Well, we might as well just stay with this same theme. Last time out, I talked about Jimmy Butler. On Wednesday night, he lead the #8 seeded Heat in completing the series win over the #1 seeded Bucks in Milwaukee. Wow, just wow. I honestly thought the Bucks were coming out of the East, and now, they’re gone… thanks to efforts from The Ghost of Bulls Past, Jimmy Butler. His reward? A 2nd round matchup with someone else we are very familiar with. Yes, it’s The Ghost of Bulls Past II… hello Thibs.
First off, I’m so happy for Thibs, just like for Buckets. I believe in my NBA playoff wish list, the Knicks were going to the NBA Finals; I’m good with that. I think the road just got a bit easier with the Knicks having to face the short handed Heat instead of the #1 seeded Bucks, so… we’ll see. But yeah, just like I hated getting rid of Buckets, I hated getting rid of Thibs. I love that guy. There’s been nobody since then, that could hold a candle to him roaming the Bulls sideline; yes, even you Billy Donovan. Need proof? Thibs coached the Bulls for 5 years; the Bulls made the playoffs in each of those 5 years. We were the #1 seed in the first of those two years. A 255-139 regular season record is what Thibs coached us to; that’s a 64.7 winning percentage for those mathematically challenged. Since then? Do you really want to know? 8 years… 2 playoff appearances… 0 playoff series wins. Let’s be honest. Hoiberg was a straight up joke; Butler knew it, everybody did. Boylen? Don’t get me started. At least Donovan is decent, well, until his seat starts heating up for the step backwards the Bulls took this year, if it isn’t hot already. 271-358 since Thibs left; winning percentage… 43%. F us.
But Thibs never won it all… do you blame him? Maybe you blame him for the D Rose injury? Sure, we were up big, the game was over, but… if that type of injury doesn’t happen at that moment, isn’t it bound to happen at sometime in the near future? Should Derrick have been in the game? Probably not. I don’t blame Thibs though. Just bad fricking luck. It sunk us at the end of the day. Rose was never the same, and neither were those warrior Bulls. They were warriors; every one of the guys that mattered loved Thibs. It was the hard hat lunch pail mentality; he pushed them, he played them minutes, he didn’t treat them with kid gloves, like this generation in the NBA seems to require. Thibs would have been an even better coach 20 years ago or so… He’s learned a bit I think. I don’t monitor the Knicks that closely, but… I’m not a fan of the load management anyways. These guys are supposed to be among the best physically trained athletes in the world; why do we want to keep the training wheels on? I loved Thibs and his style; he gave us a hard-nosed identity. I loved that Bulls team; only one Bulls team did I like more than them. I miss Thibs, Rose, Noah, Buckets, Deng, Taj… those were our guys man. And now, I have to watch Butler succeed elsewhere, and Thibs the same. Bang up job by the people running the Bulls…
Where DO the Bulls go from here? That’s a conversation for another day. In the meantime, we get to watch one of our own Jimmy Butler do battle with another one of our own Thibs, on the big stage. I’ll definitely be watching. I’m happy for them, no doubt; it just sucks that they still couldn’t be together playing this series in the UC for the Bulls. Our front office decided that just wouldn’t work. F-ing idiots…
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