The Bulls started off their West Coast road trip with two losses to the Golden State Warriors and the Los Angeles Clippers. The Bulls followed that up with wins over the Phoenix Suns and the Houston Rockets.

The Bulls beat the Phoenix Suns 115-104. The Bulls were led by Derrick Rose, who had one of his best games of the season, scoring 31 points on 15-21 shooting. Luol Deng gave the Bulls 23 points, Joakim Noah 19 points, and 14 a piece for Kirk Hinrich and John Salmons. Amare Stoudemire finished with 23 points and Steve Nash struggled, finishing with only 8 points and 7 assists.

In their 104-97 win over the Houston Rockets, the Bulls got a big night out of Brad Miller, who finished with 25 points and 5 rebounds in only 25 minutes of play. Brad Miller was starting in place of Joakim Noah, who is suffering plantar fascitis. Taj Gibson had a big double double, finishing with 16 points and 14 rebounds. Derrick Rose played well again, finishing with 20 points. Aaron Brooks and Luis Scola had 20 points a piece for the Rockets, and Carl Landry scored 22 points off the bench.

With Taj Gibson continuing to play well while Tyrus Thomas struggles, it is hard to make a good case for Tyrus Thomas starting over Taj Gibson anymore. Thomas will be gone at the end of the season, and the Bulls are unlikely to feel the loss of him at all. If Taj Gibson is the starting power forward next season, then the Bulls might feel the loss of Thomas some, but their cap space should be used to sign a big man, not a shooting guard (unless you are getting that superstar player named Dwyane Wade).

It is also good to see Derrick Rose put up good game after good game. He has really turned the corner as a player.

Also, it is great to see the Bulls get two road wins against tough opponents. This was a part of the schedule that could have really derailed the Bulls season some. Now, it looks like the Bulls will keep a hold of their playoff position coming out of this trip, and will have a chance to move up in the playoff standings when they get back to an easier chunk of the schedule. The Suns are 26-19 on the season, and the Rockets are 24-19, so these are two wins that really shouldn’t have been expected out of the Bulls.

The Bulls have three more games left on this road trip, against the San Antonio Spurs, Oklahoma City Thunder, and New Orleans Hornets. Worst case scenario is that the Bulls are 5 games under .500 coming out of the road trip, leaving them plenty of time to get back to .500 and make their claim for the playoffs as the schedule gets easier.

The Chicago Bulls fell to the Golden State Warriors 114-97 in a Martin Luther King Jr. Day matinee game.

This was a bit of an unexpected win from the Warriors given that they were only suiting eight players, three of whom were D-League players. Monta Ellis, Stephen Curry, Corey Maggette, and Andris Biedrins were the only four Warriors’ regulars who played today, and they all played great.

The best player for the Warriors was by far Andris Biedrins, who finished with 9 points, 19 rebounds, and 8 blocks. Biedrins really bothered the Bulls with his length, and was a big part in shutting down the Bulls’ offense in the paint. The only knock on Biedrins today was his poor free throw shooting, where he shot 1-7. All of his free throws were line drives at the hoop, that bricked off the front of the rim. But Biedrins more than made up for the poor free throw shooting with his shot blocking and shot altering ability. Biedrins really set the tone defensively for the Warriors, who did a good job contesting the Bulls’ shots, and also getting set for charges, which also helped to shutdown the Bulls penetration game.

The Warriors got great production from Corey Maggette, who scored 32 points, grabbed 6 rebounds, and dished 5 assists. Maggette shot 11-14, and was automatic from mid range shots in which he just caught the ball, measured up, and shot it.

The rookie Stephen Curry played great today as well, finishing with 26 points, 10 rebounds, and 6 assists. Curry shot the ball well, going 5-8 from three, hit some nice floaters, and did a nice job defensively on Derrick Rose.

Monta Ellis led the Warriors in scoring with 36 points, but he did that very inefficiently, taking 39 shots to get those 36 points. He also had 8 assists in the game.

John Salmons finished with 25 points, 4 rebounds, and 4 assists. He did a good job of keeping the Bulls in the game in the third quarter, but was very quiet in the fourth quarter.

Luol Deng played well, finishing with 20 points on 7-16 shooting, and Derrick Rose was solid, scoring 19 points.

