Would the Bulls have 4peated if Hue Hollins didn't call a foul?

[Frosty]

I was a huge Bulls fan at the time and Pippen was a favorite of mine. At no point that season did I feel they were legit title contenders.

This just feels like an agenda being pushed

Citing your feelings to call using what actually happened "agenda pushing" is an interesting approach

To be honest, I didn't read the entire thread. This topic comes up semi regularly and the people pushing the narrative usually expose a parallel narrative they are actually more interested in pushing. None of it is novel.

They usually don't understand the context of the Bulls season. This is usually evidenced by statements like

If Chicago's first round opponent was comparably good in the regular season, had outscored the bulls with home court, or played them to a close 7-game series as opposed to getting rofl stomped in a sweep this might be closer to an interesting hypothetical.

I mean I haven't heard "rofl stomped" for over a decade. For someone to make such a statement while ignoring that Cleveland was missing their starting SF/PF and C either suggests ignorance of the facts or an attempt to push a narrative and hope no one understood the facts...

Or

We can engage in what could have been or what is. Chicago clearly levelled up from their 55-win regular season

Levelled up? "Clearly"? I mean who is to argue with such undisputed facts.

Usually at some point the parallel narrative comes up. If the Bulls were title contenders without Jordan, the narrative around Jordan weakens. It usually comes out in statements like

That said, I think any reasonable interpretation would acknowledge the bulls 55-wins potentially undersold them as a team in 1994. Which is fine. Making a contender/near-title cast into one of the best teams ever is excellent lift and evidences an all-time player.

It does not evidence being the very best player ever(or even come close to). As can be said for floor-raising a 30ish win team to 50ish

Hence the decades of sad revisionism and baseless theory crafting that have followed.

or

But since a certain player was not on the 94 version of the team we need to downplay what happened,

And I'll counter that "But since a certain player was not on the 94 version of the team they need to exaggerate what happened"


Like I was saying, I was a Bulls fan before Pippen was drafted, I became a huge fan. I would have liked nothing more for the Bulls to win in 1994 as I was a Bull's fan and also thought Pippen wasn't getting the recognition he deserved. But it was clear that they needed a true number one option when things got tight.

[OhayoKD]

If Chicago's first round opponent was comparably good in the regular season, had outscored the bulls with home court, or played them to a close 7-game series as opposed to getting rofl stomped in a sweep this might be closer to an interesting hypothetical.


I mean I haven't heard "rofl stomped" for over a decade. For someone to make such a statement while ignoring that Cleveland was missing their starting SF/PF and C either suggests ignorance of the facts or an attempt to push a narrative anyyxd hope no one understood the facts...z

Except the post acknowledged the cavs missing their three best players and accordingly, ignored that series. Seems you were hoping no one would actually read the original comment so you could...

They usually don't understand the context of the Bulls season. This is usually evidenced by statements like

...push an agenda.

We can engage in what could have been or what is. Chicago clearly levelled up from their 55-win regular season

Levelled up? "Clearly"? I mean who is to argue with such undisputed facts.

No one without an agenda me thinks.

That said, I think any reasonable interpretation would acknowledge the bulls 55-wins potentially undersold them as a team in 1994. Which is fine. Making a contender/near-title cast into one of the best teams ever is excellent lift and evidences an all-time player.

It does not evidence being the very best player ever(or even come close to). As can be said for floor-raising a 30ish win team to 50ish

Hence the decades of sad revisionism and baseless theory crafting that have followed.

or

But since a certain player was not on the 94 version of the team we need to downplay what happened,

And I'll counter that "But since a certain player was not on the 94 version of the team they need to exaggerate what happened"

That's not a counter. That's a claim. For this to be a counter you'll need to explain why accounting for worse health relative to 93, their performance without grant in 95, internal acrimony, and their performance vs the Knicks in games that matter is "exaggerating"

Obviously, "the team that outscored a near-champion without home-court wasn't a contender" is not agenda-driven. Just like "the 1995 bulls posting a 53-win srs is irrelevant because of the 1994 bulls srs in games without pippen and grant"

[VanWest82]

Like I was saying, I was a Bulls fan before Pippen was drafted, I became a huge fan. I would have liked nothing more for the Bulls to win in 1994 as I was a Bull's fan and also thought Pippen wasn't getting the recognition he deserved. But it was clear that they needed a true number one option when things got tight.

+1

I think the better question is if MJ hadn't come back but Bulls still acquired Harper and Rodman, could Toni Kukoc have grown into that late game role. I'd say no in terms of being an actual contender but that's at least a discussion. 94 team had zero chance to win the title, and anyone claiming such clearly wasn't following that team in real time. I don't think that takes anything away from Scottie who could do everything else and was a superstar in his role.

