Saturday, January 30, 2010

Dywer predicts 37-45 season for Bulls

Kelly Dwyer, a blogger for the Yahoo! Sports blog Ball Don't Lie, recently wrote in a blog entry that the Chicago Bulls will finish 37-45.

Dwyer writes,
"Does that sound about right? Probably. The team at once under and overachieves, the coaching can run from something that absolutely destroys the team's chances, to something that the team is able to overcome, and the result (as it was last year) is a record near or at .500. The Bulls have quite a few road games left this year, so it's possible that the mathematic course toward 37 might be a little optimistic."

In his defense, he wrote this on January 22nd which was one day after the Bulls lost their second straight road game and one day before they started their current five-game road winning streak. However, this was also after the Bulls won 8 of their last 13 games which was 8 wins in 11 games before the seven game road trip started with two straight losses. The Bulls were four games under .500 (18-22) when he wrote this so that means despite winning 8 of the last 13 games, Dwyer envisioned this Bulls team going 19-23 for the rest of the season. Is that a fair thing to say? No....not at all. The Bulls were a mediocre 7-8 in December but that is at least close to a .500 record. Even with the recent two and three-game losing streaks, the Bulls were 5-5 after 10 games in January. So since the end of November, the Bulls had been 12-13. They were slowly improving each month thanks to the fact Tyrus Thomas and Kirk Hinrich are now both healthy. Also, Derrick Rose is at 100% after being hurt to start the season. The Bulls appeared to be on their way up so why did Dwyer assume they'd go 19-23 for the rest of the season (42 games)? Maybe he failed to do much research about the Bulls and just assumed the Bulls would choke at the end of the season like always. There's just one problem with that.....the Bulls went 27-23 in their last 50 games last season. That's a longer stretch and a much better record. However, Dywer would argue the Bulls had Ben Gordon last year and this year they do not. That doesn't matter because the Bulls were 23-30 at the all-star break last year. It isn't the all-star break yet this year and the Bulls are already 23-22.

Ok...maybe it is unfair that I'm writing this now after the Bulls have won five games in a row. I wish I had written this earlier but oh well. What I'm trying to say is that Dwyer's 37-45 prediction is not gonna happen. Not because he was too optimistic by saying the Bulls would win 37 games but because the Bulls are probably going to win closer to 47 games. The Bulls have 23 wins right now with 37 games to go. According to Dwyer, the Bulls are going to win only 14 more games giving them a 13-24 record in the final 37 games. My prediction is that the Bulls will win 24 games giving them a 24-13 record in the final 37 games. Let's see who is closer.