Chicago Bulls: Derrick Rose Should Sit Next 2 Games
Derrick Rose left Monday’s night game after only playing 11 minutes.
The reason he left and did not return was due to back spasms, which he has been suffering with at least since Saturday’s game against the Bucks.
With three games left on this nine game road trip the Chicago Bulls should sit Rose for at least the next two, and maybe even the third against Boston on Sunday. After Sunday the Bulls will be able to enjoy six straight home games.
The next two games are against the Hornets and Bobcats, who have combined for seven wins on the season. The Bulls proved a few weeks ago they can beat Charlotte without Rose, and New Orleans shouldn’t offer much resistance as it has lost six straight and is 1-9 in its last 10 games.
Letting Rose rest and get treatment is the best course of action. Between his toe and now his back, this shortened season is taking a toll on the reigning MVP.
Both C.J. Watson and John Lucas III have proved this season they are ready to step up and produce with Rose out of the lineup.
Overall, the rest of February is a pretty easy month for the Bulls. Their only back-to-back is at the end of the month, and besides games against the Celtics, Hawks and Spurs, every other team has a losing record.
The rest of the month looks likes this: Boston and New Orleans twice, Charlotte, Sacramento, San Antonio, Atlanta and the lowly New Jersey Nets all once. San Antonio is the final game of the month and is on the road.
Now is the perfect time to rest Rose and any other banged-up member of the team because the road gets much more difficult in March and April. In those two months they will play the Heat and Knicks three times, as well as the Magic, Pacers and 76ers each twice.
If the Bulls hope to once again have home-court advantage in the playoffs it is key that Rose rests and gets healthy now rather then later.
Make sure to follow me on Twitter @dachicagofan, and check out my weekly Bulls podcast every Wednesday on my site The MG Experience.
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Joel Pryzbilla to Chicago Would Make Bulls a Lock to Win Eastern Conference
Joel Przybilla is on the verge of making his decision between Chicago and Miami as far as which team he’d like to play with according to Marc Stein’s tweet:
If Chicago manages to land him, it should be enough to put them past the Heat and into top threat to win the Eastern Conference.
Przybilla isn’t going to carry the Bulls to the finals by himself, but he should be just that little extra they need. The Bulls are in need of a fifth big who can play hard-nosed ball. Przybilla fits that bill. Since Kurt Thomas went to Portland they’ve been needing that last big to complete the bench.
He offers size, rebounding and low-post scoring. He’s a career scorer around 65 percent at the rim, which is something the Bulls have needed from time to time, a player who can go strong to the rim and dunk the ball.
They’ll also possibly be needing to go through Indiana again, a team that is loaded with bigs who enjoy playing hard. “The Vanilla Gorilla” would give the Bulls one more big body to bang underneath.
Finally getting him means Miami doesn’t. If Miami doesn’t get him, that’s good for Chicago. Right now everything about both teams this season has to do with the other.
Miami is more in need of a big than Chicago, so if Chicago gets him that means the gulf between bigs gets that much deeper.
In the end, it might be that’s the biggest difference in Chicago getting him, if they do.
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Chicago Bulls: Is Tom Thibodeau a Shoe-in for Coach of the Year?
It may have gone by unnoticed, but Tom Thibodeau was awarded Eastern Conference Coach of the Month honors for the month of January.
Thibodeau, who won Coach of the Year honors last season, was awarded Coach of the Month honors three times (January, March and April) last season.
The Bulls finished the first month of the season with an 18-5 record, which was tops in the league. They also did this playing the most jam-packed schedule in the league and also missing several key players.
Reigning MVP Derrick Rose has missed six games, while Luol Deng recently missed seven games. Also, Rip Hamilton has missed more games then he has played in. He only played in 11 of the team’s first 23 games.
Joakim Noah also missed one game as well leaving Carlos Boozer as the only starter to start every game.
The starters aren’t the only ones missing time. Backup point guard C.J. Watson has missed 10 games and Taj Gibson has sat out three games.
I didn’t even mention how many games that had several of these players missing, which has lead to Brian Scalabrine and John Lucas III to see significant playing times.
