Should We Be Bullish on Ex-Bulls?

Not so long ago, sportswriters used the number of former Chicago Cubs on a major league baseball roster to determine that team's success in the post-season. The more exes there were, the greater the probability the team would fail.

With the NBA playoffs upon us, I'm wondering how that affects professional basketball teams with former members of the Chicago Bulls in their lockerooms.

It was a decade ago that the Bulls seemed on the verge of championship contention. Anchored by nascent superstar Derrick Rose, they possessed all the ingredients for a long run of success. But recurrent injuries to Rose's knees derailed what would have been a brilliant NBA career, and with it the aspirations of the entire roster.

Center Joakim Noah is retired, as are forwards Carlos Boozer and Luol Deng. But a smattering of the roster (including coach Tom Thibodeau) remains active. As do several other former Bulls.

So you have to wonder how the resurgent Atlanta Hawks (with Kris Dunn), Washington Wizards (with Robin Lopez and Daniel Gafford) and New York Knicks (with Rose, Taj Gibson and coach Thibodeau) will fare.

Ditto the Miami Heat, featuring built-in-Chicago superstar Jimmy Butler and fresh off an appearance in last year's NBA Finals. And we shouldn't forget the Milwaukee Bucks and Chicago refugee Bobby Portis.

So despite this season's startling success, does the fact the roster carries three ex-Bulls mean that Knicks' fans should be waving the white flag? Is their series with the Hawks (with only a lone Bull) a foregone conclusion?

And what of the Wizards? With zero ex-Bulls on the Philadelphia 76er roster, is their stirring late-season comeback and return to the post-season doomed to failure?

And how will things shake-out between Miami and Milwaukee? With a single ex-Bull populating each roster, do they negate each other, leaving their teams to fight it out on basis of merit?

With a fourth consecutive losing season, one over-before-it-began playoff appearance in their last six and a desultory rebuild mired in mud despite a new GM and a new coach, it's a bit disconcerting to see so many ex-Bulls thriving in new environments.

As fans do, I grew very attached to the teams coached by Thibodeau and Scott Skiles. Those rosters were gritty and talented. They played defense. Most importantly, they complemented each other.

It was tough to see them so rarely move beyond the first round.

I'm happy for Thibodeau's success, even if he's coaching my second least-favorite team in the NBA. The same goes for Rose, forced to consume a good deal of humble pie since the sparkling first act of his NBA career.

But I'm left wondering why the Bulls remain with an uneven, disjointed roster after so many other teams (Phoenix, Denver, Utah, Atlanta and those Knicks) have risen to contention in the same time frame.

If I even needed the impetus, I appreciate the Jordan-era dynasty anew.

My Chicago Bulls Christmas Wish

One of the things sport taught me is the meaning of words like ephemeral and ethereal. Life is fragile. And short. And that no matter how indomitable something may appear, it is often little more than smoke curling through air. It takes only a faint breeze to disturb and redirect its trajectory.

In the spring of 2011, the Chicago Bulls were a young team on the rise. They had lucked into that elusive thing called chemistry, with talented, heady players who bought into a charismatic coach’s vision of how the game should be played. All of this was cemented by the skills of a nascent superstar named Derrick Rose.

Yes, the view from northeast Illinois was mighty sweet. The Miami Heat might be the team of today, but it was very hard to believe the Bulls weren’t the team of tomorrow. Yet two and-a-half years later, the team of tomorrow looks like the woulda shoulda coulda team of yesterday.

Derrick Rose’s future as an NBA point guard is very much in doubt after successive anterior cruciate ligament and meniscus injuries. It’s hard to look at him and not see Anfernee Hardaway or Grant Hill.

Small forward Luol Deng has already expressed his intent to explore free agency, following public questioning of his toughness and commitment. Power forward Carlos Boozer, signed to an enormous contract following the Bulls failed attempts to land either LeBron James or Dwyane Wade in the summer of 2010, will likely remain, but is untradeable and on the downside of a productive career.

Gritty point guard Kirk Hinrich is feeling the effects of multiple seasons spent sacrificing his body in the name of defense, leaving center Joakim Noah and reserve forward Taj Gibson as the Bulls’ sole long-term assets.

The window of opportunity that magically opens for certain combinations of players and coaches has silently and immutably closed. Run ragged by an unceasing succession of injuries, the formerly resilient Bulls are now exhausted and overwhelmed. It is a good thing it’s Christmas.

My Christmas wish for the Bulls begins with David Robinson’s foot.

You see, David Robinson was an elite professional basketball player. He was fast, strong and agile. He was a seven-foot center who could move with the speed and quickness of a much smaller man. He single-handedly turned the San Antonio Spurs into contenders, and quickly became one of the NBA’s most dominant players.

His greatest weakness was that he possessed the physiology of a human being.

On December 23rd, 1996, while playing in just his sixth game after recovering from an off-season back injury, Robinson suffered a broken foot. This not only ended his season, but effectively ended the Spurs’ as well. Without their stellar center and small forward Sean Elliot, they nose-dived to an NBA-worst 20 and 62 record.

But with Robinson’s injury and the Spurs’ dismal 1996/97 season came a blessing: the number-one pick in the 1997 NBA draft. And with it, the Spurs chose Tim Duncan, beginning a run of sixteen straight winning seasons which includes four NBA championships.

So as this scarred and ravaged edition of the Chicago Bulls picks its way through the schedule, the prospect of a high draft pick in next year’s draft might be the silver lining in what has become a very dark cloud. I’m not advocating tanking here; just holding out a carrot amid the wreckage of what was once a contender.

Merry Christmas.

