The Chicago Bulls play host to the Portland Trail Blazers at United Center on Sunday.

The Trail Blazers (5-12) finished third in the west in each of the last two seasons but it's going to take a miracle to get back to that point this season. The depth at forward has really killed this club, losing Al-Farouq Aminu in the offseason and suffering an injury to Zach Collins the opening weeks. That left almost nothing at the power forward position which is why this club made the desperation move of signing Carmelo Anthony. Early results for Melo are about as good as they could hope, averaging 13 points and 4.3 rebounds per game. That's really all you can ask for from a player who's been out for a full year and they'll need more than that if they are to get out of this slide.

The Bulls (6-11) have had some serious issues of their own. A win over the Charlotte Hornets on Saturday might mask some of the issues, as that was a borderline miracle win of is own. In fact, Chicago trailed by five points with less than 10 seconds left but hit two three's in the final seconds to pull out that unlikely victory. Zach LaVine was the one who hit the game-winner, which capped off a 49-point gem. That career performance was right after getting benched in the previous game and it says a lot about this kid to come back in that sort of fashion. They do need more from their other young players though, with Lauri Markkanen hitting a regression wall this season. If he doesn't return to his 20-10 ways soon, Chicago fans are going to question if he's the real deal and if this franchise is headed in the right direction.

Portland swept the season series over Chicago last season and has now won five-straight games over them in total.