Bucks vs. Bulls Preview: Are You Ready for Some B-Ball?

How kind of the Milwaukee Bucks franchise to agree to not locally televise tonight’s contest and spare the Chicago Bulls ego’s from hearing Jim Paschke call the dagger triples from Donte DiVincenzo all night. Yes, it’s preseason time folks, and meaningful NBA basketball is not far away. The Bucks regular season tips off in just a few weeks and they have five tune-up games scheduled between now and then. When the only taste of Giannis wrecking fools we’ve had has been a subdued performance for the Greek National Team and these highlights from the open scrimmage, any chance to hear Ted Davis call a dunk or scout through a box score is good by me.

Bucks Update

Everyone has dissected the offseason to death at this point. The team opted to let Malcolm Brogdon walk, shuttling in Wesley Matthews and Kyle Korver in his stead. Robin Lopez joined the gang to wreak havoc with his brother, and Horst went nepotism with his team building strategy by bringing in Thanasis Antetokounmpo. Get your Thanasis fill in during the preseason folks, I have a feeling there won’t be much to come by when the calendar turns to November. Same for Dragan Bender stans. Donte DiVincenzo is allegedly SUPER HEALTHY too, so it’ll be nice to see The Big Ragu getting saucy on the court.

Bulls Update

The cross-state rival made some savvy moves this offseason, bringing in veterans like Luke Kornet, Tomas Satoransky and Thaddeus Young on pretty team-friendly deals. I’d lump snatching Otto Porter Jr. from the Wizards last year into that “offseason” category too. Can’t say I was expecting all that after several straight years of head-scratching transactions from the GarPax think tank. On top of that, they drafted Coby White, all but admitting that Kris Dunn isn’t their point guard of the future, although Dunn still has the starting nod in this game. White is tall, 6’5”, and the catalyst for North Carolina’s speedy attack last season. Chicago is hoping he, along with Lauri Markkanen and Wendell Carter can be an impactful young triumvirate. Zach LaVine remains a curious character with athleticism, scoring ability, defensive apathy, all the kind of stuff people like in a lead guard from the early aughts. I’m not sure how he will shake out on this Bulls team. Look for Daniel Gafford, their second round pick, to get plenty of garbage time minutes.

It looks like NBC Sports Chicago is thankfully broadcasting this one, so at least we’ll have some footage to watch tonight, just sync up Ted’s call and mute the TV.

Given this is just a preseason game too with no local TV, we’ll use this as the game thread too. Going forward, we’ll have separate game threads closer to tipoff, just as in year’s past.