Man am I glad those days are over.

The days I am referring to are those filled with no-names like Kornel David and Corey Benjamin. The days of Keith Booth and Michael Ruffin were just unhealthy to watch. And who could forget Bryce Drew, Dragan Tarlac or Jake “the snake” Voskuhl?

I’ll tell you who could forget. I could!

None of those scrubs are still on the Chicago Bulls and thank God they aren’t. Instead of parading guys like Khalid El-Amin out there to bring the Bulls back to glory, we’ve got guys like Ben Gordon.

For a while there the Bulls looked like they would be at the bottom of the league forever. The Bulls’ record was 119-341 in the six seasons post-Jordan.

This season the Bulls dropped their first nine games and looked to be headed right down that losing road for the seventh straight season. Then, in that 10th game I bet against them. They ended up beating the Utah Jazz that night and realized they liked winning. So they decided to do it more often. Now we’re talking about the Bulls making a run in the playoffs this year. They seem to have that fourth spot locked up and will actually have home court advantage in the first round of the playoffs!

The six seasons before the Bulls hit the skids they were 362-130.

Of course in those six seasons, 1992-98, the Bulls only had one coach. In the six seasons after 98, and five coaches later, the Bulls finally found their guy.

Scott Skiles isn’t quite “Da Coach,” but if he can return these Bulls to glory we could come up with some kind of nickname for him.

Have any of you watched these Bulls play this season? They’re playing like they know how to win. They’re playing like they expect to win. And most importantly, they’re playing together.

I thought when Kirk Hinrich went down with a hamstring injury they would lose a step or two, but they ran off a season high nine-game winning streak. A winning streak of that length hasn’t been seen in Chicago since the Jordan era.

Now the Bulls big man, Eddy Curry has been out the past four or five games with heart problems, but they keep on winning.

I keep watching these games and getting excited as I watch, kind of like…I can’t bring myself to say like in the Jordan era. But…

They’re deep, they’re young and hopefully they’ll be around for a long time.

John Hohenadel is a senior journalism major. He can be e-mailed at [email protected]