By Schuyler Davis

The Bulls have fallen off a little bit, dropping to (16-20) on the season after starting out at a respectable (5-5).  Part of the problem has been injuries to Kirk Hinrich, Luol Deng, and Drew Gooden.  Tyrus Thomas and Thabo Sefolosha have also missed a few games due to injury.  It was quite evident to me while watching the Bulls recently that these losses were really hurting the team defense (save Gooden). 

Let’s take a look at the replacements, or at least those who received extra minutes during these players’ absences.  Thabo Sefolosha, Larry Hughes, and Lindsey Hunter have each seen an increase in minutes.  Contrary to popular belief Thabo Sefolosha is not a great, or even good, defender.  He is much better at guarding small forwards than shooting guards, but the Bulls prefer to play him at shooting guard.  Thabo is not quick enough to keep opposing guards in front of him: 14 positive one-on-one plays to 34 negative, a terrible ratio, second only to Lindsey Hunter.  A great defender in his heyday, Lindsey does not have it anymore.  He gets bullied by the opposition, 8 positive one-on-one plays compared to 20 negative ones.  Not only that, but he gambles as if he was still 25 years old, recording only 7 positive turnover attempts and a whopping 5 negative ones, leading the team despite playing a measly 11.6 minutes per game.  Larry is the only one of the guards making a positive impact, with more positive one-on-one plays than negative and a team leading 28 positive turnover attempts. 

In the frontcourt several players have had to pick up the load: Andres Noicioni, Joakim Noah, Tyrus Thomas when healthy, and Aaron Gray.  Let’s start with Noicioni. Thought of as a defensive stopper, Noicioni is not that at all.  Just like Sefolosha, Noicioni is played out of position frequently by Coach Vinny Del Negro.  Noicioni is not nearly quick enough to guard the small forward spot, and is often abused in pick and rolls.  Noah and Thomas bring some athleticism to the table, a big improvement over Gooden who is atrocious defensively with 24 positive to 38 negative one-on-one plays and the only Bull to have more negative help defense plays than positive with 24 positive and 40 negative plays.  Don’t forget the rebounding.  Both Thomas and Noah put up better rebounding ratios than Gooden by a decent margin.  Noah has been great defending one-on-one situations while Thomas has done a great job with his help defense, including a large number of blocked shots.  Aaron Gray is a smart player, but his athletic limitations will always leave him as a liability on the defensive end.

            Looking at the rest of the roster to figure out what is going wrong brought me to the loss of Luol Deng and very poor play of Ben Gordon and Derrick Rose on the perimeter.  Deng has an extraordinary 30 positive help plays to only 6 negative ones, and on top of that forces some turnovers, rebounds well, and plays good one-on-one defense.  Rose and Gordon have just played worse as of late, a combined 114 positive to 153 negative one-on-one plays, putting a lot of pressure on the interior defenders.  They also combined for 37 negative plays, leaving offensive players open (shown as “left” in the chart).  Gordon will be gone after this season, but Rose will be here for a long, long time.  His freakish athleticism needs to be put to use on the defensive end.  No improvement there yet, so hopefully the second half of the season will showcase some growth. 

Gooden, Hinrich, and Deng are all just about healed up so the defense should improve some, but who knows since GM John Paxson is actively shopping anyone outside of Rose (anyone want Larry Hughes for 09’ or 10’ expiring’s?).  The link below shows the entire chart for the Bulls through 25 games.  I would like to double that number before I call it quits.  Hopefully Drew Gooden does not make my head explode before then. 

http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=pD2-oP8oJwJL9c2WRuwCXfg&hl=en

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