Jim O'Donnell wrote about Jerome James' futile attempt to guard Lebron in game 4 of the Bulls-Caves series. While it was pretty much a readable column-- there were a couple of things. Like not having someone read through his column to point out a factual mistake. There's usually some grammar errors mixed in too, so I thought I'd start pointing things out. Here's part of his article:
Vinny's tactic makes you wonder
By Jim O'Donnell
April 26, 2010
Johnson -- the team's No. 1 draft pick last June. Johnson -- the extremely well-intended, athletic martial-arts ace from Cheyenne, Wyoming. Johnson -- the slow-to-develop playoff phantom who has been completely overshadowed by second-round choice Taj Gibson. Even worse, in his first playing time of the game, Johnson was assigned to guard James. Quietly, James licked his megastar inner chops.
Quick fact check: Taj Gibson was drafted in the first round of the 2009 NBA draft (#26 overall). This is on the website of the Suntimes: feel free to find an intern who knows basic draft pics or has access to some advanced basketball knowledge base. Like Google. Which could take you here.
And draft picks sometimes take time to develop-- and after the first few picks of the last draft there was little worth drafting. His not being able to perform as a mid-round draft pick isn't exactly as scandalous as O'Donnell is indicating. It would be nice if he were better, but there was a bunch of crap in the last draft.
That being said-- the athleticism you mentioned (martial-arts ace) would be a reason to try him against the best player in the league. It was odd to put him in when he did and let him foul as much as he did, but why not. Nobody on the Bulls is stopping Lebron anyway.
A simple, kind of weak little bit of work on my work-- hopefully enjoyable.
So you had a column recently that took the outcome of a Bulls 2 point win and took it to mean the Bulls could woo Lebron James because of it. It was a bad thought then, and I commented on it here.
The next game in the series the Bulls are beaten and embarrassed 121-98. Do you, as a responsible professional writer, write a mea culpa article? Do you write that, since my thought the other day was true based on an outcome of one game, the antithesis must be true if the next game's outcome is the opposite? Do you furiously defend your thought? No, you move onto something almost as bad-- an article on how Vinny Del Negro got a bad deal this year.
Sure, there were injuries and When GMs Attack and salary clearing- but you don't judge a coach on win-loss record alone. You look at how he prepares the players he has, how his young talent develops and whether he gives the team the best chance to succeed.
This is gonna be another long article, so grab something to drink and listen to this Sunset Rubdown song and try to enjoy....
"We're going back home to win the series (and) don't plan on coming back here,'' James said. "It's the last time you'll see us in Chicago.''
At the opposite end of the hallway, Vinny Del Negro probably could have said the same thing about returning to the United Center as he walked off the floor like it was any other game.
It wasn't.
That reality about Del Negro's future has nothing to do with Sunday's loss or even the Bulls coach's worthiness to stay.
VDN is going to be done as Bulls coach. This was known around January. Don't know why its news now. Or why he's suddenly a good coach.
Barring an upset the Bulls seem incapable of pulling off in a building the Cavs have gone 37-6 in through the playoffs, their season will end late Tuesday night. Within days and possibly hours, so will Del Negro's tenure in Chicago
Yeah, hedge your bets. The Bulls might pull off the comeback. David Haugh-- go ahead and assume the Bulls will lose the series. Unless the Cavs team bus gets lost on the way to the arena.
Nobody would be shocked if a peek at Bulls vice president of basketball operations John Paxson's weekly planner revealed something like this: Tuesday: Watch Bulls lose Game 5 during "American Idol" commercials Wednesday: Have GM Gar Forman fire Vinny. Thursday: Make sure Jerry Reinsdorf will let me hire the coach I want this time. Friday: Call Jeff Van Gundy.
Pretty amusing-- and true. Nicely done-- and a shot at the Gar Forman/John Paxson dynamic. I approve.
Bottom line, the next time Del Negro coaches on the bench in Chicago it will be for the Clippers or Nets or another team that hires recycled coaches. Whenever it comes, Del Negro has benefited from this experience enough to think he will get another opportunity to coach in the NBA.
Um, he could be an assistant too. But if you think recycled coaches are for the historically bad Clippers and the worst team this year Nets-- that's just wrong. Most teams have "recycled coaches." Coaches actually don't last long in the NBA in the same job-- but they usually find new ones. See: Skiles and Jim Boylan.
