Chicago Bulls = The Leagues Newest Treadmill Team?

[swollcat]

As direct and concise as one can be, have the Chicago Bulls become the NBA's newest treadmill team? What seemed to have lasted for a decade, teams like the New Jersey Nets, Dallas Mavericks (with one obvious exception), and the Atlanta Hawks just seemed to be absolutely content with making post season appearances and having ABSOLUTELY nothing to show for it. It was a damn near lock for these teams to make the playoffs and similarly guaranteed that theyd be one and done (or 2nd a done with an easy draw). Its funny because the brain trusts of these teams seemed relatively content with such a pointless, yet vicious cycle.

You can obviously go on to say that of these teams, the MAVs did their best to contend - being tied to literally every big name out there whether it was through trade or FA. With this in mind, I chose to examine the chicago bulls as the new age treamill team. Theyre not bad enough to draft in the lottery yet we both know that its laughable to think that theyd win the whole thing with the nucleus they have right now. Although Derrick Roses injury has been the primary cause for this wheel spinning of sorts - it is virtually no guarantee that theyd regain the shape and form of the regular season leading bulls of times past.

Seriously, I dont understand what the heck the bulls braintrust is thinking. ARe they just trying to bide their time until rose come backs as a means of delaying the inevitable? in all honesty, they should have cleaned house last year, let rose recover, and when he comes back reload via free agency/with the high draft pick they would have had.

I can already see the posts coming in saying " why would the bulls want to suck....theyre doing it for their fans." OK that may be so, but thats like literally spewing out "were not in it for the championships..." lol you gotta be kidding me.

Any takers out there with some ideas as to what the bulls should have done (maybe handled the team differently while rose was injured) or should do when rose gets back?

[IbankingBoiler]

Just because the Bulls don't feel like tanking and actually like to play hard doesn't mean they are a treadmill team. They are an injured and depleted team. another solid scorer and an 80% rose would push them to the 2nd best team in the east with a "chance" of testing the heat. They lost rose, traded deng and still nearly 3rd seed(granted east is bad) Treadmil is perennial 5-8th seeds with multiple 1st round exits.

[CousinOfDeath]

Is being a top 3 team in the league with Rose healthy the equivalent of being on a treadmill?

[Bavlack26]

Basically the front office wanted to tank, The team was too good to do badly, end of story.

[Slava]

I wish this "all or nothing" philosophy peddled by the quants could be driven out of sports and especially the NBA. Watching the Bulls compete season after season against all odds is one of the best things about today's league and I'd rather be them than 76ers no matter how much success their shameful plunge may or might not yield.

[swollcat]

valid, but youre not looking at the big picture, WHATS THE POINT? look at history: celtics had an elite player, but were garbage in the sense that they knew the could not win a championship with what they had. what happened next? they went swinging for the fences with two power moves and look what happened. Lakers, elite player + power move = contention. Miami heat, elite player + power moves = contention. cavaliers, elite player + no power moves + many weak moves = history. you cant tell me that lebron james didnt take into account the boston/laker module when doing what he did. without that opportunity he stays home. it is BEYOND EVIDENT that hustle and grit isnt going to get them what they want. it is also beyond evident that the bulls need to make a move...and thats the point i would like to shed some light on

[swollcat]

and btw this is no disrespect to fans of the bulls. I completely agree all or nothing from a FANS PERSPECTIVE is garbage, but if you havent noticed...im making an observation from a MANAGEMENT/OWNERSHIP perspective...

and treadmill is used in the "theyve become complacent sense" - as in what have they done, or what do they plan on doing to win a CHAMPIONSHIP...

[BayInferno]

Maybe. But with(/if) Rose healthy, and possibly Melo in FA, all could change...

[Novocaine]

and btw this is no disrespect to fans of the bulls. I completely agree all or nothing from a FANS PERSPECTIVE is garbage, but if you havent noticed...im making an observation from a MANAGEMENT/OWNERSHIP perspective...

and treadmill is used in the "theyve become complacent sense" - as in what have they done, or what do they plan on doing to win a CHAMPIONSHIP...