Ten different players have already started a game this season. They had 11 players start games all of last season.
All this and the second-year coach still has the Bulls firing on all cylinders. They currently have the second-best point differential in the league while playing more road (13) games than home (10) games.
If the Bulls keep up this play, which is completely possible assuming they get healthy, there is a good chance Thibodeau might once again be honored come the end of the season.
Scott Brooks of Oklahoma City, Doug Collins of Philadelphia and Miami‘s Erik Spoelstra will probably give him the most competition.
The Bulls starters have missed more games then those three teams combined and still have a better record, while playing more games.
Right now Thibodeau has to be the front-runner and it might be hard for any other coach to surpass the Bulls head coach.
Make sure to follow me on Twitter @dachicagofan, and check out my weekly Bulls podcast every Wednesday on my site The MG Experience
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Why Chicago Bulls Fans Need to Stop Worrying over the Fate of the Team
If you listen to some people, the Chicago Bulls are destined for another winning season only to end in despair in spite of the fact they hold the Eastern Conference’s best record.
They point to recent losses to the Indiana Pacers, Miami Heat and Philadelphia 76ers and wonder whether the Bulls can win a series against such teams with the team as it’s constructed. The problem is that this ignores the team as it’s constructed.
Those losses did not come to the team as it’s constructed. They came with the team incomplete, missing key players. Now I know about the specious argument that talking about injuries is just making excuses, but that’s just wrong. It’s flat-out, purposefully wrong to suggest that injuries don’t matter and that it’s “homerism” to make such “excuses.”
Just ask the Indianapolis Colts if injuries matter. Of course injuries matter. Games are played by players. To argue that injuries don’t matter is to argue that who is playing doesn’t matter. So then what matters? The uniform you’re wearing? The irony is that the real “homerism” argument is the “excuse” that “injuries don’t matter.”
There will be those that say that every team deals with injuries, and they do. However, they don’t all have equal numbers of injuries. In the table below are the top teams in the league and the number of games they’ve missed due to injury.
Teams are listed in order of winning percentage. These are the four teams who have a winning percentage over .700 and the number of games lost by both starters and key reserves due to injury. I am identifying a key reserve as a player who averages at least 15 minutes per game.
| Games Lost Due To Injury | |||
| Team | Starters | Key Reserves | Total Games Lost |
| Chicago | 27 | 24 | 51 |
| Miami | 11 | 12 | 23 |
| Philadelphia | 11 | 9 | 20 |
| Oklahoma City | 5 | 14 | 19 |
*EricMaynor has been lost for the season due to injury. Rookie Reggie Jackson has actually put up slightly better numbers (9.9 PER to 9.4) in his place.
As you can see, the Bulls have lost as many games due to injury to starters as the Heat, the 76ers and the Thunder combined. That makes it a pretty fair statement that the Bulls are not experiencing “just like everyone else” unless of course you mean everyone else combined.
Nor can you arbitrarily dismiss the importance of the individual injuries. The three primary players who have lost games due to injury are Derrick Rose, the reigning MVP of the league, Luol Deng, one of the best perimeter defenders in the NBA, and Richard Hamilton, the player acquired to fill up the weaknesses which cost the Bulls the Eastern Conference Finals.
When you’re looking at these injuries there are two aspects that need to be considered: the aggregate effect and the individual effect.
The aggregate affect is the compounded effect of missing players due to injuries. The Bulls won their first five games without Hamilton but that effect multiplies over time. The Bulls have missed about 1,211 minutes of playing time due to injuries.
There have been 308 total minutes played by end-of-the-bench players, Brian Scalabrine and John Lucas III, as well as Mike James. If we conservatively say that about 30 minutes (10 percent) of that is due to “victory cigars” that leaves roughly 278 minutes that end of the bench players have played.
That means there are 933 minutes filled in by the other key rotation players. That’s an average of 117 extra minutes played by each of the rotation players, or about four to five extra games worth of minutes each has individually played.
When you’re talking about the densest January of any team in the history of the NBA, with the most road games of any team this year, that’s a fatigue factor that adds up. Fewer players play the same number of wins. Those games are coming on the road.