Nobody will ever label Del Negro an X's and O's guru like Hubie Brown, who announced Sunday's game for ABC. No college coaches are scribbling down notes after Bulls' out-of-bounds plays. And as an ESPN.com column suggested before Sunday's game, anonymously quoting an NBA scout who chided the Bulls for running only five plays, Del Negro's game plans can be as simple as the playoff T-shirts handed out: See Red.
VDN isn't a good X's and O's coach-- fairly obvious if you've seen any inbound plays this year. Or plays designed to get Brad Miller open for a last second shot. But for the record Haugh pretty much concedes VDN as a bad on-the-court coach.
But with a point guard as gifted and creative as Derrick Rose, do you really want to reinvent half-court offense?
No, but some half-court offense would be nice. The Bulls offense really was only effective when they outran the other team. But some version of a functioning half-court offense would be nice.
Remember Del Negro took both Bulls teams to the playoffs — the second after the front office opted not to replace Ben Gordon. Remember how a young core of Bulls players peaked during a late-season run for a playoff series that indeed will spur their growth. Remember that Del Negro coaxed a limited roster to play defense well enough that only two other teams held opponents to a lower shooting percentage.
Remember a 10 game losing streak and losing twice to the worst team in basketball. And the Bulls want to replace Gordon- just with a superstar, which can't happen till this offseason. Someone who would get them closer to a championship.
You could argue that Del Negro deserves to finish his contract with the Bulls, but that would be like protesting the cancellation of your favorite TV show. You may be able to support your point and it wouldn't matter. The decision appears to have been made, and it seems as irreversible as the differences are irreconcilable.
Feel free to support that point. He gets paid either way (I believe), so there's not that incentive. And management thinks he's a bad coach- they determined this when they didn't give him a vote of confidence back in January. And you yourself said he wasn't the best X's and O's coach-- IN THIS ARTICLE.
You mention a tv show getting canceled-- but if VDN were a tv show, he'd be like Joey. He seems like a nice guy but the product isn't that good. And if you keep him, you might have According To Jim on your hands. No one wants that. Point is-- a tough year isn't reason to keep a coach. The job he did actually did and can do in the future is all that matters.
The way Del Negro defended his job performance after Game 3's victory suggested he already knows. The way Del Negro played overmatched first-round draft pick James Johnson in Game 4 — he had five fouls in nine minutes — left cynics wondering if he was making a point about just how limited of a roster he was given.
Or he could just be trying anything to slow the best player in the game. Granted, it was an odd decision. And, believe it or not, a coach can lose a game and still do quality coaching. And a coach can win and still be a bad coach. Wins and losses are a terrible thing to base your review of a coach on. Watch how the team plays instead.
The point isn't whether that was a veiled shot at management by Del Negro. The bigger point is that the relationship between Del Negro and the front office has deteriorated to the point we wonder at all.
The point is that management should have fired VDN back in January. They left him dangling alone all year. They attacked him physically. The point is this year has been so bad and bizarre for the Bulls, that the playoff series is really not much of a news story.
So there it is-- another bad Haugh article. Hopefully it gets better. At least the Bulls are almost done so we might get a hiatus for his Bulls/basketball thoughts.
After spending too much time (and energy) ripping on David Haugh, I'm going to try and relax and try and parse a Frank Deford piece from NPR. I know its not a column, but he wrote it and read it and there's a transcript i can cut & paste & comment on-- might as well do it. I can get out of my comfort zone.
This isn't a terrible article besides the conclusion of it. I'm easily annoyed by media-propped up white-athletes-- The grinders, the "smarter" players, the "winners" with the intangibles. They're always white players, usually in college and usually go on to undistinguished professional careers. Mr. Deford does make a point of Tebow being a lightning rod of controversy-- from the non-football (religion) to the bigger football issues (concussions and the effect of returning too soon. There's fascinating research coming out. But that's another blog). However, this becomes a smokescreen for his actual abilities. For the first time on this blog: NPR & Morning Edition present Frank Deford. Commentary by me.
