This is the make or break year for Luol Deng with the Bulls. If he gets hurt again or is not effective I think the Bulls will end up shipping him out at less than his true value. Luol's got talent no doubt about it so hopefully we all get to see that again next year.

My money is on Luol finally staying healthy and being a huge part of our team this year. I'm looking forward to wearing my #9 jersey again next year.

My official stat prediction:

20.8 ppg, 7.1 rpg, 3 apg, 1.3 spg, .8 bpg on 49% from the field and 38% from the arc (on 100+ 3 point attempts). I predict Deng & Rose will make their first all-star games.

If he can significantly increase the amount of 3's he shoots while still staying at the same efficiency level that he has been at the past two season (38+%) or pushing that up to 40+% we'll be set. Since we lost BG we need another outside shooter to fill his void. If Deng/Salmons/Kirk all shoot close to 40% or if Rose significantly improves from the arc (which is not as likely to happen in year 2 but he'll continue to improve)the lose of BG will be a lot easier to swallow and we'll be a better team this year than last b/c Deng/Salmons should be a big improvement defensively.

I'm just not convinced he has a role in our current offense. Last year his role was to stand near the sidelines and not move.

Unfortunately I agree. He just doesn't fit with our offense at all. He's not a great 3 point shooter, so he doesn't open up the court much for the penetration. But he also doesn't drive to the hoop much, so you can't run many plays for him. So basically all you have is him standing on the baseline and waiting for the dish for the open 18 footers. Either VDN has to get creative or we need to use the Rip-system for Deng and have him coming off 4 screens every play. I don't see any feasible way for Deng to average 21 a game this year unless he comes back as a totally new player.

21ppg might be a little high but I think he's capable. I think we'll see that he has added range to his jumper. And he'll start to get used more in transition. I expect the Bulls to push the ball a lot this year with Rose/Tyrus/Deng running out a lot for 3 man fast breaks. Deng is a good shooter if he's open. He's not great at forcing his own shot. So we will havet to run some screens for him or he'll need to position himself for kickouts on D. Rose drives to the basket. I think you are all underestimating what he can bring to the table. He's been injured and it was his first year playing with Rose. Vinny should be able to find plays that maximizes Deng's contributions on both ends of the court. If he can't do that then he needs to go.

i dont expect much from him on offense.

we need his defense badly though

If healthy I expect his usual 16-6 on shooting in the high-40's. That's good but not great production, but it works as our #2/#3 scorer assuming we get decent contributions from Salmons and Tyrus. If he adds a 3-ball that's a huge bonus, I'm not expecting it at this point though.

The offense certainly didn't do him any favors last year. He was awful early in the year, but had picked it up considerably between injuries in December and January before a largely mediocre February. He was definitely floating around the baselines/top of the key too much at the beginning of the year, he's basically useless from there as he's not quick enough to drive from there and hits too low a percentage of his jumpers from there to be dangerous. Latter in the year he got better at finding some spots in the halfcourt and was more aggressive in transition, hopefully he'll be able to build on that.

After the Gordon departure, the Bulls are in deep spiff if he can't minimally get a relatively efficient 16.