Bulls Wed Dec 16 2009

As the Bulls Turn: Send in the Clowns

By Brian Lauvray

Take it away, Babs:

The Circus Road Trip wrapped up last month, but the clowns are still at the United Center. [Ba-Zing! -Ed.] Led by the Clown Prince of the NBA (VDN) the Bulls have now lost 11-of-13 games against, admittedly, some very tough teams (two losses to the Lakers, Ls to Cleveland, Denver, Portland, Utah, Boston, Atlanta, y'know, games the Bulls should lose). However, mixed in with those "gimme losses" have been a few terrible losses to teams the Bulls should be beating from a talent standpoint.

Losses to the Milwaukee Bucks, Toronto Raptors and, most damning, the New Jersey Nets have been the lemon juice in an open wound-type defeats that will be screwing the Bulls out of a playoff berth come spring time when they're a game or two out and (o! irony) Milwaukee and Toronto are jostling for the 7 and 8 seeds. Particularly awful are the New Jersey and Toronto losses when you consider that both games were at the friendly confines of the UC and that both squads were pretty dinged up (granted, the Bulls aren't "healthy" right now) and that the Nets had one freaking win up to that point in the season...It boggles the mind that Vinny is still coaching this team after those losses. How a coach, with Derrick Rose as the starting point guard, leads a team to rank 28th in points-per-100 posessions, confounds logic. Furthering the stumble down the rabbit hole of offensive ineptitude is the fact that (with Rose still as the starting point) the Bulls are 22nd in the league in offensive pacing. What this means is that of the 30 teams in the league, the Bulls for some "crazy" reason are the 22nd slowest paced offenses in the league. All confounding. Clearly, the retirement of Del Harris this past offseason must show Forman and Paxson that Del Negro's "luck" and "ability" last year in getting the Bulls to the playoffs had more to do with Harris' cagey offensive knowledge and Ben Gordon's glut for shooting.

Onto sunnier topics. Let's talk about Joakim Noah. Peep his line from last night's game with the Lakers. Okay, ignore the 4-16 shooting from the field [sad face emoticon], he had 14!!!! offensive rebounds, 20 total boards and six blocked shots!!! Noah through the first third of the season is averaging 10.2 points, 12.1 boards and 1.9 blocks per game. That's he's not listed on the All-Star Game ballot is a travesty. So I am calling out to all fans of the Bulls and Noah: pencil him at the bottom of the page as a write-in vote! Noah has to be in Dallas for the ASG as a starter, people! Make it happen. You can vote online and as many times as you want. Vote early and vote often, Chicago.