Come up here, please, to the presidential suite and give a big NPR welcome to Tim Tebow, proclaimed by many as the greatest college football player ever, and now ready for the NFL draft - Heisman Trophy winner, the hero who steered Florida to two national championships, bright, strong, a natural leader.
Possibly the most grandiose introduction ever... please go on...
Yes, the intrigue in the NFL draft - which begins tomorrow evening and lasts longer than your average Icelandic volcanic eruption - this year centers not on the top of the draft but on Tebow, who will almost surely not be drafted anywhere in the first round and who knows? Might not even be drafted at all. It's like having a presidential election, with most of the attention going to a congressional race in Montana.
Ok, current news reference is out of the way. And there's always intrigue about a college star not having the skills to be pro: I'm not sure about the congressional race in Montana. Maybe if Palin (not for politics, but as a lightning rod) ran.
The quarterback, born sickly in the Philippines to missionaries, is one of those people who is not himself controversial, but who just always seems to get caught up in the middle of stuff. Even back in high school, when he was educated at home, he was one of the more publicized cases in the dispute about whether home-schooled students should be allowed to play on public school teams.
Not a terrible angle to take. Actually, a pretty good thought. A good sports thought!
When concussions became big news, he got a big concussion. When he starred in a prolife commercial with his mother, otherwise sensible adversaries wanted to temporarily void the First Amendment to prevent the commercial's airing during the Super Bowl.
The first amendment only refers to government censorship. But I still get your point...
Tebow's coach, Urban Meyer, a man who has admitted the pressure might be getting to him, proved that recently by publicly upbraiding a sportswriter for correctly quoting a teammate who had dared say that, by comparison, Tebow might not be a real quarterback.
And here's the problem. Tebow might not be able to throw the ball accurately or with any strength. And old teammates might be excited to see a new arm.
That, you see, is the crux of the issue. Sure, Tim Tebow may be the greatest college player ever, but he just doesn't do things the approved, NFL way. What team has the guts to draft him and answer to the nerds who measure football talents as phrenologists used to measure character by the shape of the skull?
And here's where you lose me. You almost had a good column. It isn't the evil "NFL ways". Talent usually outdoes that. The problem is he can't throw accurately, take a snap from center and possibly not read an nfl defense (he had a low wunderlic score). Its nothing personal-- its just his physical skills. Like throwing a ball-- which is important when being a quarterback.
Me, I'm certainly no football scout, but I rather like players who win. I wouldn't mind having Tim Tebow on the bench when the starting quarterback gets hurt, and he has to go in and begin calling plays and doing things his way. Yeah, I think I like my chances with Tim Tebow.
A winner? Isn't that the rational people use for players without talent? Players with talent you hear things like "pick apart a defense" or "throw a ball through a wall" or "throw a ball thru the eye of a needle" (i might have made the last one up). But they involve strength, accuracy and intelligence. When you can't just give him that, then you say things like he's one of the "players who win."
If you think he has the skills to be an NFL quarterback, go ahead and say that. If you think he's a good person and you hope he succeeds, then say that. Otherwise, you're just propping up "winning" as bad rationale.
This one is bad. Real bad. I've picked on David Haugh a lot (enough to make FireDavidHaugh.com?), but only because he writes asinine basketball articles. But this is bad. Terrible even. It extrapolates one game to mean more than a whole season. It makes terrible assumptions about basketball. It is just really bad. And it can be found here.
Haugh writes making the following assumptions:
1) The outcome of one game in a 7 game playoff series means everything.
2) Lebron James has never seen a Chicago basketball crowd.
3) You can ignore the Bulls almost blowing a 21 point lead. If the last second half-court shot goes in, then his article makes absolutely no sense. Not that it does.
This article is so bad though, I feel bad parsing it. Here's some happy music thoughts: wouldn't it be nice for the Gorillaz to play Lollapalooza sometime soon? They're fairy young, fairly relevant, fairly good and I wouldn't leave early go find some cheaper place to drink. So here's "Feel Good Inc." live from Coachella. Enjoy. But then read the parsing of the Haugh article. It deserves it.
Bulls give James a taste of what they can be
By David Haugh
In The Wake Of The News
Sensing an opening only he saw, Luol Deng dribbled behind the back, beat LeBron James along the baseline and niftily banked in a reverse layup.
