The Chicago Bulls didn’t get immediately penalized for failing to lure Dwyane Wade and LeBron James to the Windy City two summers ago. In fact, it was almost the exact opposite.
They may have settled for Carlos Boozer, but they still ended up with the best record in the league two seasons in a row. Derrick Rose earned the 2011 NBA MVP title on the way. But Rose’s knee injury in this year’s playoffs quickly has brought to bear the steep cost and fragile nature of the Bulls’ recent success.
With Rose out until at least next spring, Chicago no longer will enter the coming season as an Eastern Conference favorite. In fact, the Bulls’ slate of moves during free agency could target them to be the most likely to lose their postseason place altogether.
Settling for Nazr Mohammed over Omer Asik — as the Bulls are expected to do if they don’t match Houston’s offer sheet — is certainly at one level a cost-saving move. It’s also a downgrade from Asik’s 5.3 rebounds a game to Mohammed’s 2.7.
At least Kirk Hinrich is back, but Kyle Korver isn’t. Ronnie Brewer, C.J. Watson and John Lucas III, the epitome of a never-say-die Bulls bench, are also gone. Vladimir Radmanovic and Marco Belinelli are replacement fillers.
And then, there’s always Boozer, a dominant regular-season player who has gone absent in each of the last two postseasons since joining the Bulls. But this year the greater concern is whether — two seasons after being in the Eastern Conference finals — Chicago itself goes missing from the playoffs.
– Craig Stouffer
