A bad Bill Simmons impersonation, Part 2

It’s funny how many dormant Bulls fans returned to fair weather life as soon as the Bulls won Sundays’s game over the Miami Heat, ensuring themselves a playoff berth. Driving back to Champaign from an Easter weekend at my parents’ house and listening to all of these so-called fans chime in on ESPN-1000 about how excited they were for the Bulls, I thought to myself, 90% of these fools don’t even know who Eric Piatkowski is.

Not that I should be penalizing anyone for not being the same basketball geek that I am, but I just think that there’s more to be excited about with the Bulls than Ben Gordon’s Myspace page, or just securing the 8th playoff spot.

And here’s a list:

A TALENTED YOUNG NUCLEUS
Say what you want about the Bulls lacking a true superstar, but to me their nucleus of Gordon, Hinrich, Chandler, Nocioni, Deng, and Duhon remind me of those Seattle Supersonics teams from the early 90s whose best player was probably Sam Perkins. They also had a man-child in Shawn Kemp, a young Gary Payton at point, a one-dimensional scorer in Ricky Pierce, Nate McMillan providing leadership and great defense, and solid role players like Derrick McKey and Dana Barros. None of those guys ever averaged much more than 30 minutes a game. They had the same feel of a really good NCAA basketball team, the way they shared the ball and pulled for one another. And with George Karl implementing a gimmicky pseudo-zone defense full of half-court traps, there weren’t too many teams in the NBA comfortable with facing them in the playoffs. Sounds like the Bulls to me.

And what did the Sonics do when they finally grew up a few years later in 1996? They made it to the NBA Finals, losing only to the Bulls’ 72-win team of destiny.

SCOTT SKILES
When it comes to pure X’s and O’s, the only coaches in his league are Rick Carlisle, Larry Brown, and Pat Riley. When Skiles first joined the Bulls, Jamal Crawford and Eddy Curry were astounded by Skiles’ knowledge of offensive plays and counterplays and counter-counterplays. Even Jason Kidd, who never saw eye-to-eye with Skiles and was the mastermind behind Skiles’ firing in Phoenix years ago, has begrudgingly said this of his ex-coach: “He’s the guy with all the plays.”

On top of that, you won’t find a better motivator in the league than Skiles, and this includes Phil Jackson. Pat Riley has stated that “no team in the NBA plays harder than the Bulls”, and even the always-cynical Sun-Times columnist Jay Mariotti wrote in Monday’s column: “They never stop thinking, sweating and trying to please their demanding coach, whom they’ve never tuned out despite hellish practices and endless instruction.”

I know it’s Isiah’s fault and not Larry Brown’s, but I always laugh at the current mess in New York because I know that if Skiles were the coach there with a team as talented as that, they would be contending for the number two seed in this year’s playoffs, not the number 2 pick in this year’s draft lottery.

BEN GORDON
When he’s on, not even Kobe Bryant can light it up like this guy. After scoring 32 points last week on 9 for 9 from behind the three-point arc, Johnny “Red” Kerr — who called almost all of Michael Jordan’s games in his career — said that he had “never seen a performance quite like that before.” Gordon will never be a great on-the-ball defender and he’ll never become a trustworthy floor general, but one thing he’s got is a freakish ability to put points on the board. The scary thing is he’s still got a lot to learn about the game, such as how to create free-throw shooting opportunities for himself, when to be aggressive and when not to be, and how to adjust his strategy when the shots aren’t falling. Once he learns all of that, we’ve got someone who is capable of averaging 25+ points per game in a season.

DEFENSE
The Bulls are the best help-defenders in the league because they pretty much have to be. Gordon, Hinrich, and Duhon all platoon at defending shooting guards, and none of those guys are taller than 6’3”. Whenever someone like Vince Carter is posting up Chris Duhon, you can be rest assured that Nocioni or Deng will pop up from the weak side to apply pressure, and even if Carter dishes the ball out to an open wing man, the Bulls rotate so quickly that any “open” three-point shot ends up being challenged with a hand to the face. Or if Carter somehow breaks the double team to either go for a layup or a pass to a big man, you’ll always have an exuberant Tyson Chandler hungry to block the living fuck out of the ball. This is why, for the second consecutive year, the Bulls lead the NBA in lowest opponent field goal percentage.

ANDRES NOCIONI
He’s Ron Artest, Matt Harpring, and the Tasmanian Devil all in one. And this year he’s got a three-point jumper. It’s incredible how dramatically Nocioni has improved his outside shooting; last year he shot an abysmal 26% from behind the arc, this year he’s shooting 38% (and don’t forget that for a couple weeks this season he was leading the NBA in three-point percentage). You’ve got to love a guy who already has a secure niche on the team, but sees a weakness in his game and returns the next fall having turned that weakness into a strength. Andres is also an improved rebounder — earlier this month he went eight straight games with 10 or more rebounds — and his drives to the hoops are filled with so many spins and flying elbows that opposing defenders give a look of dread that seems to say, “Fuck it, just give him the hoop. I don’t feel like going home with a black eye tonight.”

