It’s been rough sledding for the Bulls this year, especially lately. The bad start, coupled with a 4 game losing streak, during the first half of a season which was supposed to be a repeat playoff appearance, including a playoff series win at the minimum, has us all feeling pretty depressed, but boys don’t cry, even if they were our only hope for Chicago sports. Well, the Bulls won again on Tuesday 12/20; it feels like forever since they won. And we all know what the cure is for any and all issues, right? Winning.
Well, there does appear to be some issues with the Bulls, besides the losing that is. There is talk about locker room problems, not being on the same page, a heated exchange during halftime of that Wolves loss; I could have told you all of this. There certainly appears to be trouble in paradise, and when you top that with losing, yeah, there’s going to be issues; part of me is HAPPY for that. What would be the alternative? Nothing. No pulse. Nobody cares. I’ll take heated exchanges all day over that, as long as this trouble doesn’t derail the team from the long term goal. As long as it’s nothing too serious, and just everybody getting aggravated over losing/underperforming, then fine. However, I do think there are other deeper issues; I’ve touched on them over time.
Has AKME built this roster in a way that will equal winning? I’ve been fine with AKME, mostly because they’ve done stuff; they seem to have good intentions. However, these intentions don’t always pan out. The Vooch trade, the Lavine max signing, the Donovan secret extension? It’s easy to judge these things in hindsight. Has AKME put together enough talent, the right talent, for this team to succeed in the East, and eventually, bring that 7th NBA title back to Chicago?
What about Billy Donovan? We’ve talked about him too. Is he putting our guys on the floor in the best position to succeed? Continuing to let Vooch take treys, encouraging the team to take more treys, running an offense that has everybody standing around the perimeter chucking up shots with no one underneath to get second chance points. I don’t know. If taking and making treys is the name of the game in today’s NBA game, and that is what Donovan wants to do, then maybe… the team should have been built that way; this team is NOT a 3 point shooting team, period. Sure, taking and making open looks in the flow of the offense is the name of the game for any successful team, but… I feel this team is much better when the ball is moving around, guys are cutting to the rim, taking it to the rim… maybe that’s just my old school-ness yearning for more of that; who knows. I think the Bulls CAN be successful without being an elite three point shooting team. You kind of have to play defense though too…. 150 points to the Wolves? Good God.
So now, we have a team built one way, a coach trying to fit this “square peg” into a “round hole”, and the players getting frustrated; makes sense I think. What is this team’s identity? It was DD and Zach as the epic 1-2 punch last year during much of our success; of course there was Ball too… we do miss him, no doubt, but he can’t be THAT important to this team’s success, because if so, we’re in real trouble, long term trouble. DD hasn’t been as good; Zach hasn’t been as good. We’ll go as far as they take us, along with a nice #3 option in Vooch, and what we would hope to be an inspired bench mob.
There are no in between days; another game is coming on Wednesday night in Atlanta. I haven’t checked the injury report, so maybe we will continue to get lucky… like Luka not playing when we played Dallas and Butler and Lowry not playing when we played the Heat, our last 2 wins. I don’t care if it’s a full Hawks roster or a half of one, we need to keep playing the cure… keep winning… will that wash all of our problems away? Go Bulls!!!
Leave a Reply