The NBA news cycle never stops.

Even in mid-August, the Association finds a way to drum up any morsel of excitement they can. This time of year, it comes in the form of the NBA schedule release. Fans are fiending for anything they can scrape up and teams have delivered with clever, impressive, funny social media posts to accompany their team’s schedule finally coming out.

I must say, the Bulls did a fantastic job.

Huge props to the folks in the Bulls social media team who put their animation together. If you haven’t seen it already, it’s absolutely worth a watch.

This speaks directly to me. I grew up on Pokemon and the Bulls so this serves up nostalgia in all the right ways.

Anyway, here’s the whole schedule for you to peruse:

At the end of the day, the Bulls play each team at least twice. They play 41 games at home and 41 on the road. There’s no hiding in the NBA and a lot of teams have a lot to play for.

This is especially true for the Bulls, who have largely disappointed over the last season-and-a-half. With the lack of roster moves that provide any sort of hope for the present or future, they are under an immense amount of pressure to come out of the gate on a very convincing hot streak. Otherwise, things will get very ugly very fast.

But I don’t want to get too far down the rabbit hole just yet, it’s only August. For now, let’s ride the wave of excitement.

Schedule Highlights

• Chet Holmgren (second overall pick in 2022 NBA draft) makes his NBA debut in Chicago on opening night

• Bulls fans can get an early look at Kevin Durant, Devin Booker and Bradley Beal on November 8 when the Phoenix Suns come to town.

• The NBA champion Denver Nuggets come to Chicago on December 12

• Your one chance to see LeBron James at the United Center is December 20

• Victor Wembanyama comes to Chicago for the first time on December 21

• 2023 NBA MVP Joel Embiid brings his talents to Chicago on December 30

• The Bulls have five sets of back-to-back series against the same opponent: November 15 and 17 vs. Orlando, November 18 and 20 vs. Miami, December 14 and 16 in Miami, December 30 vs. Philadelphia and January 2 in Philadelphia, January 5 vs. Charlotte and January 8 in Charlotte

• The Bulls no longer have their annual six-game circus trip, but they will have three sets of four-game road trips

• Their longest homestand lasts six games from December 20-30

• The Bulls only have seven national tv games (three of which are on NBATV so they barely count), which is down from 14 total last year

Key dates

• All-Star Weekend is set for Thursday, February 15 to Thursday February 22

• The Trade Deadline has not yet been announced

• The NBA’s new In-Season Tournament commences November 3 with the Bulls vs. Nets. The rest of the group stage will be November 17 vs. Orlando, November 24 at Toronto and November 28 at Boston.

• The Knockout round starts December 4th. More details here.

• Regular season ends April 14, Play-In Tournament goes from April 16-19, Playoffs begin April 20 and the NBA Finals Game 1 will be on June 6

Some more intriguing NBA Schedule statistics courtesy of PositiveResidual.com

• With an average win percentage of .510, the Bulls have 11th easiest strength of schedule in the NBA and 8th easiest in Eastern Conference. These numbers will constantly be updating throughout the season based on how teams perform, but as it stands, the Bulls have a relatively easy road.

• The Bulls play 13 games in which they will have had more rest than their opponent and only 8 games in which they will have had less rest

• The Bulls travel the sixth-fewest miles of any team in the NBA, the only pro in not playing any games in France

• The NBA has done a nice job reducing the total number of back-to-backs in the schedule with 10 teams playing 13 back-to-backs, 11 teams playing 14 total back-to-backs and nine teams playing 15 back-to-backs. The Bulls end up in the middle with 14.

• Back-to-back breakdown: Six split (either home-away or away-home), three home-home and three away-away.