Every time we go back to the Bulls they’re a different team. That’s the great thing about them. It’s also the aggravating thing–for their opponents but also for their fans.
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More recently, Luol Deng, a flowering third-year player at the age of 21, has shown signs of making the team his Bulls. But actually it’s Paxson’s team. Hinrich, Gordon, Deng–and until his recent injury, Nocioni–all battle for supremacy, but in the Bulls’ fluid style of team basketball the chemistry is in constant flux. Deng becomes ascendent for a few nights, then Gordon gets hot, and then Hinrich finds opportunities as opponents concentrate on the other two (or three, when Nocioni is playing). Lovely as it is to watch the Bulls shift in form from week to week, they are maddeningly inconsistent.
Yet they opened the new year by losing five of six. They won three straight, lost two, won three, lost four of seven on another west-coast jaunt, then lost two more. Those defeats sent them into last weekend’s All-Star break 29-25, in fourth place in the intensely competitive Central Division but sitting comfortably in the sixth playoff spot in the NBA’s generally weak Eastern Conference.
That loss only increased the calls for the Bulls to make a trade. I’d rather see what they can do with what they have, especially with Nocioni returning. Skiles said the players were approaching the trade rumors philosophically. “I think they’re handling it well. Guys are even joking about it with each other some. So I think they’re taking it in stride. Most guys know it’s part of the business.” Then, referring to the weather, Skiles cracked a joke. “On a day like today,” he said, “probably everybody would want to be somewhere else.”
