Windy City Systems: The Chicago Bulls

Chicago Bulls head coach Tom Thibodeau is a performance-enhancing coach. More than any other leader in the NBA right now, Thibs understands that if his players are to maximize their collective potential, each individual must contribute in two ways:

1.) By making the appropriate swing passes.

2.) By making the appropriate closeouts after the opposition's swing passes.

Thibodeau and Rose can both claim to be Chicago's Most Valuable Person.

These are the two most important components of any legitimate championship contender. Thibodeau baked principle two into Boston's defense back in 2008, and he baked it into Chicago's collective defensive brain last year. It seems he has finally gotten a chance to institute principle one into his team's DNA, and his team is reaping the benefits of this newfound lifeblood so much that they've somewhat shaken their unsustainable reliance on their old lifeblood- superstar point guard Derrick Rose.

Last year, Derrick Rose won the MVP by being the offensive system that Chicago used to win 62 games. He was my MVP last year. This season, Rose is averaging 22.8 points and a career-high eight assists per game while lowering his turnovers and upping his eFG percentage (efficiency from the field). He's arguably playing better than he did last year- when he actually plays.

After missing only one game last year, he's missed 22 this year; Chicago is 28-7 with him, 15-7 without him, so he's still valuable.

The major takeaway from this is how Chicago's offense has improved from last year despite missing their MVP- an offense-oriented superstar no less- for such a large percentage of games. And it all comes back to Thibodeau's installation of a more structured system that facilitates passing with or without an on-court facilitator.

Chicago was ranked 11th in offensive rating last year, their only team strength being offensive rebound rate (they were fourth in '11). This year, despite the absence of Rose and a dip in eFG percentage (in both the actual number as well as relative to the league for each year), the Bulls rank 4th in offensive rating. Lapping the field in offensive rebound rate is part of it- Chicago is nearly as far away from the second-ranked Utah Jazz as Utah is from the league average- but another major factor is a much lower turnover rate. The Bulls actually rank in the top 10 in turnover rate despite not having Rose on the court as much.

Joakim Noah is a very good high-post passer.

How is that possible? The quartet of Joakim Noah, Carlos Boozer, Taj Gibson and Omer Asik occupying teams on the offensive glass relieves pressure, and Chicago has better overall spacing this year thanks to Kyle Korver, C.J. Watson, Luol Deng and John Lucas collectively shooting above 40 percent from 3-point range.

Most importantly is that the Chicago players are moving the ball via the pass, and they're doing it without turning the ball over as much. They are 5th in the league in Assist Percentage (percent of field goals assisted) at 61.25 percent. Last year, with Rose creating for everybody, the Bulls ranked 9th at 60.06 percent. Players are moving the ball more, and the collective IQ of the team has improved. As a result, Chicago has been able to withstand the injuries to Rose enough to own the league's best record (43-14).

What does this mean for the Bulls in May and June? Last year against Miami, Chicago was beaten because they relied too heavily on Rose. However, the need for Rose's creative abilities isn't as dire now thanks to a strategic enhancement in offensive philosophy.

Thibs's version of the truest of all basketball team fundamentals- let's call it his "Windy City Systems"- will play come May.

ECF Preview: Battle of the Flawed Teams

Derrick Rose will need to step against Miami's lengthy defense. 

The Miami Heat and the Chicago Bulls are beginning their Eastern Conference Finals series as I type this.  I'm just going to quickly describe why I believe the Miami Heat are going to be victorious.

Miami's defense is the key.  Chicago's offense is incredibly flawed, relying on one player to do more heavy lifting than any team in recent memory.  Derrick Rose was my MVP, and as I said before, that isn't necessarily a good thing for Chicago's team success.  It's incredibly difficult to win a title if your team is so flawed that you require one player to do so much in a certain area of the game, regardless of how great that player is.  The Heat defense is so quick to react and so long on the perimeter that I can't see Chicago's offense having any continuity, meaning the Bulls will not perform well when they eventually call on their sixth and seventh best players to make big plays.  Luol Deng is the next best wing player Chicago has, but he doesn't handle the ball, and LeBron James has been playing great defense this year.  Statistically, the Bulls are poor when it comes to taking care of the ball- mainly because they have no ball-handlers aside from the MVP- and that means trouble against James and Dwyane Wade.

The Bulls can expose a Heat flaw, however.  Miami's defense is at its best when it has slender bodies in the middle that can move quickly and cover space- when they have their small lineup in.  The only thing the Bulls do above average is offensive rebound with tough guys like Carlos Boozer and Joakim Noah; each of them should be able to push Joel Anthony and Chris Bosh around and score off putbacks in the paint.  That's how Chicago is going to stay in this series offensively.

