The Rebirth of the Baby Bulls
Being a fan of the Chicago Bulls is tough.
Not unlike a child who has never been told “no”, we’ve come to expect greatness from this franchise. The Bulls’ unrivalled dominance throughout the 90s led by Michael Jeffrey Jordan (look him up, you may have heard of him), Scottie Pippen (the most underrated superstar of all time) and Phil Jackson (before he went senile) set the fanbase up to expect nothing but greatness. We’ve been spoilt, really.
Night in and night out, the fans came to expect dominance. No matter what teams threw out, none could stack up — to quote The Avengers, “we have a Hulk”. Except our Hulk was an unrelenting 6'6" shooting guard with a borderline-maniacal competitive streak, determined to eviscerate anyone at anything — seriously, Jordan would even bet teammates that his luggage would come out first at airports. How do you stop someone like that?
The 90s were a perfect storm for the Bulls, elevating to the point where victory was augmented with a slew of immortal sports moments. How many other franchises have “The Shrug”? Or “The Flu Game”? Let’s throw in a 72–10 season and six rings while we’re at it for good measure. The fairytale came to an end in the 1998 season with the sixth (and final) championship of the Jordan era. Closing the book on the decade, Jordan carried the team to victory against the Utah Jazz in Game 6 of the 1998 Finals, closing out his Bulls tenure with a last minute steal (sorry, Karl Malone), crossover (sorry, Bryon Russell — no push-off) and mid-range jump shot to win the game. Seriously, you can’t even script this shit.
Once the dust had settled on the 1998 Championship season, Bulls fans were treated with a serious case of reality. Jordan retired (again), Pippen went to Houston to form a veteran superteam with Hakeem, Clyde and Barkley, and Phil Jackson rode off into the sunset — although given how much peyote he was taking at the time, he probably was hallucinating the aforementioned sunset.
Losing your best player makes it extremely hard to recover and stay relevant — much like when Beyoncé realised how much better she was than Kelly or Michelle and went solo. In a bid to re-tool the roster and get younger, the front office spent most of the early 2000s drafting raw young prospects like Tyson Chandler, Ron Artest and Jamal Crawford (who was acquired in a draft-day trade) and hiring a college coach to fill the shoes of Phil Jackson. These players all went on to have solid careers — Chandler and Artest becoming Champions in 2011 with the Mavericks and in 2010 with the Lakers, respectively and Crawford becoming a perennial 6MOTY candidate. However, the shoes that needed filling were too big and the expectations too high. Affectionately dubbed “The Baby Bulls”, the franchise slid into mediocrity for much of the early 2000s — something fans were not accustomed to.
In a sort of twisted karma for being elite for an entire decade, Bulls fans learnt to live with disappointment. Even though it could always be worse — shout out to Sacramento Kings fans — we yearned to be back on top. Fortunately, once you get past the tunnel of disappointment that includes drafting and then trading LaMarcus Aldridge for Tyrus Thomas and missing out on LeBron/Wade/Bosh in 2010 Free Agency (then ending up with Carlos Boozer and his painted-on hair as a consolation prize), there was light.
That light came in the form of Derrick Rose. With a 1.7% chance of landing the number one overall pick in the 2008 draft, the Bulls luck had finally turned, striking gold by drafting the hometown kid with that pick. Rose was the brightest glimmer of hope the Bulls had since Jordan — he re-ignited the fanbase with his electrifying play, quickly becoming a fan favourite, and eventually, the youngest MVP in the history of the league in 2011 while leading the team to a league-best record. He was the star that the Bulls so sorely needed.
Sporting a roster filled with other solid options (Luol Deng, Joakim Noah and Carlos Boozer) and complimentary role-players (Ronnie Brewer, a young Kyle Korver, Taj Gibson and a rookie Omer Asik — known as “The Bench Mob”) led by Rose and Tom Thibodeau, it was finally exciting to be a Bulls fan again. The possibility of a Championship was again at the front of everybody’s minds. The Bulls looked like they were going to be great again.
However, the Basketball Gods weren’t done punishing the Bulls for their prior dominance. I distinctly remember waking up to a text message from a friend that simply read “Derrick Rose. ACL.” — the disheartening image of Rose lying on the court after tearing his ACL in Game 1 of the 2012 playoffs is the ultimate what-if for Bulls fans. What if he had stayed healthy? Would we have beaten the powerhouse Miami Heat in the Eastern Conference Finals and gone on to win a Championship? The franchise again — and Rose as a player — couldn’t recover from this. Or could they?
