Derrick Rose and the Chicago Bulls: Why They'll Be Even Better in 2012

The Chicago Bulls entered the 2011 season with expectations putting them around the fourth or fifth best team in the Eastern Conference. Instead the Bulls featured the NBA's best record, the league MVP and made a run all the way to the Eastern Conference finals. 

Now 2012 is coming up (hopefully) and the question is whether the Bulls can equal their previous year. The answer is that not only can they equal it, they will better it. That's not the mere blind optimism of a Bulls fan, it's objective thinking. 

Staying Together

First, the obvious difference is that it's the team's second year together, and second year playing under Tom Thibodeau. Consider that last season they started off 9-8. As the team played together they learned the system and they got better. 

Having played a full season together certainly suggests that there's room for improvement. The bulk of the team will be back. There are a couple of questions. The only significant contributor from last year with question marks around him is Kurt Thomas, who may or may not be back.

Whether he comes back or not, and who they might sign to replace him are questions that will be resolved after the lockout is resolved. For now though, it's not an essential question to answer to determine that the Bulls will improve.

The rest of the team is together, and not just during the season. They are literally together, or at least will be soon. While the league might be having a lockout the Bulls are planning on training together as a team during the lockout. Led by point guards Derrick Rose and CJ Watson they are renting a gym in either Los Vegas or Los Angeles. 

Staying together, particularly with the chemistry the team has, bodes well for the team.

Health

Bear in mind also that the team was saddled with a lot of injuries to their starting big men last year. They were 24-5 with both Boozer and Noah in the lineup. That's a .828 winning percentage, which translates to a 68-win season.

Is it realistic to expect that they will both be healthy for the full season? No. However, it's not unrealistic to expect that the two will be together for more than 29 games next season.  

Couple that with the fact that Taj Gibson, who only missed a few games after his concussion, was still affected by it for much longer. His game only finally started to come around late in the season and in the postseason.

Aside from that the Bulls avoided serious injury and some have argued that the Bulls benefited from that. It's a bit of a silly notion. It's not just the injuries but the concentration of them to their big men that hurt the Bulls. Things could not be much worse next year, and more likely will be far better.

The Bulls got good play from their big men last year, but this year they could be even better.

Growth   

While Carlos Boozer is hitting 30 the rest of the team is still in their early to mid 20s. Even Luol Deng is still fairly young. 

Most critically, Joakim Noah and MVP Derrick Rose are still fairly young and have a habit of improving during the offseason. Rose has already started working out. 

What you have to love about Rose, even if you're not a Bulls fan, is his tendency to put responsibility on himself, and then take action to fulfill those responsibilities.

Since the season ended he assumed fault for the Bulls loss to the Heat, even when given the chance to blame it on the lack of scoring from the shooting guard. He blamed it on his conditioning, saying he wasn't prepared to go that deep and was getting worn down deep in the playoffs.

So he's doing something about it. Conditioning is a major part of his offseason workout regime.

The MVP will be even better next year. Furthermore, he'll be better in the playoffs, which is more important.

Also, Joakim Noah will continue to improve. Most importantly, he's committed to improving his scoring during the offseason. He's already a top-three rebounder in the league and arguably the second best defensive center. If he can raise his scoring to the middle teens he would be the second or third best center in the NBA (depending on the health of Andrew Bynum.)

With Boozer and Deng already averaging 17 points per game each, if Noah adds three or four points per game and gets back up to the 15 ppg he was averaging before his thumb injury, the Bulls will field a frontcourt of players that can put up 15-20 ppg each. 

That's a lot for Derrick Rose to work with. 

Additions

I know what you're thinking. They still don't have a shooting guard who can create his own shot. That's pretty much universal knowledge at this point, but it's not a point the Bulls are oblivious to. 

If you're paying attention to everything the Bulls have said in the offseason, and if you look at how they conducted their draft (minimizing the rookie salaries they are going to have to pay) it's evident that they have every intention of upgrading the shooting guard position. 

The question isn't so much about whether they sign someone but who it will be. There are a number of decent, not great, options out there, but the fact is they don't need Dwyane Wade or Kobe Bryant at shooting guard. They just need a solid scorer. 

If they can get a shooting guard that averages in the 15 point range and can handle the ball then the Bulls will be a huge threat to win it all. Surrounding a point guard who can put up 40 points in a game with four starters who can score 15-20 points on a given night would give the Bulls an offense that is almost the equal of their No. 1 ranked defense.

The Competition

Who, other than Miami, in the East is going to compete with Chicago? Boston was too old last year, and will be even older this year. New York is still a team that has players that don't match the system. Indiana will be better but not that much better. 

Look, barring some shocking major moves after the lockout ends, there's just no one that looks like they're even going to be able to compete for the Eastern Conference other than Maimi and Chicago. 

So let's look at that. There's a tendency by some to simply point to the Eastern Conference finals and think that means there's a huge chasm of difference between the two teams. Yes, Miami won the series, and yes, they deserved to win the series, but let's keep things in reality. 

If a couple of shots go differently the series could have easily gone the other way. It's not about whether Miami was better last year, it's about how much better Miami was last year and why they were better. 

If Chicago has a better conditioned (and uninjured) Derrick Rose with a Joakim Noah who has an offensive game, a Carlos Boozer without turf toe and a shooting guard who can create his own shot, could that make the difference of a couple of baskets in a seven game series?

I think so. Especially when you consider that Maimi is a team that was built so much on one year contracts that they may very well have to rebuild around their big three, Mike Miller and Udonis Haslem.

The Chicago Bulls will win 65 games (lockout permitting) next year. If the lockout knocks out some games, look for the equivalent winning percentage. Don't be surprised. I won't be.