It’s almost incomprehensible how much work the Bulls have ahead of them if they are going to get back to being a 50-win team. There are a lot of similarities between the 07 Bears and 07/08 Bulls, but there’s one major difference: the Bears have talent. It’s almost hard to believe how good the Bulls have been before this season looking at the roster, though I suppose it’s a testament to Eastern Conference basketball more than anything else. I mentioned this in a previous post a while back but it’s worth noting again: as a boss of mine always points out, the Bulls have the worst best player in the NBA. Most teams have two or three guys better than anyone here. It’s a hard way to win games.
The most obvious step of the rebuilding process went down yesterday with the dismissal of Boylan, perhaps the most hated interim coach of our time. Most interim coaches seemingly ride out the wave, but Boylan went out of his way to damage the Bulls’ future with some playing time discissions.
No matter how you feel about Tyrus, you can’t put together a logical argument saying he shouldn’t have been playing 35 minutes a night once missing the playoffs looked like a formality (ie: beginning of February). I guess Boylan thought he had a better chance of keeping the gig by mercifully running Noce out there at power forward, and if that’s the case, shame on Pax for not laying out that he was gone after the season no matter what. Pax should take some blame for this too: orders should have came from above to give Tyrus, Thabo, and Noah all the minutes their little bodies could handle. It’s Pax’s right to see what he has in these guys, specifically Tyrus, who he took ahead of Roy, Gay, and Aldridge.
Tyrus enters his third season in the NBA next year and the Bulls still don’t know what they have in him. That could have and should have been figured out this season. He’s been good enough in stretches to warrant heavy minutes and not to be completely written off. Of course, it seems few doubt Tyrus could develop into a quality power forward, he just has to be given the chance. More than anything, this was Boylan’s downfall and it will be his legacy.
One last time, just because: how many times did we need to see Noce and Deng on the court together before realizing that doesn’t work? Boylan never figured out that the Bulls got crushed on with this lineup, despite the fact that they may be two of his best four players (I don’t believe Noce is in the top four, but whatev). Both are small forwards and neither is versatile to play for the two or the four. This should have been figured out after five or so games at the most.
So, even with only one other power forward on the entire freaking roster (first Joe Smith, then Doc Gooden), the Bulls refused to play Tyrus. The guy they invested (basically) the second pick in the 2006 draft on. They guy Pax hand picked over the three players mentioned above. The guy who has played fantastic at times. The franchise owed it to themselves to figure out what they had in him, and they didn’t do it.
It was one thing for Skiles not to play Tyrus when the season was still young/alive, but completely different for Boylan to let him sulk on the bench once it was over. Let’s not even get started on playing Duhon/Hughes ahead of Thabo, things might break.
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Next week is NFL Draft week here at TUP. Prepare yourself.
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As a member of the sports blogging community, I feel this is my obligation: long live Ape.
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Earthquake!!