The Bulls have played the most games, 26, and the most road games, 16, in the NBA this year. They also have the most back-to-backs (10) already played and that’s counting their back-to-back-to-back as only one.
The Bulls already have 10 players with more than 300 minutes played this season. The Thunder, Heat and 76ers have eight.
The Bulls don’t have fresh legs to come off the bench. The insane schedule, combined with the injuries depleting their rotation, combined with the quality of the opponents all factor into those three losses.
When you look at the specific injuries, particularly those to Richard Hamilton and Luol Deng, you see the specific effects too. Combined they average 30.4 points, 10.5 rebounds, and 6.0 assists per game. Obviously, that’s an impact.
To argue that impact has no effect on the games is an obtuse argument. Of course it has an effect on the game, and it’s direct as well as indirect. It’s offensive as well as defensive.
The Bulls average 101 points when Rip Hamilton plays, compared to 94 when he doesn’t. That’s a difference of seven points.
The Bulls give up 95 points when Luol Deng doesn’t play compared to 85 when he doesn’t. That’s a difference of 10 points.
Does that mean that if they’re both in then it’s a combined difference of 17 points per game? Of course not because both players have played some games together. At the same time it sure does’t mean “nothing” either.
It can’t be ignored the Bulls are a much better offensive team when Hamilton is in the lineup. They are a much better defensive team when Deng is in the lineup.
These are realities and legitimate factors that need to be taken into consideration when looking at the team going forward.
Furthermore, there’s another reason that the Bulls aren’t making excuses (or that I’m not making excuses for them). They have the best record in the Eastern Conference. They don’t need to be excused.
They have either the second- or third-most efficient offense in the NBA (depending on whether you use basketball-reference’s offensive rating or ESPN’s offensive efficiency) and the third-most efficient defense in the NBA in spite of all those injuries.
When you’re looking at the Bulls and what they’ve done this season it’s not “taking away” from anything the Heat, Sixers or Pacers have done to acknowledge this. No one is suggesting putting asterisks next the numbers in the win column. They fairly won those games, but they didn’t win those games against the Bulls roster as constructed.
When you’re looking at the Bulls going forward, which is what you should be looking at when you’re talking about potential trades or the Bulls prospects in the postseason, you have to consider the roster as constructed.
When the Bulls finish their current road trip they will have already played almost two-thirds of their road schedule before the All-Star break. The Heat so far have played 11 road games and 12 home games. The Sixers have played 9 road games and 15 home games.
The thing is that from there on out things even out in the Eastern Conference. The Bulls will have a lighter schedule with more home games. The Heat and Sixers will have more road games and more games period.
Things get easier for Chicago, particularly as they get healthy. Things get harder for the other guys.
More importantly though, as time goes by, the Bulls also will start getting healthy. We’ll actually see what happens when they are playing together as constructed. Then we’ll be able to judge the team based on what they’ll like in the postseason, better rested and healthy.
Until then, step away from the panic button. The Bulls are doing just fine, and things are going to get even better.
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Why Chicago Bulls Fans Need to Stop Worrying over the Fate of the Team
If you listen to some people, the Chicago Bulls are destined for another winning season only to end in despair in spite of the fact they hold the Eastern Conference’s best record.
They point to recent losses to the Indiana Pacers, Miami Heat and Philadelphia 76ers and wonder whether the Bulls can win a series against such teams with the team as it’s constructed. The problem is that this ignores the team as it’s constructed.
Those losses did not come to the team as it’s constructed. They came with the team incomplete, missing key players. Now I know about the specious argument that talking about injuries is just making excuses, but that’s just wrong. It’s flat-out, purposefully wrong to suggest that injuries don’t matter and that it’s “homerism” to make such “excuses.”
Just ask the Indianapolis Colts if injuries matter. Of course injuries matter. Games are played by players. To argue that injuries don’t matter is to argue that who is playing doesn’t matter. So then what matters? The uniform you’re wearing? The irony is that the real “homerism” argument is the “excuse” that “injuries don’t matter.”
There will be those that say that every team deals with injuries, and they do. However, they don’t all have equal numbers of injuries. In the table below are the top teams in the league and the number of games they’ve missed due to injury.
