Chicago Bulls: What They Should Do About Their Shooting Guard Situation

It's hard to watch the Chicago Bulls without lamenting their shooting guard situation. Keith Bogans contributions are at best "limited". Ronnie Brewer can guard, but not shoot—and Kyle Korver can shoot, but not guard.

What they don't have is a shooting guard who can shoot and guard.

Up till now, the Bulls have gone with a "committee approach"—each guard offering his own particular set of contributions. To some degree it's succeeded, but only marginally. According to hoopsstats, the Bulls are 18th from the shooting guard slot in efficiency differential at -0.5.

However the Bulls are dead last in the league in points from shooting guard, at a meager 12.3. By comparison one of the players often mentioned in Bulls trade rumors,  J.R Smith is averaging almost that all by himself, and he's a backup.  It's no wonder that Bulls fans want a little more scoring from that position. 

On the other hand, head coach Tom Thibodeau is happy to let defense run the parade.   He's content to keep Keither Bogans where he is, even if Bogans is neither great nor terrible.  And honestly the Bulls don't need a lot of scoring from Bogans to win. In games where Bogans has scored a whopping six points or more, the Bulls are 13-0.

Which also means that the Bulls have only gotten six or more points from their starting shooting guard in about a third of their games.

To be fair, while Bogans starts, Bogans doesn't get starter's minutes.  Those tend to go to Ronnie Brewer.  Many would like to see him start.  Others feel that Korver's offensive production would be better utilized, were he paired with Derrick Rose.

Through all the complaining, bickering, and laptop managing, Bulls fans need to keep a few things in mind.

First and foremost, the Bulls are winning—and they are winning more than we expected them to, even if we had a healthy team. Tom Thibodeau deserves a good amount of the credit for that.

Maybe we ought to realize that the man knows more about the actual game of basketball than any of us might think. If the Bulls were 14-34 instead of 34-14, I'd be a skeptic. But he seems to be running the program with some success so we should hesitate before fixing what's not broken.

Another thing I'd like to point out is that Bulls probably aren't going to win a championship this year. I'm holding out hope they can make it to the Conference finals, or at least to the second round, where they could fight Boston or Miami to a seven game stretch.

The Bulls could win it all, but I don't believe they will. 

Anything past the second round is, as they say, "gravy."  And getting Courtney Lee probably isn't going to be the difference-maker between that and championship rings at the end of the season.

If they can get Tracy McGrady or someone like him for next to nothing, it's nice—but if they don't, I don't have a problem. I'd rather have a chance at a dynasty than a chance at a ring.

What people are missing when they prepare to ship out Taj Gibson—or even Ronnie Brewer—is that Gar Forman and the Bulls management did some smart things this summer. 

They set themselves up, in a lot of ways, for the long term. 

Right now the Bulls are 26th in the NBA in salary. With the signing of Noah, things get a little tighter next year, but not nearly as much as for some.

There's been ongoing talk about a hard salary cap, or lower salary cap, for a while now. Teams like the Orlando Magic and the LA Lakers—who are 30-40 million over the cap—are going to have to make some adjustments to their rosters. At present, only seven teams remain under the cap, and one of them, the Thunder, is going to hit a big salary bubble next year. 

What that could end up meaning is an influx of free agents, and/or a much friendlier trade market after the Collective Bargaining Agreement. The trade chips the Bulls have right now are gaining value. After the CBA, the Bulls might be in a better position than any other contender to acquire new salary. 

The Bulls might be able to acquire a better shooting guard before the trade deadline, but they might be able to acquire an even better one after the CBA.  This is a long term investment, not a get-rich-quick scheme. Patience can yield the higher return. Three or four rings are better than one, and for that reason Bulls fans shouldn't be too disappointed if the trade deadline passes without any changes.