Defensively, Chicago's players arrange themselves in unison beautifully to block a player's movement.  It's beautiful and it should make things difficult for James, Wade and Chris Bosh.  Miami's offensive output is going to rely on the trust James and Wade have in their teammates.  James needs to trust that when he passes to James Jones, Jones will either take the open shot or pass the ball to Wade, who will be set to attack a scrambled defense that James just put into chaos with a drive off a pick-n-roll.  It doesn't seem like the Heat have had a problem with this thus far, which is why I think Miami's offense will be just fine.  They have the two best offensive players in the series; all they need to do is not waste that talent advantage.

I'm taking Miami in six games.  Chicago doesn't have the interior isolation scorers necessary to take advantage of the Heat's biggest flaw.  Miami has the speed on defense that will expose Chicago's biggest flaw of being too reliant on one creator.  

Enter the Hall of The Worm

Dennis Rodman is going to be inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame.

Image via http://www.insideoutgame.com/2011_01_01_archive.html

In the span of ten years, Dennis Rodman wrestled Scottie Pippen, guarded Michael Jordan, goaded the immortal Frank Brickowski into a near brawl, grabbed a few rebounds, went to war alongside Pippen and Jordan against Karl Malone, and joined forces with Hulk Hogan to actually fight Malone (It was a real fight....Professional Wrestling is real....It's real......It's real..........).  I don't care which Hall of Fame honors the dude; from grabbing serious 'bounds to Carmen Electra's luscious mounds, Rodman has done enough to be associated with any hall of fame, regardless of where this hall is located or why it exists.  Another memorable achievement Rodman can add to his life resume is helping five teams win championships within the above 10-year span.  Not too shabby.

The Basketball Hall of Fame is supposed to capture historic moments, teams and especially players.  It immortalizes them for basketball fans, providing future generations with a timeline to appreciate significant, era-defining players.  Rodman was never the best player on his championship teams (Isiah Thomas and Michael Jordan were), but his integral involvement in five championships (and his relationship to both nascent and decaying dynasties from 1989-1998) mean he was a subplot for major events in professional basketball during an era.

The Bad Boy Pistons won two championships from 1989 to 1990, using toughness, rebounding, and defense as their vital cogs for success.  They ripped down the two dynasties of the 1980's, Boston and Los Angeles, and held back Jordan's Bulls for a few years.  One-vs.-one defensive extraordinaire Dennis Rodman was responsible for manhandling the young, vulnerable Pippen, providing the first line of defense against Jordan at his athletic peak, and putting the clamps on an aging-yet-effective Larry Bird.  Pip, MJ and "Legend" were perimeter-oriented players, mind you.   

The 1996 Chicago Bulls won a league-record 72 games; they had the best offense and the best defense in the league.  The Bulls won three championships between 1996 and 1998, with Rodman being sandwiched between a rock and a Shaquille O'Neal, a Karl Malone, an Alonzo Mourning and a Shawn Kemp in a series of tests against some of the most physically dominant big men in NBA history.  Those are truly hard places to survive in, yet Rodman did it.  The Worm earned that freaky nickname after all.     

He was the most versatile defender in NBA history, guarding electric smalls and massive bigs.  Along the way, he led the league in rebounding seven times, won NBA Defensive Player of the Year twice, and was named to numerous all-defensive teams.  He dug his name into the record books- not with long, painted-on fingernails, but with sheer hustle (though he definitely dug a fingernail into some poor, unsuspecting power forward who tried boxing him out).  For all the talk about Rodman being a distraction, he was still able to play a role on a title team devoid of a true superstar in Detroit.  The Pistons relied on teamwork arguably more than any other champion ever.  Rodman, despite all of the antics, was smart enough to learn the triangle offense in Chicago; Chicago's offense thrived with the "offensive liability."

And the man did it for merely $26 million over the course of his career.  I know- poor Rodman only made double what you'll make in your lifetime.  My point is that Rodman did the dirty work on title teams, and wasn't paid jack-gummy worms compared to some of the players of this era.  If Erick Dampier could make $97 million (and counting!) over the course of his career, what would Rodman rake in in this era?

Rodman left a mark.  He left a side-winding, stretched-out-to-get-the-rebound-while-going-out-of-bounds, historic body print all over the NBA record books.  The Basketball Hall of Fame is where he belongs.

I cannot wait for his induction speech....

