So a new season will shortly began in a matter of days, and on Christmas Day to be exact. The steadfast Chicago Bulls are coming off an impressive league's best 62-20 record, with a trip to the Eastern Conference Finals versus the Miami Heat. Now although the Bulls came up short of their eventual goal, it was still a season full of overachieving.
But things are different now. Teams have now been put on notice that the Chicago Bulls are the real deal. But are Derrick Rose and Co. good enough to bring home the O'Brien Trophy?
Last season on my talk show, Sports Talk With Lamar and Ced, I continued to reiterate to my Co-Host, Cedric, the Chicago Bulls would not make it to the NBA Finals. Why? Simple. The team's offense.
Despite the Bulls making a key free agent acquisition signing in Carlos Boozer, he always struck me as a player who is as good as the point guard is. Not to mention, he is very injury-prone. So I didn't believe he would be the guy to propel the Bulls over the top. Over the course of the regular season, it became very obvious to me that it was Derrick Rose or bust. If he struggles, so does the team. They feed off him. Now because the Bulls play excellent defense under "Thibs," one would figure that the offense takes care of itself. Not so fast though. I feel it's completely different when the PG has to be the primary scorer. And I figured this would be the conflict for the Bulls moving forward.
It is a rare feat for a team to win a championship under a PG being the primary option. Looking back on history, I realized the players who tried and failed: CP3, DWill, Iverson, etc. LeBron James would even count as when he was in Cleveland, he was basically a SF playing the role of PG. The big issue is that the role of a PG is being the distributor and allowing the offense to be in rhythm while avoiding players being stationary. Therefore, if he has the be the primary, the offense will have its moments of being stagnant -especially if Rose has to take over in the fourth quarter. That is what wound up happening in the ECF. He went up against the one team that can compete with the Bulls defensively, in the Miami Heat, and he struggled.
So the Bulls tried to address that need and fill in the void. They picked up Richard Hamilton, SG who formerly played for the Detroit Pistons and Washington Wizards; the guy they hope to be the missing piece to an NBA Championship. Well, after watching last night's preseason game, there may be reason for optimism. In his Bulls debut, Hamilton scored 13 points and dished out six assists. While Rose focused...there's the word again...distribution. He had nine assists. But the telling stat is that the Chicago Bulls, as a team, recorded 30 assists. That's what you call excellent ball movement, which is what I feel the Bulls needed more of last season.
If this is the Bulls team we see this season, they just might be able to oust every team that gets in their way en route to an NBA Finals Championship. But the one question that still lingers is Richard Hamilton. Despite his impressive performance last night, there needs to be an establishment that Hamilton can be the Robin to Batman consistently, or in some nights, Batman. If Hamilton can still give the Bulls 15 to 17 ppg this season, the Bulls will find themselves in the NBA Finals. Because not only does Chicago play excellent defense and maintain a deep bench, we may now allow DRose do to what a PG mainly does. And only then will we have a balanced offensive attack.
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