Chicago Bulls: Discussing Derrick Rose and Answering the Team's Question

The Bulls are who we thought they were. At the beginning of the season, we had hopes Rose would explode and the Bulls could win upwards of 50 games. At this point in the season, they are accomplishing all this and more. Not only that, but the hard part of their schedule is already over. In fact after the New York game, the Bulls have the easiest remaining schedule of any team in the whole league. There is much to look forward to as a Bulls fan, but some questions still remain, and I'm here to try and address those for you.

Shooting Guard

The only obvious fault on the Bulls right now is a hole at the starting shooting guard position. Unfortunately, we knew the position would be a problem from the start. Numerous trades have been proposed that include such players as Stephen Jackson, JR Smith and OJ Mayo. If we could just add any of those players to this team, it would really help us out.

But to start things off, what would we have to give up. The most valuable trading chip we have right now is Taj Gibson. However, our frontcourt is still very injury-prone, and it just doesn't make me comfortable to trade away such an important part to our current depth. After that, you have CJ Watson. CJ has value around the league and is on a great contract to make a trade with at this time. However, if we lose Watson, what do we do at the backup point? The only player that could even possibly play it is Ronnie Brewer, but that is still not his strength.

None of the players that have been proposed to join the Bulls would bring us to that absolute championship level, especially because we'd have to give up integral parts of the team to acquire them.

So what can we do?

Let the rules work for us! This offseason, the Collective Bargaining Agreement expires. For those of you who may not know what that is, it's the agreement between the NBA Players Association and all of the NBA owners that dictates how everything is done financially. So potentially, the CBA could change so that you aren't allowed to go over the salary cap anymore or salaries could shrink astronomically or one of countless new rules. With the new agreement, the Bulls may able to sign free agents this offseason at a fraction of what they make now.

If the money is not a main determining factor in where a player goes, why wouldn't Jason Richardson or JR Smith want to play in Chicago next year? We have a big market and a superstar who gets you wide open shots. Win win situation. So perhaps the best idea is instead of locking in to long term contracts now when it could hurt us, wait and see with the new CBA.

The Value of Derrick Rose

Many people are trying to figure out how good Derrick really is. They point to his shooting percentages and his trips to the free-throw line and say he's not really an elite player. They also point to his points per game and say it's not good enough.

What the critics need to realize is Derrick couldn't care less about stats. If he shot 0-2 and had zero points, but the team wins, then Derrick feels he had a great game. If someone else is shooting well from the field, Derrick will put his own offense aside and try to get the other guy some open looks.

Take the recent win against Toronto for example. Very often you'll see superstars try to bump their stats by putting up huge lines against bad teams. Not Derrick. He elected to only take a measly 11 shots in the game. Players who put up more shots included Luol Deng, Carlos Boozer and Taj Gibson. Ronnie Brewer nearly did with 10. But Rose didn't care, he just let his teammates do their thing without worrying about his own numbers. That's unheard of.

One of the hardest things to gauge is defense. Rose came into the league as an awful defender. I'm a Bulls fan, but it's no joke, he was horrendous. However, this season, Rose is in the Top Five in Defensive Rating for points guards and holds his opponents to a low 13.4 opponent PER, below the league average of 15. To add to that, Derrick's PER is upwards of 22, which means that he adds FAR more to the table than any defensive deficiencies could take away.

Not only these but Rose is one of the most remarkable human beings I have ever seen. When he has a flaw, he works tirelessly to improve it. As I previously alluded to, his defense is much improved. As well, his jumper was a big concern when he came into the league. After merely one season, Rose had developed a respectable mid range game.

However, the Bulls don't have enough long-range shooters on the team this season. No problem. Rose has raised his three-point percentage upwards of 40 percent, the mark where you call three-point shooters elite. Of course, defenses soon will stop giving the three to him. No problem. If you guard Rose close, he can break your ankles.

Finally, just watching Rose play is an absolute privilege. He has the ability to get to the bucket better than perhaps any player in the league. Usually on defense, a team will rotate when the ball is moved. In this case, the defense rotates when Rose moves a muscle. He is so quick and so strong, players are afraid of him on defense.

Let's say I'm a defender and I've successfully defended Rose at the basket. Well unfortunately, I actually haven't. Rose's incredible body control and strength means that he can just waltz right past me, even when he's already in the air. Who could possibly comprehend the physics behind Derrick Rose. Even if Rose isn't going to be the best player in the NBA, he's absolutely a player that you will have to remember for a long time.

Rotations

One of the few flaws I have found in Thibodeau as a coach is his peculiar rotations. For whatever reason, he refuses to play CJ Watson and eats up minutes with Keith Bogans. Bogans is a fantastic fifth guard; he makes few mistakes and can eat up minutes. However, the concept of a fifth guard is if you don't have the necessary depth and just need players. The Bulls have very talented players just sitting on the bench, waiting to play. It doesn't make sense to play him ahead of those players.

If I was the coach, my rotations would look like this:

PG-Rose (38) Watson (10)

SG-Brewer(30) Korver (13) Watson (5)

SF-Deng (35) Korver (13)

PF-Boozer(32)Gibson(16)

C-Noah(32) Gibson(8) Thomas/Asik (8)

Bogans is the type of player that you use if you don't know what to do for stretches of time because you don't have enough talented players. However, we've got many talented players that are getting far less minutes than they should, so it really doesn't make sense to play a player like Bogans at all in a game.

The reason that Boozer and Noah's minutes are lower than they could be is because first of all, we have good bench bigs. Taj is a starting quality big, Asik is a developing defensive stud and Thomas is Old Reliable. Boozer and Noah have been relatively injury-prone in the past, so we should try to avoid over straining them if we don't have to. Same with Deng, even though his minutes are a bit higher due to a little bit less depth at the three.

Conclusions

The Bulls shouldn't rush into any decisions. They have one of the brightest stars in the whole league at the tender age of 22, and we have many years to try and fine tune things. We don't want to destroy our long term outlook for a piece who won't win a title.

Thanks for the read.