Time for the next installment of our series! Today, we’ll be trading with the Chicago Bulls.
Though I don’t love sending Ricky Council Chicago’s way, he likely won’t make an immediate impact for us, so I’m fine with using him to sweeten our trade.
We now have a 6x All-Star in DeRozan and another solid wing in Derrick Jones Jr. If DeRozan doesn’t drop off too much, this team should be much improved from what we had with Harris.
This will not be a good McDaniels year. (Or good anyone year, really.)
Well, this is much better than what I expected. We finished with the second-best offense again, and our defense was predictably atrocious at 24th but we had a better record and margin of victory than we did in either of our previous two sims. Now, let’s see if adding a notorious playoff choker in DeRozan to what has already been a team of playoff chokers will be enough to get us over the hump somehow.
We beat Miami in a tough seven-game series in the first round before easily taking care of Atlanta in five games and sweeping Cleveland to reach the Finals.
Boston even lost as a 1 seed! Perfect sim so far.
We take on LeBron James and the Los Angeles Lakers in the Finals, a rematch of the last Finals we appeared in. We went up 3-1, but then LeBron did LeBron things and beat us three straight times, including twice on the road. Now we know how the 2016 Warriors felt.
Despite that, I would consider the trade a success. Though we didn’t look great on paper, we finished 9 points away from a championship. Thanks, Bulls! MJ still the GOAT!
