Thoughts on the Bull

"The Bulls don’t have a go-to guy. Ben Gordon isn’t it, and Derrick Rose won’t be until he starts getting whistles. And they don’t have any end-game offensive sets that can produce anything but low-percentage jumpers under pressure."



"As currently constructed, the Bulls’ absolute ceiling is the Hawks. The teams are very similarly built. They both are solid defensive teams that could be upper-level if they give consistent effort. They both could be successful if they ran a little bit more. The main difference is that the Bulls play a good game 40% of the time, and the Hawks play well 60% of the time.
More problematic is that neither of these teams is going anywhere. The Bulls, obviously, have wasted another half season due to Del Negro’s resistance to playing Tyrus Thomas and Joakim Noah extended minutes. While Aaron Gray played well in his stint in the first half, keeping the Bulls in the game for stretches, he’s maxed out his potential, whereas Thomas and Noah have the chance to be key pieces to a team. Per 36 minutes, both Noah and Thomas perform well, but they are desperately in need of a coach that will push them to try hard. That sounds silly; these guys should both know that when they play hard, they play a lot, and in turn play well. However, VDN’s annoyingly merit-based rotations leave players in fear of making mistakes, lest they sit for quarters at a time."