Never mind that the Bulls have lost Derrick Rose for another season and are subsequently less relevant than ever. Everyone knew that would be the case when the news broke a little more than a week ago. More pressing is how the Bulls look like anything but a legitimate playoff team right now.
After slumping home from a 1-5 circus trip, the latest setback came Monday in a 131-128 defeat in triple overtime to the New Orleans Pelicans. Really though, it should have been over way before that. The fact that the Pelicans aren't proven winners yet is the only reason the game dragged on for as long as it did, making the Chicago Tribune sports desk nervous about whether the game would make the first edition.
The Bulls were extremely lucky to extend the game by hitting a few clutch shots, but that would have been a non-issue if they were playing even an average team. Their chances to end the game themselves in the final seconds were sloppier than my kindergarten handwriting and the lineup looked completely clueless. Plus, New Orleans was at less than full strength with Anthony Davis out. If this recent Bulls play shows up against Miami on Thursday, it will be over before the 10:00 newscasts even begin.
Perhaps Jimmy Butler's eventual return will put the Bulls back on the right track, but right now, we're looking at a team with a bunch of talent that should have some knowledge of how to play together. Unless the additions of Mike Dunleavy and Tony Snell have messed up chemistry to an unprecedented degree, there's no reason the dynamic should have changed that much. It's like Rose was the cog holding everything together and suddenly, the rest of the team is left doing doggy paddles in the shallow end of a pool.
Hopefully, this is just a bad stretch that will be followed by a couple of nice winning streaks. Then again, when have we seen this kind of listlessness in the Tom Thibodeau era? The defense is soft, the offense isn't being smart with shot selection and nobody is finishing plays that decide the outcome of a given game. Thibodeau is a defensive coach forever, but does he have any idea yet of who should be taking the biggest shots in the biggest moments? Since giving the ball to Rose and getting out of his way is no longer an option, a plan B should be in effect. This team is not all that different from last year's, so you have to think there are still some plays in the back of Thibodeau's mind that he can reach for and simply apply it to now.
We can talk all we want about what exactly has gone wrong since the circus trip commenced, but it's also worth asking how much of the city cares about these struggles. No doubt the latest developments are a pipedream for the tanking crowd and a nightmare for those who still want an all-out effort. While the Blackhawks keep winning and earning more hearts, the Bulls are doing a lot to convince the middle crowd they shouldn't even look at a hardwood floor until next season.
It's amazing how a team with a few other marketable names (Luol Deng, Joakim Noah, etc.) could suddenly lose their way of how they go about business. With the impending breakup however, you could see how it's hard for them to get into some of these games. The championship dream is dead, players are injured and morale couldn't possibly be lower. Then again, this team has responded well to adversity in the past and the good news is there's more than enough time to right the ship.
No, TNT won't be getting the LeBron-Rose matchup they got on Opening Night on Thursday, but at least they'll get a Bulls team trying to rise out of the darkness by any means necessary. Although that's not always fun to watch, one has to at least admire the Bulls for looking a favorable momentum swing. They stopped a long winning streak by Miami last season. Now, they have to stop their own bleeding.
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