2011 NBA Draft Results: Chicago Bulls Risk Their Present for Their Future

The Chicago Bulls made a mistake drafting for the future.

It’s not often that you can criticize a team that drafted for their future, but the Bulls wasted a golden opportunity to add a key piece to their puzzle.

Going into the NBA draft the Bulls’ needs were as visible as the six championship banners that hang high in the rafters of the United Center. Get a shooting guard. It was a simple need, but one that the Bulls chose not to address in either their 28^th or 30^th pick.

Instead the Bulls swapped their 28^th and 43^rd picks with Minnesota for the chance to draft 23^rd. With Marshon Brooks easily the best pure scorer at the shooting guard position, the Bulls decided to draft Nicola Mirotic instead.

Mirotic is a 6’10 small forward playing for Real Madrid. The story on Mirotic is he would have been a lottery pick in another draft. He’s got a great inside range with a high IQ on the court and is an excellent passer. For Bulls fans hoping for the best, he’d be the complete realization of what they want Luol Deng to be offensively.

There’s only one problem. The Bulls needed a shooting guard and what they got was a player who won’t likely be in the United States for another four years. It seems that Mirotic is under contract with Real Madrid until 2016. To make matters worse, he’s paid very well to play there. This means he’s likely not itching for a buyout to happen.

So, in effect, the Bulls put a down payment on their future, but may never see a return in their investment. While this sort of foresight would have been okay five years earlier, it’s not okay now. When the Bulls were in a period of basketball hell, when Kirk Hinrich and Ben Gordon were as good as the Bulls had, they would have benefitted from taking a chance on what could be. Mirotic would have made sense then, but not now.

The Bulls saw, clear as day, what ailed them on the court. The Miami Heat double teamed NBA MVP Derrick Rose, forcing him to rely on perimeter players like Luol Deng and Kyle Korver. Deng, though he was often facing a favorable defensive matchup, was unable to create his shot off the dribble consistently enough to keep the Heat in man-to-man.

For Korver the Bulls faced a different, and altogether maddening, problem. Korver was effective early in the playoffs at spacing the floor to allow Rose to create in space and avoid double teams. In the Eastern Conference Finals, Korver was unable to get his shot to fall and therefore proved himself to be nothing more than a defensive liability.

This put the Bulls in a box going into the summer. They couldn’t move Deng, whose contract is so large and suffocating that they couldn’t get anything more than a similar bad contract. They wouldn’t want to trade Korver or move Ronnie Brewer. Whether the Bulls wanted to admit it or not, the draft was their best chance to get a solid shooting guard.

They failed.

Now the Bulls must look to the free agent market. This option seems attractive on the surface, but the Bulls may be facing limitations there as well.

The NBA is about set to go into a lockout, the result of which should end up in a reduced salary cap, or a hard cap. The Bulls already have big money locked up to Carlos Boozer, Luol Deng and Joakim Noah. Taking into account that they are going to have to resign Derrick Rose next summer to the max contract it appears that the Bulls may not have the wiggle room that they would like.

The list of free agents out there isn’t entirely enticing. From a broken down Michael Redd, to a selfish Vince Carter or a handful of free agents like J.R Smith who aren’t likely to play for the mid-level exception that the Bulls may be able to offer.

Having drafted a shooting guard, the Bulls could have gotten a much needed piece to their offense and could have done it for a bargain basement price. Yet the Bulls did no such thing and now they face the reality that signing the guard they need may not be possible.

The Bulls had a chance to bolster their offense and give the Heat a better series next season, but they drafted for the future instead. The Bulls better have picked right. They are gambling their future.