We'll admit it—Bulls better than we thought
With less than 10 percent of the season gone, I already have to go back on my word. The Bulls WILL make the playoffs.
I know this is contrary to what the Afternoon Sports Club moderator professed a few weeks ago, but I have excuses.
(AP)
For one, I was counting on Tyrus Thomas being healthy. But wouldn't that be a plus, you say? Nope.
In just seven games, Taj Gibson has already shown he understands the game—offensively and defensively—better than Thomas might ever understand it.
It's really a shame, because Thomas is one of the most electrifying players in the NBA. His athleticism is unparalleled. But he just hasn't been able to harness it and make it work within either Scott Skiles or Vinny Del Negro's schemes.
Right now, Luol Deng and Gibson do many of the same things that Thomas does—crash the boards, knock down a 10- to 12-footer—but they do it much better. The Bulls are better off with Thomas out of the picture, not robbing minutes from Deng and Gibson.
The second thing I didn't figure on was the emergence of Joakim Noah. We can no longer call him "Joke" for short. He promised after the Boston series last season that he would get stronger and work hard in the offseason. He has come through BIG TIME.
Do you realize that with Noah (11.4 ppg, 12.4 rpg) and Brad Miller (8.1 ppg, 4 rpg) the Bulls have perhaps the best numbers in the league at the center position. When was the last time the Bulls could say that? The Artis Gilmore era?
Noah and Miller are better than Shaquille O'Neal-Zydrunas Ilgauskas (18.1 ppg, 13.3 rpg) and out-rebound the lopsided combo of Dwight Howard-Marcin Gortat (23.4 ppg, 15 rpg).
I was also a little leery about Deng, but he has more than come back from his injury. In fact, he looks better now than he ever has. He leads the team in scoring—picking up some of the slack for the departed Ben Gordon—and is grabbing a career-high 9.4 rebounds per game.
But here's the biggest reason for my renewed optimism in the Bulls: wait until Kirk Hinrich and John Salmons start shooting better!
The two are off to terrible starts, yet the Bulls are still finding ways to win. Hinrich is shooting just 20 percent from beyond the arc, followed closely by Salmons at 27 percent, which makes the Bulls the worst 3-point shooting team in the league.
But despite the shooting woes, the Bulls are 4-3 against six teams that look like sure-fire playoff teams, four of which might make their respective conference finals—Boston, Cleveland San Antonio and Denver. And, when you think about it, they're a Brad-Miller-fingernail away from being 5-2.
There's a few more things I'll add about this Bulls team: They look more cohesive without Gordon around; they're playing harder; and, they look like they're having fun doing it.
So, forget my silly "no playoff" prediction from a few weeks ago.
Del Negro has them pointed in the right direction.