Report: Gordon to Sign Qualifying Offer!

By Sean Mackey

Finally, after an offseason of failed contract negotiations, Ben Gordon has caved. In a report by K.C. Johnson of the Chicago Tribune, Ben Gordon has verbally agreed to except the one year, $6.4 million qualifying offer which will keep him in a Bulls uniform until at least the end of the 08-09 season. After the season is over, BG will be an unrestricted free agent. He has acknowledged via a text message that he will be reporting to training camp tomorrow.

This is good news considering this has dragged on WAYYYY too long. The Bulls are now expected to add a veteran big man (cough Juwan Howard) to fill out their roster. I have a hunch that they'll also start operation: dump Larry Hughes sometime here in the near future.

A demo for NBA 2K9 with the Bulls facing the Thunder surfaced on youtube (link below) with the projected starters Rose, Hinrich, Deng, Gooden & Noah. The gameplay looks a lot like 2K8 but slightly smoother. The scoreboard is now located on the top of the screen which might take sometime to get use to. They also have interspliced real life footage of the players at the beginning of the game and ingame standout plays in a montage style at the end of the quarter which will make it look like more of a real tv broadcast. The only complaint I have so far from viewing this footage is the addition of Clark Kellogg as an announcer but that's pretty minor. I have a good feeling that this game is going to be pretty tight. Only 8 more days until the release! Very excite.

Bulls vs. Thunder (2K9 Beta Footage)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KsI-8UUdEsU

Bulls Fill Up Roster For Training Camp

By Sean Mackey

The Bulls went ahead and signed three guys to fill out their training camp. Elton Brown, Darius Washington and Roger Powell. The understanding from Blog A Bull is that Elton Brown has the best chance to actually make the team. We'll see though. Also, I just found 2 games were added to our local schedule in KY. A preseason game is being nationally broadcasted on WGN America Saturday, Oct 18th against the Jazz and and a regular season contest against the Pistons on Tuesday, December 23rd. Both games start with Bulls Eye at 8:00 p.m. EST. That is all, have a great weekend!

Calling all nerds! NBA 2K9 Chicago Bulls Player Ratings Leak! New 2K9 features!

By Sean Mackey

So, apparently this is a leaked list of the player ratings for NBA 2K9. We all knew that there would be a slight ratings drop for a lot of players on the Bulls after the lackluster season. For example, Thomas is down to a 73 after an optimistic 76 rating on last year's game. Drew Gooden and Thabo's ratings both went up a tad. I've posted the old ratings in parenthesis to the right of the new ones for your comparing pleasures. In my opinion, they're about where they need to be after a bad year, nobody dropped mass ratings points so that's good. Also, if I might add, It'll be fun to finally play as Aaron Gray who for some reason was snubbed on 2K8.

2K9 Ratings
Luol Deng - 84 (Same)
Kirk Hinrich - 84 (85)
Ben Gordon - 82 (Same)
Derrick Rose - 80 (New Player)
Andres Nocioni - 80 (82)
Larry Hughes - 79 (81)
Drew Gooden - 76 (73)
Joakim Noah - 74 (76)
Thabo Sefolosha - 73 (72)
Tyrus Thomas - 73 (76)
Aaron Gray - 72 (New Player)
Cedric Simmons - 66 (Same)

The new features on 2K9 this year include the first ever 5 on 5 online play. This would normally seem lame if you didn't have the ball, but you'll be able to tug other players jerseys to slow them down and play hard defense which will be cool. The game also includes something called "living players". This feature will automatically update player ratings, trades and starting lineups weekly. How cool is that?

The best new addition to the game has to be the Create a Player downloads. For the first time ever, you'll be able to create players and upload them for other users to download. Users will also be able to rate your created player so that you'll be able to pick the best rendition of that particular baller. This will solve the problem with annoying people begging other users on message forums for people to post CAP attributes (which I might add was damn near impossible with last years game unless you took screen shots and posted them online).

Overall it looks like it's going to be an awesome game, even better than last year and 2K8 was the best basketball game I've ever played. With new animations, smoother gameplay and the new features mentioned above, 2K9 seems poised to out do EA Sports for the 3rd straight year in a row.

P.S. to all gamers still playing NBA Live:
Your game is lame. Do yourself a favor and switch over, you won't regret it.