Four-and-gone Conclusions

Ouch. This one really hurt.

Just like the ’69, ’84, ’03 and ’08 Cubs. Or the ’71 Blackhawks. And the '75 Bulls. Or just about any Big Ten football team that has played in the Rose Bowl since 1970.

It hurt like the Ditka-era Bears teams perennially without the services of quarterback Jim McMahon come playoff time—except for the golden year of 1985.

The 2010/11 Chicago Bulls had the league’s best record. Home court advantage throughout the playoffs. They were mature and seasoned beyond their years; a team that intrinsically knew the value of playing defense and moving the ball.

This was going to be fun.

Then there were the convincing, series-closing victories in games five and six over the Atlanta Hawks, and the twenty-one point win over the Miami Heat in game one. Yes, after a rocky stretch in the playoffs, the Bulls had rediscovered their groove. The Bulls were ready to roar.

But then the wheels came off. The Bulls went missing. They became the first basketball team in sixteen years to drop a playoff series after such a resounding, opening-game victory. Could they have picked a worse time for their first four-game losing streak?

The team that spent the season playing as one forgot everything it learned.

They forced shots. Made more turnovers than Sara Lee. Thought focus was the exclusive property of movie theatre projectionists and that defense was something that happened in a court room. They were unglued by NBA officiating.

Worst of all, they repeatedly relied on a single player down the stretch, which is probably why so many games resembled the economic collapse of ‘08, right down to the fourth-quarter cave-ins.

If there’s a silver lining, it’s that the Bulls are young. Young-enough to learn from the hideous wreckage of this series and apply it before their bodies hit athletic middle-age.

Same goes for rookie head coach Thibodeau, who seemed unable (or unwilling) to respond to his counterpart’s adjustments. Or to play veteran Kurt Thomas, who might have settled the distracted Bulls.

Or to vary his play calling enough to keep even the there-to-be-seen neophytes from knowing where the ball was headed in critical, late-game possessions.

Yes, Derrick Rose is wonderful. Great, even.

But there is no way he should be taking twenty-nine shots in an elimination game which takes place during a series in which he’s shooting like the bastard offspring of Jason Kidd and Allen Iverson, and being guarded (in the fourth quarter, anyway) by a man half-a-foot taller.

It’s called passing. Point guards all over the world do it. And when one is making just one-third of their shots, it would behoove one to try it.

You could say this is just a lot of day-after whining, made even more-obnoxious by the fact it’s through the 20/20 vision afforded us by hindsight. But there are grains of truth here. Ones that need to be taken to heart before next season starts.

That and that alone will tell us if this is 1975 and Thibodeau is Dick Motta, or if this is 1990 and the reigning coach of the year is a nascent Phil Jackson.

Lakers Get Swept! (and grabbing the Bulls by the horns)

Pleasures are both quick and fleeting. They should be enjoyed whenever they present themselves. So when the Los Angeles Lakers succumbed to perennial playoff underachievers the Dallas Mavericks yesterday, I rejoiced. I loved. I laughed.

A sweep? How sweet!

The fabled and privileged Lakers repeatedly snatched defeat from the jaws of victory in the four-game series; blowing leads, orchestrating fourth-quarter collapses and finally, not even bothering.

Like the Bad Boy-era Pistons (who showed their true colors by petulantly stalking off the court when it became apparent the Chicago Bulls would sweep them in the 1991 Eastern Conference Finals), these Lakers revealed their true selves by administering late-game cheap shots to the Mavericks—a team that had been wholly respectful of the fabled Laker legacy.

The game was also an ironic send-off for coach Phil Jackson, he of the eleven championships.

I’ll admit to feeling a bit betrayed when Jackson signed on with the Lakers, abandoning the dynasty he helped build in Chicago for the glamour of L.A. It reminded me a bit of Nicolas Cage, who chose the big paychecks of rote action flicks over the quirky dramas that brought him fame in the first place.

Jackson’s career has yet to be viewed through the corrective lens of time. But for now, I feel he was never really challenged as a coach. Sure, he deftly managed delicate superstar egos, and had the good sense to incorporate Tex Winter’s triangle offense.

But he assumed control of the pre-fabricated Jordan-era Bulls just as they were ready to soar, and did likewise with the Lakers in L.A. I have to think that even a modestly-talented coach could have stumbled into the NBA Finals with either team.

Lastly, the suddenly championship-caliber 2010/11 Chicago Bulls have encountered substantial difficulty in the post-season. First was the surprisingly taut series with the 37-win Indiana Pacers. Now the 2-2 draw with the Atlanta Hawks.

Like so much else, winning must be learned. Defense, consistency and focus are the keys—especially in the post-season. The Bulls had all three in spades during the regular season, which is how they won 62 games. But suddenly, the Bulls don’t seem to possess any of them.

Defense has been employed selectively. They appear unable to focus. They seem tentative, playing not to lose. The young Bulls are also afflicted with Jordan-itis, a malady which makes them succumb to the temptation of “Let Michael Do It.”

Or in this case, Derrick.

Granted, Derrick Rose is a gifted player. But whether it is his decision or by design, Rose is taking too many shots and attempting to shoulder too much of the load.

Rose is surrounded by complementary players who also happen to be quite talented. Rose is made even more-lethal when those around him touch the ball. Let them participate. When they move the ball and keep defenses honest, the Bulls win. Convincingly.

When Rose insists (or is forced) to be Michael Jordan at his pre-championship-era worst, they don’t.

Basketball is a simple game: get the ball to the guy with the best shot. Then stop the other guys from doing it. Do that for forty-eight minutes and you’ll win more games than you lose.

Maybe even a championship.