🏀 The Bulls are back!

However, expectations are bleak. [READER]( The Daily Reader October 24, 2023 As I write, the countdown has started—one day to go!—for the Bulls season. And I, for one, am filled with optimism for a sensational season that will culminate in a Grant Park championship celebration. Well, I might be the only one with such optimism. Pretty much everyone else is grounded in reality. In Vegas, the sentiment among gamblers is the Bulls will win 37 or 38 games. Considering there are 82 games in a season, that means the experts figure the Bulls will lose more than they win. Meaning . . . they’ll be even worse than mediocre. On the local scene, expectations are also bleak. This weekend’s Chicago Sun-Times interrupted its relentless coverage of the Bears to shed a little [gloom and doom on the Bulls](. This included results from a poll of readers that happened on X (formerly Twitter), accompanied by analysis by Steve Greenberg. Greenberg, in his dark way, is one of Chicago’s funniest newspaper writers. Asked whether they were excited about the new season, one fan wrote: “Excited? Absolutely, like back in the day when the new phone books arrived.” They’ve got a million of them, ladies and gentlemen. About 64 percent of respondents to the Twitter poll said they were not excited about the Bulls season. To which Greenberg wrote, “The core of the team remains the same, with no real reason to bet on Zach LaVine, DeMar DeRozan and Nikola Vucevic to collectively be any better. But what about Lonzo Ball? Oh, never mind.” Lonzo Ball is . . . ah, forget it. Too painful. The same issue featured an article by that bundle of sunshine known as Bulls beat writer Joe Cowley. The article can pretty much be summarized . . . The Bulls suck and anyone who doesn’t realize this is as clueless as a north side liberal who voted for Paul Vallas. Okay, Cowley made no reference to north side liberals or Vallas. That’s my editorial twist. I’m not surprised by this coverage. Near as I can tell, the attitude of most Chicago sportswriters to Chicago sports fans is as follows . . . Hey, losers! We get paid to watch this dreck. What’s your excuse? In other Bulls news . . . Please, please, please don’t tell Greenberg or Cowley, but . . . I bought into a season ticket plan with several friends. Most of them have a Cowleyian/Greenbergian view of how the season will go. So they’re buying tickets as much to see the other teams as to see the Bulls. To make sure each guy gets to see one of the better teams, we set up a system, where everyone more or less gets their first choice. And so . . . Mick got the Los Angeles Lakers. Dixon got the Miami Heat. Uduak got the Phoenix Suns. Ivan got the New York Knicks. Norm got the Denver Nuggets. I got the season opener against Oklahoma City. And Joshua got . . . San Antonio? When he made that choice, I thought, “Joshua, what are you doing?” The Spurs were awful last year. Then I watched the sensational pre-season highlights of Victor Wembanyama, the seven-foot and five-inch 19-year-old rookie from France, who looks like the next superstar. And I’m thinking . . . Well, done young Joshua! Here’s hoping the Bulls prove all the experts wrong. See you in Grant Park, everybody. 🎙Listen to [The Ben Joravsky Show]( 🎙 [What Ben's Reading] John Grisham’s [The Boys From Biloxi](. Why do I feel almost an obligation to keep reading Grisham? Probably because his books are entertaining page-turners [Kerry Reid]( on Louis Armstrong at the Cadillac Palace [Ben Joravsky]( on Mickey Johnson [Best of the Ben J. Show]( Alderperson Rossana Rodriguez on the [City Council’s Israel resolution]( Chicago Sun-Times reporter Nader Issa on the impact of immigrants on [enrollment for the Chicago Public Schools]( Writer and former Reader contributor S.L. Wisenberg on [her new collection]( The Wandering Womb: Essays in Search of Home [Writing as an act, not an artifact]( An interview with Francesca Kritikos, the editor-in-chief of SARKA Publishing and author of Sweet Bloody Salty Clean. by [Maxwell Rabb]( | [R]( → [Ratso To-Go-Go]( A legendary rat talks Chicago street food by [Sheba White]( | [R]( → [Sampha returns to Chicago in support of his sophomore solo album, Lahai]( by [Jack Riedy]( | [R]( → What's now and what's next. The next edition of our arts and culture newsletter, Second & Fourth, drops THIS THURSDAY at 3 PM. [ARTS & CULTURE NEWSLETTER]( [Issue of Oct. 19 – Nov. 1, 2023 Vol. 53, No. 1]( [VIEW/DOWNLOAD ISSUE [PDF]]( [View this e-mail as a web page]( [@chicago_reader]( [/chicagoreader]( [@chicago_reader]( [Chicago Reader on LinkedIn]( [/chicagoreader]( [chicagoreader.com]( [Forward this e-mail to a friend](. Want to change how you receive these e-mails? You can [update your preferences]( or [unsubscribe from this list](. Copyright © 2023 Chicago Reader, All rights reserved. Our mailing address is: Chicago Reader, 2930 S. Michigan Ave., Suite 102, Chicago, IL 60616