Chicago Bulls franchise

[Sid]

DIFFICULTY: All-Star
QUARTER LENGTH: 6 minutes
SEASON LENGTH: 28 games
ROSTERS: 2000/01

The Bulls are my favourite team, and therefore natural choice for my franchise, even though this team had to be one of the worst they ever fielded. I’ve exploited Live in the past and made stupid trades in my favour to build a good team, but I’m not doing that this time – I thought it’d be more fun, and a good challenge, to try and win with either leaving the team pretty much as it is, or at least making realistic trades where I don’t completely screw the other team. Here’s my roster as of the start of the season, although I'm doing the ratings from memory so they're probably wrong:

C – Brad Miller (74)/Dragan Tarlac (70)
PF – Elton Brand (80)/Michael Ruffin (68)
SF – Ron Artest (73)/Marcus Fizer (71)
SG – Ron Mercer (75)/Fred Hoiberg (66)/Corey Benjamin (62)
PG – Bryce Drew (71)/Jamal Crawford (68) /AJ Guyton (63)
IR - Jake Voskuhl (62), Dalibor Bagaric (59), Khalid El-Amin (66)

I made the following trades on 20th November:

Hoiberg to Minnesota for Anthony Peeler (66) – this gives us a good three-point shooter off the bench, and someone with veteran experience.

Tarlac and El-Amin to Indiana for Sam Perkins (70) and Tyus Edney (63) – Perkins is old, but we need some offense off the bench, and his contract expires at the end of the season anyway. Edney and El-Amin were needed to make the trade work.

So my roster now looks like this:

C – Brad Miller (74)/Sam Perkins (70)
PF – Elton Brand (80)/Michael Ruffin (68)
SF – Ron Artest (73)/Marcus Fizer (71)
SG – Ron Mercer (75)/Anthony Peeler (66)/Corey Benjamin (62)
PG – Bryce Drew (71)/Jamal Crawford (68) /AJ Guyton (63)
IR - Jake Voskuhl (62), Dalibor Bagaric (59), Tyus Edney (63)

At this point I’m 4-5, having just lost two on the bounce, including a 59-28 loss to Minnesota.

[Sid]

8th Dec, 2000

BULLS 66 MAVERICKS 51

The Chicago Bulls finally got their act together on the offensive end to pull off a win against Dallas. And coming after seeing Elton Brand fruitlessly attempt to win by himself against Cleveland, it was all the better to see others share the offensive load for once.

Surprisingly, the players who stepped up were Anthony Peeler and Ron Artest. Peeler scored 23 points, the highest of any Bulls player this season, in just 13 minutes off the bench, shooting 10/14. And Artest, known primarily as a defensive stopper, posted a personal season-high 16 points on 6/10 shooting, while holding Dirk Nowitzki to just seven points at the other end.

The Bulls started slowly, however, and trailed by five at half-time. Only Peeler had kept them in the game at that point, scoring 10 of the team’s 12 second-quarter points.

He was rewarded by starting the third quarter, and the Bulls began to eat into the Mavericks’ lead, and they finished the quarter four points ahead.

Any hopes the Mavericks had of mounting a comeback were quickly extinguished as the Bulls shot the lights out in the final quarter, scoring a season-high 24 points, including 4/4 from beyond the arc.

The catalyst for this was Artest. Having connected on a rare three-point attempt when left open earlier in the game, Artest’s confidence was clearly high. Slack defense by Nowitzki saw Artest hit two more three-point attempts in the final quarter, which, along with treys by Peeler and Ron Mercer, effectively killed the game. Bryce Drew took advantage of double-teams and pressure to create some easy buckets for others, and he finished the game with seven assists, the most by any Bull this season.

Shawn Bradley carried the Mavs with 12 points (6/6 from the line), nine rebounds and three blocks, while nullifying Brad Miller at the defensive end. Free from the burden of carrying the team offensively, Elton Brand took under 10 shots for probably the first time this season, but he made them count, scoring 12 points along with six boards. Sam Perkins added six points in seven minutes off the bench.

The win puts the Bulls at 5-5, back in the eighth spot in the East. They face a tough test against the San Antonio Spurs tomorrow.

[Balla69]

good luck
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