So you're starting out with a Luol Deng highlight? Against Lebron James. It happened once, so might as well make it your lead.
It was the game's signature play from an unlikely author, an impossible shot in an improbable victory that was bigger than any other this season.
Signature play? The Bulls had a 21 point lead at one point-- the real signature was Lebron guarding Rose. But stick with Luol getting a layup....
For now, we know no team in NBA playoff history ever has rallied from an 0-3 deficit to win a series and the Bulls responded as if coach Vinny Del Negro mentioned that statistic every timeout. When a .500 team in the regular-season holds off a fourth-quarter charge from the No. 1 seed led by the game's best closer, tenacity plays as big of a role as talent.
Alright guys! There's less than a minute left. Ignore trying to guard the 6'9" athletic beast out there. Don't worry about defensive strategies. Don't worry about running our stuff. Remember: if we lose this game, we'll be down 3-0. And no team has ever come back from that. [players look at coach like he's not wearing pants]
The Bulls played a good game at home. This isn't entirely unpredictable-- they've played well at home before. A lot of teams do. There's this concept of "home court advantage." Which teams play better at home. I know its difficult to comprehend, but this does allow a worser team to win a game in a 7 game series.
Battle the Bulls have, being outscored by only seven overall in the series since the first quarter of Game 1. You know it's a good night for the Bulls when the post-game debate revolves around whetherKirk Hinrich's 27 points or Deng's 20 were more clutch.
I love arguments about "clutch." Especially when they involve just looking at a box score and not watching a game. Didn't Kirk (Kurt if you're Vinny) miss two free throws as the game closed? Wouldn't that be part of clutch. And me, being all cynical (and having watched the game) would've talked about the Bulls almost blowing the lead post-game.
Give Derrick Rose credit for carrying the Bulls with 31 points without a turnover, praise Taj Gibson and Noah for holding their ground in the paint and give Hinrich his due for going 4-of-4 from 3-point range. But without Deng taking a charge from James with 1 minute 12 seconds left or stealing the ball from The King on the next key possession, the Cavs likely would have pulled off another fourth-quarter comeback.
He's going to use this one game to mean more than it is. Why not take one play and overemphasize it? The Deng charge was a bad call. But even it wasn't, you've seen Deng enough to know he's not better than James. And he had a good 1 minute stretch-- which, as a Bulls fan, I did enjoy.
Oh, and thanks for giving credit to D. Rose. You know, for being the best player on the Bulls. Almost forgot that.
As a result, the Bulls still believe they are now in position to "shock the world,'' as Noah says.
Why include this quote? They won one f*cking game. "Held serve at home" to use the cliche.
I wouldn't go that far. The inspired victory doesn't necessarily mean the Bulls will win the series. It may not even mean they will win another game if the Cavs get angry enough watching the tape of this and respond like any 61-victory team should.
Good. That'd just be a bad sports thought. But why if you think one win wouldn't mean more for a series-- why would it mean more to the Bulls future like you write here:
But, in the bigger picture, the effort gave the Bulls basis for believing maybe, just maybe they can win over James in July. I'll take that over false playoff hope any day.
Wait, what? One win means Lebron is gonna be a Bull? Thank your representative God and/or Lord and/or Deity. Glad that three didn't go in-- we'd have no chance.
If the result of this bonus postseason is showing James first-hand that the Bulls are one player away from becoming a contender in the East — and he ponders even momentarily whether he is that player — it will be worth every Shaq elbow. It also would go down as the Bulls' most significant postseason since the Jordan Era.
Once again, here's the assumption Lebron doesn't know the Bulls' roster. He's met D. Rose before. They were at an all-star game together. He knows that Rose exists.
And Lebron knows that the Bulls are one player away from contending. You know why? Cause he knows that whatever team he goes to, he'll be the one player that makes him a contender. And no one will remember this postseason if Lebron signs-- cause they'll be worrying about the ones where they're trying to win a title.
Sure, this was Game 3 of the Eastern Conference playoffs on the schedule. But it also was Day 1 of NBA free-agency on the calendar as far as Bulls fans are concerned. This was a two-hour infomercial at the United Centeron the suddenly new and improving Bulls for James.
