Perhaps the Bulls didn’t get the memo. Maybe they had their call forwarding screwed up. Whatever it was, last night’s effort against the Washington Wizards was positively 1999 all over again.

I don’t want to go all Jay Mariotti on you and throw doughnuts around the room and demand Bill Cartwright be fired, but it’s going to get pretty obvious, pretty soon, that Bill just isn’t an NBA coach.

The Bulls who brought in not one (John Bach) but two (Ron Adams) defensive gurus in the offseason, and they didn’t play any defense. Short of Scottie Pippen, they didn’t even look like they cared that they weren’t playing any.

Offensively, it was even worse. It’s like somebody told Jamal Crawford they were running the old Loyola Marymount offense. How many times did he come down the court and chuck up a shot without even looking for a pass to start the offense?

Granted, it’s only one game. But these were the Wizards, and if you can’t stay within 25 points of them on opening night, well, it’s going to be a looooooooooong year, isn’t it?

Sigh.

On the other hand, the ovations given to Scottie, when he was introduced and then when he had to give the now-requisite-somebody-from-the-home-team-has-to-thank-the-fans-for-showing-up-on-opening-night-thing-speech. If you didn’t get goose bumps, you have no soul. And, you’re probably a St. Louis Cardinals fan.

I’m not sure if Brendan Haywood is the second coming of Lew Alcindor, but the Bulls certainly approached this game like he was. They have Eddy Curry, the best offensive center in the conference and they got him 10 shots. Ten! Kendall Gill took 10 shots. Excuse me while I go flog myself.

By the way, John Kerr is beyond senile. I don’t know if it’s the goatee or the new girlfriend or what, but when you couple the fact that Bill Wennington is the radio guy and Red is the TV one, the Bulls have the worst color announcers in the world right now.

Crawford was 5-18. To break it down for you, that’s not good. Look, I’m not a guy who thinks that a point guard has to be Bob Cousy and wear the little tight nut-hugging shorts and take five shots a game. But when your team is down by ten points early in a game against the great Washington Wizards, how about trying to pass the ball a little bit. Jamal had four assists at the half. When the Bulls needed to put together a third quarter run to get back into the game he had to lead the charge. In the third quarter he had zero assists. In the fourth quarter he also had zero assists.

Guh.

The best thing about this is that it’s only one game. The Hawks come to town on Friday and their big offseason pick up was Terrell Brandon and he’s on the injured list forever. So we’ve got that going for us, which is nice.

LeBron James made his debut on ESPN and in true NBA fashion, the first game of the doubleheader, between the Knicks and Magic went into overtime. The only way it could have been worse would have been if Tracy McGrady had missed the plane and not played in the game. It was literally one watchable player on the court with nine morons. So there was ESPN trying to hype the debut of LeBron and they had to go back to the Magic and Knicks. They showed the tip off in Sacramento and a couple of trips up the court and then had to switch back to Madison Square Garden. Just after they did it, LeBron put on a show. He nailed a jumper, hit a floater in the corner and took a feed on a breakaway for a tomahawk slam. On the next possession out on the break he passed up his own dunk for an underhand feed to Ricky Davis for a reverse dunk.

We were watching Howard Eisley throw up bricks in New York. Ah, that’s good stuff.

It’s almost as if Bud Selig were running the league last night.

You have the most talked about number one draft pick since Shaq and you have him make his debut in the late game in Sacramento? LeBron should have been the one in the Garden. Apparently, they’re just going to have to start consulting with me on this stuff.

Mark Grudzielanek filed for free agency yesterday, which means that the Cubs can now only cut his salary by 20 percent if they resign him. That could be a problem.

Meanwhile, in Boston, the Red Sox waived Manny Ramirez. That’s right, they put him on irrevocable waivers. If you want him and his $20 million contract, he’s yours for four years. Of course, the Cubs should do this.

Can you imagine going Sosa-Ramirez-Ramirez-Patterson through the heart of the Cubs order? If you consider that the Cubs are paying Moises Alou $9 million next year, what’s an extra $11 million for Manny? They could trade Alou to San Francisco or Boston. He doesn’t have 10-5 rights with the Cubs so he can’t block it.

Of course, there are two huge problems. One, the Tribune Company won’t do it. Two, if they did, it would kick up a Sammy Sosa s@#$ storm of epic proportions. He’s only going to make $17 million next year. Next year he’s only going to make $16 million. Those are $7 million reasons why he’d be unhappy with Manny making $40 million over the same span.

But I think he’d get over it.

But that’s just me.

Rob Neyer wrote that the Yankees wouldn’t sign Ramirez because they have nowhere to play him. They want to move Alfonso Soriano to centerfield, Bernie Williams to left and Hideki Matt Suhey to right. Neyer says that with the Jason Giambi/Nick Johnson combo at first base and DH that there’s no where to play Manny. Oh, Flannel Boy, you dimwit. Do we really think the Yankees wouldn’t trade Nick Johnson in a heartbeat? That opens DH for Manny. The Yankees are not the kind of team that picks Nick Johnson over Manny Ramirez. They didn’t win 26 World Championships by keeping the no power, good average player over the good power, good average player.

So where does Manny end up? I have a hunch he’ll be Peter Angelos’ new toy in Baltimore. But that’s just me.

Bulls’ fans cheered at the beginning and then booed the rest of the night. Sigh.

Jerry Krause went to practice and somebody hugged him. That’s seems a little excessive.

Tyson’s fighting mad that he didn’t get to play.

Suddenly, the Bears veterans are feeling healthy, again. Gee, I wonder why?

The A-Train will be back on Sunday. We’ll all miss the Brock Forsey era, though, won’t we?

Frank Thomas will likely pick up his own option today. He has few others.

Greg Couch laughs at the delusional Dick Jauron who thinks the Bears could make the playoffs. They’d have a hard time making the 6A state playoffs.

Mariotti puts down the doughnut to throw his fat ass off the Bulls’ bandwagon.

Doctors say that Ron Santo should recover fully from having his bladder ripped out.

More than you ever wanted to know about bladder removal surgery.

Sammy’s coming back. El Pulpo and Dave Veres are riding off into the sunset. Thank God.

Lacy J. Banks on Kendall Gill.

Flannel Boy’s Manny Ramirez article.

LeBron made a pretty nice impression last night.

The current MLB free agent list.

Somebody paid three grand for a toy dog that Elvis once dry humped.

Apparently people in California are too dumb to vote, too.

A badger trapped a family inside their house. Oh, so that’s where Brent Moss is.

America’s finest news source tells us how our nation’s college students are coping with rising tuition costs.