He’s most likely Skiles’ favorite player on the team, and if it weren’t for my infatuation with Ben Gordon’s freakish scoring ability, Nocioni would be my favorite Bull as well.

LUOL DENG
People forget that when everyone salivated a few years ago over LeBron James as an NBA prospect, Deng was generally regarded as the next best high school player in the nation. He doesn’t possess the ballhandling skills or lateral speed to ever be as good on the wing as LeBron or Carmelo Anthony, but this is a guy whom many people believe will be the best Bulls player a few years down the road. He just became able to legally drink alcohol on Sunday, so he’s still got time to grow, but what I have seen of him is an uncanny knack for finishing baskets. Case in point: in Sunday’s game versus the Heat, Deng drove aggressively towards the hoop where a defender planted himself five feet from the hoop to draw an offensive foul. Seeing this, Deng shifted his body mid-air to avoid the defender, and then after subsequently getting hacked hard, he threw up the ball with his left hand that kissed impossibly high off the glass for a layup that only LeBron, Dwayne Wade, or Kobe could have made. His extra-long Sudanese arms made this play possible. On plays like that, Deng sort of looks like a more athletic version of Tayshaun Prince, minus the underbite.

Another thing about Deng. People always point to the absence of Eddy Curry as the reason that the Bulls lost to the Wizards in the first round of last year’s playoffs, but I’ve said it before that series, I’ve said it after that series, and I’ll say it again: the reason they lost is because Deng didn’t play. Without Deng, there was no one to effectively guard Antawn Jamison, no one to provide defensive help coverage on Larry Hughes and/or Gilbert Arenas, no one to provide a consistent offensive production while the Wizards swarmed on Ben Gordon and Kirk Hinrich.

If you put Luol Deng in that series, the Bulls sweep and meet the Miami Heat in the next round. End of story.

THE POINT GUARD SLOT
It’s easy to get caught up in the Ben Gordon excitement, but one thing he doesn’t do too well that he should do well is find the open man. Fortunately for the Bulls, they’ve got Kirk Hinrich and Chris Duhon.

If he wasn’t eternally exhausted from always guarding the other team’s shooting guard, I am convinced that Kirk would put up all-star caliber numbers. On any other team that didn’t require so much defensive responsibility from him, Kirk could average 18 points and 7 assists per game and make a strong case as the runner-up for the NBA’s BWBPGBH Award — the Best White Boy Point Guard with a Bad Haircut Award. Steve Nash, of course, would win every year.

The impressive thing is Kirk could care less about his stats. He’s the first and best embodiment of John Paxson and Scott Skiles’ vision for the Bulls: a tough, hardworking, selfless S.O.B. with great discipline and boundless energy.

The same can be said for Chris Duhon, who is actually an even better floor general than Hinrich, but doesn’t get the minutes he deserves because the Bulls need Hinrich’s defense and Gordon’s scoring more. While the entire nation oohed and ahhed for Jason Williams during their years at Duke, Duhon was no doubt appreciated more by Coach K for organizing the offense better than any other Duke point guard since Bobby Hurley.

Duhon reminds me of a young Eric Snow out there, with better shooting range. Which is a great commodity to have as a back-up point guard; in fact, I believe that Duhon is the best back-up PG in the league — say what you will about Leandro Barbosa, who scores well but doesn’t even average 3 assists per game.

TYSON CHANDLER
Once people quit projecting a young Kevin Garnett in him and start seeing Tyson for who he really is — a young Marcus Camby — then they’ll forget all about the fact that The Man With Two Last Names can’t create his own stinkin’ shot and, as a fifth year veteran, still plays hot potato with the ball whenever someone passes it to him.

Tyson will never be a scorer. Let it go. Quit having thoughts about bringing Kareem in to teach him the Sky Hook. Because, I’ll take a guy who is capable of averaging 12 rebounds per game any day if he’s willing to give the ball to Gordon or Deng, mind his own business, and get the hell out of the way. I’m not a huge fan of the dude and his lack of offensive skills, but all can be forgiven if he just picks his spots and continues to be the defensive game-changer that he is. I hate tossing the word “potential” around for a guy who has played in the league for 5 years, but the reality is we still haven’t seen his best season. And if he’s due to outdo his 8 PPG, 10 RPG season of a couple years back, then the Bulls have got a 7’1” Ben Wallace on their hands.

THE SUMMER OF 2006
The Bulls get the Knicks’ first round lottery pick from last summer’s Eddy Curry trade AND their own pick, AND they have a lot of money to spend, which means that the sky is the limit for how much better the Bulls can get this summer. They can draft Texas big man LaMarcus Aldridge, or they can go after Adam Morrison, or even better yet, with all that flexibility under the cap and the myriad of tradeable young talent, they can trade for that missing superstar that everyone seems to believe the Bulls need. Like the disgruntled Kevin Garnett. Or Jermaine O’Neal.

Whatever happens, a big piece of the puzzle will be filled this summer, and with the growing talent and chemistry of their young nucleus, I don’t see how anyone can not be interested in the entertainment that this team will have to offer for years to come.