So you're going to negate your premise? And then press it out to say that its an advertisement for James? Here's all he needs to know about the Bulls: Full boat (not as much as Cleveland can offer), Derrick Rose, Noah, and a major market. One playoff game doesn't matter either way.
The Air's throne is ready for you, King. It may have taken awhile to notice thanks to traffic and a 6 p.m. weeknight start that left thousands of seats empty at tipoff, but the place came alive. And when the place on 1901 W. Madison St. comes alive during the NBA playoffs, few venues around the league are any better. James knows that now.
So now he was late for tipoff? Wait, you're insulting the crowd. The same crowd that was part of the infomercial you were talking about before. If this was really the basketball crazed city that's selling itself to James, wouldn't the ticket holders have set a Google Calender reminder that game was an early 6pm tipoff? Or is that not part of the narrative.
And few venues are better? I just saw the OKC crowd going crazy tying the Lakers in their series. So stop kissing Chicago fans' asses and have an objective thought.
The longer this series goes on, the more the Cavs look like a one-man show, the 1989 Bulls. The longer that trend continues, the more unpredictable James' decision may be come July.
Um, the Bulls WON ONE GAME. Not the series. James' decision might teeter on winning a championship or not-- not how much the first round team hangs around.
You had to wonder what was going through James' mind as Anthony Parker took the 42-foot potential game-winning shot at the buzzer instead of him. You had to wonder what he was thinking in the second quarter after an aging Shaq, who apparently ran out of fuel in Game 1, missed a dunk and Noah sprinted down the other end to convert the fast-break layup.
What was going through his head? I'm guessing something along the lines of "Please go in." And he was thinking-- "Give me what you can Shaq. Then I'll try and win it. Or we have Z and Jameson. We have options." The Bulls are kind of the spring training of the playoffs.
The Cavs clearly are built to win now. This Bulls' season always has been about winning later.
Bulls aren't actually built to win yet. They still need some talent. If you need a team that'll be winning later- check out Durant and the Thunder.
But a funny thing happened on their way to the draft lottery: the Bulls eked into the playoffs due to the way the core of Rose, Noah, Gibson and Deng progressed.
Um, ok. If the Bulls could've gotten a top 2 pick, I would've taken that talent.
Put those four players around James in 2010-11 and that starting five immediately makes the Bulls one of the three best teams in the East. No other potential free-agent suitor of James can say that.
I said it before: Lebron is the player that makes a team a contender. And the four starters you have-- you don't have a real 2 guard. I guess you'd want Lebron to play there. Which would be fine-- for the pure fact that you'd have Lebron James.
Beating James and the Cavs guaranteed the Bulls will be going back to Cleveland for at least one more game. But as a dejected James took the podium late Thursday night, it's where the Bulls may be headed after this series that captured the imagination.
I knew it. This series was the work of Disney Imagineers. It can't be real. Nor can this column. The inferior team won a game. Nothing new was learned. Chicago has sold out games for the last few years. Post-Jordan. The fan base is good. There's 2 good players locked up. So the outcome of one game doesn't mean anything. Nothing at all.
The biggest problem: This was an "In The Wake Of The News" column. It has a history of great sports writers: without this sucking up to fans to think that everything's being done just right. No greater meaning of a playoff win. Its a poorly written, poorly thought up column. You can talk about Rose's development or Noah's improved work ethic or Jerome James being athletically gifted but having no idea what he's doing on the court. But this blatant pandering is lazy, bad writing. I just expected more from the World's Greatest Newspaper.
This took way too long to parse. I prefer nice articles where I can take a paragraph or two and make fun of. This I had to copy and paste a whole article. Because it was just that bad. If you made it this far, I thank you. I don't know if I would've.
There was the dust-up between VDN and John Paxson. The story was broken here by Yahoo! Sports' Adrian Wojnarowski. KC Johnson holding the story was then broken shortly after on TNT's broadcast of the Bulls v. Celtics. They are still looking into whether the Suntimes' John Jackson is a real person, is awake at the games or if the Suntimes have a Bulls beat reporter at all.
But if you're the Suntimes, like a younger sibling of the Tribune begging for more attention, you should have blasted Johnson for holding the story. Did they have a columnist do that? Nope. Their media columnist Jim O'Donnell blasts TNT's Craig Sager for, well, reporting something.