Teams are listed in order of winning percentage. These are the four teams who have a winning percentage over .700 and the number of games lost by both starters and key reserves due to injury. I am identifying a key reserve as a player who averages at least 15 minutes per game.
| Games Lost Due To Injury | |||
| Team | Starters | Key Reserves | Total Games Lost |
| Chicago | 27 | 24 | 51 |
| Miami | 11 | 12 | 23 |
| Philadelphia | 11 | 9 | 20 |
| Oklahoma City | 5 | 14 | 19 |
*EricMaynor has been lost for the season due to injury. Rookie Reggie Jackson has actually put up slightly better numbers (9.9 PER to 9.4) in his place.
As you can see, the Bulls have lost as many games due to injury to starters as the Heat, the 76ers and the Thunder combined. That makes it a pretty fair statement that the Bulls are not experiencing “just like everyone else” unless of course you mean everyone else combined.
Nor can you arbitrarily dismiss the importance of the individual injuries. The three primary players who have lost games due to injury are Derrick Rose, the reigning MVP of the league, Luol Deng, one of the best perimeter defenders in the NBA, and Richard Hamilton, the player acquired to fill up the weaknesses which cost the Bulls the Eastern Conference Finals.
When you’re looking at these injuries there are two aspects that need to be considered: the aggregate effect and the individual effect.
The aggregate affect is the compounded effect of missing players due to injuries. The Bulls won their first five games without Hamilton but that effect multiplies over time. The Bulls have missed about 1,211 minutes of playing time due to injuries.
There have been 308 total minutes played by end-of-the-bench players, Brian Scalabrine and John Lucas III, as well as Mike James. If we conservatively say that about 30 minutes (10 percent) of that is due to “victory cigars” that leaves roughly 278 minutes that end of the bench players have played.
That means there are 933 minutes filled in by the other key rotation players. That’s an average of 117 extra minutes played by each of the rotation players, or about four to five extra games worth of minutes each has individually played.
When you’re talking about the densest January of any team in the history of the NBA, with the most road games of any team this year, that’s a fatigue factor that adds up. Fewer players play the same number of wins. Those games are coming on the road.
The Bulls have played the most games, 26, and the most road games, 16, in the NBA this year. They also have the most back-to-backs (10) already played and that’s counting their back-to-back-to-back as only one.
The Bulls already have 10 players with more than 300 minutes played this season. The Thunder, Heat and 76ers have eight.
The Bulls don’t have fresh legs to come off the bench. The insane schedule, combined with the injuries depleting their rotation, combined with the quality of the opponents all factor into those three losses.
When you look at the specific injuries, particularly those to Richard Hamilton and Luol Deng, you see the specific effects too. Combined they average 30.4 points, 10.5 rebounds, and 6.0 assists per game. Obviously, that’s an impact.
To argue that impact has no effect on the games is an obtuse argument. Of course it has an effect on the game, and it’s direct as well as indirect. It’s offensive as well as defensive.
The Bulls average 101 points when Rip Hamilton plays, compared to 94 when he doesn’t. That’s a difference of seven points.
The Bulls give up 95 points when Luol Deng doesn’t play compared to 85 when he doesn’t. That’s a difference of 10 points.
Does that mean that if they’re both in then it’s a combined difference of 17 points per game? Of course not because both players have played some games together. At the same time it sure does’t mean “nothing” either.
It can’t be ignored the Bulls are a much better offensive team when Hamilton is in the lineup. They are a much better defensive team when Deng is in the lineup.
These are realities and legitimate factors that need to be taken into consideration when looking at the team going forward.
Furthermore, there’s another reason that the Bulls aren’t making excuses (or that I’m not making excuses for them). They have the best record in the Eastern Conference. They don’t need to be excused.
They have either the second- or third-most efficient offense in the NBA (depending on whether you use basketball-reference’s offensive rating or ESPN’s offensive efficiency) and the third-most efficient defense in the NBA in spite of all those injuries.
When you’re looking at the Bulls and what they’ve done this season it’s not “taking away” from anything the Heat, Sixers or Pacers have done to acknowledge this. No one is suggesting putting asterisks next the numbers in the win column. They fairly won those games, but they didn’t win those games against the Bulls roster as constructed.
