The Curious Case of Chicago Bulls
By Vincent DiGeronimo
The NBA season is finally underway. Most teams have done what we thought they were going to do. However, the Chicago Bulls, perhaps the most exciting team in the NBA, jumped out to an early 4-0 record. They score a fair amount of points per game, but it has been their defense which has kept them ahead of other teams, allowing only 97.5 points per game. Granted, they played Detroit twice, and also beat New Orleans and Toronto. Therefore, they have not been challenged as much as they could be, but their next game against the New York Knicks could show what the Bulls are really capable of.
Their successes have mainly happened because of two things: shooting and stealing. Currently, Zach Lavine is leading the team with 25 points per game on a ridiculous 50% FG percentage. However, the Bulls also have a barrage of different scorers, such as Lonzo Ball, Nikola Vucevic, Alex Caruso, and most importantly Demar DeRozan. Furthermore, the Bulls have also looked spectacular on defense. Currently, they lead the league in steals and that is behind the stellar efforts of Alex Caruso, who is averaging 3.2 steals per game. Nikola Vucevic is also averaging over ten rebounds per game, and several other players are putting up impressive numbers on both offense and defense.
Furthermore, one of the biggest key pieces on the Bulls team is Demar DeRozan. He is the only person on the Bulls team that has an idea of what it takes to have a championship team, so he will be a clear leader on this team. It will be interesting to see how it plays out in the long term, especially against more competitive teams.
Essentially, I think that the Bulls will ruffle some feathers in the Eastern Conference, and they will be a playoff team, but I do not see them going significantly far in the playoffs. I think that in the grand scheme of things, the rest of the East is loaded, so they will have a lot of competition, but I think that they are very exciting and will be very fun to watch.