bulls roster worse.

The Bulls are currently sitting in the sixth seed, and Miami is in the seventh seed, 1 game behind the Bulls. Milwaukee and Charlotte are both half a game behind the Heat.

If the Bulls make the playoffs while the Heat miss the playoffs, I think there is a great chance that Dwyane Wade will leave the Heat for the Bulls this summer.

The Chicago Bulls fell to the Miami Heat 95 to 87 last night in Miami.

The game was a closely fought contest for most of the game, but the Heat pulled away during crunch time, as the Bulls failed to execute down the stretch.

There were two major problems that caused the Bulls demise in this game.

The first, is that they lacked a player who would take the game by its horns and lead the team to victory. The game was closely fought throughout, and the Bulls did a good job on the defensive end, but at no point in the fourth quarter did anyone in the Bulls string together a few shots in a row to give the Bulls a solid 6-10 point lead.

The other big problem I noticed was that the team’s execution was poor in the clutch. This seemed more like the players being scared to step up and making the wrong basketball plays, rather than any systematic problems with the Bulls clutch strategy.

Derrick Rose turned the ball over as a result of a wreckless baseline drive of his, and Salmons turned the ball over with 23 seconds left as he couldn’t handle the ball.

There was one play where Kirk Hinrich dribbled out of a three point shot, showing that he didn’t want to step up and be the man in clutch time. Then Luol Deng got the ball near the three point line, and decided that he was going to force action. Deng drove to the hoop, and missed the runner (although it looked like basket interference on the Heat). It was nice to see Deng step up and try to be the man in clutch time, but it was a stupid basketball play.

Luol Deng should have shot the three. At that point, the Bulls were down 93-87. Deng took his layup with 30 seconds left in the game. If he would have taken the three, he could have cut the Miami lead to 3 points, with around 30 seconds in the ball game. The Bulls could have gotten a stop, and would have still had time to have a chance to tie it on the other end. However, Deng decided to drive in for a two point attempt. If he would have made the shot, the Bulls would have still been down by 4 points, and would have been forced to play the foul game.

The one big positive for the Bulls yesterday was their team defense. The strength of the Bulls defense yesterday was in the help defense of their big men and Luol Deng. The players effectively moved into driving lanes to stop the Heat’s penetration. They also helped out effectively when the Heat’s big men had the ball in the paint. The two weak spots in the Bulls’ defense so far has been Derrick Rose and John Salmons, both of whom have difficulty staying in front of their man, and both of whom have trouble chasing their man around, allowing the opponent to have too many open threes.

The star of this game for Miami was Udonis Haslem, who finished with 19 points and 11 rebounds off the bench. His rebounding and the midrange jumpers that he made were key in getting the Heat the victory.

Dwyane Wade added in 25 points, scoring his 10,000th career point in this game.

Luol Deng led the Bulls in scoring with 26 points. Deng had a nice game scoring 26 points and 8 rebounds. Deng was making his shots from midrange, which allowed him to score efficiently in the ball game. However, Deng still took 21 shots to get his 26 points. Deng really needs to work on that three point shot, so he can become a more efficient scorer. He scored efficiently tonight (56 TS%), but he isn’t always going to shoot that well from midrange, and when he’s not, his efficiency is going to suffer. 56 TS% is more around where we want Deng’s average for the season to be around, not his best games of the year, so I think Luol still needs quite a bit of work, but good performance tonight nonetheless.

John Salmons had his first good game of the year, scoring 17 points on 7-14 shooting. The alarming part is that Salmons only shot 1-5 from three point line. Salmons is going to need to make the three point shot in order to stretch the defense some, opening up more driving lanes for Derrick Rose.

The Bulls struggled at the point guard spot tonight. Kirk Hinrich put up a bad 7 points on 3-11 shooting, and Derrick Rose was downright awful, putting up 8 points on 4-15 shooting, along with 5 assists and 5 rebounds.

Tyrus Thomas had a nifty little game, finishing with 4 points, 6 rebounds, and 3 blocks. For some reason, Thomas only played 21 minutes in the game, which was hard to understand, because it seemed like Thomas was active out there, rebounding the basketball and blocking shots.