When you’re looking at the Bulls going forward, which is what you should be looking at when you’re talking about potential trades or the Bulls prospects in the postseason, you have to consider the roster as constructed.
When the Bulls finish their current road trip they will have already played almost two-thirds of their road schedule before the All-Star break. The Heat so far have played 11 road games and 12 home games. The Sixers have played 9 road games and 15 home games.
The thing is that from there on out things even out in the Eastern Conference. The Bulls will have a lighter schedule with more home games. The Heat and Sixers will have more road games and more games period.
Things get easier for Chicago, particularly as they get healthy. Things get harder for the other guys.
More importantly though, as time goes by, the Bulls also will start getting healthy. We’ll actually see what happens when they are playing together as constructed. Then we’ll be able to judge the team based on what they’ll like in the postseason, better rested and healthy.
Until then, step away from the panic button. The Bulls are doing just fine, and things are going to get even better.
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Chicago Bulls Have the NBA’s Best Fans
Being present at last night’s Bulls-Bucks tilt, it was unbelievable to witness the amount of raucous Bulls fans who ventured north to Wisconsin.
Last night, the Bradley Center in downtown Milwaukee was warped into the United Center North, or the Madhouse in Milwaukee.
Bulls fans are growing accustomed to doing this in their Midwest battles. In last year’s playoffs against Indiana, Bulls fans converged on Indianapolis and painted a significant portion of the Conseco Fieldhouse seats red.
Furthermore, when Bulls fans assemble at opposing arenas, they don’t do it quietly. The challenge of the night seems to be taking ownership of the building and always exceeding the volume of the hometown crowd. In this quest, Bulls fans seem to always prevail.
It’s clear that the support of the Chicago Bulls is avid and consistent. It begs us to ask if the Bulls possess the best fans in the NBA.
The support at the United Center is obvious, as it has been for years. A ticket was hard to find in the Jordan-era, but even immediately after the “Unforgeta-Bulls” moved on, tickets were still a hot commodity.
There were some ugly years in there too, in which the marquee players were Ron Mercer, Eddy Curry, Jalen Rose and Brad Miller. Despite the below average Bulls squads, fans crammed the United Center seats.
They’re cramming the Madhouse on Madison all the more these days. And not only the Madhouse on Madison, but also other nearby venues.
Truthfully, Chicago fans appear to take it up a notch at opposing arenas. During last night’s introductions, Milwaukee’s starting lineups were drowned out by the boo-birds.
It’s like the Bulls’ fans enter opposing arenas to make a statement, and then they go make it while having a lot of fun in the process.
Now, let’s not got overly biased and act like there aren’t other teams with great fans. Oklahoma City has their own madhouse, as they’ve developed a college-like atmosphere in which they color the stadium blue.
And classic, large-market teams like the New York Knicks, Boston Celtics, Dallas Mavericks, Los Angeles Lakers and now the Los Angeles Clippers also create a crowd-pleasing environment. I doubt hundreds of Bulls fans would be able to weasel into those arenas. Their devout fans wouldn’t allow it.
But it does appear that loyal Chicagoans are attached to the Bulls in a rather unique way. How many teams possess thousands of fans who travel across state lines to catch a game? In this, the fans of Chicago should be respected.
Chicago fans have proven they will support the Bulls through triumph and defeat. Right now, triumph appears to be on the horizon, and you can expect to see plenty of red in the coming weeks, months and years.
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Chicago Bulls: Do They Have Enough to Get Past the Miami Heat This Year?
The Chicago Bulls currently maintain the best record in the Eastern Conference and are only percentage points behind the Oklahoma City Thunder for the best record in the NBA.
However, they had the best regular-season record in the league last year but were unable to get past the three-headed monster of the Miami Heat in the Eastern Conference finals.
As we sit at about one-third of the way through this shortened 66-game NBA season, it appears that once again, these two teams are the class of the Eastern Conference and probably of the entire league.
So barring any unforeseen circumstances, it’s probably fair to expect to see them both battling each other for the right to reach the NBA Finals yet again.
