Gameday: Raptors @ Bulls, March 14

Okay, moving on. Let’s just athree to forget about that dethreet and threefocus on this threeview.

The Skinny

The Raptors are in a bit of it here. That’s a four-game schnide for them. And they now have to haul their under-manned butts from Charlotte to Chi-Town, while losing an hour of sleep(!), to play the first of eight more back-to-backs. Thus far, as Oren Weisfeld has pointed out, they’ve not done so well with those.

Nick Nurse believes all 5 players will be out again tomorrow against Chicago. The hope is Wednesday.

— Blake Murphy (@BlakeMurphyODC) March 13, 2021

The Raptors cannot afford to come out flat again. They gave up sixteen threes in the first half to the Hornets and the game was basically finito. Chicago does not have the same balanced firepower as the Hornets, but, newly-minted All-Star, Zach Lavine, is a flamethrowing Ferrari.

Get this: he’s tenth in the league in field goal attempts and seventh in the league in true shooting percentage (for guys averaging more than 25 minutes a game). If you look closely enough, you can see the fiery exhaust fumes coming out of his Adidas kicks.

The Bulls are also in the top ten in assists and assists-points created – the Hornets whizzed the ball around last night warp speed and often left the Raps totally kerfuffled. A tired team on the road is ripe for the passing picking.

One gram of optimism for tonight: the Chicago Bulls aren’t all that good. True, they are 16-20, virtually tied with the Raptors, and only three games out of fourth in the Eastern Conference. But their best win was probably against the New York Knicks(?). They’ve had the 8th easiest strength of schedule according to powerrankingsguru.com and their last six wins were truly against the pitiful of the pitiful.

Having lost four of the last five, the Bulls are at Code Orange Panic Level (the Raps might be Code Yellow – based on the Adon Moss Panic-O-Meter [patent pending].

Consequently, the Bulls are soon to face a crossroads similar to the Raptors – despite them arriving under different circumstances.

The Bulls have failed expectations – I, for one, am majorly disappointed with the stagnation of the Bulls’ young core (but maybe that’s because I have, like, HALF THEIR ROSTER on my dynasty fantasy team).

Side note: Head Coach, Billy Donovan, is reportedly shaking things up and starting some veterans for tonight’s game.

Whereas the Raptors…well, I don’t need to get into it. But at the crossroads both teams are, all the same.

With the trade deadline looming, the Bulls may be tempted to forego the optimism of short-term success for long-term value and take advantage of the sellers’ market.

Wings Otto Porter Jr. and Denzel Valentine, and veteran guard, Garrett Temple, are on expiring contracts; Zach Lavine, back-up point guard Tomáš Satoranský, and the reincarnated Thad Young (just go and ask Blake Murphy how he really feels about Thad) all have one year left; while stretch-four Lauri Markkanen is entering Restricted Free Agency.

Now, I doubt they ship Lavine – see aforementioned weaponized race car – though, should they get a Bradley Bealian type offer, you never know. Other than that, it’s a sidewalk sale (as you watch the game, envision Thad and Boucher running amok in the paint).

So what does that have to do with tonight?

Well, the Bulls just got stomped by a Philadelphia 76ers team that was missing both Joel Embiid and Ben Simmons and then suffocated by a Miami Heat team without Bam Adebayo.

If this is the best they got, and they lose to an ailing Raptors team, then newly-hired bosses, Executive Vice President of Operations, Arturas Karnisovas, and General Manager, Marc Eversley, will have an even greater reason to strip their predecessor’s roster for parts and get their hands dirty.

Conversely, another Raptors’ loss against a middling Eastern Conference team – with a more challenging schedule awaiting them – might further tempt Masai to extract value for their future.