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Reborn in Chicago
Paul Flannery
BOSTON -- Dwyane Wade of the Chicago Bulls was holding court, which is still a strange thing to say. If ever there was a player destined to carry on the one-team mantle from Kobe Bryant and Tim Duncan, surely it would have been D-Wade, who spent 13 years in Miami becoming an iconic civic fixture.
Sitting across the locker room from Wade was Rajon Rondo. Even in the ever transient world of the NBA where we’re conditioned to accept change as a necessary part of the arrangement, the sight of these two former combatants on the same team -- and in Chicago, no less -- was still jarring. The two talked it over this summer after joining forces and shrug when it’s brought up.
"You better get used to if you want to be around," Wade said. "I’ve been around 14 years. I’ve seen everything that I can see."
The Bulls are undergoing a fascinating experiment at a delicate moment in their history. After trading former MVP Derrick Rose, GM Gar Forman called it a roster reset. Many took that as a sign that the Bulls would build around Jimmy Butler and a cast of young players. That made even more sense once they also parted ways with Joakim Noah and Pau Gasol.
Then they signed Rondo and Wade, and the reset became more like a rebirth, at least for the veterans. Cast aside by the Heat, Wade returned home to Chicago a hero. After a year in exile, Rondo is once again a figure of importance. Still, adding those two to a team that already had an emerging star in Butler seemed curious on paper and looked downright ridiculous under scrutiny.
It’s not just that the Bulls have doubters. Their offseason maneuvers were uniformly panned and it wasn’t a question of if they would implode, but when. Mere moments after the shock of Wade’s signing began to wear off, the consensus quickly formed that there was no way these three headstrong players could coexist on the same team. Having three perimeter players who aren’t great shooters also didn’t seem like the best idea in a modern NBA that prizes spacing.
That became the conventional offseason wisdom, solidifying a narrative template for the season that was still months from playing out. Amusingly, it took only three games for the masses to completely change course and declare all that we once knew to be self-evident was now passé. After opening the season with three straight wins, maybe the Bulls were just weird enough to work.
Then came three straight losses and suddenly the Bulls are right back where we thought they would be, which is somewhere in the Eastern Conference’s vast middle. Such is the state of the franchise a mere six games into the regular season. It’s too much to process at this early stage of the season and the Bulls don’t really care anyway.
"No one knows what this team can be," Wade told me me between pitches during Game 7 of the World Series. "No one."
"If we cared about people questioning us we wouldn’t even be in the NBA," Wade continued. "No one gave a lot of us a chance to even get here, so outside perspective is what it is. It’s an observation. It’s someone’s perspective. That’s not for us to concern ourselves with, our job is to find a way to be as good as you can be as a team."
Through the first week of the season, the Bulls have been one of the league’s early surprises. They opened the season with three straight wins including a victory over the Celtics and a pair of blowouts against Indiana and Brooklyn. Then they dropped a hard-fought rematch with the C’s and gave up 117 points against a struggling Knicks team in what happened to be Rose and Noah’s return to Chicago. The next night they were trounced on the road by the Pacers.
The pendulum swings wildly in the early stages of a season and there’s a healthy amount of skepticism, primarily in regards to their shooting. But there’s also cause for cautious optimism. The Bulls that we saw in their better moments are a team that plays together and may be more than the sum of their individual parts.
In Rondo, they have a lead guard that wants to push the pace and in Butler and Wade, they have a pair of threats who can create offense out of nothing. Second-year coach Fred Hoiberg has done a nice job staggering their minutes so there is usually one of them on the court at all times. Add in complementary shooting from Nikola Mirotic and Doug McDermott, and a host of unselfish bigs known for defense, energy and rebounding, and well, maybe there is something more here.
This is an ideal situation for Wade, who has spent the latter part of his career proving people wrong. Every time you think he’s on the downside of his legendary career, he reminds you of his resourcefulness. Nowhere was that more evident than in the postseason, where he brought the Heat to within a game of a return to the conference finals.
However bitter his departure from Miami, Wade’s arrival in his hometown of Chicago has been marked by good feelings and better vibes. If there’s anyone who can bring a team like this together, it’s D-Wade. To a man, the Bulls all point to the same unifying force, that elusive intangible known as chemistry. And to a man, they all point to Wade as the key element.
"He’s real calm, a real cool guy," veteran big man Taj Gibson says. "Real calm."
That calmness seems to have trickled down to everyone else on the roster. Already this season, Butler has declared his allegiance to Hoiberg, a stark contrast from last season when he called out the coach for not being tough enough.