Rose sitting on the bench in a suit paved the way for the emergence of Jimmy Butler — drafted 30th overall, he quickly evolved into one of the best two-way players in the league. Joakim Noah also flourished as the de facto Point Center, racking up triple doubles, winning DPOY and coming 4th in MVP voting in 2014. The Bulls still maintained winning records and would continue to make the playoffs without Rose, but a team with a revolving door of sub-par Point Guards that included DJ Augustin, Nate Robinson, Aaron Brooks and an old Kirk Hinrich isn’t winning a Championship any time soon. The Bulls aren’t supposed to just be good, they’re supposed to be great.
Rose couldn’t stay on the court, the Bulls’ medical staff nearly killed Luol Deng and extended minutes saw Noah and Butler get played into the ground. Hello darkness, my old friend…
The rollercoaster of emotions continued when Thibodeau was replaced with Fred Hoiberg and Rose and Noah were traded in order to “get younger and more athletic”. The front office accomplished this by signing Rajon Rondo and an aging Dwyane Wade — to quote the ever-repetitive Reggie Miller: “Are you serious?!”.
So, we now had an offense predicated on ball movement and 3-point shooting, with three ball-dominant guards in the starting lineup and no shooting. Great! On top of that, a litany of locker-room/chemistry issues spawned by Butler and Wade by calling out teammates publicly was the proverbial cherry on top of the cake. Wade is the 3rd-best SG of all time (behind the GOAT and Jerry West) and Jimmy Butler is a bonafide stud, but I had seen one too many possessions where they dribbled out the shot clock to hoist up a contested mid-range jumper only to miss — it was time to blow it up.
When a team is stuck in mediocrity, I’m all for doing something drastic to turn things around. Nobody wants to be an eight-seed forever. The Bulls’ Front Office also realised this and put their collective balls on the table during the 2017 Draft and hit the rebuild button, trading Jimmy Butler and the 16th pick to the Minnesota Timberwolves for Zach LaVine, Kris Dunn and the 7th pick, which they used to draft Lauri Markkanen.
Initial reactions of the trade weren’t exactly positive — LaVine was an athletic freak coming off an ACL tear, Dunn was a fifth overall pick who couldn’t see any court time under Tom Thibodeau in Minnesota and Markkanen was a 7-foot sharpshooting white guy that screamed “potential bust”. Meanwhile, Minnesota got another star to pair with Karl-Anthony Towns and Andrew Wiggins — was it too late to jump ship and become a Timberwolves fan?
Gutting the team and relying on the development of the youth on the roster was a risky move, but for the first time since Rose’s MVP season, Bulls Basketball was exciting again! Dunn is an above-average defender at his position, currently 4th in the league in Steals per game. The team has gone to him in clutch situations and he’s proven that he can deliver. LaVine’s recovery timetable progressed as expected and despite playing under a minutes restriction (currently averaging 26.2 MPG), he looks increasingly comfortable on the floor, averaging 17.5 PPG. I don’t want to overreact, but LaVine being Young Kobe 2.0 isn’t off the table.
The most important piece of the trade, however, is The Finnisher himself. Markkanen has exceeded all expectations coming out of the draft — not only can he shoot the lights out, but he has the ability to put the ball on the floor and get to the basket with a surprisingly quick first-step. He also became the fastest player in the history of the league to make 100 3-pointers — beating Stephen Curry’s previous record of 58 by 17 games. Following the trade, Bulls fans were worried we’d drafted Andrea Bargnani 2.0. Fortunately, Markkanen has come out of the gates looking more like Dirk Nowitzki 2.0 and already has a bad-ass nickname — everything’s coming up Milhouse!
The Bulls aren’t exactly setting the league on fire yet with their play — sporting a 20–39 record doesn’t exactly scream “contender”. But as the 76ers have shown us, there is a Process and it should be trusted. As a fan, it’s extremely exciting to watch the youth develop over the course of the season with the potential of a lottery pick incoming to continue building around our new Big 3. Hoiberg’s system has shown flashes of its potential now that the right pieces are starting to emerge and shutting down Robin Lopez and Justin Holiday for the time being brings a joyful tear to my eye, signalling that the Front Office is committed to the tank.
Being a Bulls fan is tough. We expect greatness and nothing less — we’ve ruled an entire decade, had the GOAT leading the team and drafted the youngest MVP of all time. The Chicago Bulls and mediocrity are not synonymous, and now for the first time in a long time, it finally feels like the team is on the path back to greatness. Effectively rebuilding a team takes patience, smart drafting and a lot of luck (Golden State are still laughing at the Timberwolves for passing on Curry… twice), but the Bulls are off to a great start with the rebirth of The Baby Bulls.
