This past summer Chicago Bulls GM Gar Forman claimed the team was going “younger and more athletic.” Derrick Rose, Joakim Noah, Pau Gasol, E’Twaunn Moore and Aaron Brooks out.
Robin Lopez, Dwyane Wade, Rajon Rondo and Jerian Grant in.
Younger and more athletic? Only if you believe in alternative facts. This Chicago Bulls team needs another major overhaul this summer, to even remotely be considered “younger and more athletic.”
All this team has accomplished from 2015-16 to 2016-17 is get slightly more competitive in a slightly less competitive Eastern conference. While Tom Thibodeau’s teams could hang their hat on intensity and defense, Fred Hoiberg’s teams can hang their hat on….uhhh…..ummmmm…..huhh…….*crickets chirping*.
“It all comes down to what a team’s identity is. With the Chicago Bulls, you don’t know what the trademark of their game is,” said NBA on TNT Analyst Kenny “the Jet” Smith.
“To me, that’s a negative, because you can’t build your team around a specific on-court philosophy,”
Identity is huge. It matters a lot. Look at a program just up the road from the Chicago Bulls, one with which there have been ties in personnel and staff. The Wisconsin Badgers play hard nosed defense, make the opposition take long twos, take it inside and shoot threes. Don’t take long twos, the worst type of shot in all of basketball.
Every year Wisconsin uses this philosophy, along with a couple big, tall, lightly recruited white guys who can shoot from the perimeter to establish who they are every single season. Hoiberg is regarded as an offensive guru, but this Chicago Bulls team isn’t great or efficient offensively.
What is Forman’s master plan? More truthfully, what does “the GarPax” (Forman+Vice President John Paxson) have in store for next year and beyond? They can’t even figure out what to do with their own lottery pick out of Michigan State, Denzel Valentine.
Here’s a clue, you need a point guard, and that’s the position on the floor where he needs to focus on developing into the player that could really have a legitimate pro career.
TNT Analyst Kevin McHale on Chicago Bulls GM Gar Forman’s strategy:
“I think [Bulls’ management is] just letting this team ride a little bit, unless they get a great offer for Jimmy Butler. I would wait, if I were Chicago, until the draft – there are better deals to be had then [than at the trade deadline].”
McHale is spot on, Forman won’t make any major deals before the NBA Trade deadline passes. All the wheeling and dealing should come in the summer. Hopefully then, the direction is clear. Right now the identity, philosophy, direction is about as coherent and decipherable as a Sean Spicer press briefing.
When Forman said this off-season was “a re-tooling not a rebuild,” he was right. That’s a clear-cut truth, but it’s really the only vision clear to the Chicago Bulls community right now. Forman brought in a group of players that we all saw could potentially be at each other’s throats by mid-season. Sure enough, the anarchy had occurred by January.
Will the GarPax suffer any repercussion for this failed plan and roster chaos?
No.
The Chicago Tribune reported recently that both are safe; their jobs are secure.
Thus, they will be making the moves in the future, and they will have to be big, bold moves because this just isn’t working.
The Chicago Bulls need to drop “it’s not a rebuild, it’s a retooling,” and finally pick a lane this summer.
Paul M. Banks runs The Sports Bank.net, partnered with FOX Sports Engage Network. and News Now. Banks, a former writer for the Washington Times and Bold, contributes regularly to the Chicago Tribune’s RedEye publication, CGTN America, WGN CLTV News and KOZN.
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