Before this comes off as fun-hating, I'm going to be completely honest: I really enjoyed the Minnesota Timberwolves' new training video "A New-Look Pack," as it has pretty much everything cool basketball stands for.
Multiple sweet alley oops thrown by SBN Chicago-approved Ricky Rubio, no defense, grueling weight training and, of course, scenes possibly filmed at a Lifetime Fitness. (Doesn't Minnesota have a training facility? Is the facility sponsored by Lifetime? I'm not looking this up.) But it really got me thinking: this is why we're lucky to be Chicago Bulls fans.
Video after the jump.
The Timberwolves need epic music, talk about a new up-tempo offense and the aforementioned super-cool dunks to get fans fired up for the season. The Bulls, on the other hand? Oh, mostly Jimmy Butler and D-Rose hanging out and watching the BET Awards.
And while it might sound boring as hell -- hint: it is -- it's the same reason Bulls are exactly where we need them to be right now. Status quo, in this case, is completely sufficient. As of June 28, 2010 at 10:02 a.m., the Bulls are *still* coming off the best record in the NBA. Yes, they didn't win the title, but as Matt pointed out at BaB on Monday, they are a team with few holes.
While these weaknesses need to (and hopefully will) be addressed, the Bulls are in a position to lay low, get better, fix what needs to be fixed and get a damn 2-guard at some point. The offense is relatively set, the identity (DEFENSE) is in place and everything is in its right place -- again, mostly.
While 'potential' (think: Blake Griffin) can be more exciting than 'proven,' (think Kevin Garnett) it's 'proven' that actually means something in the NBA. And again, that's with no real disrespect to Minnesota. They're just not quite there yet. So no, the Bulls probably won't have anything along the lines of this sweet T'Wolves alley-oop video, but in the end, it's for all the right reasons.
I'll give the last word -- as well as hat tip -- to Trey Kerby from The Basketball Jones: "In conclusion, 'Hangover' jokes about wolfpacks."
Bobby Loesch is the associate editor of the Chicago sports blog Tremendous Upside Potential and a new daily contributor to SB Nation Chicago. Follow him on Twitter @bobbystompy.