EP Chicago: Bulls Management Has Big Decisions to Make

By Micky Shaked

Just one week into the NBA season and the headlines are already flying around the country like Royce White (too soon?). The sky is apparently falling in Lakerland after Kobe and Co. started 0-3 and already lost Steve Nash to karma, I mean injury. James Harden AKA Beardsanity is throwing bucket after smooth bucket in Sam Presti’s grill. LeBron’s face is everywhere always while the Heat can’t seem to play defense.

(Getty Images/Marc Serota)

I’m not one to start drawing major conclusions after only a handful of games, especially with Chicago Bulls working four new players into the mix and running sans D-Rose. Indeed, the Bulls faithful has had little to smile about since Kevin Harlan’s famous “Holding on to his knee, Holding on to his knee and down.”

GM Gar Forman and executive vice president of basketball operations John Paxson dropped some early Christmas magic into our stockings with the announcement of Taj Gibson’s four-year, $38 million contract extension last Thursday.

Much of the anguish plaguing Bulls fans over the summer comes from the precarious financial situation the team has put itself in, causing management to blow up a chemically bonded bench in favor of a cheaper, more disparate version. This serves as a stark foil to Gibson’s signing in light of the roughly $48 million committed to Rose, Carlos Boozer, Luol Deng, and Joakim Noah next season.

Gibson’s contract makes the much-maligned Boozer a likely candidate to get the amnesty ax after this season. I will be the first to admit that I defend Boozer’s production. I feel that a lot of the criticisms he receives as a player are unfair. Scoop Jackson says it best. At the same time I am in favor of letting him go if Gibson can fill his void for nearly half the money, though the dollars and cents are complicated.

Gibson is unlikely to reach Boozer’s level of statistical prowess on the offensive end, but his numbers are not far off. Their per-36-minute stat lines from last season, courtesy of www.Basketball-Reference.com:

Player            GP GS FG FGA  FG% 3P 3PA  3P% FT FTA  FT% ORB DRB TRB AST STL BLK TOV  PF  PTS

Boozer           66 66 8.3 15.6 .532  0.0 0.0 .000 1.8 2.5 .693  2.1   8.3  10.4 2.3 1.2  0.4  2.1  3.1 18.3

Gibson           63  0 5.6 11.3 .495   0.0 0.0 .000 2.4 3.8 .622  3.8   5.5   9.3 1.3  0.8  2.3  1.7  3.7 13.6

         

Gibson clearly produces at a less prolific rate than Boozer, but his value lies elsewhere. His commitment to being one of the best undersized big-man defenders in the league is invaluable to a Bulls team that predicates its success on lock-down defense. Boozer has long been something of a liability on the defensive end despite receiving a vote for the 2011-2012 NBA Second Team All Defense. The proof is in the pudding: Coach Thibodeau repeatedly sat Boozer in favor of Gibson in the fourth quarter of important games despite the need for his scoring.

Gibson’s value as a defender goes beyond the comparisons to Boozer. Simply put, Taj can do what only a handful of players in the NBA can do: hang with the LeBron’s of the league. Bill Simmons points out that Gibson’s is dynamite in isolation situations, allowing opponents to score on just 23 percent of those possessions last season.

We saw brief glimpses of offensive brilliance from Gibson in last year’s playoffs series against Philadelphia. To date this is the biggest knock against him, his output comes in inconsistent spurts. But Thibs knows that a Bulls championship will inevitably go through Miami, and he also knows it will take more than Luol Deng to stop him.