The Chicago Bulls and the Derrick Rose Conundrum

The Chicago Bulls have a conundrum as it relates to Derrick Rose

Before injuries robbed two plus years of his basketball life, 2010/11 Derrick Rose was the MVP of the league, an athletic freak, overwhelming opponents with his physicality, a true force of nature. That Derrick Rose is gone, and he’s likely never coming back. 2014 Derrick Rose is a lot like those $20 Rolex watches you buy in Bangkok, they look almost exactly like the real thing, and unless you look really, closely you can’t tell the difference.

For a while they even keep good time, just like the original, but you never know when they are going to stop, it can happen unexpectedly, at any time. And that’s the problem for the Chicago Bulls, they don’t know how many NBA minutes are left on Derrick Rose’s body, but they do know that the clock is ticking.

It may have only been 11 games, but Derrick Rose’s Return Tour Part II has already taken the Bulls and their fans on a roller coaster ride that has been equal parts high-five exciting, and throw-the-remote-control-at-the-TV discouraging, and that presents the Bulls organisation with a conundrum. They have seen how fragile Rose can be, beset by three separate injuries despite the cotton-wool treatment, averaging 28 minutes a game, but they have also glimpsed how good they can be with him in the lineup. The Bulls don’t need 2010/11 Derrick Rose to win, this version is good enough, but what they do need, is to have him on the court..in June. This is clearly the most talented team in the Rose / Thibodeau era, on paper, maybe the best in the NBA. The Bulls championship window is open, but only for as Derrick Rose’s Rolex keeps ticking.

The Bulls championship window has been open before during the Rose era, however windows are easily broken; once Rose’s knee crumpled in April 2012 in the first round of the playoffs, causing him to miss the entirety of the 2012/13 season, the Bulls were immediately transformed from title contender to also-ran. Minus their superstar the Bulls were forced to grind out victories, at times seemingly by sheer force of will, and they were relatively successful in doing so.

Winning 45 games their first year without Rose and 48 the second; but come playoff time, the extra gear wasn’t there, talent matters in June and the Bulls never made it past the Eastern Conference Semi Finals without their star point guard. Though every team had to bleed for their wins against those Bulls teams, those rosters were diminished, not just by the lack of a superstar, but by an overall lack of talent.

The Bulls under Thibodeau have always embodied their coach’s frenetic defensive desires. Last year they kept opponents to a Defensive Efficiency Rating (points per 100 possessions) of 97.8 , ranking second in the league; because they had to. They had no other choice if they wanted to be competitive, because they threw up enough bricks to build another version of the United Center, their 47.1% Effective FG% (EFG% accounts for three-point shots) the worst in the NBA.

This equated to a lowly equal 27th in Offensive Efficiency Rating, scoring only 99.7 points per 100 possessions. To put this in context, it was 9.7 points lower than the top rated Los Angeles Clippers and only marginally superior to the Orlando Magic and Philadelphia 76ers, two teams who were deliberately tanking and finished with a combined win-loss record of 42-122 (.256 Pct).

This Bulls team doesn’t just have different names pencilled into the team sheet each night, they look different, they feel different, and they play different than past incarnations. These Bulls are different, a better collection of talent, with new offensive schemes, getting better shots, and with better shooters taking them. The stench of Carlos Boozer’s rotting corpse has wafted west to L.A., replaced by free agent acquisition Pau Gasol who is proving an upgrade in multiple areas, particularly passing, cutting and shooting.

Gasol and Joakim Noah now run multiple two big high post sets, which creates space on the wing for shooters. Fourth year shooting guard Jimmy Butler for one, has appreciated the open space, averaging 21.3 ppg and shooting 39.1% on threes, after averaging 13.1 and 28.3% respectively last year, his Player Efficiency Rating (PER) leaping from 13.57 to 23.20.