What are they supposed to do?

The Rose+Noah+Deng+Boozer experiment ran its course - mostly due to Rose's injuries they were never able to contest the title. Now they'll try to build a contender with Rose+Noah+Buttler+Gibson and whoever they can get on free-agency. Maybe they can make a move involving those top players, but the opportunity needs to be there.

[GallagherArt]

I wish this "all or nothing" philosophy peddled by the quants could be driven out of sports and especially the NBA. Watching the Bulls compete season after season against all odds is one of the best things about today's league and I'd rather be them than 76ers no matter how much success their shameful plunge may or might not yield.

I'm ecstatic finally having a direction even if that means hopping off the treadmill and taking the plunge. I wish that when my team is peddling mediocrity season after season there's still that glint of hope that Lakers' fans must always have knowing there's a superstar waiting in the wings. Well, Kevin Love isn't on our horizon, however, now, a top draft pick is. I'm hopeful again, it doesn't matter how it's perceived, building a Champion is all that matters.

[nomorezorro]

1/3rd of your examples of a 'treadmill team' literally won the nba championship

[swollcat]

I wish this "all or nothing" philosophy peddled by the quants could be driven out of sports and especially the NBA. Watching the Bulls compete season after season against all odds is one of the best things about today's league and I'd rather be them than 76ers no matter how much success their shameful plunge may or might not yield.

I'm ecstatic finally have a direction even if that means hopping off the treadmill and taking the plunge. I wish that when my team is peddling mediocrity season after season there was still that glint of hope that Lakers' fans must always have knowing there's a superstar waiting in the wings. Well, Kevin Love isn't on our horizon, however, now, a top draft pick is. I'm hopeful again.

if i could give this a thumbs up i would. at least you have some plan of action as far as what they NEED TO DO in order to get the most out of roses tenure. to be honest, i dont understand why the @#$% management dragged deng, boozer, and their other role players out for so long. if you look at the team, they literally have no assets. how is that possible? its just unfortunate they sat on the talent they had for so long that it literally got old right before their eyes. it bothers me that they look so much like the cavaliers the year before lebron left.

I feel as if this has EVERYTHING to do with management and much less bad luck. management should have done SOMETHING to mitigate the damage or at the very least have the FORESIGHT/a contingency plan in case operation win a ring took a dump..its almost as if they literally froze all strategic decision making and said "no thinking until derrick comes back..."

[Torres]

some teams actually have pride. you just can't tank when you got guys like Thibs+Joakim.

[baubo]

Just because the Bulls don't feel like tanking and actually like to play hard doesn't mean they are a treadmill team. They are an injured and depleted team. another solid scorer and an 80% rose would push them to the 2nd best team in the east with a "chance" of testing the heat. They lost rose, traded deng and still nearly 3rd seed(granted east is bad) Treadmil is perennial 5-8th seeds with multiple 1st round exits.

Do you think of the Hawks as a treadmill team? The Bulls in the past decade have exactly one extra playoff series win than the Hawks(4 vs. 3). Neither have made the finals. And no one ever thought the Hawks were more than a treadmill team with the good luck of being in the East.

[nomorezorro]

the bulls were actively terrible a decade ago, built up to pretty good, fell apart, won the lottery, built up to being a legitimate contender, and then had two years where their superstar was injured

but yeah, all that time they've been consistently mediocre. the definition of a treadmill team!

[snomeister]

According to most fan's logic, 25 teams should be tanking.

[GimmeDat]

First off, I want to wholeheartedly agree with Slava on this one.

That said, doesn't 'stuck on the treadmill' infer you're in mediocrity? We were a legit contender for 2 years, then the last 2 have been hurt with Derrick Rose's absence.

If Rose was permanently gone, I guess you could say that we could be a treadmill team going forward, but only if we re-signed Deng. He's gone, we're still performing, and we have additional financial flexibility to make this team better (possibly Melo, possibly someone else, who knows). Additionally, Mirotic will be coming over and we've got picks from Charlotte and Sacremento (albeit protected) as well as our own.