Ben Gordon.....possibly staying?

By Sean Mackey

Finally, after 2 months of silence regarding the Ben Gordon standoff, Bulls owner, Jerry Reinsdorf has spoken. On Wednesday he had this to say:

''It has to be resolved, you know, we have a business disagreement
relating to the money, but he's still a Chicago Bull, and I expect him to play
for the Bulls. I expect him to play hard, and I'd be surprised if it's anything
other than that. I expect Ben Gordon to be playing for the Bulls this year, one
way or another. I don't know if it will be resolved before training camp, but I
do expect him to be playing for the Bulls.''

This is what I like to hear. I just hope they can get him signed. It would be hard to picture this Bulls group with out their semi-star player. Sam Smith (formerly of the Chicago Tribune) also finally blogged about the situation over at Hoops Hype. I recommend checking it out, the link's below. If there's anything I miss more, it's Sam Smith covering Bulls basketball. K.C Johnson is great but the whole NBA listens to Sam Smith's trade scenerios, it's ridculous.


Take the Money Ben by Sam Smith

National TV Broadcast Schedule!

By Sean Mackey

As promised here it is.......the national TV schedule for the Bulls 08-09 season! I have not included NBA TV on this schedule since this is the broadcast listing for the Northern Kentucky area and a lot of other parts of the US where we don't get NBA TV. Unfortunately, we weren't given the semi-decent 36 nationally televised games we've had the last 2 seasons. This year, we'll have to settle for a mere 23 televised games broadcasted between TNT, ESPN & WGN America (formerly WGN Superstation). Thank God for p2p streams :)

Also, it should be mentioned that this year marks the end of a truely great era in Bulls basketball with the departure of WGN television play by play announcers Wayne Larrivee and Johnny "Red" Kerr. Wayne and Johnny had done the play by play for the last 17 seasons including all of the Bulls dynasty era. Since I started watching the Bulls in 96, they were always there. Their voices will be missed although Johnny is still going to be with the broadcast team but in a much smaller role. He will be doing pregame and halftime shows at Bulls home games. I'm sure that traveling throughtout the whole 82 game season was starting to take a toll on the 76 year old former Bulls coach. Bulls radio announcer Neil Funk will be taking over TV duties along with sidekick, former Bulls player, Stacey King.

Friday October 31st at Boston Celtics, 8:00 p.m. ESPN
Wednesday November 5th at Cleveland Cavaliers, 8:00 p.m. ESPN
Thursday November 13th vs. Dallas Mavericks, 9:30 p.m. TNT
Saturday November 15th vs. Indiana Pacers, 8:30 p.m. WGN
Wednesday November 19th at Portland Blazers, 10:30 p.m. ESPN
Wednesday December 13th vs. New Jersey Nets, 8:30 p.m. WGN
Friday December 26th at Miami Heat, 5:00 p.m. ESPN
Saturday December 27th at Atlanta Hawks, 7:00 p.m. WGN
Wednesday December 31st vs. Orlando Magic, 2:00 p.m. WGN
Saturday January 3rd vs. Minnesota Wolves, 8:30 p.m. WGN
Saturday January 10th vs. OKC Thunder, 8:30 p.m. WGN
Thursday January 15th vs. Cleveland Cavaliers, 8:00 p.m. TNT
Saturday January 31st at Phoenix Suns, 9:00 p.m. WGN
Thursday February 12th vs. Miami Heat, 7:00 p.m. TNT
Sunday February 22nd at Indiana Pacers, 12:00 p.m. WGN
Saturday February 28th vs. Houston Rockets; 8:30 p.m. WGN
Saturday March 14th vs. New Orleans Hornets , 8:30 p.m. WGN
Saturday March 21st vs. Los Angeles Lakers, 8:30 p.m. WGN
Tuesday March 24th vs. Detroit Pistons, 8:00 p.m. TNT
Thursday March 26th vs. Miami Heat, 8:00 p.m. TNT
Sunday March 29th at Toronto Raptors, 3:30 p.m. WGN
Thursday April 9th vs. Philadelphia 76ers, 8:00 p.m. TNT
Saturday April 11th vs. Charlotte Bobcats, 8:30 p.m. WGN