The Lovable Bull, Taj Gibson
Throughout the off-season, the team at Bulls Confidential is going to reveal our picks for the top 25 best players in Chicago Bulls franchise history. We are measuring overall impact on the organization, community, and how they impacted their team. Follow along on Twitter by searching #BC25.
25. Mickey Johnson
24. Guy Rodgers
23. Orlando Woolridge
22. Charles Oakley
21. Taj Gibson
Let’s talk about Taj.
After kicking this series off with three older standouts, our choice for the 21st best Bull of all time is #22 himself, the esteemed power forward Taj Gibson. While he may not be employed by the Bulls anymore, Taj spent 7 and 2/3rds of his 8 years in the NBA doing grown man’s work in a Chicago uniform. His numbers may not look especially impressive to the eye, with career averages of 9.4 points, 6.4 rebounds, and 1.2 blocks per game. But make no mistake — Taj (or “Tajy-woo” as some of his teammates liked to call him) had a tremendous impact on the Bulls both on and off the court.
Gibson was selected by the Bulls with the 26th overall pick of the 2009 NBA draft, a product of the highly successful Matt Lloyd scouting era. There was some level of backlash to the pick at the time given that he had just turned 24 years old, making him significantly older than average rookies. But with age comes experience, and Taj started a career high 70 games for the Bulls in his rookie season. When the Bulls signed Carlos Boozer next summer, Taj found himself in a role that he would embrace for most of his career; as a stud sixth man. He endeared himself in the hearts and minds of fans with his tough-nosed defense and poster dunks, including this monster jam over his future teammate Dwyane Wade.
While Taj was always a pretty good defensive player even from the start, his most notable improvement as a Bull came on the offensive side of the ball. Over the course of his Chicago tenure, Gibson developed a plethora of drop-steps and post moves to shake defenders and become a go-to offensive option off the bench. It’s easy to forget that in the 2014 playoffs, it was Taj who was their best player, averaging 18.2 PPG on over 56 percent field goal shooting despite the rest of the team’s general ineptitude.
What the box scores don’t show is Taj’s commitment to being the ultimate team player. Despite playing behind worse players (especially defensively) for most of his Bulls tenure, he never allowed his ego to overtake his desire to fill whatever role he was asked to play. Former teammate Joakim Noah went on the record to call Gibson “probably the most unselfish player in the NBA”. With the rookie extension deadline fast approaching to begin the 2012–13 season, Gibson took a team discount in the eleventh hour despite certainly having earned more than he received. The Bulls did not deserve a teammate as wholesome as Taj Gibson, in part because almost no teams deserve a teammate as wholesome as Taj Gibson.
It’s hard to decide what my favorite Taj moment is. There’s the aforementioned dunk on Wade, of course, but there’s so much more. Maybe his on-court discussions with Tom Thibodeau;
Or his brutal honesty, calling out the Bulls for losing to “trash teams” after two straight defeats at the hands of the Knicks:
Or his playoff scuffle with notorious mouth-breathing pest Matthew Dellavedova, an incident I still believe he was wrongly reprimanded for;
Taj Gibson was, is, and will be loved by Bulls fans everywhere. His hard hat, lunch pail style of play will never not be a treat to root for, and it’s hard to argue against the quality of a teammate who offered such thoughtful insight into his role as this;
“I had a lot of different bright spots in my career. The biggest one in my career would have to be just being on the team when guys were down and having a coach look at me and know he can count on me. No matter what position, no matter what time of the game. And he would trust some of the most important plays for me to do. Those were the most important moments of my life, just having a guy (like) Fred (Hoiberg) and Coach Thibs, knowing the guys ahead of me making twice as much money, and he’s still calling my name in crunch time. Those were the best moments of my life.”
We love you Taj. Keep doing your thing in Minnesota. #22 forever.
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