With Series Loss to Cavs, Bulls Season Ends Sooner Than Planned

They finally had it all together. They brought in their star rookie, they signed a 2-time NBA champion, and they had their MVP back to health. Everything was in front of them. Literally everything. And yet, the Eastern Conference Finals will not feature the Chicago Bulls. Why? It's quite simple really: the Chicago Bulls just didn't want a successful season bad enough. Were there individuals on the team that had high expectations? Sure. After all, Jimmy Butler played the best defensive series against LeBron James of anyone to ever guard the future Hall of Famer. Heck, every player in that locker room continually stressed their belief that this team could be great. And in all honesty, it could have been. It SHOULD have been. But the thing about great teams is that they're made through their play on the court, not by the names listed on the roster.

One of the many things that is so hard to believe about this enigma of a team is that they won over 50 games and can still be considered a failure. Is that "f" word too strong? Not really. Take a look at this season and what has transpired over the last 8-9 months: big-time wins over Golden State, San Antonio, Cleveland, and Oklahoma City. Horrific losses to the likes of Detroit, Utah, Charlotte, and the Los Angeles Lakers. If bipolar doesn't describe this year's team, then let me know if there is a more applicable word. The series of events can only bring up two simple, one-word questions: "Why?" and "How?"

Butler's ascension is one of the few highlights for the Bulls this year

This team had a 2-time champion and future Hall of Famer (Pau Gasol), a former (and now healthy) MVP (Derrick Rose), the reigning Defensive Player of the Year (Joakim Noah), a perennial 6th Man of the Year contender (Taj Gibson), the runner-up for Rookie of the Year (Nikola Mirotic), and this year's Most Improved Player (Jimmy Butler). All of these players, with a steady and more-often-than-not productive bench were under the influence of the former Coach of the Year Tom Thibodeau. With that lineup, with that talent, with that depth, this team was a failure. And honestly, we now are forced to wonder how much they really care.


This is not about saying the Bulls had a horrible season and this is not to say that locker room is full of quitters. But when the lights were on, and the stage was set, this Bulls team never figured it out. Why? They waited three years for their point guard to be healthy. They got rid of seasoned veterans so that they could develop their young stars and they had arguably one of the best off-seasons in the league. Everything they worked for and everything Tom Thibodeau dedicated his time to building was ruined this season. The intensity and will to shock the world was gone, the defensive and hard-nosed identity vanished, and the sense of urgency never appeared present when it was needed most. To make it all worse, the players knew they lacked these things all year. If you read any articles or followed this team at all, every loss would be followed by quotes like "We didn't have the intensity tonight. They outplayed us." or "Our defense is not what it used to be and that needs to change." Okay, so it's not like the long-scoring droughts or losses where the opposing team scores over 100 points were sprung on them all of the sudden. This team knew what it had to do to be great and they never felt the need to execute. That is why this team was a failure.

I will give all the credit in the world to the Milwaukee Bucks and the Cleveland Cavaliers. While the Bucks were ran out of their own gym in Game 6, they were never once intimidated by the Bulls. They saw their weaknesses and did everything they could to expose them. The Cavaliers on the other hand, were a different story entirely. It's no secret that any team led by LeBron James is an automatic title contender, yet this team was without Kevin Love and Kyrie Irving was not his All-Star self due to a number of injuries. On top of that, LeBron did not have an exceptional series minus Game 5. Jimmy Butler took LeBron out of almost every game, as far as scoring is concerned, and forced him into a couple poor shooting nights. Jimmy Butler did his job, and yet his teammates let players such as Iman Shumpert, Tristan Thompson, and Matthew Dellevadova out-work them.

The Cavs "Big Three" was not made up of James, Love, and Irving. It was made up of the three aforementioned players that came into the series knowing they would have to shoulder the load with Love being out, JR Smith serving a 2-game suspension, and Irving playing through injury. And to their credit, they showed out. But to look at this team of mediocre bench players that were thrown into the fire, and to look at the team the Bulls trotted out to contest them, it goes to show just how soft this Bulls team was. Again, the Cavs role players were phenomenal this series. But they shouldn't have been, not if the Bulls played like a typical Thibs team used to play.

Thibodeau will likely be fired in the coming weeks

So now it's over. It's finally over. There are no more nights of guessing which team would show up to play. There are no more injury reports to be released before tip-off. There are no more meaningless post-game quotes about needing to play harder. It's over, and to some extent that's a good feeling. It wasn't fun to watch this team under-perform and appear not to care. There is no reason this team could not have won 62-65 games with the lineup and coaching they had. In some regards this team had more to it than the 2011 team that won 66 games and went to the Eastern Conference Finals. But that 2011 team had an identity and they had a purpose. They knew they needed to perform every single night to chase that championship dream. They wanted to be great. The 2014-2015 Bulls did not want it bad enough, and it showed on an almost-nightly basis.

While it's sad to see a team not recognize its potential, it's even more aggravating that this is the way the Thibodeau era will most likely come to a close. Everything Thibs stood for, everything he built, is now gone. The players lost their fire, and with the rough relationship between Thibs and the front office, it appears that he will be gone very soon. And while Thibodeau is a top three coach in the NBA, I'm excited for him to coach for a new team. He deserves better from both a front office and from a team. He weathered the storm through all of the injuries and all of the doubt these past few years and still managed to make the Bulls a tough out in the playoffs. He had total buy-in from each and every player and gave the Bulls their best chances at a title since Michael Jordan left. Thibs did his part, he made this team, and yet he will be shown the door with nothing to show for it. Bulls fans will remember his successes, but the league and history will not. This team should have been the best in the East, but they weren't. The team that should have been the Incredibulls quickly became the Laughabulls when that final buzzer sounded in the Madhouse last night.