Chicago Bulls: What is the true identity of the young squad?

After 10 games, the Chicago Bulls are near the bottom of the Eastern Conference at 2-8. Are the Bulls really this bad, or are injuries the main culprit?

Losing eight of 10 games to start a season is never ideal for any franchise. When that franchise is recovering from two straight lottery appearances, a slow start is even harder to swallow.

Though the injury bug has hit the Chicago Bulls harder than most, there was still optimism in the Windy City as the 2018-19 season tipped off.

With Lauri Markkanen, Kris Dunn, Bobby Portis, and Denzel Valentine all missing time early in the season due to injury, the young squad is off to a slow start. At 2-8, the Bulls are currently one of the worst teams in the NBA. Is this all due to the injury bug or is the slow start a symptom of something worse?

Who are the real Chicago Bulls?

It would be easy to simply blame the slow start on the team’s poor health. After all, not many teams would be very successful missing their starting point guard and their star young big man. Dunn is the tone-setter both offensively and defensively, and his absence has had a reverberating effect on both sides of the ball. Without Markkanen, the Bulls have had to resort to playing rookie Chandler Hutchison at the 4 for the last three games, all losses.

Despite the emergence of Zach LaVine as a go-to scorer, without Portis and Valentine, the team’s depth has been severely challenged. Head coach Fred Hoiberg has had to try to piece together lineups, hoping to find magic with Ryan Arcidiacono and Antonio Blakeney while praying that Cristiano Felicio gives the squad quality minutes.

Are the Bulls as bad as their record? In short, no, they aren’t. This team plays hard every night, six of their 10 games have been decided by eight or fewer points, with Chicago only winning one of them. Three of their games have been decided by two points or less with the Bulls losing all three.

What does any of this mean? This is a young team still trying to figure out how to close out teams and win games. They should have more than two wins and with a healthy squad, they probably would.

However, their defense is bad — really bad

When the season started, it was expected that the Chicago Bulls would be a below-average, if not bad, defensive team. As it turns out, they are meeting, maybe even exceeding those low expectations. While offensively the Bulls are in the top 10 in scoring at 107.2 points per game, they are dead last in points against.

Teams are scoring 115 points per game against the still rebuilding Bulls. Again, the results are not completely unexpected, especially without defensive catalyst Dunn. In addition, Chicago entered the season with the youngest roster in the league. Young teams typically struggle on the defensive end, especially early in the season.

It’s also difficult for the Bulls to expect any real measure of success defensively with LaVine and Jabari Parker on the court at the same time. While LaVine has actually been decent playing on-ball defense, he still suffers too many lapses off the ball and can be lazy recovering from screens. Parker has been flat out awful defensively and his indifference on defense has proved costly.

The Bulls rank at or near the bottom of virtually every defensive statistic early in the season. While getting a healthy Dunn back eventually will help, he can’t solve all of their defensive problems and he certainly cannot force his teammates to actually care about stopping their opponents.

So who are these Chicago Bulls?

For starters, they are young and exciting and don’t have much experience winning at this level. The front office has brought in players who can score in Fred Hoiberg’s system.

Zach LaVine is slowly coming down to earth after a hot start but still is one of the better scorers in the league. Antonio Blakeney is proving to be a valuable find, shooting 16-for-29 from 3-point land so far. Carter will be in the running for Rookie of the Year and is one of the biggest cornerstone pieces of the rebuild.

This team is developing and like any young roster, will take its lumps early and probably often this season. If the Bulls can get healthy, then the true analysis of how well they fit together can begin.

The future looks bright, even this season’s future

So to review, the Chicago Bulls have started slowly again this season. While not many experts expected a playoff berth for this roster, a 2-8 record at the onset would have been considered disappointing. Defensively, they have been horrific with no signs of improvement (and we won’t discuss the Klay Thompson game).

Of course, this has been a frustrating start for the front office and coaching staff. However, all is not lost for this team. The Bulls still possess a young and talented roster. Fans should be looking forward to the pairing of Markkanen and Wendell Carter Jr. in the frontcourt. Carter has been drawing praise for his play and seemingly improves every game.

This team is still extremely young and it’s certainly exciting. The Bulls have the pieces, when healthy, to make a run at a solid win streak during the season and make some noise. The playoffs were never really that realistic, and the coaching staff’s prime responsibility this season should be developing their young players and building a winning atmosphere.

There are still 72 games left to do so, and this roster seems coachable for the most part. The biggest task for Fred Hoiberg this season is maintaining a cohesive unit while continuing to develop his young core for the future.