Paul Sullivan: As the Lakers close in on the NBA title, the Bulls brain trust plots a return to relevance
CHICAGO — Jimmy Butler won’t get a ring this season despite a herculean effort to get the Miami Heat to the NBA Finals.
When push came to shove in the fourth quarter of Game 4 on Tuesday night in Lake Buena Vista, Fla., the Los Angeles Lakers proved the talent gap between the teams was too great for the Heat to overcome.
And it wasn’t LeBron James who made the difference.
It was Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, with a 3-pointer and layup that stretched a two-point lead to seven with two minutes left, and former Chicago Bulls guard Rajon Rondo — one of three “Alphas” along with Butler and Dwyane Wade on the 2016-17 team — who hit a clutch shot down the stretch and fed Anthony Davis on the 3-pointer that sealed the win.
The Lakers should finish it off Friday in Game 5 in the bubble, ending what against all odds turned out to be one of the most entertaining postseasons in years.
So what does it say about the state of the NBA?
That the rich get richer.
When an all-world talent such as Davis was able to force a trade to play alongside the best player on the planet, the die was cast. The only team that could’ve given the Lakers a run for their money was the Los Angeles Clippers, who blew a 3-1 lead in the Western Conference semifinals against the Denver Nuggets, depriving us of the matchup we really wanted to see.
Oh, well.
At least Butler finally earned a chance to prove his worth on a big stage, and rookie Tyler Herro emerged as a star in the making. If the Heat somehow can make it to Game 6, it would be a moral victory for an overachieving team.
But if you watched the NBA from the restart through the playoffs, it was evident at least six if not seven Western Conference teams were superior to the Heat. The West is just that much better, which is why the playoffs should be reseeded once they get to the conference-semifinal round.
Perhaps if the top-seeded Milwaukee Bucks hadn’t lost focus after their walkout in protest of the police shooting of Jacob Blake, they could have gotten to the Finals and given the Lakers a fight. The Bucks’ decision was laudable and led the NBA to halt the postseason. The WNBA, Major League Baseball and Major League Soccer postponed some games as well.
A national discussion on racial injustice was necessary, and someone had to start it, so kudos to the Bucks.
But they never were the same afterward, and the ankle injury MVP Giannis Antetokounmpo suffered in Game 3 against the Heat proved to be the dagger in the Eastern Conference semifinal series. After being eliminated in five games, Bucks coach Mike Budenholzer noted they were on “the right side of history.”
You don’t get a ring for that, but you gain respect for taking a stand.
Meanwhile, the Bulls spent the last three weeks practicing for next season in their mini-bubble in Chicago without new coach Billy Donovan in attendance. They were a little more than 1,000 miles from the Florida bubble but light-years from the Finals.
They’ve made all the right moves since their season ended with the shutdown: hiring Arturas Karnisovas to run the show, replacing general manager Gar Forman with Marc Eversley and firing Jim Boylen after inexplicably letting him dangle for months.
I would have preferred Doc Rivers over Donovan, but Karnisovas was so eager to get Donovan under contract he gave him a four-year deal before Rivers was available.
Donovan doesn’t have the same cachet as Rivers, but he’s a vast improvement over Boylen.
Eversley recently told reporters: “If you put (Donovan’s) voice at the top of this thing, our players will grow. I don’t know if it’s going to be immediate, but they’re going to grow. This team is better than a 22-win team, the talent is.”
Hopefully those words won’t be remembered for decades to come, like Chicago Cubs manager Leo Durocher’s famous declaration in 1965.
“This isn’t an eighth-place team,” Durocher said at his introductory news conference.
The Cubs finished 10th the next season.
The 2019-20 Bulls were a 22-win team before the shutdown because they ranked 27th in scoring at 106.9 points per game and were just middle of the pack in scoring defense. They have one proven shooter in Zach LaVine and a supporting cast full of question marks because of injuries, regression or inconsistency.
Take away their 13-2 record against four Eastern Conference dregs — the Cleveland Cavaliers, Atlanta Hawks, Detroit Pistons and Washington Wizards — and the Bulls’ winning percentage was a paltry .180 (9-41).
With more experience, better coaching and some luck, the Bulls might have enough talent to get into the postseason in the inferior conference. Having the No. 4 pick in the draft should help in the short term, though remember GarPax passed on Herro last year to select Coby White.
But it will take a few years at least for the Bulls to become realistic championship contenders, and some of their current core likely will be gone by then. The real hope is that they will attempt to sign a game-changer such as Antetokounmpo after next season, though that’s probably wishful thinking.
Bulls Chairman Jerry Reinsdorf is still paying the price for breaking up the dynasty after the second three-peat. No prime-time free agent has signed here since Michael Jordan departed.
Jordan’s assertion in the final episode of “The Last Dance” that he, Scottie Pippen and Dennis Rodman would’ve returned on one-year deals to go for title No. 7 later was disputed by Reinsdorf, who told NBC Sports Chicago: “There’s no question in my mind that Michael’s feeling at the time was we could not put together a championship team the next year.”
Maybe. But whom do you think NBA players believe — Reinsdorf or MJ?
For now, the new Bulls brain trust only can bide its time until the NBA decides on a starting date for next season.
Until then, the only thing it can sell Bulls fans on is the promise of a better future with Forman and Boylen in the rearview mirror.
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