When I first started watching the Bulls… I mean really watching, it was back in the day – when the GOAT ran the show in Chicago. Like most admirers, I was distracted by the shiniest of all objects, MJ.
We were spoiled.
The Post-Jordan Era
Important concepts like spacing, efficiency and roster rotation never entered my mind. In the NBA, individual greatness has a way of masking pesky metrics.
Then… the next decade happened… and the Bulls, well, they sucked. As a fan I watched, confused and frustrated, unsure why the team didn’t win… couldn’t win, even after they’d stumbled into top draft picks or lured established free agents?
Why did some franchises fail to compete, year after year? It wasn’t until the Thibs era that I came to understood the value of systems, defensive sets and the all important X’s & O’s. The Bulls started to win. A lot. But, after failing to reach the mountaintop, the organization chose to go a different direction.
When the Bulls hired Fred Hoiberg, the promise was that the team would change philosophies, shedding Thibs’ ground-&-pound defensive mentality and adopting “The Mayor’s” fabled pace-and-space, share-the-rock style, which would, in theory, fire up the flow of the game, encouraging creativity and explosion.
After a season and a half, it’s fair to state definitively: That hasn’t happened.
Now, I know, as a fan, you recognize this. After all, you watch the games. You scan box scores. You search out blogs like this one and read interviews and opinion pieces highlighting the hows and whys. As fans, we watch management manufacture hope and buy into pre-season bullshit about upside and emerging talent. But in basketball, the eye test is the only test. And results are all that matter.
Why Aren’t The Bulls Winning?
From the stands, it seems obvious why the Bulls aren’t winning:
1. The Roster is Ridiculous.
Let’s break it down:
The GOOD:
1 legit All-NBA SF (Butler)
1 declining, but still savvy, future Hall of Fame SG (D Wade)
1 blue-collar banger at PF (Taj)
The LESS GOOD (but still kinda good!):
2 hard working & occasionally mascot-battling Cs (Lopez & Felicio)
The BAD:
2 PGs who can’t shoot, I mean at all…(Rondo & MCW)
3 supposedly sharp-shooting swing-men (McBuckets, Nee-Ko-La & Zipser)
THE UGLY:
3 1st round picks, youngsters with pluck! and apparent upside, who for some reason, can’t crack (or consistently impact) the lineup (Portis, Valentine & Grant)
In today’s NBA you have to know how to build a team. The Bulls seem unclear as to how to do this. It seems simple enough: Find a playmaker you can build around (see Butler, Jimmy) and surround him with a rim protector, some hard nosed “3 & D” guys and a handful of smart, efficient 2-way vets.
The Bulls don’t seem to know what they have or what to do with it.
After trading Rose, they seemed committed to building around Butler, their home-grown, ascendant star. Yet for some reason, they chose to bring in not one, but two ball-dominant vets (Wade & Rondo…RONDO?!) that neither complimented Jimmy, nor supported an organizational philosophy. Couple that with prospects that haven’t developed as expected (we can debate why another time) and you end up with a jalopy full of spare parts that never seems to reach full speed.
2. Shooting (Or, the lack thereof):
The NBA has changed. Wait… no it hasn’t. The game has always been about putting the ball in the basket. True, hustle and moxie and moving without the ball are important. Rebounding and defense win championships (Or so they say). Those qualities matter, but when they make a difference, it’s because they’re coupled with winning intangibles in a unique package like Bill Russell or our old pal, Joakim Noah.
But even in such cases, those players support dominant scorers and knockdown shooters. In the past decade, the Bulls have featured three dependable, bankable gunners: Ben Gordon, Kyle Korver & Mike Dunleavy. Most great teams have three at a time.
It makes no sense: Hoiberg’s entire philosophy supposedly depends upon efficient shooting and selfless ball movement… Yet the front office gave him a roster full of ball dominant 2-point specialists.
How is this possible? How did the Bulls end up here? It would be simple if required a single magic bullet but it’s a combination of recognizing talent, developing that talent and putting players in the best position to succeed. This is achieved through organizational acumen and philosophical consistency. Neither of which Chicago has.
Compare our Bulls to the preeminent organization in the league, the San Antonio Spurs. The Spurs have had the same coach, Gregg Popovic since 1996 (96!!) and the same GM (R.C. Buford) since 2002.
My guess is each of those guys knows how the other takes his coffee.
3. Chemistry (What chemistry?!):
Team chemistry must be built, not bought. The Bulls’ has been questionable for some time now. By trading Rose, firing Thibs and losing Noah & Gasol (never a fan of Pau’s fit, but that’s another story), the Bulls sacrificed scoring, playmaking, rebounding, mental toughness and, yes, chemistry.
They lost locker room leadership and undermined organizational intention. Are we in win-now mode? Are we rebuilding? Anyone that thinks they know what the front office has in mind, is guessing at best.
Bringing in D Wade would have been a coup back in, say, 2010. When it would have been a slam-dunk. (When Wade still could slam-dunk!) But that didn’t happen. And if the Bulls believed he came home for any reason other than to stick it to Pat Riley, they weren’t paying attention. And while a bruised ego is a powerful motivating tool it isn’t exactly the foundation of team building. As for Rondo, well his torched track record in Dallas and Sacramento should speak for itself.
Recipe For Disaster
So what are we left with? Pieces that don’t fit. Shooters who can’t shoot. Role players without roles. And a coach who doesn’t have what he needs to coach.
What could possibly go wrong?