Anyhow, here's column 2 for today:
Sager only adding fool to the fire by Jim O'Donnell April 15, 2010 ...The new media was a grand accelerant while the old media seemed as reactive as the Dewey Decimal System. Multiple issues loomed.
The new media? Like TV I guess? The only thing that moved slow was the Suntimes and their beat reporter. The biggest unresolved one was merely the most important: What are the facts of the alleged MMAA -- mixed middle-aged arts -- pitting Vinny Del Negro against John Paxson and/or Gar Forman?
Here's the problem with trying to be clever-- sometimes it ends up not making any sense. MMAA -- Mixed middle-aged arts. The only problem is-- the Martial part is missing. Instead I picture VDN and Paxson sitting out front of the Musuem Of Contemporary Art with an easel and some clay oil-painting and molding little works of art. Some MMAA in front of the MCA.
Damn, I got too clever and it didn't make sense in the end. How about this- instead of MMAA- the OMMA- Old-Man Martial Arts. You get the point, it makes sense and the reader can move on without thinking about your acronym not making sense. A Web site got the jangling going Tuesday afternoon with a report that Paxson had physically confronted Del Negro after a loss to the Phoenix Suns on March 30 because of overuse of sore-footed Joakim Noah.
A Web site? You mean Yahoo! sports? Somewhere that's actually breaking news stories on the Bulls? Feel free to mention their name. Oh, and Web isn't a proper noun-- no need to capitalize. Enter TNT, a cable network with a spotty recent record at the United Center.
Spotty record at the United Center? Like bad reporting? or just a bad broadcast? Finally, in the third quarter, the furnace blasted. Sager -- suddenly a journalist -- summoned the worst of his career lightweight-ism and outed Chicago Tribune beat writer K.C. Johnson as an allegedly unwilling uncoverer of the Paxson-Del Negro story.
How dare Craig Sager report something he learned on the sideline in his role of side line reporter. And lightweight-ism? So he's not just a lightweight, but he follows lightweights? Sager's ''reporting'' implied Johnson was attempting to hop on the scoop express alongside the Web site that originally released the story. At no point did Sager take his microphone and cameraman to Johnson during a game break for more detailed elaboration.
Except he did break a story-- a reporter not running a story because of his personal connections to someone he's covering. And I don't see any quotes or efforts to contact Johnson on your part either.
So there's the parts of this article that were in English. If KC Johnson wanted to go on the air, I'm sure he would have. He also has the resources of a crumbling media empire behind him.
David Haugh wrote this in an attempt to puff up and inflate the Bulls season. They made the playoffs in the East-- be proud. They overcame the odds and did the unthinkable to float to the top of the Eastern Conference garbage pile. Be proud -- or are you a basketball snob?
Hawks, Bulls each come with playoff expectations By David Haugh April 15, 2010
I wonder if these respective expectations are realistic and fair: the Hawks must win the Western Conference and at least play in the Stanley Cup finals for this season not to go down as a disappointment whereas the Bulls can win one game against the 61-victory Cavaliers and feel reasonably content.
That's right, we can lower our expectations for the Bulls. Who wants them to be good or anything?
I wonder why Joel Quenneville and his mustache isn't a bigger hit in Chicago. Or how many of the NBA teams firing coaches will watch Vinny Del Negro a little closer knowing he's within four losses of becoming a former Bulls coach despite back-to-back playoff seasons under tough circumstances.
I always like grammar errors- that should be "aren't" not "isn't" a bigger hit in Chicago. And no NBA teams should be looking any closer at Vinny- 4 games aren't going to show whether he's a good coach or not.
...Or if OSHA has requested a credential for the Bulls-Cavs series.
Because there's a machine that's making employees go deaf or something? OSHA doesn't cover workplace violence, right? There must be some building code violations David Haugh has uncovered.
Mostly, I wonder why more people in Chicago aren't more impressed by what Del Negro and the Bulls just pulled off.
I'll try.... "Yay Bulls. Yay Vinny. I'm so impressed." No, that's not gonna stick. I tried as hard as I can and can't fake being impressed. Maybe President Obama can show me how-- here's a collection of the President feigning interest in mundane things here I'm sure he can show me how to be interested in this mundane basketball accomplishment.
