Chicago Bulls Are Cleveland Cavaliers' Biggest Threat to Winning NBA Title
Cautious optimism does little to lower the Cleveland Cavaliers' immediate ceiling. Most of the obstacles standing between them and an NBA title aren't, despite LeBron James' pleas to the contrary, real problems. They're minor steppingstones that pose little to no resistance.
Unless we're talking about the Chicago Bulls.
"[The Bulls] are a team that's much better than us right now just off chemistry," James said ahead of Monday's preseason meeting between both squads, per ESPN.com's Brian Windhorst. "They've been together for a while, we've got a long way to go."
James, like he has been wont to do since since rejoining the Cavaliers, might be overselling the existing imbalance between Cleveland and Chicago. But the spirit behind his words isn't wholly inaccurate.
Threats to the Cavaliers' championship chase don't get any more dangerous than the Bulls.
Two-Way Headache
You might say, "Half the Western Conference figures to fare better than the Bulls." If you did, you wouldn't be wrong.
From the reigning champion San Antonio Spurs to the Oklahoma City Thunder to the Golden State Warriors to the Los Angeles Clippers, the West is a powerhouse-packed conference. Its top four—or five or six—teams could, in theory, be better than the Eastern Conference's second-best contingent. If Cleveland is to win a title, it will have to go through one of those indomitable superteams.
But to face that one, menacing Western Conference giant, the Cavaliers have to navigate three rounds' worth of Eastern Conference playoff teams. As weak as the East may be, it's more difficult to string together 12 victories than it is four.
Plus, the Bulls are pretty freaking fantastic.
Like all things Chicago, it starts with Derrick Rose.
Though he's appeared in just 50 games—playoffs and regular season—since the 2010-11 campaign, he adds superstar clout to what was a 47-win faction without him in 2012-13 and a 48-win team in 2013-14 when he played just 10 games. Even if he isn't the Rose of three years ago, he's an upgrade at point guard, piling talent on top of talent.
And if his performance against the Cavaliers on Monday night serves as any indication, he's on the cusp of a full-blown return.
In 24 minutes of action, Rose tallied 30 points on 12-of-18 shooting, reaching the rim at will, carving up Cleveland's lack of interior protection with his explosive and incisive penetration. It's only one preseason game, but like The Cauldron's Kevin McElroy pointed out even before Rose went all 2010-11 on Cleveland, this is a sustainable offensive blueprint:
"If Rose is anything resembling his old self, quite well. Interior defense will be a problem for Cleveland, as will defending point guards at the top of the key. That could mean a bonanza for a healthy Rose; it could also mean that Cleveland opts to use James on him for stretches, which would open up the floor for Chicago’s wings on offense. ... The Bulls’ offense isn’t going to explode for 100 points every night, but it matches up well with the Cavs, and most importantly, it doesn’t rely too heavily on a wing player who LeBron will be able to neutralize.
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Rose is basically a matchup nightmare for the Cavaliers. James will be forced to guard against his dribble penetration whenever the two teams meet, which, at worst, means Chicago has to rely on one of its other weapons.
That may have been a problem last season, when the Bulls ranked 24th in three-point shooting and 27th in offensive efficiency. This side of the offseason, though, they're armed with secondary options who can make even the staunchest defenses—so, not the Cavaliers'—pay for collapsing on Rose's drives.
Pau Gasol and Joakim Noah form the NBA's most unique interior pairing. Both are viable playmakers, and Gasol still has a jump shot—and, apparently, corner-three range—that stretches defenses even further.
Adding rookies Doug McDermott and Nikola Mirotic also elevates the Bulls' offensive potential. Both can light it up from deep, which diminishes the perimeter pressure placed upon Jimmy Butler and Mike Dunleavy. Toss in Taj Gibson, and the Bulls have a rotation that can run consistent all-out assaults for most of the game, provided Rose is healthy.
This improved offensive dynamic hasn't come at the expense of the Bulls defense either. It ranked second in point prevention last season and has the tools to maintain its standing.
Noah and Gibson are the key. They remain two of the league's best rim protectors. Of the 100 players—minimum 25 appearances—who contested at least four shots at the iron per game last year, Gibson and Noah ranked seventh and 16th, respectively, in opponent field-goal percentage.
The Bulls ranked fifth in rim protection as a team, allowing offenses to hit 50.3 percent of their shots at the iron. And if anything, they stand to be better.
