And with me, it's no exception. Year in and year out, despite how bad it hurts during playoff time, I root for my Chicago faithful. But this past sports year was especially painful. The Cubs brought in some big time free agents, played fairly well during the regular season, but with the distractions of new impending ownership, Carlos Zambrano constantly grabbing at his dick and his huge contract extension... and not to mention, injuries... the Cubs were trounced in the first round.
Same with the Bears: tons of injuries, problems in the front office, the Lance Briggs distraction before the season, and yes... the lack of a quarterback, doomed the 2006 NFC champions. While they played really well the last six games of the season, a 7-9 mark just doesn't cut it. At full strength, they could've easily made it to the Super Bowl, and don't kid yourself thinking otherwise.
The Blackhawks are in a unique position because they're definitely rebuilding. They have two outstanding young stars in Patrick Kane and Jonathan Towes and some decent talent around them. Even though I still have to live with the fact that they traded away both Dominik Hasek and Ed Belfour, two future Hall of Fame goalies (who were on the team at the same time, mind you) and the fact that they practically gave away Jeremy Roenick and Chris Chellios.... the Blackhawks seem to be looking up. Their future should be bright, barring any other ridiculous, unforeseen personnel snafus.
However, the biggest disappointment for me is the Bulls. Even though they've played like complete garbage for 95% of this season... they're 1 game out of the final playoff spot in the East, which truly shows that outside of Boston and Detroit, nobody in the East even deserves to be alive past April. When I was a kid, I got to watch every game Michael Jordan played. When you watched the Bulls, you expected them to win every night. It didn't matter who they played. Jordan and Pippen were unstoppable. Their role players were so well rounded, their teams didn't have a weakness. Horace Grant, Bill Cartwright, Rodman, Stacey King, Paxon, Kerr.... everyone brought it every single night. And it's conventional wisdom that if Jordan wouldn't have called it quits in 1994, the Bulls would've won the two titles that the Rockets snagged from them, which would've further cemented them as the greatest basketball dynasty ever.
Seeing their current blunders, and when you couple that with the previous LAJ (Life After Jordan) seasons, it's almost impossible to stomach. Chicago has fielded some horrendous basketball teams the past few seasons. However, they were able to stockpile enough young talent to finally get the team out of the NBA cellar and made themselves formidable again.
Well, that is... up until this season. As of now, the Bulls are in danger of missing the playoffs for the first time in three seasons. After last year's sweep of the Heat and a solid performance against the always dangerous Pistons, it seemed like this could be the Bulls year. It really seemed like they had a legitimate chance in fending off Boston and Detroit. They had a solid young nucleus with Gordon, Deng, Hinrich and Nocioni, a defensive presence in the middle with Ben Wallace, a passable bench, and two solid young prospects in Tyrus Thomas and Joakim Noah. They had a coach who was hungry to win, and a front office who seemed to be Hell-bent on keeping this group in tact.
Umm.... what happened?
It seemed like everything was doomed from the start. Before the season even started, the hot topic around the league was Kobe Bryant, unhappy with the Lakers status, getting shipped to Chicago for half of the Bulls' roster, plus a few draft picks. The deal never made sense to me, if the Bulls were going to unload six players plus a draft pick for one guy, what was going to be left for him to work with. Up until this season, Kobe wasn't winning anything alone out West, so how much better did he think he could do in the East? The Bulls would've been a carbon copy of the Cavs. A team that wasn't equal to the sum of its parts.
After that, the Bulls lost ten of their first twelve games. Players began fighting at practice. Deng, Gordon, and Hinrich all got banged up. They intermittently missed games. Then the Kobe talks suddenly died when the Lakers surged up the standings in the West. Coach Scott Skiles was fired, and the Bulls had no idea what they wanted to do for a coach. First Pete Myers coached a game, they got waxed... then Jim Boylan was named interm coach for the remainder of the season.
The Bulls kept losing.
Then the big three got hurt again. And now... we're at the point in the season that, despite all of this futility... the Bulls are still contenders. You have to sit there and think, how close are they? Well, I've got a formula that SHOULD garner some success, if the Bulls actually followed it.