Then there’s Rondo, who has knocked heads with coaches from Doc Rivers to Rick Carlisle. Hoiberg says that he loves working with Rondo. The first thing they did was watch film together and Rondo spent a good chunk of the summer working out with the younger players in Chicago.
"We don’t look at ourselves as a big three," Wade said. "We’re just coming out here trying to help lead this team, and we’re playing basketball. Everybody is on the same page. You got one night where Doug leads the team in scoring, one night it’s Jimmy. That’s just the way it is."
Disregarded in sober analysis as more voodoo than science, chemistry still has its place in the fragile fabric of a locker room. Of course, chemistry was supposed to be one of this team’s trouble areas, which makes the Bulls’ early season camaraderie all the more intriguing.
"I’m not surprised," Butler said. "I see the way that we go about it every day in practice. The way that everybody’s always talking and communicating and hanging out with one another. It’s all smiles and it’s fun. Obviously it’s fun when you’re winning, don’t get me wrong, but when you’re playing basketball the right way that’s also fun."
Fun hasn’t always been part of the deal for the Bulls. Even in their best years there was a grimness to their approach. But this is a new day and given their early work, perhaps even a new beginning for a team that had grown stale. If nothing else, the Bulls have offered a reminder that maybe we don’t know everything we think we know.
"You put a team together, you work hard in training camp you just don’t know what’s going to happen," Wade said. "You get what you get with how hard you work and we worked hard on togetherness and communication in a very short period of time."
The buses were waiting and the Bulls had a plane to catch, but there they all were watching the World Series, hanging out together. The cynic in all of us says that this can’t last. We’ll certainly know a lot more about this newfound togetherness after they try to bounce back from this losing streak. Still, it was barely a week ago when it all felt right. The truth will reveal itself soon enough.
The ListConsumable NBA thoughts
Extending rookie contracts is rarely a bad move. Unless you are a team intent on hoarding future cap space for a dramatic free agent run, locking up young players at today’s dollars generally makes sense in the long run. With that in mind, it’s hard to find too much fault with any of the eight extensions that were agreed to last week, even if there’s room for reserved skepticism in a few cases.
The future All-Stars: Giannis Antetokounmpo and C.J. McCollum were the first players from the 2013 draft class to be extended, which makes sense in that both are cornerstones for the respective franchises. Extending Giannis was a no-brainer for the Bucks, especially for less than the max. He’s a unique talent who is still finding his ceiling at age 21 and has been incredibly durable throughout his career. We still don’t know what to make of the Bucks, or Giannis for that matter, but we’ll all have fun watching it develop. McCollum, meanwhile, has been a revelation playing alongside Damian Lillard. Defensive considerations aside, they complement each other’s games perfectly and together they have elevated the Blazers from a developing entity into a postseason mainstay. It wouldn’t be a shock to see both players earn All-Star bids, perhaps as soon as this season.
The core centers: The death of the big man has been greatly exaggerated in recent years. Even in today’s downsized lineups, tall humans who can rebound, defend the paint, and score efficiently are greatly valued. Of all the bigs selected in the bizarre 2013 draft, it’s fitting that Steven Adams and Rudy Gobert have emerged as the two highest paid members from the class, considering both were considered projects. Adams is still something of a hoops neophyte, and his rapid development is augmented by a mean streak that pairs well with Russell Westbrook’s frantic dashes to the rim. Gobert, meanwhile, is a shot-blocking machine who has proven to be a defensive difference maker when healthy. In time, he may be even more than that. Both OKC and Utah made sizable bets on their big men’s potential and it’s not hard to see why.
The big men who fit: There is nothing particularly exciting about Gorgui Dieng or Cody Zeller. They rebound, set screens, and offer a bit of offensive production. Dieng will be 27 in January, but he makes a nice frontcourt pairing with wunderkind Karl Anthony-Towns. For his part, Zeller has settled in as a rotation big man who knows his role in Steve Clifford’s system. You’d rather have either of them than not and locking them up in the $14-16 million range annually is good value in these cap-inflated times.
Backcourt gambles: The Hawks made their point guard choice when they traded Jeff Teague to the Pacers, turning the keys to Mike Budenholzer’s offense over to Dennis Schroder. More mercurial than reliable at this stage of his career, Schroder is now clearly the guy with a 4-year, $70 million extension on the books. If the Hawks are right, then this deal is fine. If not, this one will hurt. Victor Oladipo, meanwhile, has already flashed the ability that made him the second overall pick, but the Magic nonetheless made him available in the Serge Ibaka trade. Oladipo has yet to fully realize his potential, but the real question for OKC is how he’ll mesh in the same backcourt with Westbrook. Still, betting on youth rather than paying an aging veteran is a classic Sam Presti move.
