How Chicago Bulls Can Get Back into Title Contention

The Chicago Bulls are 30-17, leading the Central Division, 1.5 games out of the No. 2 seed and just became the first team to beat the Golden State Warriors in Oakland. So of course, Bulls fans everywhere are panicking.

That's because even though they're beating the best teams in the NBA, they're losing to the worst, most recently demonstrated by their ending the Los Angeles Lakers nine-game losing streak. 

Coach Tom Thibodeau’s job is on the line—the latest round of rumors, fueled by a team meeting, have come from Chris Sheridan of Sheridan Sports.

Tony Gutierrez/Associated Press

Even K.C. Johnson of the Chicago Tribune is reporting that, “…While there are no plans to replace Thibodeau during the season, a mutual parting of the ways after this season wouldn't surprise many league personnel familiar with the deteriorating dynamic.”

Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo disagrees and told the Mully and Hanley Show that:

"

I don’t know where the idea of him getting fired has come from, but I don’t think that’s going to happen

Listen, teams go through ruts — especially teams who are pushed and as driven as the Bulls are. There are times the coach’s act runs thin and they’re tired of them. That happens through stretches. That happens to everybody. I still think — and people around the league that I talk to think — that they’ll come out of this. This isn’t where the Bulls expected to be in the standings … (and) I’m not saying this isn’t an issue to deal with. I just don’t see this as a long-term (problem), this team has checked out on him. I don’t buy any of that.

"

It’s neither the scope nor the intent of this article to get into the viability of these rumors. I only cite them to show how out of proportion the reaction to Chicago’s “disappointing season” is with what’s actually happening.

Yes, Chicago had a really rough patch where they lost six of eight and played uncharacteristically horrible defense. But as Aaron Rodgers once said, “Relax.” I would quote Joakim Noah’s comments of a similar nature, but this is a G-rated article.

The season’s not over. The Bulls did not just get swept out of the playoffs. What we need here is a little perspective and to view a few simple calibrations to get the Bulls’ championship hopes back on track.

Get Healthy

Part of the reason all the panic is unwarranted is that the Bulls haven’t been healthy most of the season. But when they have been, they’ve won. They are 12-3 in games in which they had all five starters.

The first time they lost with their starters intact was against the Dallas Mavericks (Dec. 2), when Kirk Hinrich managed to needlessly foul Monta Ellis and give him three free throws to tie it up, sending it to overtime. Taj Gibson was absent that game. The second loss was a well-fought battle with the Warriors (Dec. 6). And the last was an absolute stinker against the Nets (Dec. 30).

The games with all five starters also include a 100-93 win over the Toronto Raptors (Nov. 13), which was a beatdown until Rose left the game with a turned ankle, and back-to-back wins over Toronto (Dec. 22) and the Washington Wizards (Dec. 23).

What’s intriguing is what happens when one starter is out. Look at the impact of each player missing a game. The table below shows the Bulls' record when each player is the only one out.

Situation	Wins	Losses	Games	Percent
Rose	4	2	6	66.7%
Butler	1	1	2	50.0%
Dunleavy	2	5	7	28.6%
Gasol	1	1	2	50.0%
Noah	4	1	5	80.0%
Total	24	13	37	64.9%

Of all the starters who missed games, the one whose impact has been felt the most is Mike Dunleavy’s, which might be surprising to a lot of people. But it’s no coincidence that the Bulls’ struggles started when he went out.

That’s not because he’s their “best” player. In fact, he’s the weakest starter, and possibly only the sixth-best player on the team. But there are two reasons that his impact is felt so heavily: He’s the hardest one to replace in the lineup, and he provides spacing.

If Pau Gasol or Noah goes down, Gibson can replace either. If Rose is out, Hinrich or Aaron Brooks can cover for him.

There have only been two games where Butler’s been the only missing starter, and the Bulls were 1-1. If he were out for a prolonged period of time, the result would probably be similar to Dunleavy because the Bulls are thin on the wing.

Tony Snell was inserted as the interim starter after the aforementioned team meeting. He’s averaging 9.3 points in 27.5 minutes over the last four games (albeit with a 42.4 field-goal percentage), and the Bulls have gone 3-1 in that stretch.

More importantly, according to NBA.com/Stats, the Bulls’ defensive rating over that stretch is just 97.9, fifth-best in the league and more Thibodeau-like than their 12th-ranked 102.3 for the season.

Thibodeau’s defense is a complicated one, requiring each player to read and react, responding not only the opponent, but to one another. That requires repetition. Thibodeau himself said as much after the Bulls' win over the Warriors, according to Johnson (in the previously linked article), “The more you practice, the better you practice, the better you're going to play. That's time-tested, age-old, however else you want to describe it. That's what you gotta do if you want to win."

If guys can’t start, they can’t practice. All the injuries affect continuity. They’re getting healthy now, and as they are, things are coming around. 

