Luke Appling
	Hall of Famer. Awesome nickname: “Ol’ Aches and Pains”. Lifetime .310 hitter. Hit .388 one year, played over 20 years.
Jerry Sloan
	Played in a record 10 consecutive Bulls home openers. All-Star Bull. All-Defensive Team Bull. Coached the Bulls.
Lee Elia
	Most famous for his explosive tirade (NSFW) that ripped the Cubs fans. “85% of the world is employed…the other 15% come here.”
Moose Vasko
	Moose played 10 seasons with the Hawks and played in 4 All-Star games. And most importantly won a Cup in ’61.
Jim Harbaugh
	Harbaugh was the Bears’ 1st round pick in ’87 and played 7 seasons here. He was gritty and gutty, and probably shouldn’t have called that audible in Minnesota.

Honorable mentions: Steve Fuller, Moses Moreno, Keith Brown, Keith Carney. Anyone got other #4s?

Check out my game 1 review over at Pippen Ain’t Easy!

MJ gets the call along with Stockton, Robinson and Sloan. What a class. How many games would a team with Sloan coaching those 3 plus valued reader (you), and me win? 60 at least.

Sully Baseball is looking at every MLB team and posting their All-Time Home Team and their All-Time Acquired Team. Then he tells you who would win. He recently posted the White Sox teams.

While you’ll still get Bulls thoughts here, a lot of what I think about the Bulls will be posted at a new site called “Pippen Ain’t Easy“. In my latest column there I let Bulls fans know: “Don’t Go Goo-Goo Over Ben Gordon“. If you’d like to contribute there, holler at me in an e-mail or the comments. I’m looking for writers.

Don Abato has taken his “MMA Ten” columns over to a real MMA site. Read his latest over at Chicago’s MMA.

Pacman Jones and Pros vs. Joes — what could go wrong? NQTC has the story.

Josh Q. Public thinks MJ is the Executive of the Year. And he wrote that before the game against the Knicks on Saturday, which they won to make it 6 straight. Their top 7 in the rotation is pretty solid, and they smoked the Bulls the other night.

Pretty cool site for Chicagoans: Chicago’s Best Blogs. Maybe Zoner Sports will be on there soon. (Insert don’t hold breath joke here.)

Speaking of Chicago blogs, after a short hiatus, Docksquad Sports is back. Check it out.

And finally, a cool site where you can see goalie masks from throughout the years. Looking at these I could hear Pat Foley yelling “Ranford!!”. They don’t have Bannerman though!!

A few possessions later he telegraphed a pass from the top of the key to Salmons on the wing. It was picked off by Stephen Jackson, who easily dunked the ball on the other end.

Then Noah got an offensive board and tried to go back up strong with it, but he doesn’t have enough power for those type of plays in traffic. Denied getting all the way up to rim, he tried to lay it up but it fell away. And all that occurred in the first 4 minutes.

Noah has his moments. But he has no offensive game whatsoever, and he is deathly afraid to shoot the ball from just about anywhere on the court. Teams leave him wide open near the free throw line and he will not shoot it. It kills offensive possessions. Even Rodman would hoist that shot occasionally to keep it honest. And in college Noah would shoot jumpers from time to time. He also gets handled by the bigger 4s and 5s when he is defending them one on one.

The biggest questions for me: How has Noah not developed any kind of offense in the almost 2 years he has been here? Why has his strength not reached the level it needs to be to play down low?

He does have some strengths. He gets out on the break and runs the floor. He’s an active rebounder and has started to block more shots. He’s decent at getting scramble points. You can tell he’s giving maximum effort. Those facets of his game are getting better.

I remain a fan of Noah’s and I was happy when he was drafted. But the Bulls need much more from him. Will they ever get it?

[tags]Joakim Noah, Chicago Bulls[/tags]

On Sunday the Tribune reported that Deng had x-rays that revealed a likely stress fracture in his tibia and that he may be lost for the season. There was also this nugget: “Deng, who said he had been bothered by the injury for the last several weeks, left the game after playing 9:18 in the second quarter.” I thought that was odd. Why would a player with a stress fracture be playing 25-35 minutes a game? That is insanity.

But then today we learn this: “An MRI exam revealed Luol Deng does not have a stress fracture of his right tibia. Deng has told people he might even practice Monday in advance of Tuesday’s game at Charlotte.”

Consider me very confused. So he goes from something that might have ended his season to now practicing for the next game? And why haven’t we heard about his injury/condition before? Is it possible he is trying to make excuses for his poor play? It’s all rather weird.

[tags]Luol Deng, Chicago Bulls, Houston Rockets[/tags]

In my post about Norm Van Lier, I wrote, “Can you think of anyone that was more passionate about or loved the Bulls more than Norm? Doubtful.” I put doubtful because I had one person in mind: Johnny “Red” Kerr.

How important was Kerr to the history of the franchise? From the Trib:

“Perhaps the best ambassador the Bulls will ever have, Kerr’s nickname, “Red” — for his hair color — couldn’t have been more appropriate. In many ways, Kerr was Mr. Bull: the first coach in franchise history, NBA Coach of the Year that 1966-67 season, later the club’s business manager and finally its television and radio analyst for 33 years.”

We’ll miss you, Red. R.I.P. Johnny ‘Red’ Kerr.