Chicago Bulls: 30 Team Previews In 30 Days
2009-'10 Statistics
Finished 41-41, third in Central Division, eighth in Eastern Conference
Postseason
First Round: Lost to Cleveland 4-1
Additions and Re-Signings
Carlos Boozer via free agency, Ronnie Brewer via free agency, Kyle Korver via free agency, Kurt Thomas via free agency, C.J. Watson via free agency, and Omer Asik via free agency.
Losses
Kirk Hinrich via trade, Acie Law via free agency, Jannero Pargo via free agency, and Brad Miller via free agency.
For a brief moment during free agency, we were assuming that the Chicago Bulls, not the Miami Heat, were going to be the team to beat next season. Alas, all that changed when Chris Bosh decided to follow Dwyane Wade to Miami and LeBron James decided to follow in suit. Nonetheless, the Bulls still came out as winners over the course of this extravagant free agency period.
Despite losing out on their three main targets, the Bulls still managed to surround their already talented core with already proven players in this league, most coming from the Utah Jazz. Each signing resulted in a hole filled whether it was Carlos Boozer as the new starting power forward, Ronnie Brewer as the new starting shooting guard, and Kyle Korver as the sixth man.
Not only that, but many of the Bulls faithful got their wish when head coach Vinny Del Negro was ousted in favor of Tom Thibodeau. He has only coached one game in his career and has gone through his NBA career as an assistant coach under the tutelage of others such as Doc Rivers, Jeff Van Gundy, and Jerry Tarkanian.
Korver has averaged 10 points over his seven year career, mostly been used as an option off the bench and has been valuable to the teams he has been on as a dangerous three-point threat. He led the league last season in three point percentage at an absurd 54 percent. The Bulls were in desperate need of a three-point shooter and they received one of the league's better shooters in Korver.
Boozer has thrived as a post threat with the Jazz and it only helped that he had Deron Williams dishing out assists. The decline in point guard talent isn't too extravagant as he will now look towards Derrick Rose to feed him. Boozer has averaged 17 points and 10 rebounds over his career and saw a career high in field goal percentage last season at 56 percent. Impressive numbers for someone that only played 37 games the previous season due to an injury.
The Bulls are no doubt a dangerous team and have the weapons to show for it with two impressive young talent's on the starting lineup in Rose and Joakim Noah. Rose has already proven himself to be a superstar in the making after only two years as an NBA player. Rose averaged 21 points on 49 percent shooting to go along with six assists last season and made his first all-star game in the process.
Rose is quickly establishing himself as a premier player and is already in discussions as a top five caliber point guard before he has even entered his third season. Now that he is surrounded by reliable players that can finish and attract attention, he can see his future grow even brighter. His partner in Joakim Noah can say the same thing after having his breakout season.
Noah was considered to be a draft bust after his first two seasons in the league proved to be very unimpressive where he couldn't average more than seven points or eight rebounds as the team's starting center. Last season was a different story as he averaged 10 points and 11 rebounds and began to live up to the expectations that the Bulls expected him to live up to.
Joakim has basically been the only post presence this team had last season considering Taj Gibson was far from a legitimate threat, but the Bulls can now look towards Carlos Boozer as their number two scoring threat aside from Rose. The team is also hoping that Luol Deng can continue to increase his scoring output after signing an extremely ridiculous contract that the Bulls have been regretting as of late.
At times, Deng can be an extremely dangerous shooter who can shoot over opposing defenders, but he can also be streaky and can go ice cold from the field on other nights. He saw his scoring output rise three points from the previous year giving the Bulls organization some hope that they didn't make the wrong move in signing Deng to a lengthy, expensive contract. As multi-dimensional as Deng is, he could be the x-factor to this team that they'll need come playoff time to step up.
The Bulls can also look for a deep bench to contribute to the second unit as rookie's from last season in Taj Gibson and James Johnson are moved to the bench for good. Johnson will get a better chance to prove himself this season after only averaging 12 minutes last season, but Gibson has already proved himself as a threat after averaging nine points per game as the Bulls undersized power forward.
Kurt Thomas and C.J. Watson were also added to the roster to provide more stability on the bench with Thomas set to back up Noah and Watson set to back up Rose. Set to be 38 in October, Thomas has established himself as a hard-nosed defender, but not much more as he has jumped from team to team over the past five years. Watson is coming off of a career season where he averaged 10 points and three assists coming off the bench for the Golden State Warriors.
Despite missing out on the cream of the crop of free agency, the Bulls still came away as winners and now the city of Chicago are hoping for repeats of the 1990's. While there is no Michael Jordan to look to on the floor, this team still has many threats and has the potential to be an Eastern Conference powerhouse if they continue to build and grow.
Projected Starting Lineup
PG-Derrick Rose
SG-Ronnie Brewer
SF-Luol Deng
PF-Carlos Boozer
C-Joakim Noah
Prediction
49-33
This is Pt. 4 of a 30-day series of 2010-11 season previews of each NBA team. My profile will contain every other team that has been previewed before.
