On the day we found out just how bad Bulls TV ratings have gotten this year, the team went out and challenged the notion that anyone should watch them at all.
If you were still paying attentionwhen the Bulls made an epic 8-0 run to start the fourth quarter in Charlotte on Monday night, raise your hand.
Advertisem*nt
Most likely you started looking at Bears mock drafts after the Bulls gave up a season-high in first quarter points in their execrable 108-91 loss to the Hornets.
The Bulls, without Derrick Rose or Jimmy Butler, trailed 38-20 after the first quarter. They trailed by double digits for the final 40 minutes, 13 seconds of the game. In the end, all that was left todo waspraise the guys who hustled up and down the floor and forget this road trip ever happened.
With this loss, they finished their road trip with a 2-5 record. So much for them finding themselves away from home. At 27-24, the Bulls are the only team currently in the Eastern Conference’s top nine with a negative point differential. It’s only -0.3 (101.4/101.7), but still not a good sign. Nor is the fact they’ve lost 12 of 17 since their six-game winning streak ended on Jan. 7.
While everyone is going to point out how the Bulls are almost out of the playoff picture on Feb. 9 — Charlotte is 1 1/2 games back in ninth place in the East — the Bulls are also 1 1/2 games out of fourth with 30 to play. This is a team that can finish their season either inthe Eastern Conference finals or atthe last game of the regular season.
The Bulls return home starting with a Wednesday game against the Atlanta Hawks, and it will be interesting to see how the United Center crowd greets theteam they’ve been avoiding on TV.
Sports Business Daily/Sports Business Journal put out its annual midseason check-up on regional sports networks ratings for NBA teams Monday and the Bulls had the fifth-highest percentage decline for their games on Comcast SportsNet Chicago, with a 29 percent drop from last year, and a current 3.52 average rating. The Bulls still have the fourth-biggest audience in the NBAwith122,000 households tuning in for a nightly cringe-fest.
Advertisem*nt
Once those 122,000 households found found out Rose was out with “general soreness” (More on that in a minute), that number probably halved. Once the Charlotte Hornets jumped out to a 17-6 run, even Stacey King and Neil Funk turned their monitors to “The Bachelor.”
With Rose and Butler (knee strain) missing the game, this team had little shot of sustaining any kind of offensive balance. In years past, undermanned Bulls teams played rough-and-tumble basketball with erstwhile coach Tom Thibodeau exhorting them to action from the sidelines. But times have changed, the coach has changed, and most importantly the players have changed.
The biggest issue with this Bulls team isn’t Rose’s day to day aches and pains or new coach Fred Hoiberg’s system, it’s the talent. Ask Taj Gibson.
“What was our identity?” Gibson was quoted as sayingin ESPN writer Nick Friedell’s game story. “Our identity was defense and then we went offense. But you got to look at it, we got a whole different group of guys from previous years. In previous years we had a lot of defensive guys that [had] dog in them. Now we got a bunch of young guys [with an] offensive mentality. Now we’re just trying to figure out a new system.”
Thibodeau is gone and it’s time to stop expecting this team to “grit” its way through a season with half a roster. The Bulls went into Monday’s game without its starting backcourt, its backup power forward (Nikola Mirotic – out indefinitely after appendectomy and hematoma removal) and backup center Joakim Noah (out for the season after shoulder surgery).
While it didn’t have to be so one-sided, the Bulls absolutely should have lost this game, especially with the way their reserves play on a nightly basis. The once-fabled Bench Mob is now the Fightin’ Fredos. Aaron Brooks is an awful slump, Tony Snell is invisible and Doug McDermott is a one-dimensional shooter.
Advertisem*nt
While the Bulls finished with 25 assists on 35 baskets, they also missed 55 shots. The Bulls shot 38.4 percent inside the arc and 40 percent outside of it. They got out-rebounded 56-41.
Remember when the Bulls didn’t miss Noah?
In the 12 games since Noah dislocated his left shoulder, resulting in season-ending surgery, the Bulls have given up 105 points a game. Bobby Portis is a fine rookie, but he’s not the answer. Cameron Bairstow is trying, god bless him.
Bulls center Cameron Bairstow is trying really hard. (Sam Sharpe/USA TODAY Sports)
The Bulls, once the bastions of that junkyard dog defense Gibson opined about, are now getting the James Harden treatment on Vine.
This is pitiful transition D by the Bulls https://t.co/VNL6KTddOg
— Cody Westerlund (@CodyWesterlund) February 9, 2016
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! https://t.co/KFrC0UDmQF
— Jason Patt (@Bulls_Jay) February 9, 2016
On most nights, the Bulls can at least count on an honest night’s work from Butler and Rose. But Jimmy is ailing and Rose is trying to navigate the fine line between being responsible about his body and being too careful about it. If we’re talking about an early February game in Charlotte, I’d side with my cautiousadvisors.
Butler, who flew home to Chicago after spraining his knee in Denver on Friday, is “doubtful” Wednesday, Bulls coach Fred Hoiberg said Monday, but Rose should be back.
So about Rose, who gottorched by Chicago sports media for seemingly tapping out of the game, Hoiberg cleared up a little confusion about why Rose was a late scratch with “general soreness.”
“It was tough,” Hoiberg told reporters after the game. “Derrick was not moving well in shootaround this morning. That’s when we started thinking about it. We got here and he wasn’t moving much better. So the decision was made to not play him tonight. It was our fifth game in seven nights. Derrick came off a back-to-back, he’s playing real well, with pace. Just one of those things we made that decision. Hopefully we get him back on Wednesday.”
Advertisem*nt
Hoiberg was asked if he can’t count on Rose, who has been scoring (18.8 points per game) and shooting (45 percent)at an All-Star caliber clipsince Christmas, and the question included the classic sportswriter statement-into-a-question construction of “What’s that like?”
“The big thing with Derrick right now, he’s had his best stretch of the year,” Hoiberg said. “We want to continue to keep that going. It wasn’t Derrick saying, ‘I’m absolutely not playing,’ It was the way he was moving around in shootaround today. He just wasn’t getting better as the day went on. That’s why that decision was made.”
In truth, a lot of NBA players sit out games when their bodies don’t feel right, and even more play when they’re sluggish and out of whack. Back when everyone was criticizing his awful start, Rose predicted his game would coalesce later in the season. He was right. So maybe he and the Bulls were right about sitting him in Charlotte. Wasn’t that the knock on Thibodeau? That he didn’t properly adjust to the new way of dealing with NBA injury prevention? Of course, Thibodeau knows what happens when a coach listens to his bosses and doesn’t win. Hegets fired.
As bad as the Bulls looked on the road, Hoiberg knows when Rose and Butler are healthy, they are a legitimate threat to make the Eastern Conference finals. But the dreamy days of the Bulls thrilling fans with ugly, undermanned victoriesare over. Reality has set in for the Bulls, who don’t have more than enough to win anymore.
Jon Greenberg is a columnist for The Athletic based in Chicago. He was also the founding editor of The Athletic. Before that, he was a columnist for ESPN and the executive editor of Team Marketing Report. Follow Jon on Twitter @jon_greenberg