Furthermore, Dunleavy isn’t the Bulls’ most important scorer, but there’s a reason that Jimmy Butler shoots 50.7 percent when Dunleavy’s on the court and only 41.2 percent when he sits. He provides spacing with his 41.7 percent three-point shooting. That opens driving lanes and shots for Butler, as I wrote about before.

Dunleavy does little things too, like setting good screens, helping cover for Gasol on pick-and-pops and drawing charges. These things don’t show up in box scores, but they’re meaningful. In short, Dunleavy is a glue guy, and when you lose your glue guy, things tend to come unglued.

Rose and Butler Finding a Rhythm

Rose and Butler have been teammates for four years, but they’ve shared the court for just 1,123 minutes through Jan. 28. That’s 469 minutes fewer than Kevin Love and Kyrie Irving, who are in their first season together.

For almost all of those minutes, Rose has been coming back from injury. In addition, Butler has emerged as a star out of nowhere, which has caused the Bulls to rethink how they use him (and eventually how much they’ll have to pay him).

The two getting in sync has been an issue. “Game score” (GS) is a single-number metric, similar to player efficiency rating, designed by John Hollinger. Following is a chart comparing their GS for every game. For dates without a circle, the player was inactive.

Notice that over the first part of the season, Butler was huge. But as Rose has risen (pun fully intended), Butler has regressed. The games where both have played well have been scarce, but when they happen, the Bulls are usually successful.

When they both have a game score of 10 or higher—the benchmark for an average game—the Bulls are 14-4. When each plays and they combine for a GS of 20 or more, the Bulls are 20-8. When the pair combine for 30, Chicago is 13-2.

And there’s evidence that they're starting to figure one another out. This season, they’ve played 32 times together. Through their first 13 games (up to Dec. 22), they both hit a double-digit GS on six occasions, a rate of .461. In the subsequent 19 games, they’ve hit it 12 times, a rate of .632.

As Rose and Butler learn to be a truly dynamic duo in the backcourt, the Bulls can only get better. 

More Nikola Mirotic

Nikola Mirotic is already getting 18.0  minutes, which is more than any Bulls rookie in the Thibodeau era (starting in 2010-11), beating out Tony Snell, the surprising previous leader, by two minutes per game. There’s still room for more Mirotic, though, and not for the reasons you’re thinking.

Yes, Mirotic can help stretch the court in a way similar to Dunleavy, but his value is on the defensive end. The Bulls' defensive rating is 98.4 with Mirotic on the court but 104.7 when he’s not. That kind of difference can be a product of lineups, so the fact alone doesn’t mean he’s helping the defense. It could just be coincidence.

There are methods of viewing these metrics to see if he’s more a reason for the better defense or a beneficiary of it, though. First, there is defensive real plus-minus (DRPM), which is tracked at ESPN.com. It uses thousands of pieces of box-score data to estimate the adjusted on/off, plus/minus impact of a player.

Mirotic’s DRPM is plus-2.27, which is 31st in the NBA, second on the Bulls and 10th among all power forwards. He’s actually slightly better than Taj Gibson. The next-best rookie is Sergey Karasev, who at plus-.48 is 130th in the league.

Another way of separating the wheat from the chaff is to look at pairings. If a player’s teammates’ defensive ratings tend to be better when he is playing with them, it’s likely they are benefiting from him and not the other way around.

It’s on this measure that Mirotic’s real value stands out. With at least 50 minutes shared, Noah (94.2), Dunleavy (94.5), Hinrich (96.0), Gibson (96.3), Rose (97.5), Butler (99.7) and Gasol (100.1) all have their best partner in Mirotic. So either they’re all coincidentally playing their best defense with him, or he’s helping them. All told, 10 of the Bulls’ top-21 defensive duos involve Mirotic.

Mirotic’s basketball IQ is off the charts. He’s picking up the NBA and Thibodeau’s complex system quicker than anyone could have expected and he needs to get more playing time.

Fortunately, he plays two positions and both of them could mean more relief for overtaxed players. Butler is averaging 39.5 minutes per game, with 39 percent of those coming at the 3. Gasol is averaging 35.0. Mirotic could take five from each of them, and the team would be much fresher heading into the postseason.

In sum, it’s all about continuity. The Bulls just need to be healthy, work out their rotation minutes and get used to playing with one another.

The irony of all this is what Bulls fans have been asking for in previous years. In those, the Bulls fought like Tasmanian devils to win every game, playing through various injuries and scrapping for every last win. Then, by the time they got to the postseason, they were beaten up, exhausted and came up short.

This year, it seems like they’re coasting a lot more. Every once in a while, they gear up and show what they’re worth, as evidenced by their 7-3 record against Western Conference playoff teams. But sometimes they slide and get blown out by lousy opponents like the Utah Jazz.

The Bulls, however, seem to be playing for the playoffs this year. And that’s the way it should be. When they are healthy and focused, they can play with anyone. Final judgment on this year’s team can’t be passed until their postseason ends, whether that’s with a first-round departure, a city parade or something in between.