Yes, of the 16 teams in the NBA playoffs, the Bulls statistically are the worst with a 41-41 record. Yes, we call the Bulls a playoff team in the same way we call the guy ranked last in his medical school class a doctor.
You left off "the same way we call a Tribune Sports Columnist a writer."
But none defies logic more than wondering whether the Bulls would be better off missing the playoffs and getting into the NBA lottery with a 1.7 percent chance at winning the No. 1 overall pick. Nonsense. Nothing good ever came from the Bulls not making the playoffs. Except the year they didn't-- and ended up getting Derrick Rose. That, oddly enough, defies your logic. Nonsense indeed.
Cynics argue the Bulls will get no closer to a championship if, for instance, they get swept by the Cavaliers, as some NBA analysts predict, and that playoff experience will be of no use later.
Wouldn't last years playoff experience help them with this year's playoffs? And they won't be any closer to a championship? The only thing they've done in the last 6 years to get closer to a championship is not make the playoffs and get Derrick Rose (Repetitive, I know. But important). The Bulls had every reason to lose focus or lack consistency. They were hobbling on the court and squabbling off it. Yet they found a way to beat the Raptors, Celtics and Bobcats in succession thanks to the way their leaders, Derrick Rose and Joakim Noah, showed them how.
They found a way to pass a team who's best player had a broken face. Uh huh, he had a broken face. Perhaps the Pixies can make this point better:
But the Bulls beat some bad teams. Some were resting players (Lebron), others were hurt (Bosh) and other were bad (Bobcats/Tyrus Thomas). Haugh also left out the Bulls losing to the worst team in the NBA. If Haugh's point were anywhere near right, wouldn't last year's playoff experience be enough to hold off the Nets?
Without last season's playoff series against the Celtics that was deemed similarly irrelevant by many, Rose and Noah never may have known where to find the something extra every winning team develops incrementally. Returning to the playoffs represents continuity in that development.
Every winning team? Do you really want to type in absolutes? The Celtics got Garnett and won it all without developing incrementally. And haven't the Bulls been trying this? Get to playoffs, then next year almost win a series and then the next year win a series.... Yeah they have. And it hasn't worked.
A common belief is that we should be unimpressed because of the inferiority of the Eastern Conference. Well, when NBA re-alignment moves the Bulls into the West, maybe that will be a valid point. But the Bulls indeed play in the East and cannot help or change that. So no asterisk or apology is necessary.
The Eastern Conference stills plays the Western Conference in the finals, right? I'm still not impressed... its still a .500 team eaking into the playoffs of a bad conference and they have no chance of doing anything.
Scoffing at a .500 record given the limited roster Del Negro had smacks of basketball elitism, residue of the Jordan Years.
Wait, those were all those years with the championships, right? Yeah, gonna say that's better than .500. And I'm still not impressed.
Remember, this Bulls' season was designed to fail and end after the 82nd game. The Bulls didn't replace Ben Gordon. They dumped Tyrus Thomas and John Salmons with the idea of improving the salary cap more than the roster. Planning seemed more important to winning — but nobody told the players.
Really bad sports thinking here. They didn't dump Thomas for salary reasons- they dumped him because he's not a good player, he didn't learn plays, and he thought he was the best player on the team. Have you already forgotten all the "my turn" Tyrus possessions? The bad jump shots? The not running the floor? Also, John Salmons was ineffective most of the year. He went from starter to bench after a few weeks.
But the really bad thought is "the idea of improving the salary cap." They did that successfully. Paxson (or Forman or whoever is in charge) cleared enough room to sigh a top-end free agent in possibly the best year for free agents ever. In this case planning was more important than winning. Much more important-- as pointed out before, the only time the Bulls got better is when they could a star (Derrick Rose) in the off season.
Together they enhanced the brand of the Bulls, something free agents Chris Bosh and Joe Johnson and, yes, LeBron James will notice over the next two weeks.
Because they finished eighth? The free agents know that Rose and Noah are here- they won't remember the Bulls miraculously and heroically making the playoffs. And they definitely wouldn't come here if the salary cap space wasn't cleared.
David Haugh, the point is winning the championship. Finishing as a warm-up series for Lebron isn't a consolation prize or that much to be impressed with.
