Biggest Early-Season Storylines for Chicago Bulls
The Chicago Bulls’ 2014-15 season is, and will be, their most storied since the ‘90s. What used to be a one-man show led by Derrick Rose—and then an anemic outfit trying to live without him—is now a star-studded championship contender and a legitimate beast in the Eastern Conference.
Joakim Noah blossomed into an MVP candidate last season, so now we’re as worried about his prospects for good health as we are about Rose’s. And Pau Gasol, a future Hall of Famer who’s still got a lot to offer, also raises the team’s profile considerably.
Add in the surprising surges of a rookie and a Bull we didn’t think could possibly be this good, and Chicago’s squad has clearly become a new treasure trove of NBA intrigue.
Jimmy Butler Is an All-Star
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Coming into the year, Jimmy Butler’s offensive capacities were a big question mark. A down season in 2013-14 was, to some, a damning sign of his future productivity as a scorer. As good as Jimmy had been defensively for the Bulls—earning an All-Defensive Second Team nod—he looked like a one-way player with just 40 percent shooting and 2.6 assists per game.
That’s probably a big reason why the Bulls didn’t offer Butler huge money for a new contract and will now deal with extending him in restricted free agency next July instead. The team wanted to see just what he’s capable of. But that could turn out to be a mistake, as Butler has exploded to the point that he’s the best scorer on the Bulls by a large margin this season, averaging 21.6 points on 49 percent shooting.
That makes Butler the league’s No. 11 scorer at time of publication. Since he hasn’t regressed as a perimeter defender, it’s hard to argue he isn’t one of basketball’s best players through a month of the season. Butler was recently named the Eastern Conference Player of the Month, and if he keeps this up he’ll have two more accolades coming his way—he’ll be an All-Star squad member with a Most Improved Player trophy to boot.
Concerns About Joakim Noah's Health
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Joakim Noah was the Bulls’ best player in 2013-14. And, by the measure of MVP voting (in which Noah finished fourth), one of the most important ballers in the whole league. When the team stumbled after losing Rose for the season and trading Luol Deng to the Cleveland Cavaliers, Noah erupted to play the best ball of his career and put the team on his back.
We haven’t seen that same, volcanic version of Noah too much this season. Save for one spectacular game against the Boston Celtics (14 points, six rebounds, six assists, six blocks), Noah has looked less than totally comfortable and spry on the court. A lot of that has to do with one of the stealth stories of the Bulls offseason: his arthroscopic knee surgery.
New information is starting to come out about that procedure. "It was more than a scope," Noah recently said to reporters, including K.C. Johnson of Chicago Tribune. "That's what it was supposed to be. So it definitely took longer than we expected. But it's nothing that I can't recover from and be back 100 percent and be right.”
In time, we’ll be able to test Noah’s confidence in his body. But for now, it’s only rational to wonder whether he can become the dynamo the Bulls need by playoff time.
Endless Derrick Rose Pandemonium
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Derrick Rose this, Derrick Rose that. The Bulls’ most famous player has been more of a talking point than a basketball player since his MVP season in 2010-11. The real Rose has been obscured in the sea of hot-take fervor about his body, his mental state and his worth to the city of Chicago that he was born and raised in.
Rose, in predictable fashion, has missed his fair share of games already this season—eight of the team’s 19 contests, to be exact. Various injuries to his ankles and hamstring have led him to sit and take the safe route while the season is still young. Rose is one of the most injury-prone players in the game, and considering his value to the Bulls on the court, preserving his body is the wisest course of action.
The Bulls starting unit is their best lineup, according to NBA.com, giving the team a +6.3 point differential overall. Even though Rose doesn’t look like his same speedy, aggressive self at times, he still has gravity over opposing defenses, and he knows how to use that. And the Bulls, of course, need that from him.
That hasn’t stopped the critics. Steve Rosenbloom of the Chicago Tribune, upon hearing Rose make comments about wanting his body intact twenty years down the line, had this to say:
"Rose needs a friend. Does Rose have a friend? Rose needs a friend. Because a friend would tell him how dumb he sounds and looks. I don’t know if that’s his brother or agent putting that garbage in his head, but it’s one of the most embarrassing things a player can say.
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Rosenbloom’s vitriol isn’t an isolated incident. The sporting world simply doesn’t know how to have a calm, cool perspective on Rose, who’s a unique, confusing case. Whether or not Rose plays or plays well, we can be sure that the frenetic, emotional rhetoric about him won’t stop so long as he’s a Bull.
Nikola Mirotic's Coming-out Party
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Regarding the future of the Bulls, one name has been uttered more than any other for the past few seasons: Nikola Mirotic.
Since the Bulls acquired the draft rights to the Montenegro native in a trade with the Minnesota Timberwolves in 2011, the No. 23 overall pick has been a source of much anticipation within the fanbase. So far, the 2013 Spanish League MVP is showing he’s worth the hype.
Described by Grantland’s Bill Simmons as “a rich man’s Vladimir Radmanovic after three lines of coke,” Mirotic is an exciting, instinctive, 6’11” player who can do almost anything on a basketball court. In his time filling in for the injured Taj Gibson, Mirotic has been a delight, regularly collecting double-doubles and causing offenses problems with his quick hands.
Regardless of how things pan out for the Bulls this season, the future looks a lot brighter with Niko on board.
The Bulls Have an Offense Now
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The Bulls, in recent years, have been known as a plodding, grind-it-out team with too little offense to let games speed up into track meets. They won games by turning them into slow slugfests.
Not anymore. Last year’s 30th ranked offense is now 12th in the league in points per game with all its new weapons. Gasol’s post presence and Butler’s explosion have led the Bulls attack to effective performances (even without a top-level Rose and Noah). Chicago went from thin to deep in the scoring department with just one busy offseason.
The caveat, of course, is that its offense is not exactly elite, and its defense has also slipped out of the top ten. The Bulls are “pretty good” on both ends of the ball, and they win games in a variety of ways now. It’s made for a more aesthetically enjoyable product, but until Chicago becomes superb on either side of the court, it’s worth questioning the team's evolution.
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