Who’s left: That three of the top-5 picks and seven of the first 10 selections did not receive extensions reveals just how thin the 2013 class really was. Erstwhile Rookie of the Year Michael Carter-Williams is now on his third team in four years and top pick Anthony Bennett will go down as one of the all-time draft busts. Still, there will be several interesting names available in restricted free agency. From big men like Nerlens Noel and Mason Plumlee to wings like Otto Porter and Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, it will be fascinating to see just how high their market value goes this summer.
ICYMIor In Case You Missed It
INSIDE JOB
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SLEEPING ON THE CAVS
On this week’s Drive & Kick podcast, John Gonzalez and I weigh in on the Sixers anthem protest, Russell Westbrook’s hot start, and offer an obligatory Warriors and Cavs update.
STARS WITH BARS
Zito Madu reviews Dame Lillard’s new album and reflects on how the game has changed since Allen Iverson’s notorious music debut.
SAME SONG, DIFFERENT VERSE
Bonus Ziller on the sad case of Anthony Davis and the Pelicans who seemed doomed to that second-division life. Man, this is depressing.
ROSE REPOTTED
Derrick Rose is gone from the Bulls and Jesus Gomez writes that it’s all for the best.
Say WhatRamblings of NBA players, coaches and GMs
"Me and Russell grew up together. I was in the phase of finding out who I was outside of basketball. He already knew who he was. He already had a stable life. He had stable parents, a girlfriend through college. I didn’t have none of that stuff. I’m trying to find out who I am, which I didn’t know, which is not a bad thing. He knew who he was. So obviously we’re going to grow toward this way (splits arms). It’s not a bad thing." -- Kevin Durant to Mercury News beat writer Anthony Slater.
Reaction: Thus kicked off a week of introspective KD comments about his former teammate culminating in Thursday night’s beatdown in Oakland. Durant gained a measure of respect for his dominating performance, but he’d probably do well to leave this alone. In choosing Golden State over OKC we already knew everything we needed to know about their partnership. The rest of the details are just plot points in this melodramatic storyline.
"The boss don’t like me. I wouldn’t mind having a sit-down dinner with Dolan. I wouldn’t mind cooking him dinner. Might put something in it, though! I mean, I had at least 15 people try to set up a meeting. He won’t meet. I want to sit down to talk to him. I want me and him in a room. And lock the door. Lock that door! I mean, he can have the police outside the door." -- Former Knick Charles Oakley to Scott Cacciola on the state of his relationship with the team..
Reaction: Oak stays Oak and it’s a shame that the Knicks and James Dolan can’t look beyond his blunt manner and reach detente with their one-time enforcer. Bringing Oakley back into the fold would energize the Garden and bring much-needed closure to a feud that has gone on way too long.
"Without a doubt. He’s done a lot for this organization. Not the way things ended was great but he helped put a banner up there. He’s a future of Hall of Famer, as well. We’ve got to pay him respects." -- Rajon Rondo on whether former Celtic teammate Ray Allen should have his number retired.
Reaction: No franchise reveres its past more than the Celtics and while it’s long been assumed that Kevin Garnett will have his jersey hanging next to Paul Pierce’s one day, the same can’t be said for Walter Ray Allen. That honor seems unlikely, given Allen’s acrimonious departure from Boston. If even Rondo can see past their differences then maybe there’s a chance for reconsideration. Regardless, Allen’s official retirement from the league should not be glossed over. He was one of a kind, an automatic shooter whose obsessive compulsions defined a fierce competitor. I’ll always treasure those pregame moments watching Allen work on his craft. Here’s to ya, Ray.
"I ain't no high-flier. Hit 'em with that rear end and throw 'em off their spot. I keep it simple." -- Grizzlies forward Zach Randolph, explaining the delightful secret to his old-school game to ESPN’s Tim McMahon.
Reaction: Z-Bo’s transition to the bench has revitalized his career prospects and is part of an emerging trend throughout the league in bringing low-post scorers off the bench to stabilize second units. Credit to him for accepting the role and new coach David Fizdale for putting a new spin on Grit n Grind.
""There are ways that you can judge how you’re doing and it can’t be purely on tweets. I mean I’m not deaf. But (decisions) can’t be (made) purely on chatter. I’ll leave it at that. I feel more accountable for our success and failure than a single individual. So blame me." -- Wizards owner Ted Leonsis to the Washington Post.
Reaction: Don’t think you’ll have too much trouble with that one, Ted.
Vine Of The Weekfurther explanation unnecessary
I’m sorry, David West. I’m truly, truly sorry.
Designer: Josh Laincz | Producer: Tom Ziller | Editor: Tom Ziller