Thanks for the warm welcome. Long time reader first time contributor.
Makaveli wrote:
Taking a team that is probably a player away and trying to rebuild doesn't seem like the smartest idea. Especially considering the Bulls can and probably will remove over $30M from their books in 2 years. It's unlikely the Bobcats will be good in 3 years so the Bulls will have a likely top 3 pick to work with. They're in great shape. Contrary to popular opinion Miami is beatable and the Bulls in the current form could beat them if they are somewhat healthy.
I would have agreed with this two years ago, but then we saw how limited this team is when matched up against transcendent talent. And equally problematic, we saw how even Derrick Rose is limited when matched up against LeBron in the fourth. I don't think the Bulls are just a player away, they are a superstar away, and those guys are easy to find but nearly impossible to acquire. Also, the Bulls will not save a ton of money after Hamilton's contract expires; they still have multiple years left of Boozer, Noah, and Deng, plus Rose's new contract salary, all of whom are in the 12 million to 16 million range if I am not mistaken. This core, while nice, has already reached its peak in 2011. If you want to clear real money, then out of Deng, Noah, and Boozer, you probably need to get rid of two. Except for maybe Noah, no player out of these three will fetch you an all pro caliber player in a trade. So I am not sure greatness is as close as you make it seem, although I wish it were so.
sinicalypse wrote:
The Original Kid Cairo wrote:
The Bulls will lose in the first round to whomever.
Yeah, all joking aside I have to cosign this thought. The Bulls don't have enough offense to go out and WIN games when their defense doesn't out-defense a team to have a lesser offensive output than themselves. I mean, it's really telling that at this point in the season you'd pretty much WANT Marco Belinelli to have an iso when you're going for a game-winning/tying/deciding shot. That might work for a few games during the regular season, but when you get to the playoffs and your team is the exclusive focus of all of your opponent's study/gameplanning, they're going to look for that Belinelli iso and then it's..... give the ball to LOLDENG and pray?
There's definitely going to be a lot of prayer involved. Since there's no way in hell the dumbass Bulls could miss the playoffs and get a top-5 pick rigged for them in the lottery, I reckon it doesn't make that much of a difference regarding how deep their playoff run is. That said, I think this team is good enough to keep anyone-but-Miami close enough down the stretch to have a fighting chance in just about every game, but they don't have anyone on the team good enough offensively to step up and win them a game/series/championship.
I think sinicalypse is exactly right. This is also why I referred to Luol Deng as "dead weight." He's a fantastic player: 18 points per game, 7-8 rebounds, solid defense, not a troublemaker. The problem with Deng is you cannot rely on him as your secondary scoring option because he's too easily neutralized. He cannot create off the dribble and therefore puts no pressure on defenses. Without a second and/or third creator next to Rose, the Bulls simply cannot score. Ideally, the Bulls would have brought in a legitimate second star in 2010, but we all know how disappointing that free agency period was. Deng is a great third option, but he's in over his head as Rose's right hand man.
By the way, I think the Bulls should have used Noah as a trade bait when they had Asik. Noah is a better passer than Asik, but outside of that, I think they're very similar. Asik could have stepped right in to take over for Noah. Noah is nice, but not untouchable. I hope GarPax are not overvaluing players like they did back in the mid-2000s, when the "core" consisted of Hinrich, Chandler, Gordon, and Deng.
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