Joakim Noah gave the Bulls 10 points and 7 rebounds and Brad Miller chipped in 11 points.

Michael Beasley finished the game with 10 points, 11 rebounds, and 2 blocks. Beasley strugged offensively, going 3-12 from the field, but he did some nice things on the defensive end, and he rebounded the ball well.

Mario Chalmers put in 11 points for the Heat, and Carlos Arroyo added 12 points off the bench.

With the loss, the Bulls fall to 1-2 on the season, and are currently slotted as the 11th seed in the Eastern Conference.

Closing Comments

The Bulls put up another good defensive performance last night holding the Heat to only 95 points. The Bulls just failed to execute down the stretch, as they lacked that player who can score in bunches to give you the lead or that player who hits the big shots in the clutch. The offense as a whole has been a big problem for the Bulls this year. They currently have the third worst offense in the league, with a 99.0 O-Rtg. Only the Charlotte Bobcats and Milwaukee Bucks have been worse.

Last night at the VMA’s, Kanye West took the microphone out of Taylor Swift’s hands as she was accepting her award for Female Music Video of the Year, to put Taylor on blast, implying that Beyonce should have been taking home the award.

Similarly, on Friday, Michael Jordan put his enemies on blast during his speech during the Hall of Fame induction. During his speech Jordan called out Jerry Krause for his organizations win championships comment. He called out Isiah Thomas for freezing him out at the 1985 Allstar Game. He called out Jeff Van Gundy for saying that Jordan conned players by befriending them. He called out Byron Russell for saying that he could cover Jordan if he was still playing when Jordan was retired in 1994.

Kanye West’s actions were obviously much worse, but both have been talked about as classless. While they are similar in that respect, they are also so very different, because of who Michael Jordan is.

Kanye West thinks he can say anything he wants about other musicians without repercussions because he has self deluded himself into thinking that he’s The Beatles. Michael Jordan, however, can say whatever he wants, because he is The Beatles.

Michael Jordan is the greatest basketball player to ever play the game. Not only that, he is the greatest athlete to ever play in any sport, and that is why it seemed okay to do what he did last Friday.

Him being the greatest athlete of all time, as well as donning the Chicago Bulls uniform is also why it’s now Monday, and this is just being written. The fact that Jordan is the GOAT and also wore a Bulls uniform makes this a hard post to write, because I want to make it a good one. I want to make it a perfect one, just like Jordan, the perfect basketball player.

And I know I’m not alone in this. Kelly Dwyer explains the same difficulty in writing about Jordan that I have.

At least Dwyer know completely what Jordan meant to him, as he got to witness it all. Doug Thonus of Chicago Bulls Confidential and Matt from Blog-a-Bull are admittedly indifferent about the entire thing. I am the in between, which is incredibly difficult to write about.

As a sports fan, I root for all of the same professional teams that my Dad did. That is the Packers, Cubs, and Bulls. So I was out there watching the Bulls when they were out winning these last three championships. But it wasn’t until after Jordan retired from the Bulls that I really got into basketball (I started becoming a hardcore basketball fan in 1998).

While I was watching Jordan win these championships, it wasn’t with the same fervor that I watched Ben Gordon lead the Bulls to the second round of the playoffs or Rusty Larue lead the Bulls to 17 wins. The Bulls winning a championship now would mean a lot more to me than the ones they won in the 1990’s.

Just off the top of my head, here are some of the athletes that mean more to me than Michael Jordan:

Sammy Sosa, who was the only exciting thing about the Cubs for a long while, and one of the greatest home run hitters to ever play baseball.

Dwyane Wade, who graced us with his presence for two terrific seasons at Marquette, culminating in a Final Four appearance.

Ben Gordon, who helped in re-energizing the Bulls, leading them back to the playoffs for the first time since the guy I’m writing this article about.

And also Aaron Rodgers, the new face of the Green Bay Packers, and one of the best quarterbacks in the NFL.

But this list is still very small. Michael still means a lot.

The first video game I ever owned was Bulls vs. Blazers and the NBA Playoffs for Super Nintendo.

While I was more excited for Bugs Bunny at the time, Michael Jordan is the reason why Space Jam is still one of my favorite movies of all time. (Although I still find Bugs hilarious!)