Jannero Pargo scored 12 points for the Bulls, but he scored 5 of it in garbage time. When the game mattered, Pargo was hurting the Bulls by taking some really bad shots.

Biedrins really bothered Joakim Noah and Tyrus Thomas. Noah only scored 4 points on 2-10 shooting, and Thomas scored 4 points on 2-7 shooting. Neither knew how to score around Biedrins’ long arms. Both rebounded well, as Noah finished with 16 rebounds, and Thomas had 9 rebounds in 19 minutes before fouling out.

Taj Gibson played well today, finishing with 10 points, 9 rebounds, and 2 blocks.

The Bulls were without Kirk Hinrich, who was suffering a bout with the flu.

With the loss, the Bulls fall to 18-21 on the season.

The Chicago Bulls defeated the Boston Celtics 96-83 behind an all around great team defensive effort.

This was a pretty winnable game for the Bulls, as both Kevin Garnett and Rasheed Wallace were sitting out with injuries. The Bulls have really played the Celtics pretty well over the past two seasons when Kevin Garnett has not been in the lineup.

The Bulls took a lead in the first half, and seemed to maintain that throughout the rest of the game. The Celtics would cut the Bulls lead down to around 6 points or so, and then the Bulls would get some stops and hit some shots and build the lead back up to double digits.

The Bulls did a fairly good job defensively tonight, out rebounding the Celtics 50-39, blocking 10 shots, and collecting 9 steals.

Luol Deng led the way for the Bulls scoring 25 points, shooting 8-13 from the field. Deng did a good job attacking the Celtics defense and getting them to foul him, going to the free throw line 10 times.

The Bulls usually struggle dealing with the Celtics’ wide bodied big men, in particular Kendrick Perkins. Perkins played well tonight, scoring 14 points, grabbing 10 rebounds, and blocking 5 shots. While that is a good game for Perkins, it was pretty much negated by Joakim Noah who had 15 points, 11 rebounds, and 4 blocks. If the Bulls are playing the center battle even, they stand a pretty good shot at beating the KG-less Celtics.

The Bulls ended up winning the point guard battle between Derrick Rose and Rajon Rondo. Rose started off slow, as he got into some early foul trouble, but he had a big second half, and finished the night with 17 points, 4 assists, and 8 rebounds. Rajon Rondo finished with 15 points on 6-14 shooting, 7 assists, and 3 rebounds. Rondo didn’t score the ball all that efficiently tonight, and was kind of lazy with the ball, turning it over 5 times. As the commentators mentioned during the game, Rondo kind of looked fatigued out there.

The Bulls got solid games out of Kirk Hinrich and Taj Gibson. Kirk Hinrich finished with 11 points, 6 assists, and 6 rebounds and Taj Gibson finished with 14 points, 6 rebounds, 2 blocks, and 2 steals.

For the Celtics, Paul Pierce scored 20 points, but he only shot 33.3% from the floor. He also had 8 rebounds and 6 assists. Deng can really can do a nice job defensively, as he did tonight on Paul Pierce.

Tyrus Thomas only managed to get 17 minutes in the ball game tonight. He was really active when he was in there, accumulating 5 points, 7 rebounds, and 4 steals. Thomas was pulled from the game for his inability to make shots. He would make brilliant moves towards the basket or get offensive rebounds in good positions, but he wouldn’t finish on those plays.

James Johnson had 2 big time blocks in the 7 minutes he was in the game.

John Salmons really struggled tonight for the Bulls shooting 2-9 for the field. Ray Allen also had an off night, only scoring 8 points on 4-10 shooting. Allen missed four really good looks from three point land that you expect him to nail.

Eddie House came off the bench for the Celtics and scored 11 points on 5-6 shooting.

This was the Bulls third straight win, and with this win, they improve to 17-20 on the season.

When the Bulls decided to let Ben Gordon walk to the Detroit Pistons this past offseason, they signaled that they were going to pursue 2010 free agency. The Bulls face one major problem, which is that they will not have enough cap space to sign a max free agent if John Salmons opts into his contract. So at the trade deadline this year, the Bulls should first look at trying to move either John Salmons or Kirk Hinrich, to ensure that they can sign a max free agent in 2010 free agency. But the Bulls shouldn’t stop there, the Bulls should work to move all three of Luol Deng, Kirk Hinrich, and John Salmons for expiring contracts. Moving all three would make the Bulls the biggest power player in the biggest free agent year in NBA history.

