Polling Place: Are the Bulls a playoff team? Come on, that was a serious question

Take a quick swim in the offshore gambling waters, and you’ll find the Bulls bobbing around at an expected 30 or so victories this season.

SHARE Polling Place: Are the Bulls a playoff team? Come on, that was a serious question
Oklahoma City Thunder v Chicago Bulls

How many wins are we talking about for Coby White and the Bulls, anyway?

Photo by Jonathan Daniel/Getty Images

Take a quick swim in the offshore gambling waters, and you’ll find the Bulls bobbing around at an expected 30 or so victories this season. Over a planned 72 games — let’s hope, right? — that probably would sink their hopes of making the playoffs for the first time since 2017.

Many, if not most, sites list the Bulls with the 11th-most victories in the 15-team Eastern Conference. The top six seeds will make the playoffs, with the seventh through 10th seeds each facing a play-in game for one of the remaining two spots.

But we saw some encouraging things from new coach Billy Donovan’s squad during a blink-and-it-was-over preseason. Zach LaVine looked ready to roll. Coby White looked comfortable (here and there) involving others. Otto Porter Jr. appeared to be standing on two feet, for whatever that’s worth. And rookie Patrick Williams, well, that dude has some game.

In this week’s “Polling Place” — your weekly home for Sun-Times sports polls on Twitter — we asked respondents to play the whole thing out.

“The Bulls look good so far,” @jhonnyboy0123 commented. “They aren’t a threat to get in the conference finals, but they’re on their way.”

Conference finals? Yeah, no. On to the polls:

Poll No. 1: Assuming the Bulls get their 72-game regular season in — or close — where will they end up?

Upshot: “Definite potential for the playoffs,” @lakebyrd wrote, apparently not going out on a ledge at all, considering an overwhelming majority of respondents have the Bulls at least getting in on the play-in action. OK, then, let’s agree that’s where the bar is set.

Poll No. 2: Will LeBron James and the Lakers repeat as NBA champs?

Upshot: Another Lakers coronation would be — let’s face it — annoying, anticlimactic and roughly as exciting as watching a CEO deposit his year-end bonus check. Bah! Humbug! Let’s get some new blood at the top, please.

Poll No. 3: If not the Lakers, then who’s got next?

Upshot: Will 2021 be the year the Bucks manage to avoid spilling their Spotted Cow down their legs? Respondents have a good bit of faith. Or maybe the Clips will raise a banner of their own inside Staples Center. We know this: Kevin Durant in Brooklyn is must-watch stuff from the jump. It all starts Tuesday.

The Latest
The funds will help target a big problem for a city opening its doors to President Joe Biden and the Democratic National Convention in August. Just 17.94% of registered voters in suburban Cook County and 25.7% of registered voters in Chicago voted in person or by mail in the March 19 primary.
Playing time has dwindled for Tinordi, a physical defensive defenseman who was a pleasant surprise for the Hawks last season but hasn’t found nearly as much success without Connor Murphy.
His surgeons spent 10 hours transplanting his new lungs and liver in September. Six months after the operation, Dr. Gary Gibbon remains cancer-free, able to breathe on his own and celebrated his 69th birthday on Wednesday.
White Sox fans from all over will flock to Guaranteed Rate Field on Thursday for the team’s home opener against the Tigers.
The lawsuit challenges Illinois’ counting of mail-in-ballots after election day, and has potential impact in this presidential election year.