The first jersey I owned of any athlete was Michael Jordan. Elton Brand, Derrick Rose, and Ben Gordon are the only other Bulls that I have owned a jersey of.

When I used to wear headbands when playing basketball (before deciding it was tacky), about half the time I would wear a white Air Jordan headband. I owned a pair of those butt ugly Jordan Retro 5’s, but thought they were cool because they were Jordan’s shoes.

My basketball card collection, which I stopped collecting for during the 2004-2005 (just enough time to get some Ben Gordon rookies!), has a massive pile, dedicated to just cards of Jordan.

When NBA 2K3 came out, in quickplay games I often played as the Wizards (although Jay Wiliams was sick in that game too!). In franchise mode, Jordan would curiously be traded for (or fantasy drafted) time and time again to the Bulls, and I would try to win the championship before Jordan retired in the game.

I also watched a lot of Wizards games that year. Anytime they were on national TV, I would watch them, although I never brought myself to get a Jordan Wizards jersey. I’ve gotten jerseys of guys on other teams in the past. I had a Shaquille O’neal and Penny Hardaway Magic jerseys, a Chris Webber Kings throwback, and a Tim Duncan Team USA jersey. But getting an MJ Wizards jersey just seemed wrong, and I never ended up purchasing one.

During the offseason I will often find myself watching one of the documentaries or games on the Ultimate Jordan collection. It’s also not uncommon to be on youtube re-watching some of Jordan’s greatest moments on youtube.

But my memories of Jordan when he was actually playing for the Bulls are thin. My memories of Jordan are more from the culture Jordan created than anything Jordan actually did in a Bulls uniform.

So now, at the end of the article, I still cannot say what Jordan meant to me in exactness. He probably means more to me than both Doug and Matt, but less than Kelly Dwyer. Maybe I will never know how much Jordan means to me, or my basketball fandom, but I can tell you one thing, Michael Jordan was the greatest athlete to ever play a sport.

According to Yahoo Sports, Michael Beasley has checked himself into a rehab facility during a weekend filled with controversy. This past weekend, Michael Beasley posted a photo on his twitter account to show off his new tattoos. On the coffee table were two baggies, which many on the internet have speculated to contain marijuana.

Miami Heat forward Michael Beasley(notes) checked into an unidentified Houston rehabilitation hospital over the weekend, multiple sources told Yahoo! Sports.

Sources said the Heat encouraged Beasley to check into the facility to address possible substance and psychological issues. He is expected to spend time with former NBA player and coach John Lucas, who is renown for his success in working with troubled players.

When reached Monday morning, Miami Heat spokesman Tim Donovan declined comment. An NBA spokesman also declined comment.

Beasley’s admission comes after a handful of disturbing Twitter posts were recently attributed to him.

“Y do I feel like the whole world is against me…I can’t win for losin,” Beasley wrote.

“Feelin like it’s not worth livin!!!!!!! I’m done.”

I don’t think that Beasley has any serious substance abuse problems. He probably does smoke marijuana, but so do a lot of other NBA players, and people in general.

I think the Heat probably encouraged Beasley to check into a rehab center because he was having difficulty coping with a depression. Beasley has had a tough year after a disappointing rookie season, being forced to admit that he was in the room with marijuana at the rookie seminar, and having to see stories about how Dwyane Wade isn’t satisfied with him in the media.

This most recent twitter incident was probably just a breaking point for Beasley. Not only did he get accused of having marijuana (it is very possible that it wasn’t weed in that bag, of course it is also very possible that it was.), but he has had to deal with people hating on his new tattoo, which he wanted to show off.

Getting Beasley’s head on straight is key to the Miami Heat organization. Dwyane Wade and a max 2010 free agent might be able to win a championship together, but they wouldn’t be the favorites. If you throw Michael Beasley into the mix, and he reaches his potential, then the Heat could be a juggernaut.

Hopefully Beasley can get things going back on track. I enjoy watching him play, and think he can still be a superstar in the league. Beasley showed some of that potential in the last month of the season, averaging 20.6 points and 8.6 rebounds in April. His playing time was sporadic in the playoffs, but he put up an impressive 22 point and 15 rebound performance in a Game 6 win for the Heat in the first round of the playoffs.