First, I would like to clear up some misconceptions. A recent RealGM 2010 Free Agency primer said that the Bulls would have $21.1 million in projected cap space using a $52.5 million even with Salmons opting in. I am not sure where the author got this number, but he either doesn’t quite understand all the subtleties of the CBA, has bad salary data, made some mathematical errors, or a combination of all three.

If Salmons chooses to opt in, with a $52.5 million cap, the Bulls would have approximately $11.468 million in cap space, well short of the $15.75 million needed to sign a max free agent in 2010 free agency using the $52.5 million cap. If Salmons chose to opt out of his contract, the Bulls would have $16.803 million in cap space, enough to sign a max free agent. This of course doesn’t include the Bulls draft pick, which would further reduce the Bulls’ cap space, although if the Bulls were to trade their draft pick, they could have these cap space figures.

If we were to choose to go with the 2010 plan for one max free agent, moving either Kirk Hinrich or John Salmons would ensure that we have the proper cap space for 2010 to sign a max player. Luol Deng could also be moved, but he would be a better piece to keep here to try to attract a max free agent than either Hinrich or Salmons.

However, an even better plan for the Bulls would to move all three of Hinrich, Salmons, and Deng. This would allow the Bulls to sign two max free agents, even if they were to be blessed with the salary commitments that come with the top overall pick in the draft.

How would the Bulls accomplish this feat? They could target a few separate deals moving these players for expirings. But there are two teams, the Cleveland Cavaliers and Dallas Mavericks, who could trade for all three in a single trade.

The Cavaliers could do so in a trade based around Shaquille O’neal’s massive expiring contract. Shaq has only produced 10.7 points and 7.1 rebounds per a game for the Cavs this season, and moving Shaq in a trade for talent to help the Cavs win a championship this year would probably please Lebron more than if the Cavs were to trade his good friend, Zydrunas Ilgauskus, who Lebron promised to win a championship ring for.

The Mavericks also are a championship contender who could use an injection of talent to better their chances at winning the rings. With the window closing on the Dirk Nowitzki era of Dallas Mavericks basketball, I think Mark Cuban in particular would consider such a deal to try to win a championship with Nowitzki. A trade with the Mavericks would include Josh Howard, Drew Gooden, and Kris Humphries going to the Bulls, as well as some more of the Mavericks small expiring contracts.

If the Bulls were to pull off such a trade, they would only have salary commitments to Derrick Rose, Joakim Noah, Taj Gibson, and James Johnson.

The Bulls would take a major stepback talent wise this year, and would probably slide into a top seven draft pick. The Bulls main selling point to the 2010 free agents would be that they would be able to play with Derrick Rose, Joakim Noah, a top 7 draft pick, as well as another max 2010 free agent.

Here is how the salaries would work out, using the dream scenario of the Bulls winning the top overall pick.

The salary for the #1 overall pick will be $4.287 million for the 2010-2011 season. Therefore the Bulls would then enter free agency with $33.398 million in cap space.

After they sign their first max free agent, starting at $15.75 million, they will have $18.085 million in cap space.

After they sign their second max free agent, starting at $15.75 million, they will have $2.808 million in cap space.

The Bulls could use that left over cap space to either sign another established NBA player to build depth, or bring Omer Asik over from Europe. The amount of left over cap space would grow depending on how

If the Bulls are able to sign any two of Lebron James, Dwyane Wade, Chris Bosh, Amare Stoudemire, Joe Johnson, and Carlos Boozer, using this plan, I think they will have a pretty good team. I think signing any two of these players would make the Bulls title contenders. Of course, which two out of these six players they sign is important, because the Bulls could be left anywhere from being a lower level contender to an absolute juggernaut, but I think they will be contenders none the less. How their 2010 draft pick pans out also would play a role into what kind of contender they become, as will the continuing development of Derrick Rose and Joakim Noah.

Coming out of the offseason, the Bulls main components would be Derrick Rose, Joakim Noah, Taj Gibson, James Johnson, 2010 Max Free Agent 1, 2010 Max Free Agent 2, 2010 Leftover Cap Space Free Agent, 2010 Top Draft Pick. I think just this here could leave the Bulls ready to compete for a championship in the 2010-2011 championship. They will then have to try to convince veterans signing for the minimum that Chicago is the place they should sign, in order to add depth. I think Brad Miller is one of the expiring guys from this year’s team who would return next year on the minimum salary.