1. First and foremost... the Bulls need an offensive force in the paint. Noah and Thomas are far too raw at this stage in their career to hold their own down there against the elite defensive low-post forces. And Ben Wallace has about as much offensive polish as Stuart Gray, so he's not an option. After the Bulls saw how little L.A. gave up to get Pau Gasol, I bet they wish they were still hot on his trail coming into this season. Talks with Memphis died last year when they were asking for way too much (I think Deng, Gordon AND Thomas, plus an expiring contract and a draft pick)... but the Lakers essentially stole Gasol from Memphis for forty-five cents. That needs to be their goal: get a guy who's going to dominate down low, and score around twenty a night. If they did, one or two of their young guys could be expendable.
2. Decide on the future of their young core... NOW. The only young players signed for an extensive period of time are Kirk Hinrich and Andres Nocioni, arguably their two least important players. Both show occasional flashes of stardom, but Hinrich has obviously regressed since last season (way too many turnovers, shooting under 35%), and is showing that it's difficult for him to stay healthy. Nocioni can provide a nice spark off the bench, but he absolutely cannot play defense, like most foreign players, and takes some of the worst flops this side of Vlade Divac. The Bulls need to decide if they want to keep Ben Gordon, Luol Deng, Tyrus Thomas and Joakim Noah for a while, and they need to decide now.
Ben Gordon can light up the net for 35 to 40 points on any given night, and is their only pure shooter and penetrator. Deng has some solid all-around aspects of his game and some decent size. If he had just a little more tenacity on the defensive end, he could turn into one of the best all-around players in the East. And as I stated earlier, Thomas and Noah are both showing sparks of future stardom, but it's just too early to tell if they'll be worth a big contract. That aside... the Bulls need to decide NOW if they want to keep this group of guys. Deng and Gordon, especially, since they're going to demand 12+ million dollars per season. It wouldn't hurt to keep Chris Duhon or Thaba Sefolosha, both who should be able to be kept aboard for relatively cheap. Plus, if they decide not to keep one or two of their guys, they could package them in a deal to fulfill their number one need. Let's face it, they won't be able to make a huge splash in the draft (unless Michael Beasley comes out this year... and the Bulls somehow get the top pick).
3. Make a splash with their next head coach. They don't need a huge bombshell that's going to sever the NBA, but the Bulls need to look for a coach that's going to cater to the style of players on their current roster. Jeff Van Gundy or Rick Carlisle would be sound choices in my eyes, buy might garner a higher salary then cheap-ass Jerry Reinsdorf wants to dish out, especially if he has to sign Deng and Gordon for a combined 100+ million dollars. Having a coach is going to reestablish a philosophy for the team. The Bulls have solid pieces in place, they just need some discipline and direction, something an interim coach just can't give them
4. Get healthy. What's so unfortunate about health in sports is that it's partially based on luck. Some teams get lucky, never have any major injuries, and can go through a season with great success because they never get bit by the injury bug, and are able to create chemistry. The Bulls just keep having guys get hurt. And it's not like it's guys buried on the bench, it's their starters. The only player to play in all 50 of their games is Nocioni, and while most of their other players haven't missed substantial time, these injuries cause them to mix up their starting line-up. This team just lacks any chemistry, as opposed to the past three seasons. Not to mention.....
5. The Bulls don't have a real on-court leader. Sure, Hinrich and Deng are both "team captains" but outside of that label, they don't provide that real "leadership" that's shown by guys like Kevin Garnett, Kobe Bryant, Chris Paul or Tim Duncan. Is there any question if those guys are in charge of their respective teams? Not at all. I honestly think Deng needs to be signed for whatever he wants, and he needs to get paired with Noah, Thomas and the rest of their young core. Somebody needs to step it up and really take control of this team, and Luol Deng has the all-around skills to lead a team.
If it were up to me, all of these things would happen. The Bulls would start Hinrich, Gordon, Deng, Noah and Wallace, with Nocioni, Duhon, Thomas, Smith, Gray and Sefolosha rounding out their 12-man rotation. Wallace is going to be gone after next season because of an expiring contract, and maybe sooner, since the rumor around Chicago is they're trying to actively trade his 15 million dollars a season. If he's gone, bump Thomas into the starting 4-spot. That'd be a solid young starting line-up, plus adequate bench depth to be... at worst, the third best team in the East. Getting expiring contracts for Wallace would free up the cap space needed to make a splash in the draft and free agency.
Somebody just needs to re-ignite last year's fire. Most of the pieces are in place, a smart move just needs to be made. God knows I don't want to revisit the 1999-2003 Bulls.
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