A year ago, the Boston Celtics were a mess. They openly tanked at the end of the regular season in hopes of landing the #1 pick to take Greg Oden, only to be punished by karma and end up with the 4th overall pick. That’s when Danny Ainge started dealing, starting with the Draft Day trade for Ray Allen, then trading for Kevin Garnett, and finally filling out the roster with role-playing veterans like James Posey and Eddie House.
A year later, the Boston Celtics are NBA Champions.
Could the something similar happen in Chicago?
I don’t mean to insinuate that the situations are the same — they certainly aren’t, starting with the fact that the Bulls do hold the #1 overall pick in next week’s draft. The comparison is based on the distinct possibility of the Bulls going worst-to-first, much like the Celtics did this past season.
But the Bulls do have the opportunity to instantly turn the franchise around with that #1 overall pick and a wealth of young talent ready to take their games to the next level. Chicago’s crazy collection of young talent is sure to get even deeper with the addition of either Derrick Rose or Michael Beasley.
The Bulls would love to get their own mini version of Kevin Garnett by landing Elton Brand if he decides to opt out of his contract with the Clippers. There’s a couple problems with this, however — for one, Brand would be a free agent, and the bidding war would be huge. Secondly, the Bulls don’t really have the cap room to swing a mega-deal like that. Brand is probably going to command a max-money deal on the open market, and the Bulls’ cap space is tied up by the likes of Larry Hughes, as well as big-money restricted free agents like Ben Gordon and Luol Deng. They’re also going to have to give a hefty salary to either Rose or Beasley once the #1 overall pick is made. Unless the Bulls decline to match any offers for Gordon or Deng, it doesn’t seem likely that the Bulls will be able to get far enough under the cap to sign Elton Brand, or any other top-level free agents. So that plan seems to be out.
Unless John Paxson changes the way he’s neglected making big trades in the past, it seems as though that option has to be ruled out, too. In the past few years, the Bulls have been connected in trades talks for everyone from Kevin Garnett to Kobe Bryant (not to mention Pau Gasol), but never pulled the trigger on a deal. The biggest trade Paxson ever made was this past season, when he shipped Ben Wallace out of town for Drew Gooden and Larry Hughes as part of the three-team trade. There’s a possibility he might ship someone like Kirk Hinrich out of town if they take Derrick Rose, but what would Hinrich be worth, realistically? Unless Paxson packages Hinrich with someone like Tyrus Thomas, there likely won’t be much coming back in return — in other words, a Kevin Garnett-type player isn’t going to be landing in Chicago anytime soon.
So what’s left if the Bulls hope to become next year’s Celtics? One thing that will work to their advantage is that the Eastern Conference seems to be undergoing a changing of the guard. The Detroit Pistons are fading with age, and the Celtics are a “veteran” (if not “old”) team whose grip on the conference may not last much more than 1 or 2 more years. Young, inexperienced teams like the Raptors and Magic are starting to rise up the ranks of the conference. While the Bulls missed the playoffs last season and are a very young team, the vast majority of the roster has been to the playoffs as many as 3 times — postseason experience like that matters when you’re playing other young teams that aren’t used to the playoff pressure. New head coach Vinny Del Negro might be the weak link in all of this, but everyone was expecting Doc Rivers to hold back the Celtics this season, and we all know how that turned out.
In the end, the Celtics may not be the best comparison for what the Bulls could be next year, but they could mirror the success of another overnight sensation — the New Orleans Hornets. Chris Paul turned an inexperienced, annual lottery team into instant contenders with his breakout season, and demonstrated how the league’s attempts to increase scoring favors a dynamic point guard who can penetrate and dish at will. If the Bulls take Derrick Rose, they could have something similar — Rose demonstrated many of the same abilities as Paul while leading Memphis to the NCAA Championship Game. With a roster already filled with playoff experience, the Bulls may not even need to wait for Rose to develop to Paul’s level in order to become Eastern Conference contenders once again — even as early as next season.