The Real Reason Behind the Polarization of Derrick Rose

Kobe Bryant has some competition.  He has a rival in a Chicago Bulls uniform, a Bull who plays guard.  Kobe's flashy, young competitor played against him in the All-Star game for the Eastern Conference.  The youngin' headlines a team that Kobe's Lakers might see if they are fortunate enough to make it out of the West.  He's a flashy, athletic star who can dazzle fans like a young Kobe Bean Bryant.

Picture via http://pippenainteasy.com/files/2010/02/derrick-rose.jpg

Michael Jordan is retired from playing professional basketball, Keith Bogans just missed making the all-star team (Juusstt missed...kind of like all of his shots), and I didn't sign with Chicago last summer because I hate cold weather.  The Bull I'm talking about is Derrick Rose- a player who is right on Kobe's heels as he elevates both his game and his status among the league's most polarizing figures.   

MPPs of the League

Rose is an amazing force for Chicago.  The Eastern Conference is more top-heavy than the skin drooping off Libyan ruler Muammar Gaddafi's face, yet Rose has the Bulls near the top of the standings in the Eastern Conference.  While Boston and Miami sent a combined seven all-stars to Los Angeles over a week ago, Chicago sent only Rose to represent Chi-town's teams.  Analysts, media members, and fans have taken notice of this, and combined with his third-year quantum leap in terms of stats and play, Rose is being touted as a legitimate MVP candidate.  However, there are hardcore basketball minds (examples here and here and here with Mr. Berri) who find it ridiculous that Rose should be an MVP candidate this season.  As the two extremes talk, one thing is clear:  the parties can't co-exist and they can't find a middle ground with Rose.  Because the two sides can't agree, a U.S. government lock-down seems imminent.  Well, I'm sure that's part of the reason why...

Rose is now one of the most polarizing players in the league.  My quick list of MPPs:

1.)  Kobe Bryant- Kobe gets the edge due to experience and the persistent all-time comparisons that he gets.
2.)  Derrick Rose- He has a website dedicated to him getting the MVP award.  Of course he's going to be polarizing.

3.)  Kevin Garnett-  Once of the league's most popular players, Garnett's antics since winning a title have left a sour taste in people's mouths.  Boston loves him.  Small, European guards hate him.

4.)  Kevin Durant-  People love that he is a hard-working, humble kid with all the talent in the world who plays on a small-market team.  People are skeptical that he is a hard-working, humble kid with all the talent in the world who plays on a small-market team.  Too good or too good to be true?

5.)  Steve Nash-  I thought by now people would understand how great the guy is and how valuable a player he is.  It's amazing what I read on forums about the guy though.

Lebron James just missed the cut.  He would have been high, but the city of Cleveland has so much hate for him that aliens would need to come down and serenade Lebron with hymns of praise just to even out the love/hate ratio of LBJ in the world.  When you need to introduce new beings to a planet in order to even out the amount of love and hate you get, you aren't really polarizing.

B-B-But...Why?

First, I want to see if he is a legitimate MVP candidate.  Then we can go on to why he is polarizing based on his candidacy.

I'm not going to advocate Rose being selected MVP of the league, simply because I haven't gone through all the candidates.  I'm going to merely see if he seems like a candidate.  I'm saying "candidate," or derivatives of the word, way too much for my own liking.   

Rose's adjusted plus/minus numbers look pretty damn good right now.  I'll refer you to this blog, since Doc makes better sense of APM numbers than I do.   APM has its problems, but like all stats, it indicates something.  Use it as an indicator, and you're fine.

Rose also produces raw stats.  24.6/8.2/4.4 is a gaudy stat-line for any player.  He's a top ten scorer in the league in terms of volume and is close to league-average for efficiency.  That's not remarkable, but it's pretty damn good for a point guard who is also ranked in the top ten in assists per game average.  The dude simply produces.

The stats mean nothing without context though.  What type of player is  Rose?  He's a slashing point guard with burgeoning 3-point shooting marksmanship and the ability to move into spaces in the mid-range to get a shot off.  He has improved his ability to get to the free throw line as well, mainly because instead of using his possibly league-best body control to contort around defenders to get shots off, he's more accepting of the contact.  He's not Chris Paul or Deron Williams when it comes to vision or passing, but he makes plays for others in a more sophisticated way than just some good scorer drawing attention and kicking it out to a shooter.  He can settle down an offense and be a real point guard.  He's an explosive athlete and one of the best ball-handlers in the league.  He's Steve Francis with a brain.   

