Scheduled

In four years of keeping this blog, I have never once posted about the newly released schedule.  That's mainly because I've found it to be nothing more than a formality for an NBA team.  The Bulls play every team at least twice and don't skip any stops on any courts.  See why I typically find this uninteresting?

This year however, I decided it was worth talking about.  We don't know how wide that championship window is open or even if it still exists.  There's a lot of uncertainty surrounding the Bulls on whether Fred Hoiberg's first season can approach what Tom Thibodeau accomplished in his final year.  And yet, the league still finds them good enough and marketable enough to give them as much national exposure as possible.

It starts on Opening Night when the Cleveland Cavaliers come to the United Center to help them officially tip off the season on TNT.  This is the second straight year the Bulls have welcomed Cleveland and national TV to open their home schedule.  It's also the second time in the last three years the Bulls will face LeBron James in their very first contest.

For the sixth straight year, the Bulls will get a Christmas game.  This time, it will be the second of five scheduled that day and they'll be on the road to play the Oklahoma City Thunder.  The Bulls have won three of their last four games on the NBA's marquee regular-season day, but they've traditionally struggled at Chesapeake Energy Arena.  With Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook expected to be fully healthy this season, Santa Claus may not do the Bulls any favors on that day.

Those are just two of the 32 nationally televised games the Bulls will play this season.  They join the Golden State Warriors and Los Angeles Clippers as the only teams with 10 appearances on TNT.  They have maxed out their games allowed on both that network and NBA TV.  It sure says a lot about the league's faith in this team as well as its marketability.

Of note this year is the that the annual circus trip will only last four games.  The first three will be played on the West Coast, including one at Golden State, but the final one comes in Indiana on Black Friday.  Although the Disney on Ice trip will still be seven games, the players won't have to deal with their typical early-season adversity of going on the road for so long.  That may actually be shifted to later on however with eight of their final 12 games being played away from Chicago.

Perhaps the Bulls are more ready to contend for a championship than we've been led to believe.  Hoiberg might very well have been the one piece missing from the equation last year.  The coming year depends on the health of Derrick Rose and others, but if all goes well, will we see something special?  We could also say many outside Chicago are more optimistic about the season than your typical Bulls fan, so it's a two-way street.

The season is apparently supposed to be a good one, so it's now time for the Bulls to reward everybody with solid basketball.  It's tough not having reservations about the roster remaining virtually intact, but we've seen teams succeed greatly with little turnover before.  Is this one of those cases?  We have 82 games, plus the playoffs, to find out.