Chicago Bulls: 10 Reasons to Not Overreact to Injuries and Break Up the Team

The Chicago Bulls had a sudden and tragic end to their season in Game 1 of their first-round playoff series against the Philadelphia 76ers. In actuality, they still had five more games to play, but effectively, their 'til then realistic visions of a title were torn from them the moment Derrick Rose tore his ACL.

Now many fans are ready to rush to the panic button in a race to see who can slap it first and slap it the hardest. There are some who want to blow the team up and start over.

My earnest advice here is simple—breathe.

While the Bulls should be looking to tweak and improve, there's no reason to panic and be hasty. There's no reason to make a major trade or start rebuilding. They're still a pretty good team. 

Here are 10 reasons why the Bulls need to not overreact to this year's postseason loss and break up the team. 

10. They Don't Need to

The first and most obvious reason the Bulls shouldn't panic and start over is that they don't need to.

This is the team that finished with the best regular-season record two years in a row. Does that mean everything? No. But it does mean more than nothing, which is what some people would have you believe.

It certainly means more than clichés about how the regular season doesn't mean anything.

Since the merger, the team with the best record won the NBA title 14 out of 35 times. The team with the second-best record won another 11 times. The team with the third-best record won four times. There have only been six times where a team won without a top three regular-season record in the NBA.

The fact that 29 out of 35 NBA champions have been one of the top three regular-season teams is strong evidence that the regular season means "something." 

Among the seeds that have won the title, only one team that was lower than the third seed has won the title since the merger. A No. 3 seed has won four times, a No. 2 seed has won seven times and a top seed has won 23 of 35 times.

That's 66 percent of the time that a top-three seed has won the title. There's a strong chance that it happens again this year, as the only teams that aren't top three seeds remaining are Boston and Philadelphia, and only one of them will make it to the conference finals. 

While winning the regular season doesn't assure a team of a title, it certainly helps. The facts are simply indisputable: There is a clear correlation between regular-season and postseason success. 

9. They Couldn’t If They Wanted to

The second big reason the Bulls shouldn't break the team up is that they probably couldn't if the wanted to. The most they can do is tweak some minor pieces, and tweaking for the sake of tweaking doesn't help.

When people talk about amnestying Carlos Boozer or making a major trade it really doesn't work that way. Generally, if a player is disappointing his current team, other teams aren't ready to snatch them up. If they are, it's usually in exchange for a player that is equally, if not more, disappointing.

The Bulls are at $75 million this year. If they amnesty Boozer, then they'll be at $60 million, which is still over the cap. That means that, regardless of whether or not they amnesty Boozer, the Bulls still have the exact same mid-level exception to spend on one free agent and the veteran's minimum on any others. 

8. Carlos Boozer Isn’t as Bad as Some People Say Anyway

I'm not going to argue that Carlos Boozer is earning every last nickel of his contract, but it's not that he's completely detrimental to the team, either. Certainly he has his defensive limitations, but he has some value as a player, too.

The fact is Boozer scored more points than any Bulls player last year and had the second-most rebounds. Along with Joakim Noah, he combined for the one of the best rebounding tandems in the NBA.

League-wide, Boozer was 10th in field goal percentage, 11th in defensive rebounds, 16th in total rebounds, 20th in effective field goal percentage, 10th in defensive rebound percentage and 17th in win shares.

Is he an All-Star? No. He's not a total flop either, though. All of those are pretty respectable numbers.

In fact, Boozer's per-36-minute numbers aren't really that far off his career numbers. His career averages per 36 minutes are 19.0 points and 11.1 rebounds; last year he was at 18.3 points and 10.4 rebounds.

Yes, Boozer disappeared in Game 6 of the playoffs, and he's disappeared at other big moments, too. That doesn't mean the team is better off if they "disappear" him altogether, though. 

Please don't overstate my argument back to me. I'm not saying he's beyond reproach. I'm merely saying that the Bulls don't get better by amnestying Boozer because he does make a solid contribution to the team. 

7. Injuries Do Matter

One of the more ridiculous arguments I've heard this year is that injuries are no excuse.

Of course they're an excuse. Why wouldn't they be? Arguing that injuries don't matter is the exact logical equivalent of saying it doesn't matter who is on your team. 

How can we can argue that this is a star's league on one hand, and then say it's no excuse when you lose your best player and your second-best player, especially when your third-best player is playing with one hand?

The Chicago Bulls didn't lose to the Philadelphia 76ers in the playoffs—part of the Chicago Bulls lost to the Philadelphia 76ers. You simply cannot ignore the reality that the Bulls are a better team with Rose on the floor, and you can't evaluate this team completely without him.

Neither can you ignore that they are a better team with Joakim Noah. 

6. Tom Thibodeau Is Still Head Coach

The singular-most ridiculous argument made is that somehow the Chicago Bulls lost because of Tom Thibodeau.

There's no better example of "prisoner of the moment" arguing than that.

Thibodeau became the fastest coach in NBA history to get to 100 wins. His career .757 winning percentage, while only two seasons old, is the highest career winning percentage of any coach in NBA history. He's the only coach to ever lead the league in wins in his first two seasons as a head coach.

And in just those two seasons as a head coach, he's 38 games over .500, which is 34th all time.

Does that make Thibodeau one of the all-time greatest coaches? No, and that's not what I'm arguing. I am going to argue that he's off to one of the all-time best starts as a head coach, though. There's no debate about that.