What does that skill-set and production do for Chicago?  That's the issue.  Well, it does a lot.  Rose needs to handle the ball an enormous amount of the time, initiating the offense, creating for himself, and setting up his teammates.  Chicago has good passers in their line-up, but they have virtually zero play-making or ball-handling outside of Rose.  Keith Bogans was used as a prop in my opening stanza in this post.  Luol Deng's handles are made more for slashing and attacking the basketball, not probing a defense or bringing the ball up the floor.  Kyle Korver is an off-ball shooter.  C.J. Watson is Chicago's solid back-up point guard and is tenth in minutes played per game for the team, as Rose plays over three-fourths of every game he appears in.  That puts more pressure on Rose to produce something magical than Dr. Dre must feel as he finishes producing his decade-of-hype-album Detox.

Rose needs to break traps, get the ball to his scorers in certain positions (Deng on the wing, Korver off screens, Boozer on the pick-n-roll or in the mid-post, etc.), probe defenses, make post-entry passes, and make plays.  His team is as flawed as the mid-'90's Orlando Magic teams were where Penny Hardaway was misused.  Whenever I watched Penny, he looked like a shooting guard with really good passing ability.  He was thrust into being point guard for ORL because of the hype of being the new Magic Johnson and because of team necessity.  Dennis Scott and Nick Anderson were elementary ball-handlers, and there was no depth on the team.  Penny had to do so much heavy-lifting for that team.  Rose is at an advantage because he is an actual point guard and he can defend his natural position on the other side of the floor, something Penny didn't get to do in most matchups.  Penny's main advantage in the half-court was being able to dump the ball to Shaq, an all-time great offensive anchor himself.  Chicago doesn't have anything close to O'Neal.

Rose has so much responsibility for Chicago because the team is actually flawed offensively.  Deeply flawed.  With only one guy being able to effectively handle the ball while passing, play-making, driving, and shooting, an offense can only manipulate a defense so much.  Scoring is taxing on that player since he doesn't get to play off-ball.  Thus, Chicago is average offensively despite having a home-run hitter on their team.  Somebody like Berri says that Rose should give up some field goal attempts because players like Boozer are more efficient, but that philosophy ignores the physics of basketball.  How do Deng and Boozer and Korver and Noah get those extra shots?  How does Rose simply "give" shots to other players when he's the one that needs to manipulate the offense.  Nobody manipulates the offense for his benefit.
    

Then we get to health.  Chicago hasn't even had their full line-up in for much time, dealing with injuries to big men Carlos Boozer and Joakim Noah.

While Chicago's defense has been stellar and given the most credit for Chicago's record by Rose's detractors, Rose is a part of that defense.  That way of thinking also ignores the fact that Rose doing all the heavy-lifting on offense means more energy for the other players for defense.  A team needs both offense and defense, and Rose leading a defensive-oriented team with his offensive prowess makes what he does even more valuable.  Isn't that what the MVP is all about?  Value to a team?

Yeah, I think Rose is an MVP candidate.

Roses are Red, Violets are Blue....

I'm going to posit that the detractors of Rose are skeptical of Rose's MVP argument for two reasons.  One is that they don't understand the difference between how good a player and how valuable he is to a team (also, they probably don't think Rose is that good as a player).  That is self-explanatory.  The other, even more ignorant reason, is because they don't want to give the MVP to a player who hasn't paid his dues, who hasn't struggled or missed out on the MVP or has legendary moments that need to be immortalized with something tangible.  Despite being a hyped number one pick, Rose was not destined to be an MVP.  Not this early at least.   

Lebron was destined.  Kobe's three titles and 81 points and struggles on the Lakers despite being arguably the best player in the league had to be rewarded.  Dirk's time had come after giving a half-decade worth of consistency as a unique type of player in NBA history as well as being one of the greatest foreign players ever.  Nash had paid his dues in the league, had struggled to find a niche; Phoenix's different style of play relative to the competition of the year may have been ground-breaking, and its catalyst may have needed to be recognized.  Garnett, Duncan, Malone, and O'Neal had paid their dues.  Iverson was controversial enough that a feel-good story about a story-book season in an era that ushered in a street-ball attitude got a street-baller like Iverson an MVP trophy (plus, umm, he was good).  Jordan is Jordan is Jordan is Jordan is Jordan.  Barkley, Olajuwon, and Robinson paid their dues as well.  As did Magic, Bird, Moses, and Dr. J.  In the modern era, an MVP has never had the same background as Derrick Rose, has never had the same lack of struggle or lack of the need to be immortalized.

People think Rose doesn't need to be immortalized yet.

I'm not saying Rose should be MVP.  But to deny him because of that is ignorant.  Whether you think Rose is going to go down as a top-20 player all-time or top-5 point guard all-time should have no bearing on what you think of Rose's value to the 2011 Chicago Bulls in the regular season.  If he deserves the award, he deserves the award.