The Chicago Bulls are not well.
After spending the first quarter of the season proving they’re a legitimate contender in the Eastern Conference, the Bulls (17-10) have gone 5-5 over their last 10 games as an outbreak of COVID-19 wreaks havoc on the roster.
As of Monday, Chicago has 10 players in the league’s health and safety protocol and just eight players available. Zach LaVine, DeMar DeRozan, Coby White and Ayo Dosunmu are all unavailable. Stanley Johnson, who the team signed to a 10-day contract last week via hardship waiver due to the outbreak, is now in COVID protocol, too.
Options are dwindling fast for the Bulls, but there’s one star athlete in Chicago who’s currently out of work and ready to offer his services: White Sox shortstop Tim Anderson.
With Major League Baseball owners locking out unionized players, Anderson —who lives in Chicago year-round—has no problem offering up his services to another squad in town.
Now, whether or not he could actually help the Bulls win some games is debatable, but Anderson is almost underselling himself in that tweet. The Alabama native is a former high school state champion who led his team in scoring en route to the title. He likely would’ve stayed with the sport but two knee injuries made baseball more appealing.
So instead he launches home runs and flips bats for a living. At least until the start of December, when a labor dispute put baseball on hiatus.
Which makes Anderson’s offer even more interesting. White Sox owner Jerry Reinsdorf also happens to own the Bulls. It might not sit too well with Anderson’s brethren at the MLBPA if he starts taking checks from his boss again before a deal has been reached.
Then again, we’re still months away from spring training (if it happens) and it sure would be nice to see Tim Anderson continue to be really good at sports in the meantime.
If that doesn’t work out—and to be absolutely clear, it won’t—Nikola Vucevic offered another potential solution for the Bulls.