Start Spreading the News

I don’t say much about the Bulls because, one, they’re bad (24-34 after last night’s 121-105 loss to the otherwise-lowly Cavaliers), and, two, they’re likely to get worse. Former foundation pieces Lauri Markkanen and Coby White are ex-Bulls walking while current first-round pick forward Patrick Williams has spent the entire month of April trying to extricate himself from “the wall” nearly all NBA players hit at some point in their rookie season. The above problems leave me more than a little skeptical about new front-office head Arturas Karnisovas, but, hey, at least the Bulls aren’t the Knicks. The Big Apple has “Tibs,” and they’re welcome to him. Come to think of it, the city and the coach deserve each other. Self-regard attracts, you might say. Oh, the 33-27 Knicks are the surprise of the NBA right now, more or less. They have the longest winning streak in the league this season (eight games and counting), and the team clearly has bought into Thibodeau’s coaching philosophy, which is basically to play grinding defense as if offense doesn’t matter. It works great in February, but get back to me in late May, assuming the Knicks get that far. Until then, the New York-centric media is full of “lookee-here!” Knicks’ stories. The fans can eat it up while trying to ignore the uncomfortable fact that the same owner—James Dolan—who hired Isiah Thomas to run his team also hired Thibodeau to coach it. Karma will be visiting sooner than later. Start spreading the news.