The question now is, do the Bulls have enough to get past the Heat this time around?
Well, we recently got a preview of what we might again see in late May as the Heat outlasted the Bulls 97-93 in Miami last weekend.
Contrary to what many players were saying prior to that contest, it was anything but just another regular-season game. In fact, it had the same feel and drama as most of the games in last year’s conference finals.
And just like many of those games, this game came right down to the wire, but when push came to shove, the Heat found a way to win, and the Bulls were left questioning themselves.
So, how is this year any different than last?
Well, the Bulls did add Rip Hamilton, which if he ever gets healthy will make a big difference as he gives the Bulls another scoring option. He’s obviously not Dwayne Wade at this point in his career, but he is still dangerous enough that whoever is guarding him can’t help on Rose.
Hamilton is the only change the Bulls made in the offseason other than signing rookie Jimmy Butler, but is it enough?
Now it’s no secret that the Heat have the best starting five in the league with LeBron James, Dwayne Wade and Chris Bosh anchoring the lineup, but how does the rest of the squad stack up against the Bulls?
Chicago has arguably the best bench in the league with a second five that features C.J. Watson, Kyle Korver, Ronnie Brewer, Taj Gibson and Omer Asik. And while Miami’s bench isn’t great, they did add Shane Battier in the offseason to bolster their second team.
So, it would seem that Miami still holds a slight advantage over the Bulls just based on their star power, but that doesn’t mean the Bulls can’t beat them in a seven-game series this time around.
A big key for the Bulls is to get healthy by the end of the regular season so that they are at full strength going into the playoffs.
They have been without starting small forward Luol Deng for a couple of weeks now, which certainly makes a difference. Deng was having an All-Star caliber season prior to injuring his left wrist and definitely makes the Bulls a different team. He’s not only another scoring option but is a tough defender.
The Bulls are currently in the midst of their longest road trip of the season and have been without Deng and Hamilton for most of it. In addition, they were missing the league MVP, Derrick Rose, for five games recently, but despite all of this, they still have been able to fight through it with the best record in the east—thanks in large part to that stellar bench.
This tells you a lot about this team and their toughness.
There’s no doubt they’ve had some tough games along they way, such as their recent loss to a good Philadelphia team, but they always seem to be able to bounce back.
Coach Tom Thibodeau recently said, “I love the resiliency of our team, the resolve of our team, the bounce-back ability of the team.”
And this may be the biggest advantage the Bulls have over the Heat—toughness and resiliency.
The Bulls will have several more home games than road games during the second half of the season and will hopefully get healthy as well, which bodes well for their chances of again finishing with the best record in the Eastern Conference and maintaining the home-court advantage throughout the playoffs.
Some people believe that the Bulls need to add another piece in order to surpass the Heat, but that might not be the case.
If they get healthy, they may be just fine.
At this point, it remains to be seen if the Bulls or the Heat will make any changes to their rosters in the coming weeks, but a few things are certain—they both expect to see each other in the playoffs, and they both know it will be a battle no matter what.
It should be interesting to see which team will be left standing this year.
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Chicago Bulls Skin Milwaukee Bucks in Home Away from Home
The Chicago Bulls temporarily took possession of the Bradley Center, making it United Center II tonight as they hunted, skinned and roasted the Milwaukee Bucks 113-90.
The big news was Deng big news, as in Luol Deng playing. He anchored the defense. He scored. He rebounded. He was Glue-All. His 21 points and nine boards were nice, but if there’s a player in the NBA that can’t be measured by stats, it’s Deng.
The defense was back in large part because of Deng. The recent trend of giving up easy points in the paint dissolved as the Bulls outscored the Bucks 50-42 in the paint and held Milwaukee to .398 from the field.
That has a lot to do with Deng locking down on defense. Tonight, though, Derrick Rose also gets a ton of credit for his defensive job on Brandon Jennings, who didn’t score at all until late in the third quarter and ended the game with just eight points.
Rose, who as of late has taken his game to another level—even for him—scored 26 points, adding 13 assists and seven rebounds.
In his last two games, Rose has scored or assisted on 116 of the Bulls’ 216 total points. Over his last five games, he’s averaged 29 points and 9.2 assists.
