Playoffs is just around the corner and what better way to celebrate the end of the long-grinding, 82-game season than reflect on the abundance of feel-good stories. Here’s seven of them, ladies and gentlemen:
1. Bulls missing the post-season.
Before the Chicago Bulls decides to flip the Tom Thibodeau chapter in their books, experts assumed that the drop-off on defense will simply be compensated by a free-flowing, spacing-oriented offense under Billy Donovan.*Buzzer sounds* Wrong!
Injuries on Derrick Rose, Joakim Noah, Jimmy Butler and practically everyone wearing the red and white jersey did not help as well as the reported in-fighting and dissatisfaction of the players with their new coach. As a result, they will miss the trip to the playoffs for the first time since 2008.
2. The Rooks…
“Exceptional” is one word I can think of.
The 2016 Rookie Class has as many as EIGHT players that have All-Star potential (Karl-Anthony Towns, Kristaps Porzingis, D’Angelo Russell, Emmanuel Mudiay, Myles Turner, Jahlil Okafor etc.) and each of those deserves a slot at the All-Rookie first team. And we don’t have to mention a couple more that could break out in the near future (Trey Lyles, Bobby Portis, Josh Richardson).
Karl-Anthony Towns is having a historically great season, averaging a double-double and a shoo-in for the top rookie honors. The past month, he is averaging 21.9 points and 10.5 rebounds. Not even Kevin Garnett had numbers of those magnitude as a rookie in Minnesota!
