Denver Nuggets vs Chicago Bulls preseason preview

The NBA’s preseason is underway, and the Denver Nuggets have already won their first game. On Tuesday, the Nuggets went away to face up against the Phoenix Suns. The Suns are 1-1 at the time of writing this, winning against the Detroit Pistons in their first game and then losing against the Nuggets.

Denver’s second game will be away again against the Chicago Bulls on Thursday night. The Bulls lost their first preseason game against the Milwaukee Bucks on Sunday 105-102 from an impressive performance by MarJon Beauchamp, who put in 18 points.

In Denver’s first preseason game, rookie forward Julian Strawther had 20 points, the most by any player. Looking at their depth, they have a lot of young players who will play a lot of minutes throughout their preseason games. Chances are, there will be a lot of players playing throughout the whole game.

The Chicago Bulls are in a weird spot as a team. They lost in the Play-In Tournament in their second game against the Miami Heat. They have talented players like DeMar DeRozan, Zach LaVine, and Nikola Vucevic on the roster, but their team is not getting any younger, which should signal the start of a potential rebuild. But they have continued to buy into their roster and their veterans, which makes their future unclear.

Their team does not have a ton of young talent, though. Patrick Williams still has much untapped potential, and the same could be said about Coby White. Other than that, there’s not a lot of young talent that could be built around for the future of the Chicago Bulls.

Because of this, as well as DeRozan being in the last year of his contract, it would not be surprising to see the Bulls being sellers at the trade deadline or even beforehand. DeRozan is a likely target to be moved this season. Players like Dalen Terry or Julian Phillips could be given a lot of minutes during the game against the Denver Nuggets to see what they’re capable of.

The Nuggets should also be the same. A lot of their bench players were young and relatively unproven players were given a lot of minutes. Hunter Tyson, Zeke Nnaji, and Julian Strawther were all given the most minutes on the team. There should be no reason to expect anything different against the Bulls.

The Denver Nuggets play the Chicago Bulls again but in Denver the next time on Sunday. This will be their first home game of the preseason, and won’t have another home game until next week against the Los Angeles Clippers.

It is preseason at the end of the day, so it really does not matter in the whole scheme of things, but the Nuggets should still try to get a win anyway. If the Bulls game is anything like the game in Phoenix, it will be an entertaining game to watch and to see the young guys get some run.

If I were to predict the game, I’d guess a score of 102-93, Denver Nuggets winning. The Nuggets should be able to get the win, even if it is the preseason and they will not play Jamal Murray and Nikola Jokic a lot of minutes.