In their fifth game of the season for the Chicago Bulls on October 29, 2021, they ran into a big problem that has remained unresolved to this day, and although they have won four consecutive games before, this game finally lost to the New York Knicks 103-104. Although it's been a few months since the game and most people should have forgotten about the problems they had at the time, those who followed the Bulls game must remember the look of Patrick Williams when he left with an injury, and he has not returned until now, and Lonzo Ball was not allowed to play against Julius Randall, an All-Star who did not defend the opposing team for the rest of that game. Randall had a significant height and weight advantage over Ball, who played guard, and the Bulls trailed the Knicks 37-49 in rebounds in that game.
This is the epitome of the current situation of the Bulls this season, they are the second worst team in the league for rebounding this season, and after losing Williams, the Bulls' core lineup consists mainly of a center (Nikola Vucevic) and four players who have been labeled as defenders for most of their careers, and the height of this lineup is really not ideal. What's more, the Bulls are also one of the most injured teams of the year, Williams is just the beginning, Ball, Alex Caruso, Derrick Jones Jr., Derrick Jones Jr. and Javent Green have also been out of the game for a long time due to varying degrees of injury, and the team's owner Zach Lavin has missed some games due to injury, but more importantly, his knees should not have fully recovered, and it does not look like the windy City Curry of the past. Apparently the Bulls are short, badly injured and very tired, and have now hit a bottleneck, losing eight of their last 10 games and winning just three games since the All-Star Game.
Technically, as long as the Bulls are able to recover in the next few weeks, they can return to the perfect combination of the early season, mastering the perfect scoring balance between Ravin, Vucevic and DeMar DeRozan. On top of that is DeRozan, who single-handedly covered up the Bulls' other line-up flaws for much of the year, averaging 34.2 points per game and shooting 55.3 percent from the field ahead of the All-Star Game in February, a career-best. The numbers don't look like the average NBA star can play, and it's even more different when we look at how the data comes out, with DeRozan improving his score again and again as the game progresses, beating opponents with undefendable mid-range shots at key moments.
And last year we saw something similar from Damian Lillard, whose Portland Trail Blazers, like the Bulls for most of the year, often used his fiery shooting touch to help the team achieve some thrilling victories at key moments of the game, thus surpassing their offensive and defensive performances. Like last year's Trail Blazers, the Bulls have been able to achieve such a good record this season because of DeRozan's superman performance at key moments, achieving some game victories that should not have been achieved, and their record against the top three teams in the East and West Regions is 0-15, such a winning strategy is obviously unsustainable, and more importantly, as the team becomes more and more active in defending DeRozan's last-minute ball-holding offense, the Bulls are no longer able to win games as they did at the beginning of the season.
With the Bulls at a loss for height and weight, they are inevitably at a disadvantage on the flanks and lows, and it might be better if Williams can come back, but an 82-game regular season of roster design relying too much on a 20-year-old player is a problem. The Bulls' recent signing and eagerness to force Tristan Thompson, who has been in marked decline, into their rotation is a testament to how ill-prepared the team's frontcourt rotation is, and that no good outcome can be in any season, so after spending most of the season nearing the peak of the Eastern Conference, the Bulls are now more like a reflection of their true strength.
Of course, we don't have to be too vocal about the Bulls, compared to the team's performance last season, their improvement this season is not small, in addition to Vucevic and DeRozan, they still have a young core lineup with great potential for improvement, the next few weeks, but even more so in the next few years. One could argue that as they get older, no one can replace Vucevic and DeRozan, and the playoff window that the Bulls haven't fully opened will close again, but the Bulls' new management has taken the outside world by surprise because of the resourcefulness of these people, and now they have more team building base than before, but for now, while the Bulls have achieved some degree of revival, there is still a clear gap from the glory represented by their team logo.