Johnson and Gibson Make Their Pro Debuts....And They Actually Do Well!

By Sean Mackey

The 1st Bulls game of the Vegas Summer League was last night. The Bulls unfortunately fell to the Golden State Warriors 95-83 with Anthony Randolph lighting up the boys in red for 43 points and 3 blocks.

I caught most of the game on a p2p site. The stream wasn't the best but it beats paying $15 to watch a bunch of scrubs run up and down the court. The game time was also changed at the last minute from 6pm to 8pm which threw me off but I still had an opportunity to watch most of the contest.

The story of the night wasn't that the Bulls lost, but it was how well both of the two draft picks did. James Johnson came out to play and had 21 points and 8 rebounds. Taj Gibson also had a decent game with 14 points and 12 rebounds.

Johnson showed excellent ball handling along with a few sweet moves down low. For being a big guy, I was suprised at how fast he is. The announcers who were joined by VDN were saying that they thought he could stand to lose about 10 lbs but the Bulls need a meaty guy. A lot of guys have made various comparisons but who he reminds me the most of is former Hornets star Larry Johnson. He's a big guy who's gonna be able to play 3 different positions. I can actually see this dude working his way into the starting lineup eventually if Tyrus doesn't have a good start to his season.

Taj hustled the entire game but had 9 fouls in the end. He's so ridiculously long that he barely had to jump to get rebounds. Once this guy can control his fouling, he's going to be very good defensively.

Regardless of the score at the end, I was pretty excited to see the two rooks perform so well. The Bulls take on Brandon Jennings and Jodie Meeks of the Milwaukee Bucks tonight at 6pm EST. Be sure to check the game out for free at
http://www.myp2pforum.eu/nba-basketball/40250-nba-summer-league-10th-19th-july.html