Carlos Boozer finished 179th in rim protection last year among the 228 players—minimum 25 appearances—who faced at least two shots around the basket. Gasol is a slight upgrade; he ranked 165th under the same circumstances.
Keeping the Cavaliers outside the paint forces them to depend heavily on perimeter shooting. There are nights when they'll beat the Bulls shooting jumpers—as they did Monday—but it makes life more difficult on a potentially historic offense.
Not one other NBA team—save for maybe the Memphis Grizzlies—can promise similar obstruction.
If Not the Bulls, Then Who?
Peruse the Eastern Conference power structure and it becomes clear there are the Cavaliers and the Bulls then everyone else.
The Washington Wizards won't be a threat until Bradley Beal returns. Even after he does, their livelihood is firmly fixed to internal development and two aging big men in Nene and Marcin Gortat.
Kyle Lowry and the Toronto Raptors project as the third-best team in the East from the jump. Others are battling injuries and turnover—even the Bulls and Cavaliers—while they enjoy stability. Their biggest change remains finding enough minutes for residential spark plug Lou Williams.
Pairing Kemba Walker with Lance Stephenson has made the Charlotte Hornets a must-watch squad, but even with Al Jefferson they'll struggle to field an above-average offensive attack. They don't have enough efficient floor spacing after losing Josh McRoberts to the Miami Heat.
Speaking of which, the Heat have rebounded nicely following James' departure. At the same time, they're woefully shallow, and as Grantland's Zach Lowe explains, they don't offer enough offensive firepower to counteract the absence of depth:
"That’s the thing — they offer some post-LeBron mystery, but if the big reveal is that this team just isn’t very good, where’s the entertainment value? If Wade can’t act as a primary off-the-bounce force, they could have huge issues creating offense — even with a super-smart head coach who will find quirky solutions. Their bench could be horrific. You know it’s bad when you’re reading preseason stories about Udonis Haslem playing extended minutes.
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There's a real chance the Atlanta Hawks, buttressed by a Spurs-y system, surprise some people, but their defense, along with Al Horford's health, is a real issue. The Brooklyn Nets are hardly a genuine contender after losing Paul Pierce and still employing a fragile Brook Lopez and retirement-ready Kevin Garnett. The Indiana Pacers are done without Paul George and Stephenson.
Neither the New York Knicks nor Detroit Pistons project as true threats either. The Knicks are learning a new offensive system that promises growing pains, and if the learning curve doesn't get them, their complete lack of defense will. Stan Van Gundy should help the Pistons a great deal, but he's not a magician. They still have spacing problems and haven't yet found a solution to their frontcourt logjam.
Without question, the Eastern Conference is shaping up to be better than the collective mud slop it was last season. But this improvement hasn't yielded elite squads in excess. There are the bad or rebuilding teams (Philadelphia, Orlando, Philadelphia, Milwaukee, Boston, Philadelphia), there are the so-so teams (pretty much all of the aforementioned), there are miles of empty space and then there are the Cavaliers and Bulls, standing alone together.
The One and Only Threat
Patience.
Process.
James has preached it all since returning to Cleveland, beginning with his cathartic letter for Sports Illustrated. He has downplayed the Cavaliers' clout at every turn, electing for temperance so brutal it approaches obscenely untrue.
Such conservatism actually is warped and distorted to an extent. The Bulls are not "much better" than the Cavaliers thanks to their familiarity with one another. They're incorporating new pieces just like Cleveland. Gasol, Mirotic and McDermott weren't in town last year. Rose also hasn't been whole in three years.
These new-to-each-other Cavaliers, meanwhile, have assembled three top-15 superstars. That much star power belies feeling-out processes. Not one other team can say it has that much superstar talent. Maybe the Thunder—depending how high Serge Ibaka climbs—but that's it.
They should absolutely be the Eastern Conference favorites at this point. There's no evidence to suggest they should not be. Especially after their preseason win over the Bulls.
Defensive deficiencies in mind, the Cavaliers have limitless offensive potential—enough to carry them past any other contenders. That's the luxury of housing Kevin Love, Kyrie Irving and James all at once.
Does that mean coming out of the Eastern Conference will be a cakewalk?
Not quite.
As stacked and incredible as the Cavaliers are, they do have competition in the Bulls, the lone and legitimate Eastern Conference rivals who threaten to spoil what could otherwise be an immediately successful championship chase.
*Stats courtesy of Basketball-Reference.com and NBA.com unless otherwise cited.
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