DID ANYONE CATCH THAT BULLS SEASON?

by Jeeves of Sweet Home Sports

The Bulls started off with an absolute drubbing of the defending champs, which perpetuated the hype built during the pre-season. Thanks mostly in part to the Ben Wallace signing, as well as the further maturation of the big three, some pundits had the Bulls positioned as darkhorse candidates for the Eastern Conference crown. After the 42 point win against a full strength Heat team, the Bulls went from an outside candidate to a definite contender for the conference.

Things went sour pretty quickly after that win, as they lost 9 of 13 games in the month of November. The Bulls struggled on their annual West Coast trip, going without a win. They closed that trip with a 15 point loss at the Philadephia Iversons (this was prior to the trade) and their first road win of the season at the friendly confines of Madison Square Garden. That was their first road win in 9 tries. (I think Isiah Thomas feels bad about that whole walking off the court incident back during his playing days and has been trying to make it up to the Bulls ever since his arrival in New York. I can’t think of another explanation of why he continually helps the Bulls, other than pure incompetence.)

After such a rough November, people hopped off the Bulls bandwagon as quickly as they had jumped on it after the Heat game. The thing that people didn’t realize is that early season struggles were to be expected. I had high hopes for the Bulls with regards to the whole season, but I figured there would be some growing pains at the start. First off, the Bulls were expected to be good for the first time since the Jordan years. By good, I don’t just mean an above .500 club, but a team that would make the playoffs and could do some damage. For most players on the team, these types of expectations were brand new, which would invariably have some sort of affect. Second, and much more importantly, there was a TON of turnover after the previous season. Yes, the Bulls kept their big three as well as Duh and Noc, but there were still 7 new additions to the team (PJ, Big Ben, TT, Khryapa, Adrian Griffin, Thabo, and Andre Barrett). It takes time for so many players to get into the swing of thing. Granted, besides Wallace and PJ (post-media whining) those other guys didn’t start, but still as a team I reckon it took the Bulls awhile (a month or so) to get fully into the swing of things.

Combined with a home-and-home series win of the Knicks at the end of November, the Bulls won 12 of 13 games. Looking back, that month was kind of weird. The Bulls were racking up wins against, to put it nicely, not exactly the fiercest of competition. There was a fragile sense of optimism again to counter the feeling of despair as the Bulls stumbled through November. The thing that made the month doubly weird was that December was the peak of the Ben Gordon coming off the bench experiment. Throughout the month he started only 1 game, while Noc and Duh were in the starting lineup instead. It was shockingly effective as both Noc and BG lit it up. After Noc’s injury people forgot just how good he could be, but he really helped the Bulls during that stretch. From the start of December until Noc’s last game in the starting lineup January 11, he averaged 17.3 ppg and 6.5 rpg which is puuurdy damn good. That’s part of the reason why I’m not so ready to dump Noc (unless it’s in a package for a center); his post injury numbers made him look a lot worse than he really is. Over that same span Gordon scored 23.7 ppg, which is higher than his season average of 21.4. It was an interesting make Gordon the 6th man again, but leave it to Skiles to explore all possible avenues for success. (Read the rest at Running With the Bulls)