Showing posts with label Dickey Simpkins. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Dickey Simpkins. Show all posts

Thursday, March 8, 2018

The 45 Most Important Players to the Chicago Bulls Dynasty - #15 Jason Caffey

Jason Caffey
Jason Caffey was taken 20th overall in the 1995 NBA Draft. A Power Forward out of Alabama was exactly what Michael Jordan needed to help him carry this team over the top and start winning NBA Championships again.

In that first year, he had to scrape and claw for minutes as he played in less than 60 games and averaged less than ten minutes per game as a backup power forward, competing with second-year pro, Dickey Simpkins for a majority of the year. His best performance was a game early in the year against the Cavaliers where he put up 13 points and 8 rebounds. Unfortunately for Caffey, the Bulls brought on total piece of crap, John Salley, late in the year, and Caffey was bumped completely from the rotation and would not make the active roster for the playoffs.

In 1996-97, Caffey took his game to another level and started 19 games for the Bulls (including the last 13 of the regular season), played in 75, and more than doubled his per game minutes from his rookie season. He put up a career high 23 points against the Clippers and put up his first three double-doubles.

Although the Bulls again added an extra big man late in the season with Bison Dele, Caffey still started five games as they experimented with bringing Dennis Rodman off the bench. He even put up a double-double in the second round against the Atlanta Hawks. But Caffey did see his minutes take a sharp downturn after that round as he failed to see more than nine minutes in the Eastern Conference or NBA Finals.

Caffey would again put up solid bench numbers for the Bulls in the 1997-98 season but was unexpectedly traded at the deadline in 1998 for David Vaughn and two second round picks. It was a mystery to the players, but it seemed to work out for everyone involved. The Bulls would go on to win their third NBA Championship in a row before the team disassembled after the 1998 season.

And it especially worked out for Jason Caffey, because he got PAID. After joining the Warriors, they signed him to a seven-year, $35 million contract. He didn't even have to play the last two years of that deal as he got bought out by the Milwaukee Bucks.

Although $35 million will pay for a lot, for Caffey, it wasn't quite enough, as he was sued for child support, which isn't too surprising since he had ten children with eight different women.

Now I'm not sure if what I am about to show you is real, was ever real, or could be real in the future, but I want to believe it's real, because Caffey was so hard up for money that he appeared on Dr. Phil, so I really want this attempt to start his own reality show to be true. This was done in 2009, and I see no evidence of an actual pilot ever being made, but this trailer is LIT.

Please let this be from Jason Caffey, and please let this show still come out, using nothing to edit except for a shiny copy of Windows XP and graphics from PowerPoint. I have discovered a lot of great things throughout this series, but this is my new favorite.

Tuesday, February 13, 2018

The 45 Most Important Players to the Chicago Bulls Dynasty - #22 Scott Burrell

Scott Burrell
When I think of Scott Burrell, I always think that he was really good on NBA Live 95. Like, his overall rating wasn't great, but he had the attributes you needed to succeed in that game so you could always get him cheap. This made me a much bigger fan of Scott Burrell than most people.

He was a first round pick by the Charlotte Hornets and were actually the third team to draft him as the Seattle Mariners drafted him after his senior year in high school, and the Toronto Blue Jays drafted him while he was in college. He had his best years in Charlotte before going to Golden State and then being traded to the Chicago Bulls for Dickey Simpkins before the beginning of the 1997-98 season.

Burrell was brought in to be the backup small forward behind Scottie Pippen. He played in 80 games and averaged nearly 14 minutes of playing time with a season high of 24 points against the Denver Nuggets. His greatest highlight on YouTube is a play where he gets a rebound, turns it over, blocks a shot, and starts a fast break.

Suck it, Bruce Bowen.

In the playoffs, it was more of the same, and he would actually explode for a 23 point performance in the first round against the New Jersey Nets when he was 9-11 from the field. He played in every game of the playoffs, including a ten point, nine rebound performance in game three of the Finals.

He would go on to play a couple more seasons as a bench player before retiring with the Hornets. He is currently the head coach of Southern Connecticut State, which is apparently a real school that exists.


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Tuesday, February 6, 2018

The 45 Most Important Players to the Chicago Bulls Dynasty - #24 Dickey Simpkins

Dickey Simpkins
Let's just be real here. If you were an impressionable youth during the Bulls dynastic run, you loved Dickey Simpkins. Not really as a basketball player, but anytime you heard his name, it had to make you chuckle a little bit. It's not just the Dickey either, as Simpkins is a very fun last name as well.

On the court, he was less fun than his name, but he was good enough to stick around for a while. He was drafted in the first round of the 1994 NBA Draft (21st overall)  out of Providence. During the Bulls good years, he was nothing more than a power forward coming off the bench for about ten minutes a game.

During the 1995-96 season, he played in 60 games, and even started 12, but was not good enough to make the Bulls active roster for the playoffs. The next year he played in 48 games, but again, the Bulls denied him a spot on the active roster for the playoffs. It's a bit of a shame considering his beautiful three-point shot.

Before the beginning of the 1997-98 season, his hopes for playing for a Bulls championship team in the playoffs seemed to die as he was traded to the Golden State Warriors in exchange for Scott Burrell. He would continue in his same role for the Warriors as he had with the Bulls, playing in some games, sitting in others, and not given the opportunity to truly make an impact. In February of 1998, the Warriors mercifully released him, and Dickey Simpkins redemption story began.

A couple weeks after being released by the Warriors, Simpkins signed back on with the Bulls. Simpkins showed a new fire as he set or tied career bests with 3.7 points, 0.8 assists, 0.2 steals, 0.1 blocks, while turning the ball over just 0.6 times per game. He even put up a career high 17 points in a game against the Washington Wizards. With this new Dickey Simpkins, the Bulls had no choice but to keep him on the active roster for the playoffs.

And Simpkins delivered, as the Bulls went 11-2 in games that Simpkins got on the court. His best games were when he put in 19 minutes in a three-point win against the Nets and 13 minutes in a win against the Pacers. The Bulls would cruise to a third straight title, and Simpkins was finally able to contribute in the playoff run.

The following season would be his best statistically as he started in 35 games, and tied for the league lead in games played with 50 during the strike shortened 1999 season. He would continue his career with the Bulls through the 1999-2000 season before playing a year overseas and then playing a single game for the Atlanta Hawks in 2001.

I really struggled placing Simpkins on this list. Three championships is tough to argue with, but he only played one year in the playoffs, and he didn't really make any meaningful contributions that year. In the end, it seemed like the Bulls would have been fine finding someone else to take those regular season minutes, so I have him below some guys who only have one championship but made bigger impacts in the playoffs.

When his basketball days were over, he did some broadcasting for ESPN and according to Wikipedia, he is currently a scout for the Charlotte Hornets, but according to his Twitter account, it looks like he is broadcasting for Big East games. Either way, if you'd like to play like Dickey Simpkins, well, boy do I have a treat for you.