Chicago Bulls: 10 Reasons Derrick Rose and Co. Are Championship Favorites
Thinking back to the beginning of the season, I was not one of the people sold on the Bulls' roster. I thought that the expectations were 50 wins, second round playoff exit. And let's be honest, I picked somewhere around 53 wins for the season and a second round exit as a complete homer pick. I really didn't see the Bulls winning much more than 50.
However here they sit, 44-18, and second in the Eastern Conference. Projected over the remaining games, the Bulls are projected to finish 58-24, easily their best record since Jordan.
So with all this positive energy flowing, why are the Bulls championship favorites?
The Numbers Say so
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John Hollinger, the resident NBA stat geek at ESPN, has been known to have stats that may be of questionable use. However in the end, they are in fact stats that are based off of measurable metrics.
One of Hollinger's more prominent stats is the Playoff Odds. They use a computer system to simulate a season 5,000 times and project what the average result would be. Yesterday, March 8, the Bulls had the best chances of winning the NBA Championship out of any team in the whole league. This year. Today they're second to Los Angeles, but they still lead the Eastern Conference with an 18% chance of winning the title.
Sure, stats can sometimes lie, but they are on the Bulls' side.
Depth
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What sets the Bulls apart is their incredible depth. The bench can come at you with so many different looks. You have Omer Asik who comes in and provides defense and rebounding when Joakim Noah needs a breather. You have Ronnie Brewer to come in and create havoc on defense. You have Kyle Korver to come in and knock down some huge three pointers. You have Taj Gibson to come in and facilitate on defense.
The ability to do so many things with the bench is what sets the Bulls apart from other teams.
Playoff Basketball
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Once you hit the playoffs, the game changes. Turnovers go down, preventing fastbreaks. Teams are able to slow you down and gameplan against your best players. This especially affects players whose main game is based around shooting because it's difficult to find your shot when teams are stifling you.
And that's what makes this team poised for a playoff run. They play a playoff brand of basketball: slow down the pace, kill in the halfcourt, move the ball, et cetera. As well, the one thing that won't leave in the playoffs is defense, and the Bulls have the best Defensive Efficiency rating in the league.
Thibs has been effective in instituting a winning brand of basketball.
Matchups
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So the top teams in the East the Bulls would need to deal with are the Boston Celtics and the Miami Heat.
Miami thus far has not been a problem for the Bulls. Derrick Rose is able to hit Miami where they're weakest: the point guard position. Noah is also able to harass Miami's interior defenders and cause mayhem whenever there's a loose ball.
The Bulls are able to throw out length and athleticism when they play the Celtics. The Celtics are an older team right now with perhaps only one more title run left in them. The Bulls would likely be able to beat the Celtics with their youth and athleticism.
They Beat the Best
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In the Bulls' last ten games against elite teams, they are undefeated. This includes a win against Orlando, three wins against Miami, a win against Dallas, and more.
The Bulls also went through perhaps their most difficult road trip of the season when they toured Atlanta and Florida, facing the Hawks, Heat and Magic. Despite the Bulls' road troubles, they managed to snag two of these three games, both of which were on national TV.
Also with the win against San Antonio before the All-Star break, Chicago has cut down the teams that they have not beaten to only two: the Hawks and Knicks. They have only played one game against the Hawks and have three left, including their next game. Their second to last game of the season is against those very same Knicks.
If the Bulls can have a good showing in those games, then they can go through a season after beating every team in the NBA at least once this season, an impressive feat.
Coaching
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The last two years, the Bulls were coached by Vinny Del Negro. Vinny seemed like a good guy, and had some pretty epic hair, but he just wasn't Chicago Bulls coaching material. You have to realize that the Chicago Bulls are perhaps a top three franchise in NBA history, and a top three market in the league as well. The Bulls should not be the type of team that hires a guy who has never coached on any level as their head coach right off the bat.
However everything that they did wrong with Vinny, they righted with the hiring of Tom Thibodeau. Thibs has never been a head coach before, but has been coaching at various levels of basketball for over twenty years, including a long stint as Boston's "defensive coordinator."
Thibs' coaching ability shines through, especially on defense. He's managed to make a defensive unit that includes Carlos Boozer, Kyle Korver, and Derrick Rose (all perceived to be poor defenders) and that does not have a premier defensive player into the best defense in the league.
That's coaching right there.
Defense
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As talked about in the last slide, Thibodeau has greatly increased the Bulls' defensive efficiency. In fact, the Bulls are first in the league in that category, despite missing their best post defender, Joakim Noah, for over thirty games.
Defense is one of the things that holds true through the playoffs. Offense can be hurt by gameplanning but defense is harder to figure out. Not only that, but Thibodeau is one of the best at making halftime adjustments on defense to win games.
Just to throw some stats out there, the Bulls lead the NBA in Defensive Efficiency, points allowed per game and opposing field goal percentage.
If defense wins championships, watch out NBA!
Chemistry
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Chemistry is one of the hardest things to objectively observe, but you can see it in this Bulls team. The players fit well together, complement each other, and love playing with each other.
Take the Miami Heat for a counterexample. LeBron James is the best player in the league. Dwyane Wade is arguably the second best (no it's not Kobe). However the Heat just don't fit together. Their skills overlap and they can't play off of each other well. All in all, they are less than the sum of their parts.
The Bulls, on the other hand, are virtually the opposite. They are likely not the most talented team in the league, but they play brilliantly together. Together they are greater than the sum of their parts.
Rebounding
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One of the biggest reasons for Bulls' success is their rebounding advantage. Right now they are not only second in the league in rebounds per game, but also lead the league in rebound differential by a huge margin.
The ability of the big men to keep the ball in play is a huge advantage. To win games, you usually have to have a high field goal percentage to have more points. However rebounding actually makes things easier. If you can take more shots than the other team, then you have a great chance to win.
The Bulls big men make it difficult for other teams to get more shots than them.
MVP
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Derrick Rose is the MVP of the league.
He's the Bulls' best player since Jordan, the first All-Star since Jordan, the only All-Star on the team, the former Rookie of the Year, the highlight machine, the playmaker, the humble, and possibly the new face of the league.
Derrick Rose is poised to take Chicago back to the promised land.