I don't see how the Bulls are 'stuck' or even 'mediocre', we're a contender missing our star. Even then, we are flexible financially and have multiple routes to improving the squad.

I think 'consistent success' is getting confused with the term 'treadmill team', and whether the negative connotations to the term treadmill team are even justified is a whole discussion in itself.

[therealbig3]

People complain about the lack of parity in the league all the time...but then the teams in the middle get nothing but hate for even trying to compete. You can't have it both ways. If everyone that didn't have a chance just decided to tank, you'd have like 5 or 6 teams winning 60+ games, and then everyone else would absolutely suck.

Personally, I agree, the all-or-nothing approach to determining whether or not a team is successful kind of sucks. Sure, they're not getting themselves quality draft picks, and they don't really have a chance to compete...but treadmill teams give their fans something to cheer for over the course of an 82-game season, and gives their fans some playoff basketball.

Also, anything can happen, such as injuries. Nobody knows whether a treadmill team actually is one or not.

And finally, tanking isn't the only way a team can become a contender. Look at SA, they've been contenders ever since they drafted Tim Duncan, and it's not like he's been a superstar that entire time...they draft well, they make shrewd trades, and they sign quality free agents on cheap contracts. And they have the best coach in the game. Teams can trade for stars, or sign stars, and they can end up becoming contenders without having lottery picks (see Houston).

Literally the only team right now that ended up being a contender by tanking has been OKC. Miami signed free agents, after being what would be called a treadmill team. SA, I've already talked about. Portland's team consists of a lottery pick that they had a WHILE ago (LMA), a bunch of free agent signings, a late 1st rounder (Batum), and another lottery pick that wasn't even their's but was traded to them (Lillard). Indiana's core consists of one lottery pick (Paul George), who was a late lottery pick at that. Hibbert was a late 1st rounder, Stephenson was a 2nd rounder, they traded for George Hill, and they signed West as a free agent.

Tanking is overrated, in terms of becoming a contender. Trades and free agent signings are more important imo. Yeah, lotto picks are valuable when you do want to make a big trade, but you don't need to be Milwaukee or Philadelphia bad to have valuable picks to trade. For tanking to work the way it did for OKC, you need to tank for several years, not just one. You also need pretty much every one of those lotto picks to pan out into not just fringe All-Stars, but superstars. It's such a long shot.

[jayjaysee]

Mirotic is viewed as a top 10 draft pick talent... The Bulls can easily manage to get 18-21 million in cap space this offseason.. The Bulls started this season with a healthy Rose and an expiring Deng.. They didn't know they were not contending until a few games in, remember?

So... they've traded one of their franchise's most beloved players (it'll fade I know) because they didn't want to overpay him this offseason.. they plan to amnesty 16 million dollars to be big time free agency players... they have 2 picks in the top 20 of this draft.. they have a top 10 draft pick talent coming over.. and they will be hopefully adding a top 10 NBA player next season in Rose.. And taking Boozer's minutes and giving one of the top defensive big men in the NBA more minutes (Gibson)....

So if they get Melo in a S&T using Boozer and the firsts they own this draft.. They are already proably the best team Melo has ever played with.. Noah/Gibson/Butler/Mirotic.. If Rose comes back healthy.. then I'd say that team are the favorites no?

If they just sign a Deng/Granger/Ariza in place of Boozer.. And bring Mirotic over and trade a first and a Snell for an Afflalo type.. Then with Rose they are again.. clear contenders who Miami definitely doesn't want to see..

So I think.. No they aren't a treadmill team..

But yes.. I wish they had tore the team down last year.. But Noah's value would be so hard to get fair value for.. With his contract, the Bulls would want a superstar package for him.. And I don't know what team has a superstar package ready for Noah..

So.. Tanking wasn't really possible sadly.

[JasonFTW]

some teams actually have pride. you just can't tank when you got guys like Thibs+Joakim.