I was one of the few people who wanted the Bulls to draft Beasley over Derrick Rose. If I was able to go back in time, and draft, I would take Derrick Rose now. This is just because Rose is a known commodity. We know that Rose will probably be an allstar level player at the very least. I still think that Beasley has a lot more upside than Rose, but he also appears to have a lot more downside. I think if Beasley can ever get his head on straight, he will be better than Rose, but it can’t be assumed that Beasley will ever get his head on straight.

Working in Beasley’s favor is that he has some good friends from back in high school, such as Kevin Durant, who are also in the NBA, and who appear to have everything order. Hopefully guys like Durant can help Beasley get out of it.

It would be a shame if Beasley’s career were to get derailed because of psychological issues and drugs. Beasley is a great talent, and it will be a shame if the NBA never gets to see Beasley at his full potential.

The New Jersey Nets will have a promotion this season where they will be giving away reversible jerseys when you buy a 10 game plan to the 10 hottest games of the year. Instead of the reversible jerseys reversing from a home jersey into an away jersey, like we are used to from when we played basketball as kids, the Nets jerseys reverse into an opposing team’s player.

It appears that the five jersey combinations will be Jarvis Hayes - Lebron James, Courtney Lee - Kobe Bryant, Brook Lopez - Dwight Howard, Devin Harris - Dwyane Wade, and Yi Jianlian - Kevin Garnett.

It is a bold marketing decision by the Nets.  As a Bulls fan, I don’t think I would want a Derrick Rose jersey that reverses into a Dwyane Wade jersey or a Joakim Noah jersey that reverses into a Dwight Howard, or a Kirk Hinrich jersey that reverses into a Ben Gordon jersey.  Okay, maybe I’d take that last one.

According to reports around the internet, including Bulls.com, Dwyane Wade has purchased for $1.7 million, a four-story townhouse on the river in Kinzie Park.

Some, such as Sam Smith, have suggested that this might be a sign that Dwyane Wade intends to sign with the Bulls. Will Wade sign with the Bulls? Maybe, but I wouldn’t count on it.

If Wade was planning on signing with the Bulls, it would have been wiser to get a home on the north side. Something much closer to the Bulls’ practice facility, the Berto Center, which is located in Deerfield. According to google maps, it would be a 33-40 minute car ride, depending on traffic, to the Berto Center from Wade’s new home.

There is another gym much closer to his new home, and this gym is likely the reason why Wade bought a new home where he did. That gym is in the Attack Athletics facility, which is a 65,000 square feet facility, which includes four full sized NBA courts and a 10,000 feet weight room.

Attack Athletics is where the top athletes go to train with the legendary trainer, Tim Grover. Athletes who have trained at Attack Athletics in the past include Michael Jordan, Scottie Pippen, Hakeem Olujawon, and Charles Barkley.

Some of the current NBA players that train at Attack Athletics are Lebron James, Kobe Bryant, Chris Paul, Andre Iguodala, Devin Harris, and that Dwyane Wade guy.

According to google maps, Attack Athletics is just 2.8 miles and a 9 minute drive away from Wade’s new home.

I find it highly likely that Wade bought this new home, just so he would have a nice place to stay at during the summer as he works out at Attack Athletics, not some prelude to him signing with the Bulls through 2010 free agency.

In the first game this season the Heat beat the Bulls easily by 13 points. In the second game, the Bulls had the ball at the end of the game with a chance to win, until Thabo Sefolosha threw the ball directly to Dwyane Wade and Shawn Marion dunked it in for the win. In the third game, John Salmons was stripped on the final posession in double overtime, which led to a Dwyane Wade buzzer beater three. The fourth time was the charm, as the Bulls decided to just blow out the Heat this time, beating them 106 to 87.

Again, this was a nice team win. No one really had a bad game, and the Bulls are beginning to play better as a team, moving the ball much better.

I think the win really started with the great outside shooting of Kirk Hinrich and John Salmons. When these two started hitting some shots in the third, in particular Salmons, the Bulls started to pull away.

Hinrich, who started at the point guard spot for the second straight game, scored 15 points, shooting 4-7 from three. Outside of a bad first quarter on defense, Hinrich did a pretty good job guarding Wade, slowing him down a bit. Wade finished with 31 points in the game, before being pulled for garbage time.