The Bulls have been more effective in the key areas that advanced metrics love; more points in the paint, more fast break points and more three point shots. Whilst the Bulls shot type breakdown does not show a significant change from last year, the efficiency most certainly does. The Bulls had an EFG% last year of 43.2% on jump shots which has increased to 48.2%, mirroring the increased accuracy on their close to the rim shots (54.0% to 57.4%). The Bulls overall EFG% has climbed from dead last in the league to eighth, equating to an Offensive Efficiency Rating of 106.0 which is ninth in the league, and massive improvement from their 27th ranking a season ago.

That is what makes this years incarnation of the Bulls so intriguing; an upgraded roster, improved depth, a slicker offense and 2014 Derrick Rose looking like a reasonable facsimile of 2010/11 Derrick Rose…when he’s on the court. Therein lies the problem for the Chicago Bulls, without Derrick Rose this team has a glass ceiling, but with him, even a diminished version, they can be great — NBA championship great!

With Rose playing the Bulls out score their opponents by 19.3 points per 100 possessions, which would easily be the best margin in the NBA, without him it is a more pedestrian +1.4, a number not dissimilar to that posted by last years’ battling and ultimately doomed team.

We are 11 games into an 82 game season, and Rose has yet to light up the boxscore, however statistically it is already profoundly obvious how positively the fragile and intermittently available point guard impacts this team. The Bulls are 4-1 when Rose suits up, the lone loss to the Cleveland Cavaliers in overtime, a game he exited prematurely with ankle sprains.

When Rose is in street clothes the Bulls are 3-2, with losses to cellar dwellars the Boston Celtics and the Indiana Pacers, and narrow escapes against the rebuilding Minnesota Timberwolves and the tanking Philadelphia 76ers. The Bulls are +45 in the 139 minutes Derrick Rose has been on the court and -2 in the 346 minutes he has not, and this is not just one uber-efficient unit skewing the results, every five-man unit that includes Rose on the floor (4) has a positive plus/minus.

Most of the preseason prognostications for Rose and the Bulls focused on how his return to the lineup would boost an anaemic offense. How his athleticism in transition and his ability to penetrate and kick out to the open man would aid a team that not only couldn’t get open looks, but couldn’t hit them when they did. Surprisingly the Bulls offense hasn’t struggled when Rose is on the pine, in fact it has been marginally better (2.6 points per 100 possessions), it’s the defense that highlights an appreciable difference.

With Rose on the bench the Bulls morph from the equivalent of the best defense in the league, conceding only 90.8 points per 100 possessions to statistically the worst allowing 111.3 points; a staggering delta of 20.5 points per 100 possessions. Opposition teams transform from brickmasons, with an EFG% of 39.8% which for context is 6.4% worse than the Sixers, to a respectable 48.2%. Not only are the team numbers impressive, but Rose has flat out dominated opposing point guards when on the floor, restricting them to 29.2% shooting and a PER of only 10.4, a net PER advantage to the Bulls of 9.7 at the point guard position.

Moderation, whilst offering no guarantees must remain the key tenet of the Bulls plan for Rose, and the front office, coaching staff, ownership, teammates and even Rose himself must ignore the criticism and negativity surrounding the allegedly “soft” point guard. It has become open season on Derrick Rose, he is copping more whacks than a piñata at a ten year olds birthday party, but the games that will ultimately define this Bulls team and Rose himself will be played in June, not November.

The Bulls need to keep playing the long game, the NBA history books are littered with players and teams who’s destinies were materially altered by the cruel hand of the injury gods. They know from bitter first-hand experience that championship windows can close suddenly and violently, therefore they have a responsibility to the fans, the players and the city of Chicago to stay the course of temperance, no matter how unpopular. Because despite all of the upgrades, this Bulls team will ultimately only go as far as Derrick Rose takes them.

This Derrick Rose is not 2010-11 MVP Derrick Rose, and he probably won’t ever be again, but he doesn’t need to be, what he does need to be, is on the court in June. If the Bulls can manage that, they might just be trading in that fake Rolex for a championship ring.

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