Dear Basketball,
My name is Kevin Connors, and I am a disheartened Bulls fan. But today I am speaking for all mildly angry basketball fans throughout Chicagoland. The Bulls are off to an attractive 6-1 start, but within these 7 games, we’ve seen four different outcomes, and accordingly, four different types of Bulls teams. So far the Bulls have two squeaker-wins (Lakers and Hawks), three solid performances (Kings, Clippers, and Pistons), one horrific display of basketball (Warriors), and one game of utter dominance (Grizzlies). What does this tell us about the Bulls? Who is this team? Are they who we thought they were?
Here is what we know: Derrick Rose is brilliant with the basketball. The reigning MVP plays hard nosed basketball every night, and when he feels compelled to, he will take over games. Luol Deng, meanwhile, started off the season with a brand new hair-do. The NBA’s new bad ass, Deng and his mohawk emitted an edge and viciousness that possessed the small forward on the court. For a reminder, re-watch the last two minutes of the Christmas Day Miracle against the Lakers. It was a beautiful sight – Luol Deng tipping balls, stealing passes, blocking shots. It was the Luol Deng we see flashes of sometimes but yearn for always. Nonetheless, we like Luol Deng, with or without the mohawk. He consistently plays a grueling 40 minutes every night.
Yet, this is where our unbiased excitement must come to an end. Because so far in this young season we have more questions than answers. For a supposedly championship caliber team, the Bulls look strikingly similar to last year’s Eastern Conference Finals squad. What are we supposed to think about the 2012 Chicago Bulls?
Despite some minor improvements throughout the rest of the roster (not including John Lucas III’s street ball swagger), the first 7games of the season have illuminated the same questions from a season ago while revealing even more areas of concern:
- Will Carlos Boozer ever earn his $75 million contract? No.
- When will Boozer and Joakim Noah create some chemistry? Never.
- Is the fact that Boozer and Noah, who are owed a combined $130 million, played just 4 seconds in the 4th quarter during Tuesday night’s 1 point win over Atlanta more of an indictment on their inability to play well together or on their individual games? Both.
- Why has Noah regressed from where he was a year ago – defensively and especially offensively? I don’t know. (Perhaps this play best summarizes Noah’s offensive skill set: While posting up, Noah bobbles a great pass, takes two out-of-control dribbles, gets double teamed on the baseline, pump fakes, pump fakes, and finally hucks a layup off the under-side of the backboard.)
- How long before Kevin Love trade rumors begin to swirl? Hopefully soon.
- Is Richard Hamilton the man who can take offensive pressure off of Rose and shoot us to a championship? We’ll see.
For the first time, it appropriately seems that the last two questions are the most pressing. Over the last 6 months, most basketball insiders regarded the Bulls as having “maxed out” last season, but how could this have been the case? Carlos Boozer, the man we paid to be Rose’s Robin, played so poorly down the stretch that Coach Thibodeau frequently benched him in the 4th quarter. How could the Bulls have possibly maxed out if Carlos Boozer played this bad? Surely Boozer would improve from year 1 to year 2 and we’d be title contenders. Right? Wrong. He didn’t get better. And it seems that all of the analysts were right. The Bulls did max out.
Enter Richard Hamilton. Will he save us? Can he? It’s comforting to see a shooting guard who looks competent on the offensive end, but through 7 games “Rip” has already missed 2 due to injury, is averaging just 12 points and 3 assists, and even though I utter the phrase “There is no way Keith Bogan’s could have done that” at least 4 times per game, I just don’t know if it is enough. Sure, Hamilton’s 12 points per game are an unquestioned upgrade over Bogan’s 3, but the Bulls didn’t necessarily need points. They needed a scorer - someone who could shoulder the load once in a while.
It is only 7 games into a truncated season, and perhaps this is what concerns me the most. The season will move quickly, and tomorrow it will be March. In that time I pray that Richard Hamilton can stay healthy, make crisp passes, and most importantly, start averaging 18 points per game. I was a fan of Rip’s signing (and still am), as the Bulls were smart to stay away from the kneeless T-Mac, streetballer Nick Young, overpaid Jason Richardson, and cancerous ball hog Jamal Crawford. But I need more from Rip. As long as Carlos Boozer’s fate continues to be determined by his first shot of the game, I need more from our shooting guard. The Bulls do too.
Please, Basketball, do you hear me? Can you answer my prayer?
Thank you, and let’s go Bulls,
Kevin Connors
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