Jerry's Optimism

At least 4 championships? As a Bulls fan, I like the sound of that. Chicago Bulls chairman Jerry Reinsdorf had this quote in the Chicago Sun-Times, "We have an outstanding coach, an outstanding bunch of players, the team is deep, and if we stay healthy, we have an awfully good chance of winning at least four championships." I like the optimism that Jerry has but I would just say this, let's win one title first with this team.



The way that this team is built does not follow the same pattern as multiple title winning teams. The best player on the Bulls by far is point guard Derrick Rose. The NBA is a big man's league and it is rare for a team to win the title with their best player being a point guard. One of the only teams that come to mind is the Detroit Pistons from the 1989 and 1990 NBA Finals when Isaih Thomas was the best player on those teams. Even winning back to back titles does not qualify the words "dynasty" to come out of my mouth. Lets look at the past 3 decades and the main title winners of those decades:

2000's: Lakers (Shaq and Kobe)
1990's: Bulls (Jordan)
1980's: Celtics (Bird and McHale) Lakers (Johnson and Worthy)

The best player on those teams were of a height that was 6'6 or taller. And yes I do realize that Magic Johnson was a point guard. But he was 6'9 and playing on some very talented teams. And if you did throw the Spurs (Duncan) of the 2000's and the Rockets (Olajuwon) of the 1990's in the mix of teams to win multiple titles in their decade, their best player was still a big guy. I hope that Rose and the Bulls make an exception to the rule, but as history in the NBA shows, don't bet on it.

The Bulls defense is one of the best in the league. They give up a league's best 91.5 points per game on the defensive side. Defense is more than just a player guarding a player. It takes 5 players to work together for a team's defense to be succesful. However, I do worry about their ability to get easy scores on offense at times. There are times when they rely heavily on Rose's ability to penetrate and score too much. There are also times when they run set plays that they look like they are just running the play instead of making the right reads and looking to score quickly. I think they can get some easy, quick scores if they would pass to the first option of the play instead of running the play through for all the options. They have found a low post scorer in Carlos Boozer, now they need to find a wing player that can score easily from the perimeter to compliment Rose and Deng.

Another thing that this Bulls team has going for it is it's chemistry. The reports out there make it seem that the players get along with one another very well off the court. To be frank, I'm not suprised. I mean, how could any team that has Brian Scalabrine have bad team chemistry? He has the look of a guy who you would play basketball with at your local YMCA. And he also has the look of a guy who you would go out and get Larry O'Brien'd with and have an awesome time. I think the importance of team chemistry should not be underplayed. Though you can not statistically measure the importance of team chemistry, I feel more confident in my team if their team chemistry is good.

I have no doubt in my mind that the way the current Bulls are built, that they can win one or two titles. The Knicks and Heat are still a year or two away for being NBA Finals ready, and the Celtics appear to be on their last run. So this season and next, may be the best years for the Bulls to get to the Finals and win the title. The Heat kind of screwed the pooch in getting Chris Bosh. They may have been better off served to use that money to sign better role players and an actual starting NBA center and point guard. As far as the Knicks, they still need a point guard that isn't on his last knee and some better role players as well. They are also not going to win a title with Mike D'Antoni as their head coach. In the NBA, to win titles you have to be able to play defense in crunch time, and with Mike's system, I do not have confidence in them. Cheers to you though Chairman Reinsdorf. I'll be drinking your Kool-Aid this weekend.