Chicago Bulls Nicks and New York Knicks Bull: Which Story Line Is Better?
Just when things were really starting to click on all cylinders, there is yet another challenge facing the young Chicago Bulls squad. The heart and soul of the team is undergoing surgery and will be out 8-10 weeks. It's just another piece of adversity for the Bulls to overcome.
This is a team that just two years and a decade ago were celebrating their sixth NBA championship in eight years, arguably the greatest dynasty in the history of the NBA. Sure, Bill Russell's Celtics won more, but that was in the era before free agency.
It's a franchise that then descended into moribund obscurity, winning just 66 games combined over the next four seasons, just one more than what the team had been averaging the previous three seasons. Since the championship run, the team has gone through a plethora of coaches and players. Over the last 12 years, 98 players have donned black and red for the Bulls.
Then the Bulls started to change things around. They got their first building block with Luol Deng, who after a promising start had to fight his way through a host of injuries and bad coaching. Then they drafted Joakim Noah, who suffered through a rookie season which saw him suspended, not just by the coaches, but by his team.
The third essential and most critical piece came later when the Bulls decided to ignore Michael Beasley, the expected superstar, and draft Derrick Rose in his place with the first-round pick. Rose led the Bulls to a heart-wrenching playoff loss in arguably the most spectacular first-round series in the history of the NBA.
The Bulls expected a great season the next season, but faced with a series of injuries to key players, including Noah and Rose, the Bulls gutted their roster of literally everyone except their young stars and their two rookies, Taj Gibson and James Johnson, in the hopes of acquiring LeBron James, only to be left out in the cold.
The Bulls were able to rebuild their roster, supplementing their youth with the veteran presence of the dependable low post scorer Carlos Boozer. However, before we even got to see the team practice, Boozer tripped over a gym bag and broke his hand.
Somehow, the Bulls, in spite of the fact that more than half the team was new and were learning a new system under a new coach, started the season with the league's toughest schedule which included three games against opponents who played in the conference finals the previous year and nine playoff teams and managed to get off to a start of 9-6.
During that stretch the Bulls became the first team in NBA history to come back from deficits of 23 points or more to win twice in the same season. The Bulls became a team that was recognized for its fight, and the heart of that fight was the most strong in its young center Joakim Noah.
When Boozer finally came back it was catastrophic as the team was destroyed by Orlando, then merely beaten badly by Boston. But then the team once again fought back, winning their next seven games, including wins over the young Thunder and the world champion Lakers. The team really started to find their rhythm at their opponents expense. The Bulls won their last three games by a combined total of 67 points.
Then it was announced that Joakim Noah was going to have to have surgery on his thumb ligament and would be out 8-10 weeks. Just more adversity for a team which has already had its fair share of it to overcome.
Not to worry, the Bulls managed to navigate the far more difficult schedule without Boozer, they can manage this too. This team was built on adversity and now it's learning to feed on it. They will probably play about 30 more games before Noah returns, and they should win about 21-22 of those, and that's a conservative estimate. The schedule is easier and only includes nine opponents over .500.
If they can reach 40 wins before 20 losses, which that pace should indicate, they should be well on track to securing home court advantage in the first round of the playoffs when Noah returns. They should also have him back in time for the team to play together as a unit for the last quarter of the season before the playoffs start.
It's kind of surprising to me, that with the Bulls being such a great story, the major media seems to be focusing so much on the New York Knicks while virtually ignoring the Chicago Bulls. In fact, when John Hollinger wrote an article detailing some of the more impressive streaks this season, he didn't even mention Chicago's while addressing the Knicks' streak.
Let there be no mistake about it, the Bulls' streak is far more impressive than the Knicks' streak, even if it is a game shorter. The Knicks opponents had an aggregate winning percentage of less than .400. The best teams they'd beaten during it were the struggling Hornets, who have won four of their last 14, and the Denver Nuggets, who have lost three of five. Their average margin of victory against such weak competition was a moderate eight points.
Comparatively, the Chicago Bulls over the course of their win streak have beaten two teams with three more wins than any team the Knicks have beaten all season, including the Thunder and the world champion Los Angeles Lakers. They've outscored their superior competition by a relatively stout 13 points per game. Against common opponents, the Knicks have an impressive 11.5 average margin but the Bulls have nearly doubled that with 22.3 points.
The Knicks have been beating bad teams; the Bulls have been beating some of the best teams and destroying the bad teams. So I thought when the Knicks win streak finally was exposed for what it was when they lost to the Celtics at home, it was to my surprise that they've gotten more positive attention for getting beaten at home, at full strength, in a game that they treated like a playoff game than the Bulls have gotten all season.
Personally, I just can't hear any more about how the "Knicks are back." They were hardly ever even there in the first place. They have a collective total of two NBA championships, and those were about 40 years ago.
And while they were barely ever "there" to begin with they have hardly done enough to show they are "back" now. It's ironic, but probably their best win of the season was an early season win over the Boozer-less Bulls. (And before you start arguing about how that means the Knicks are better you might want to look at the teams who have beaten them first.) How about we start seeing the Knicks start winning a few more games against some teams over .500 before we celebrate them?
In fact, while the Bulls have overcome a mountain of adversity, the Knicks have had it incredibly easy. Until last night's game they had the easiest schedule in the NBA. Now it's the second easiest.
Metaphorically speaking they've had very little to resist, which might explain their abysmal lack of literal defense. The Knicks are 22nd in the NBA in defensive rating. No team has ever won the NBA championship with a defense that weak. Amare Stoudemire can string together all the 30-point games in the world but until he can stop someone in the paint, it won't help the Knicks against the better teams in the NBA.
Yes, I know that we Bulls fans aren't supposed to be allowed to complain about a lack of national attention, even though we aren't getting any. I know the Knicks played well and nearly won last night. The Cavaliers played well against Boston and beat them at home.
In fact, the Bulls nearly won the first time they played, and would have if the refs hadn't blown the foul call with a second left when Rondo fouled Rose. But yeah, I know, we aren't allowed to complain about Rose not getting foul calls either. But you don't know about that because the national media didn't really spend the next day raving about how the Bulls were improved. And the reason that Rose doesn't get the foul call is because he "avoids" contact.
I know that there's some sort of Aretha Franklin-Blues Brothers-R-E-S-P-E-C-T tie in here, but I'm not sure what it is. It seems like the only time the Chicago Bulls get a national story is when there's yet another nick to their roster; there's no time for that with all the New York Knicks bull they're feeding us about how they are back.