Otherwise, during the 2011 offseason, the Bulls would be able to add depth using the MLE, LLE, and their 2011 draft picks.

This is the plan that will give the Bulls the best bet at winning a championship anytime soon. The Bulls finally need to go all in for a championship, and the best way to do that is going all in for 2010 free agency.

According to Chris Broussard on True Hoop, the Chicago Bulls are trying to trade Kirk Hinrich, and they are using Tyrus Thomas as a sweetener in trying to get rid of Hinrich.

As for the Bulls, Kirk Hinrich is ahead of even Tyrus Thomas on their list of players they’d love to trade. In fact, Thomas is being offered around the league as a sweetener in any Hinrich deal. But with two years, $17 million left on his contract after this season, there’s not a great market for Hinrich.

It makes sense that the Bulls would like to move Hinrich. His contract could prohibit the Bulls from signing a free agent to a max contract if John Salmons opts in to his contract for next season, which could prevent some of the players from coming to Chicago in free agency this summer.

A trade that is thrown out in this article is Kirk Hinrich and Tyrus Thomas going to Houston, as the main components of a trade for Tracy McGrady, who is an expiring contract. However as Broussard writes, teams aren’t in a rush to trade for Hinrich’s contract, which is probably considered a bad contract around the league with the way Hinrich has played this year.

Broussard throws out the idea of Houston wanting Joakim Noah, as he writes:

Chicago, which has definite interest in McGrady, also has the combination of young talent and expiring contracts the Rockets are looking for. There is a Bulls player Houston covets, but it’s not clear who that is. Since the Rockets surely realize that Derrick Rose won’t be traded, logic suggests it’s Joakim Noah.

A package of Noah, Brad Miller and Jerome James (the latter two have expiring contracts) would work financially, but sources say the Bulls have no desire to part with Noah.

The Bulls would obviously want to take no part in getting rid of Joakim Noah for a half season rental of Tracy McGrady.

It appears that Chris Broussard is misinterpreting what the Bulls intentions would be in trading for Tracy McGrady are. If the Bulls were to trade for Tracy McGrady, they wouldn’t be trading for McGrady the player, they would be trading for his expiring contract. Therefore there is no reason that they would throw away a good young talent in Noah to have marginal cap space benefits for next season. If they are going to trade for McGrady, it will be some combination of expiring contracts, and a long term contract that they wish to get rid of (Kirk Hinrich, Luol Deng, or John Salmons).

I think the Bulls best bet might be to try to work out a package around John Salmons. Salmons has played better than Hinrich this season, and has at most, one less year left on his contract than Hinrich (and a smaller contract at that), and Salmons may even choose to opt out after this season, which would leave Houston, in this scenario, with no contracts going past this year.

Salmons could also choose to opt out if the Bulls keep him, but a trade like this where the Bulls package John Salmons with definite expiring contracts for another definite expiring contract would allow the Bulls’ front office to sleep easy at night, as they would have certainty that they will be able to offer someone a max contract in 2010 free agency.

The Chicago Bulls blew out the Detroit Pistons 120-87 to hand the Detroit Pistons’ their 13th straight loss. The win was the 2nd straight for the Bulls.

Most Bulls fans who bought tickets for this game probably did so to see the Bulls play against Ben Gordon. Those fans were left disappointed, as Gordon was only able to go for 6 minutes before being pulled for the rest of the game. Gordon suffered a thigh injury in the Pistons loss against the 76ers, and he re-aggravated the injury in the second quarter of tonight’s game. On a fastbreak, Gordon was running side by side with Jannero Pargo, and when Pargo made a burst towards the basket, Gordon was unable to keep up as his thigh tightened up. Gordon was then pulled from the game.

Without Gordon, the Pistons are a pretty pathetic team. Coming into this game, all five of the Pistons’ starters had a true shooting percentage of less than 50%. That changed coming into tonight’s game, as the Pistons were without Tayshuan Prince and Jason Maxiell was sent to the bench. Starting in their place, was Jonas Jerebko and Chris Wilcox, two players with scoring efficiencies greater than 50 TS%.