[Peregrine01]

If the Bulls were even given 99% odds of closing out the Knicks had they won game 5 and 50% odds of beating the Pacers and 50% odds of beating the Rockets, in other words pretty liberal odds, they'd have less than a 25% chance of winning the whole thing. So in all likelihood, still no. I don't think many people appreciate just how hard it is to win a title.

[OhayoKD]

Not a single person in this thread has said the Bulls were likely to win besides maybe the OP

[Cavsfansince84]

- The Bulls were 10th in preseason title odds that year. Sure, not entirely indicative considering they surprised people (44.5 Vegas over/under), but how about just before the playoffs started? +800, so 6th amongst 16 playoff teams. Oddsmakers aren't basketball analysts but pre-playoff odds usually gives you a good idea on what expectations were and how strong the NBA pundits and onlookers viewed the Bulls that year. No one really considered them in the "inner circle" of top contenders despite their W/L record.

What is being pointed out is the blatant pursuit of some arbitrary narrative to dismiss them

Ugh. Yeah, I'm sure some people with "agendas" are doing just that, but there's very real basketball reasons why a lot of people don't view the '94 Bulls as some strong title contender, and I think those of us arguing from that lens would appreciate not having that accusation blindly thrown our way. If objectively looking at that team/roster and not believing in their championship viability just because they took the East Conference Champs to 7-games in the 2nd round is me "dismissing them", then I've dismissed a lot of better teams than them.

-

That's the thing though is that in 94 as well as 95 I'd say there was no real 'inner circle' of contenders the way you would say this year we have the Nuggets, Celtics and Bucks(possibly the TWolves). There were no proven teams that had won the title before besides the Bulls. No team clearly better than everyone else based on the rs. The Bulls that year weren't favorites but it was easily within the realm of possibility imo they could have won it in all in 94 and it wouldn't have been some huge shock. The Knicks were seen as the favorites in the east but everyone knew they had a semi broken offense that relied way too much on John Starks. The west had 4-5 teams all bunched together and if any team actually stood out that year it was actually the Sonics who of course lost in the 1st rd. So if you recalculate odds after the 1st rd it also changes things.

[Mikee Lowry]

Idk. Bulls always had problems with Hakeem and the rockets when they had Jordan.

There does appear to be some meat to this statement.....

In '94, they split the series against the Rockets in the rs 1-1 (losing by 7 on the road, and winning by 6 at home).

Looking at adjacent years (sort of blending rosters): they were 0-2 vs the Rockets in '93 (losing by 14 at home, and by 11 on the road); and were 1-1 vs the Rockets in '95 (winning by 19 at home, but losing by 23 on the road).

So were 2-4 vs them overall across three years, and an average outcome of being outscored by 5 pts. Weirdly they were 0-2 WITH Jordan, 2-2 vs the Rockets without him (though being outscored by 1.25 pts on average).

Hakeem vs Jordan be like:

[OhayoKD]

Idk. Bulls always had problems with Hakeem and the rockets when they had Jordan.

There does appear to be some meat to this statement.....

In '94, they split the series against the Rockets in the rs 1-1 (losing by 7 on the road, and winning by 6 at home).

Looking at adjacent years (sort of blending rosters): they were 0-2 vs the Rockets in '93 (losing by 14 at home, and by 11 on the road); and were 1-1 vs the Rockets in '95 (winning by 19 at home, but losing by 23 on the road).

So were 2-4 vs them overall across three years, and an average outcome of being outscored by 5 pts. Weirdly they were 0-2 WITH Jordan, 2-2 vs the Rockets without him (though being outscored by 1.25 pts on average).

Hakeem vs Jordan be like:

Jordan's efficiency did tank a bunch vs Hakeem...

[Bad Gatorade]

There does appear to be some meat to this statement.....

In '94, they split the series against the Rockets in the rs 1-1 (losing by 7 on the road, and winning by 6 at home).

Looking at adjacent years (sort of blending rosters): they were 0-2 vs the Rockets in '93 (losing by 14 at home, and by 11 on the road); and were 1-1 vs the Rockets in '95 (winning by 19 at home, but losing by 23 on the road).

So were 2-4 vs them overall across three years, and an average outcome of being outscored by 5 pts. Weirdly they were 0-2 WITH Jordan, 2-2 vs the Rockets without him (though being outscored by 1.25 pts on average).

Hakeem vs Jordan be like:

Jordan's efficiency did tank a bunch vs Hakeem...

It's true - his efficiency with the Bulls was 58.0 TS%, and it dropped to 54.5 TS% in 21 games against Hakeem.

No shame at all in this - Hakeem's on the shortlist of the greatest multi-year peaks ever IMO, one of the very clear best defenders ever, and the idea that Hakeem's defensive advantage outweighed Jordan's offensive advantage is entirely defensible.