Mike Wilbon has not been a happy camper this season when it comes to the performance of the Chicago Bulls.
The ESPN analyst has been putting the Bulls on blast through much of the season for one reason or another. He took a subtle shot against them earlier in the season, and a not-so-subtle shot here.
Chicago has an overall record of 46-32 – good enough for a tie for third in the East – despite having various key players miss time during the season due to injuries. Of course, the biggest missing piece has been Derrick Rose, who has been in and out of the lineup all year due to an assortment of what appeared to be serious knee issues.
Like most have said all along, this team is only going to go as far as Rose is going to carry them. The good news is that the point guard made a surprisingly quick return to the court on Wednesday after missing the last 20 games due to knee surgery on a torn meniscus. The bad news is that despite his return, the Bulls suffered a 105-103 loss to the lowly Orlando Magic.
Quick to jump on this fact was Wilbon, who needed three tweets to go at the team he has been going after all year long:
One week before playoffs, Bulls are now a team that does nothing particularly well…not great on D, not great rebounding, turnover prone…
— Michael Wilbon (@RealMikeWilbon) April 9, 2015
hardly ever outwork opponents anymore…too many losses to too many chump teams…nothing they’ve done lately suggests playoff success…
— Michael Wilbon (@RealMikeWilbon) April 9, 2015
They’ve been selling “If we can only get healthy” and yet on a night the whole band is together they get beat late by Orlando…
— Michael Wilbon (@RealMikeWilbon) April 9, 2015
Wilbon does have a point about this Bulls team: no one is afraid of them for any particular reason heading into the playoffs. Their defense is all the way down to 13th this year, Rose hasn’t looked like himself for most of the season save for a few games in between, and just about the only thing Chicago leads in the statistical department is the amount of minutes Jimmy Butler plays.
Still, they’re heading into the playoffs with just about a fully healthy team, Nikola Mirotic has shown over the past month that he can be a true x-factor for any series, and the Bulls have never been an easy out against any team. How things turn out for them in the end remains to be seen, but like most teams, they have their positives and negatives as they gear up for a playoff run. Given everything that has happened this year, the state they’re in now actually doesn’t seem all that bad, dropped games against sub-500 teams and all.
Jim Park is a blogger and editor of Sheridan Hoops. Follow him on twitter @SheridanBlog.