But the change to the lineup did very little, as the Pistons starting lineup, featuring Rodney Stuckey, Richard Hamilton, Jonas Jerebko, Chris Wilcox, and Ben Wallace is still pathetic. The Pistons fell behind the Bulls in the second quarter, and once the Bulls got up double digits, the Pistons seemed to quit exerting effort on both sides of the ball, allowing the Bulls to continue to pile on the points.

The Bulls took advantage of the Pistons’ lack of defense, converting easily on the good looks the Pistons were providing. Luol Deng led the way for the Bulls with 27 points on 13-18 shooting, and Derrick Rose had a great game as well, scoring 22 points on 11-13 shooting to go along with his 9 assists.

Joakim Noah got another double double, finishing with 16 points, 11 rebounds, and 4 assists. John Salmons gave the Bulls 17 points on 6-10 shooting off the bench. Salmons has just played great ever since being sent to the bench.

Jannero Pargo got some minutes tonight, first getting in the game during the second quarter. Pargo finished with 9 points on 4-10 shooting and 3 assists, and also turned the ball over 4 times. Pargo did a poor job managing the offense when he was out there, and turned the ball over a lot.

Richard Hamilton finished with 17 points on 6-11 shooting, and really frustrated Kirk Hinrich tonight, drawing foul after foul on him.

Jonas Jerebko finished with 15 points and 9 rebounds, starting in place of Tayshaun Prince. Jerebko is really active, moving off the ball, and going after rebounds.

Rodney Stuckey finished with 11 points, and Chris Wilcox had 10 points.

Charlie Villanueva really struggled tonight, scoring 4 points on 1-10 shooting.

James Johnson accomplished the impressive feat of fouling out in only 8 minutes.

The Bulls did a good job tonight of beating up on a bad team. The best stat of the game was that the Bulls shot 8-19 from the three point line. The more and more the Bulls make their threes, the more potent their offense will become.

With the win tonight, the Bulls improve to 16-20 on the season.

The Chicago Bulls defeated the Minnesota Timberwolves 110-96 at the United Center tonight, ending the Bulls three game losing streak.

The Bulls opened up a double digit lead on the Timberwolves in the third quarter, and coasted to an easy victory.

Joakim Noah led the Bulls, scoring 20 points and grabbing 9 rebounds. Kirk Hinrich also scored 20 points and dished 7 assists. The most encouraging thing about Hinrich’s performance tonight was that he went 4-9 from three point shooting. If guys like Hinrich and Salmons start hitting their three point shots again, the Bulls will find it much easier to win.

Taj Gibson also had a nice game, finishing with 13 points an 9 rebounds. Gibson started the struggling with his shot, but he found his stroke after having a shot bounce off the top of the backboard and into the basket. This game helps to further cement Gibson’s spot in the starting lineup with this performance, and Tyrus Thomas’ struggling performance. Thomas does a lot of positives on the court, finishing with 9 points, 5 rebounds, 3 blocks, and 2 steals, but he continuously screws himself out of a starting spot by mixing the good with a lot of bad, boneheaded plays, as evidenced by his 6 turnovers tonight.

The Bulls got good performances off the bench from Brad Miller and John Salmons. Brad Miller finished with 12 points and 5 rebounds. Miller has been having a lot of success with his slow motion drives the past few games. John Salmons had 14 points on 6-10 shooting.

James Johnson also had a pretty good game. Nothing eye popping, as he finished with 6 points on 2-2 shooting, 4 rebounds, and 3 assists, but it was still the best that he’s looked in a game this year in my opinion. He showed flashes of his talents in leading some Bulls’ fastbreaks.

Derrick Rose finished with 8 points and 7 assists, and Luol Deng also finished with 8 points.

For the Timberwolves, Johnny Flynn had 14 points and 8 assists, and Corey Brewer and Al Jefferson scored 12 points each. Kevin Love had 9 points and 10 rebounds.

Ryan Gomes led the Timberwolves in scoring with 15 points off the bench.

The Bulls did what they were supposed to do tonight in taking care of business against a terrible Minnesota Timberwolves teams. The only team worse than the Timberwolves are the Nets, so this is the type of game that is a must win, and the Bulls did that tonight.

With the win, the Bulls improve to 15-20 on the season.