Joakim Noah had another solid game, scoring 14 points and nine boards. He is now averaging 11.8 points and 11.2 boards over his last eight games since he came back form injury.
It was hard to tell who had the home-court “advantage” tonight. Several times when they tried to get the “Let’s go Bucks” chant started, the “Bulls” chants drowned out the “Bucks” chants. When Rose scored 13 points early in the first quarter, the MVP chants were booming through the arena.
Even the Scalabrine chants were enthusiastically felt, and satisfied. Red shirts seemed to outnumber the green ones fairly easily.
It’s gotta be bad for Milwaukee to have the other team get more cheers than they do.
The Bulls fans probably won’t travel quite as well to New Jersey, where the Bulls dropped a game last season before they acquired Deron Williams.
The Bulls played their league-leading 16th road game tonight, and won their league-leading 11th, but they still have four more to go before they end this road trip. They have also played the most games in the NBA (26) and have won a league-high 20.
On the bright side, the New Jersey game will put them over the halfway point for road games this season, and by the time this trip is over, the Bulls will have nearly played two-thirds of their total road games for the year.
That means that all those things balance out after they get back. They’ll be playing more games at home, getting better rested and getting healthier. If they come out of this road trip with the best record in the East, it will hard to take away the top seed from them.
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Chicago Bulls: Is Luol Deng More Valuable Than Derrick Rose?
Derrick Rose is the undisputed leader of the Chicago Bulls who is capable both facilitating and carrying the team to victory.
Luol Deng is Chicago’s most versatile player who contributes to the team in every facet of the game.
Chicago has played five games this season without their undisputed leader and amassed a 4-1 record.
Luol Deng has missed seven consecutive games and is expected to miss more. So far, the Bulls have accrued a 4-3 record. The most recent win against the New York Knicks could’ve very easily went the other way.
In the Rose-less stretch of the season Chicago still played pretty solid basketball on both ends of the court.
The offense was able to put up a respectable 98.2 points per game while the defense was still able to lock down opponents holding them to just 85.4 points per game.
With the exception of a complete breakdown against the Memphis Grizzlies, the Bulls received contributions from just about everyone on the roster to help continue their early season winning ways.
Over the course of this continuing stretch without Deng, the Bulls have gone 4-3 scoring 97.8 points and allowing 96.4 points, a significantly narrower margin of victory.
While Chicago ended their stretch without Rose on three game-winning streak, they have yet to even post consecutive wins sans Deng.
These contrasting performances bring up a very intriguing question.
Is Luol Deng more important to the Bulls’ success than Derrick Rose?
The big swing in points allowed obviously shows that the defense is severely lacking stopping power without Deng on the floor; however, other major categories show very little change.
The Bulls currently average 44.9 rebounds per game. That number was slightly higher without Rose at 45.6 and a little lower without Deng, 42.1.
Their 22.3 assists per game average was virtually the same without Rose at 22.6 and less than one assist lower without Deng, 21.5.
Chicago’s 96.3 overall points scored average is actually below what the team averaged without Rose and Deng.
Despite these statistical similarities, and intentionally omitting the obvious defensive disparities, it is the offensive aspect where the Bulls have suffered more than what one might have thought.
The most evident observation that can made here is that Rose’s scoring has gone up (28.4 ppg), but his assists have gone down (6.7 apg) without Deng being active.
Despite the overall team assist average not budging much, there is an obvious lack of offensive continuity without Deng on the court to keep the ball moving. This problem has been exacerbated with Richard Hamilton’s absence, as well.
Without Deng, there’s no one on the floor who demands enough respect to keep a wing defender from helping on Rose.
Kyle Korver can keep running off multiple screens, but Ronnie Brewer still isn’t enough of an offensive threat to keep his defender honest.
Without Deng presenting that second scoring/assist option, the burden to either score or create falls exclusively to Rose.
This void causes Chicago to fall back into the same habits of seasons’ past of Rose handling the ball while the bigs set picks and everyone else just kind of stands around.
