The pregame podcast is back from a few game hiatus caused by my travel schedule and general lack of anything more to say about a Suns team that had just lost to the Bobcats.

Since that loss, the suns are 2 of 3 and played well in all three of those games. Amare seems to be playing a bit better (for now) and the overall level of effort and intensity has increased (not including Matt Barnes who needs to be benched in favor of Dudley).

For the record, despite all the chatter and all the crap Porter deservedly took for the hack-a-Bowen fiasco, I still think this Suns team should stand pat.

All of the various trade options come down to throwing in the towel and starting the rebuilding process now versus sticking it out to see if this team can figure it out in time for the playoff's. How the team is playing now matters not compared to how this team is playing come spring. If it doesn't work out, there is plenty of time for blowing it up over the summer. What's the rush? The Jazz, Rockets and Mavs certainly aren't running away from us in the standings.

The Bulls are a perfect example of a team that was good and getting better until an ill advised trade (Wallace for Gooden and Hughes) combined with poor front office decisions (Ben Gordon, Deng and Nocioni contracts) turned a playoff team into a team stuck in limbo-land. Too good to simply hope for the future and too bad to enjoy this season.

In this pregame podcast we spend a lot of time discussing the future of the Bulls and their various roster and coaching woes. Joining me in this pontification is one of the original basketball bloggers - Matt from Blog-a-Bull.

Matt and a few others pretty much invented this genre and is still the gold standard for a blog community. I read his site often and not because I give a tinker's damn about the Bulls. In fact, the Bulls rank pretty high up on my list of organizations I love to see fail. Oh, and that Jordan guy was highly OVERRATED! Best ever? I guess everyone forgot about this guy.

The Bulls only real chance in this game is if their defensive intensity is super high and they can get a lot of steals and rebounds and run.

If the Suns control the tempo and get good looks we should have no problem dominating the paint. Rookie Rose isn't good enough to beat us single handedly so stay home on Gordon and Hinrich and help off the bigs in the paint and use that strong side zone to prevent (limit) penetration.

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