Derrick Rose: Chicago Bulls Need Another Leader in Addition to Reigning MVP

Tom Thibodeau has done a fantastic job in his short tenure in giving the Chicago Bulls an established identity.

Everyone buys into the coach’s philosophy, plays hard and expects nothing but the best from one another. And they all know their on-court success rests on the shoulders of the young and very capable Derrick Rose.

Well, what happens when Derrick Rose isn’t on the court?

The Chicago Bulls have played and split two games without Rose this season. The first game was a defensive win over the lowly Washington Wizards and the second game was a convincing loss to the Memphis Grizzlies.

Both games showcased a Bulls team that was lost offensively as they recorded 15 turnovers and 17 assists against the Wizards and 19 turnovers with just 12 assists against the Grizzlies.

Sure, John Lucas scored 25 against Washington, but he shot 39 percent from the field. Boozer gave only four points on 2-of-4 shooting, and potential All-Star Luol Deng could only muster 12 on 5-of-21 shooting.

Deng fared a little better against Memphis, netting 21 points, and Taj Gibson gave a solid 16-point effort. The only other bright spot was the play of C.J. Watson returning from nursing a dislocated elbow. The rest of the Bulls who saw significant floor time contributed very little to help out the team.

It is clear that Rose is the floor general for Bulls, but there are no lieutenants.

For a team that is so sure of themselves and what they have to do in order to win, they haven’t seemed to figure out how to do that without their MVP guard.

Now, it’s far-fetched to think that someone can come in and do what Rose does if he isn’t on the floor, but it’s not too much to think that on a roster as deep as Chicago’s someone can fill in well enough so that someone else can pick up the slack.

When you think about it, Chicago has a lot of players individually that can do what Rose does.

If it’s scoring that’s needed then Boozer, Kyle Korver, Deng and Watson should fill it up.

If you need assists, the Bulls have big men who are great at passing and Watson can facilitate as well.

The whole team plays good defense and rebounds, so all the bases are hypothetically covered when Rose is not available.

Despite a Bulls roster filled with talent, it seems to be severely lacking in players who can step up into a leadership position when the actual leader is not there. There’s no way of telling if this is a confidence issue or a lack of player development on the part of the organization.

It is pretty apparent, however, that even though the Bulls aren’t completely reliant on Rose to do it all when he is on the floor, they are completely dependent on him to at least be on the floor in order to perform.

All of the NBA greats had teammates they could rely on to hold the ship steady when they weren’t able to. Someone in Chicago needs to become that reliable second-in-command.

The question remains, who?