3 Players Who Still Have to Step Up for the Chicago Bulls

The Chicago Bulls are exceeding preseason expectations. Projected to be a 7 or 8 seed at best, they are currently in fourth—and a mere half game behind second.

Jimmy Butler deserves the bulk of the credit, having elevated his game to MVP level. According to Basketball-Reference.com and ESPN.com, he is near the top of the league in almost every advanced metric:

Metric	Value	Rank
Win Shares	3.4	2
Win Shares/48 Minutes	0.309	2
Player Efficiency Rating	29	6
Value Over Replacement Player	1.3	4
Box Plus-Minus	7.9	5
Real Plus-Minus	6.78	4
AVERAGE		3.8

Butler’s 7.7 leap in player efficiency rating (PER) nearly matches the 7.8 increase in 2014-15 when he won Most Improved Player. It's also higher than any player who qualified for the minutes per game leaderboard both of the last two seasons.

That not only puts him in MVP consideration but also for an unprecedented second MIP, which would be about the most Jimmy Butler thing ever.

When the Bulls inked Rajon Rondo and Dwyane Wade this summer, the conversation revolved around them joining Butler as the “Three Alphas.” But it’s evident now: there is only one.

And how the other stars, veterans and youngsters fit their games to accommodate him is the real question. Here are the steps three of Butler’s teammates can take to help him out.

Rajon Rondo: Step Down

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Better than the “Three Alphas” designation is the old “Batman” standby, and Butler is clearly Batman. Robin here is not Robin Lopez, but Dwyane Wade.

And you may recall that Bruce Wayne’s butler, Alfred, would frequently sub in for the caped crusader when he was unavailable. To extend our analogy, Rondo, not Butler, makes the best butler.

Which is all to say that Rondo can step up by volunteering to step down and lead the second unit. That would help both the starters and the reserves.

First, the ball should be in Butler’s hands as much as possible. Using SynergySportsTech.com, I looked at the total points and points per possession of every player with 200 possessions. (The advantage to Synergy’s stats over shooting percentages is the inclusion of free throws and turnovers.)

On the chart below, the further to the right the player is, the more efficient he is, and the closer to the top, the more points he’s scored.

Only a handful of guys have scored more than Butler, and only two—Stephen Curry and Kevin Durant—are volume scorers who are more efficient.

You want the ball in Butler’s hands as much possible. The downside is Rondo's about as useful off the ball as a glass of water is to a drowning man.

He can’t utilize screens to spring himself open, and even if he could, he wouldn't be able to capitalize because his jump shot isn't trustworthy. He’s scored just 22 points through 16 games on catch-and-shoot opportunities, per NBA.com. At this point in his career, Rondo isn't even a defender with any value. The Bulls’ defensive rating of 108.6 with him on the court is worst on the team.

The team is also at its best (95.8) when he’s on the bench.

Having Jerian Grant start would give the Bovines a lengthy defender who can take some onus off Butler. Having Isaiah Canaan start would give them a point guard who could play off Jimmy and hit open shots. Either way, they’re helping on at least one end of the court, which is better than Rondo can. But that doesn’t mean Rondo is useless.

The chart below shows both the problem and the solution.

Per NBAWowy.com, the other four starters have a respectable net rating of plus-5.7 when Rondo is running the team. But it’s plus-28.3 when it’s anyone but Rondo. The defense gets immensely better, and the offense even improves slightly. 

But there’s also a potential solution here: Doug McDermott and Nikola Mirotic are both shooters who could thrive playing alongside Rondo, who can create looks for them. When they are on the court together with him and without Butler, the net rating is 12.5. When they are together without either, the net rating is -1.4.

The defense is horrible either way, but the offense gets much better when Rondo is distributing; A 125.0 offensive rating covers up a lot of defensive miscues. Letting Rondo run the second unit lets him do what he’s good at: setting up his shooters.

While it makes perfect sense, the only way this likely happens is if Rondo volunteers.

Nikola Mirotic: Step Up

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Nikola Mirotic's PER has been dropping each year of his career.

He’s also streaky. Last season, he opened horribly after earning the starting job over Taj Gibson and Joakim Noah.  He was fine during the first four games of 2015-16, but then hit a 14-game skid averaging 9.8 points per game on 36.8 percent shooting before losing the starting gig to Gibson.

Mirotic finished the year strong, but now he’s struggling again, and those affect the bottom line. Jay Patt wrote for Blog-A-Bull about Mirotic’s problems with consistency, first noting his splits in wins and losses. Patt lists the seasons individually, but here’s the aggregate for his career, adjusted per 36 minutes: 

Result	G	TS%	USG%	ORtg	DRtg	PTS/36	TRB/36
Win	96	0.602	22.0	114	98	18.6	9.1
Loss	67	0.495	21.9	96	110	15.5	7.4

Fascinatingly, his usage percentage is almost identical in wins and losses. He’s getting the same number of touches; it’s just a matter of what he does with the ball, as Patt explains:

"

Niko is more of a wild card. When he’s engaged and playing well, he adds another element to the Bulls’ offense with his ability to stretch the floor as a big man. And as noted in the above stats, he can be an effective rebounder and at least a passable defender.

Then there are the games where Mirotic is a complete liability, like he was against the Clippers over the weekend. These are the games where he can’t buy a three, gets bullied down low, gets lost on defense and makes at minimum two or three boneheaded decisions. If Niko would’ve even played semi-competently against the Clippers, Fred Hoiberg may have decided to go with him over Bobby Portis down the stretch, and perhaps the game goes differently.

"

When Mirotic's shot is falling, everything else clicks into place. He's stretching for rebounds, diving for loose balls, locked in on defense and hustling for steals. The day after that Clippers game Patt referred to against the Lakers was a perfect example of "good Niko."

Mirotic had a stretch in the fourth quarter that included a couple of buckets, an assist and at least two defensive stops by my count. On the night, he nabbed 15 boards and scored 15 points. 

The Bulls need more "Lakers" Mirotic and less "Clippers" Mirotic. It's not just the results; it's the effort that produces the results. 

Bobby Portis: Get in Step

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Of the younger players, the most disappointing has to be Bobby Portis, who has struggled at both ends of the court this season.

His Real Plus-Minus numbers at ESPN are indicative of how poor ‘tis has been. (I’m sorry, you just have to give me that pun). On offense, he’s minus-1.54; on defense, he’s a minus-0.68. Only 11 of the 91 qualified power forwards are faring worse.

He seems to lose recognition of what is happening on both sides of the court and then is slow to recover. His feet are sluggish, and he lopes about like a stunned deer trying to find its way off the road before it gets slammed by a car.

There are two ways to be a bad defender—lack of recognition and poor execution—and Portis seems to be mastering both. It’s little wonder the Bulls’ defense is 6.7 points better when he’s on the bench or that opponents shoot 4.9 percent better when he’s the defender.

On offense, he often disrupts the play, rather than executing it. He looks too quickly for his own shot instead of the best one. As a result, the offense is also 5.7 points per 100 possessions worse when he’s on the court, even though he’s not shooting that poorly (55.7 true shooting percentage).

Portis needs to figure out the game plan and get in step; This is not the time to march to the beat of your own drummer.  

These aforementioned changes are not only doable, but they also fit together. Having Rondo run the second unit would give Mirotic more consistent chances and help his consistency. It would give the Bulls a vocal captain to run the bench and keep Portis in rank.

All stats for this article were obtained from Basketball-Reference.com or NBA.com unless otherwise noted, and are current as of games Wednesday.