The assist average remains comparable, but it doesn’t come from continuous ball movement allowing everyone to both touch and move without the ball. Rose merely drives and passes. That stagnation severely hinders player contributions.
This team relapse is the biggest adverse side-effect of Deng’s absence.
But still, is he more valuable to the team than Rose?
The short answer is no. The explanative answer requires a look at who the Bull played in each player’s absence.
Chicago’s stretch without Rose was against teams that did not have winning records. Their losses without Deng were to the Indiana Pacers, Miami Heat and Philadelphia 76ers. Those were teams who could’ve beaten Chicago even if the Bulls were fully manned.
This doesn’t necessarily mean that Rose is more valuable than Deng either. The deficiencies shown in both players’ absences underscore the importance of the Bulls needing both men on the floor in order to have the best chances of winning.
Both Rose and Deng do so many things so well that they are able to make up for a supporting player’s shortages more than a reserve player can pick up Rose and Deng’s slack during their absence.
The Bulls are a complete team, and that totality works both to their benefit and to their detriment. They are nearly unstoppable with all hands on deck but often struggle when key players are absent.
Deng’s time off calls attention to some of the other areas in which Chicago could use improvement.
The value of Rose and Deng are equivocally apparent, and the one thing that’s for sure is that the Bulls need them both if they are going to win a title.
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Nicked-Up Chicago Bulls Nick Knicks, 105-102
The Chicago Bulls may be nicked up, but that didn’t keep them from beating the New York Knicks for their NBA-leading 19th win.
Derrick Rose, once again, carried the Bulls in the fourth quarter and throughout the game. In all, Rose scored 32 points and had 13 assists. Counting the threes he assisted on, he accounted for 60 of the Bulls’ points. Rose is now averaging 23.5 points per game and 8.0 assists.
In the fourth quarter, Rose scored 15 of the Bulls’ 27 points and assisted on two more.
It’s safe to say he earned his All-Star selection.
Once again the Bulls’ defense was getting shredded, though. Without Luol Deng, it’s just not the same.
In the past, it’s seemed at times like head coach Tom Thibodeau would have to be put on suicide watch if Deng were traded, and watching the prolonged time without him, it’s easy to see why.
Particularly when Kyle Korver has to start in place of Deng because Brewer is playing in place of Hamilton, the defense suffers.
Because Korver simply isn’t quick enough to guard the quicker fours—and Andre Iguodala and Carmelo Anthony in back to back games are nightmare matchups for Korver—Joakim Noah has to come over to provide help defense.
As a result, Boozer is left without the help that he usually gets and the end result is the Bulls get punished in the paint.
When Deng is in the lineup, not only does he not need help, he’s able to give help. Noah is able to give the help that Boozer needs, not having to worry about defending three positions at the same time.
Tonight his four fouls were largely a result of trying to get back to help Boozer after having had to get out of position to help Korver. Honestly, tonight Korver did about the same thing I did for the Bulls’ defense. He sat around watching the Knicks score on him.
Yes, the Bulls miss Deng’s 15 points per game, but they miss his defense even more. The Bulls were giving up an average of 85 points per game with Deng playing. Since he’s gone down, they have been giving up 95 points per game.
Luol Deng is worth 10 points per game on the defensive end—that’s huge. I hope coaches think of that when they’re filling out their ballots. Deng needs to be an All-Star.
I’d also like to point out that the Bulls have played the most games (25) of any team in the NBA, the most road games (16) and the most back to backs (10) of any team in the NBA. They have done this missing 27 total games from their starters (in 25 games, mind you!)
Lest you’re thinking that all of this is excuses, let me remind you, the Bulls have the best record in the Eastern Conference and the most wins in the NBA.
These aren’t excuses for what the Bulls haven’t done, but they are obstacles the Bulls have overcome in what they have accomplished.
The Bulls’ next game comes Saturday night against the Milwaukee Bucks, who have been playing much better lately and beat the Miami Heat in their last game. There are rumors that Deng should be available for that game.
The Bulls should also be slightly better rested as they’ll be heading back to Chicago tonight and will at least be able to spend a couple of nights in their own beds. They’ll also see their schedule lighten up a bit now as they won’t have more back to backs until after the All-Star Game.
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