As with Carlos Boozer, that's not to say that there's no fair criticism of Thibodeau. He is guilty of overplaying his players at times, and he's still learning to be more flexible in his lineups. His offense is on the dry side and can look flat-out awful when the shooters aren't making their shots.

All of that's true. 

But none of that has prevented him from leading the league in wins his first two seasons. 

All in all, there's no coach who's not coaching right now who would do a better job, with the exception of Phil Jackson—and he's not coming anyway. Even if he did, it might not be better for the team, as the Bulls love their present coach, and it would be a tough pill (or Phil?) for them to swallow. 

5. Look at the San Antonio Spurs

The Bulls are a long way—as in, two superstars away—from being the Miami Heat, but right now, the Heat aren't looking like the best team in the NBA—the San Antonio Spurs are.

And the Chicago Bulls are a lot more "Spurs" than "Heat."

The Spurs are winning with great coaching, incredible depth and team play. In reality, that's exactly how the Bulls win. The Spurs do it on offense while the Bulls do it on defense, but there are plenty of similarities, such as they both put the organization over individual success.

The Spurs only had one player in the All-Star Game, but they're steamrolling teams in the playoffs. Who says this is all about whoever has the most stars wins? Yes, they have Tony Parker, Manu Ginobili and Tim Duncan, but let's not suddenly put them on par with the Heat’s "Big Three" because they’re winning.

Yes, you need some star power, but it's not all about whoever has the most star power. If you can have a blend of both, like the Bulls, Spurs or last year's Mavericks, you can win a title. 

Also, remember this about San Antonio. Last year, the Spurs had an injury to a key player in Ginobili and got bounced in the first round of the playoffs. They made a couple of tweaks here and there, and they are looking on course to win a title now.

What if they'd blown up their team last offseason?

4. Derrick Rose Is Injured, Not Gone

Derrick Rose is gone for eight months to a year. While he could be gone the entire 2013 season, there's a possibility that he could also be back a little sooner, according to a report from USA Today:

"

The assessment by Dr. Brian Cole on Tuesday means Rose could return around mid-January to early February or miss next season. The doctor added there is a chance Rose could be back sooner, but "we're not going to rush it."

"

I'm not saying Rose will be back sooner, and I'm not saying he won't be. It just seems there are some on the pessimistic side who are assuming that Rose will not be back and that he'll be gone the entire year.

Maybe he will—then maybe he'll be back in January.

Let's not forget that, with a healthy Derrick Rose, this team is one of the best teams, if not the best team, in the NBA. If Rose can make it back next year without rushing (and, of course, they shouldn't and won't rush him back) and can have half the season to get in rhythm, the Bulls could be playing very well come playoff time. 

3. Luol Deng Might Not Have to Choose Between Surgery and the Olympics

There has been considerable concern over Luol Deng, his wrist injury and his playing in the Olympics.

Deng is in a tough position right now. He has a deep, personal obligation to play for Great Britain and represent them in the Olympics. There is a possibility that simply resting between now and the Olympics (or resting after the Olympics) the injury will heal on its own. Don't think that's too ridiculous, either; Kobe Bryant's injury healed on its own while he was playing.

If worse comes to worse, maybe the Bulls miss him for the first moth or two of the season, but it's not how you start, it's how you finish. If the Bulls are at full strength and in the playoffs come playoff time, that's all that matters.

They have the talent to win a title—it's just a matter of if that talent is on the court when the postseason starts. 

2. There Is a Draft

The Bulls aren’t forced between making an overhaul and making no moves at all. For starters there’s this little thing called the NBA draft and through the draft they have an opportunity to get something.

This year they have one pick, their own 29^th pick. They may or may not have a second round pick. The Lakers have the right to it, but they can elect to take cash in lieu of that. In addition they have the future Charlotte Bobcats pick which is top 12 protected next year, top 10 the year after that, top eight the year after that, and unprotected the year after that.

The further we get in time, the closer we get to that pick coming to fruition, which means the more it goes up in value. 

Finally they have Nikola Mirotic, the naturalized Spaniard whom the Bulls drafted last year, and who should be available to come over in two more years. Mirotic has blossomed playing for Real Madrid this year and would have gone in the lottery if he were available to come right away.

The Bulls might have just the 29^th pick but bundling that pick together with the Charlotte pick or Mirotic could move them up into the middle first round where they could sign a player like Dion Watiers, Austin Rivers or Terrence Ross, all players who could be that extra umph the Bulls need when their offense grows stagnant. 

1. There Are Also Veteran Moves They Could Make

Additionally, the Bulls could make some moves through free agency or trade (or even combined with the draft). They have Ronnie Brewer, who is under contract for just under $5 million and is probably their most expendable player. Jimmy Butler will continue to mature and replace him.

The Bulls could look to trade Brewer or merely exercise the option to not sign him and just use the money to sign a free agent such as Andre Miller, Chauncey Billups or Steve Nash.

The reality is that the Bulls might not need a point guard to carry them through the season—just for the first half of it. If they make the right tweaks, they could be a better team when they enter the playoffs next year than they were this year.

And if they can do that, then they can win a title.

Next year's Chicago Bulls can be this year's San Antonio Spurs, but only if they learn their lesson from the Spurs and don't hit the panic button.