John Salmons led the Bulls in scoring with 27 points. He did a good job driving to the hoop and scoring, and hit some big shots in the third quarter to help the Bulls pull away. This is difference between the Bulls before the trade and after the trade. Before the trade, when Gordon struggled early on, the Bulls would probably fall behind in the third, and it would take a great fourth quarter performance from Rose or Gordon to come back. Now, with another great scoring option in Salmons, they can pull away when Gordon is struggling.

The Bulls got great performances out of their young big men. Joakim Noah had 10 points, 7 rebounds, and 4 assists. Tyrus Thomas had 15 points, 12 rebounds, and 3 blocks. Thomas was just all over the place, blocking shots, and had some thunderous dunks, the best of which came on an alley oop from Derrick Rose. The great thing about the play of these guys is that it looks like the Bulls might be able to use them as trade chips for a really good player, and if not, they might become really good players for the Bulls.

Derrick Rose came off the bench and had a calm 9 points, 7 assist, and 5 rebound performance. He is starting to pull out a lot more highlight reel passes now.

Ben Gordon struggled with his shot early, missing some wide open three point attempts. Gordon found his stroke in the fourth quarter, hitting two threes. The Heat had difficulty stopping Gordon’s drive as well. Gordon finished with 18 points in the game. He’s been struggling to get going early in games, but has come back with good second halfs of late. Before the Bulls get to the playoffs, Gordon needs to figure out how to make his shots in the first half.

The Heat had four players in double figures other than Wade. Michael Beasley had 10 points off the bench and Mario Chalmers also had 10 points. Jermaine O’neal had 12 points and Udonis Haslem added in 13 points.

Brad Miller had 12 points, 7 rebounds, and 4 assists off the bench.

Dwyane Wade became the first player under 6′4″ to have 100 blocks in a season.

With the win, the Bulls improve to 35-38 on the season. The Bulls have now passed the Pistons and are the seventh seed in the Eastern Conference.

Closing Comments

Good win for the Bulls tonight. I made a challenge for Del Negro after one of the Bulls embarassing losses a few weeks ago, and that was, if the bull sare under .500, even if they make the playoffs, he should be fired. He still has some work to go to get the bulls to .500, but I think he will do it. He has to go just 6-3 from here on out to make it back to .500. The next stretch of games is a perfect opportunity to do that. Their next five games are against Indiana, Toronto, indiana again, New Jersey, and New York. Actually, in the Bulls remaining 9 games, only Philadelphia has a better record than the Bulls, and the Bulls get Philly at home. The Bulls really should have a monster record down this final stretch. 6-3 should be the absolute minimum, but with most of those teams going into tank mode, and the majority of the Bulls games being at home, the Bulls could potentially win out. I don’t think they will, but it’s definitely a possibility with the easiness of their schedule. The Bulls can really make a run at that fifth seed, they’re only 3.5 games out, and they have Philly one more time this season. Atlanta is definitely a winnable series for the Bulls.

One of my favorite plays of the game was a four on one fastbreak in which Rose made a nice no look bounce pass to John Salmons who flushed it down. Yes it was a beautiful play, but what I liked even more about this play is that the Bulls had four guys running the court, beating their Heat counterparts down the floor. We have the athletes and speed to do this, so it’s nice to see them doing this.

What do I think about the Miami Heat? Outside of my guy Dwyane Wade, they’re absolute crap. Michael Beasley has a lot of skill, but he hasn’t begun to put it together on the court yet. Even if Beasley improves, they won’t be that good of a team next year. It’s for this reason why I think they will aggressively pursue Ben Gordon this offseason. They need talent there to keep Wade happy. The thing Paxson has to remember going into this offseason is that the only way that a sign and trade can be completed is if the Bulls agree to it. Don’t make that an option (okay, unless the Heat are willing to part with Wade or Beasley). If Paxson takes that option off the table, then all the Heat can offer is the MLE, which the Bulls could easily beat, with an offer such as the one they offered last summer.

Oh, and with the win, the Bulls have now strung 3 wins in a row. This is the Bulls third three game winning streak of the year. This team is truly amazing…in comparison to last year’s mess.