Is a Healthy Mike Dunleavy Really Solution for Chicago Bulls?

I miss the day when the Cleveland Cavaliers were the team everyone around the country was pilling on. Remember when the team started the season 19-20 and David Blatt’s job security was in question, while at the same time the Chicago Bulls were 26-13? Unfortunately Cleveland ripped off 12 straight wins recently and now sit even with Chicago in the standings. The Cav’s success is a nuisance not only in the standings, but also because the Bulls have the right to switch first-round draft picks with the Cavaliers in the upcoming draft, a product of the Luol Deng trade last season.

With Cleveland’s recent improvement, it’s the Bulls that are under the spotlight.

The absence of Mike Dunleavy is the general justification for the Chicago’s poor play of late. After starting the season 22-10, the Bulls have sputtered to 8-10 without Dunleavy. The notion is once a healthy Dunleavy is back on the floor, his 3-point shooting ability will open up space for the rest of Chicago’s ball-dominant players to flourish. Jimmy Butler was an MVP candidate during the first couple of months when Dunleavy was healthy. Since his injury occurred, Butler is scoring 18.5 points per game on 42.3 percent shooting. Butler’s numbers are still well ahead of any other point in his career, but not nearly the rate he was putting up early in the season when Dunleavy was active.

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The NBA’s two best teams, the Hawks and Warriors, have set the model for success in the league as having four guys on the floor at the same who can shoot 3s well. The Bulls are still struggling to find one.

The original intent of this article was to show how they are just going through a midseason sputter, and the absence of Dunleavy is attributing to that. But after actually thinking about why the Bulls aren’t playing well, I realized it wasn’t Dunleavy at all.

Feb 4, 2015; Houston, TX, USA; Chicago Bulls guard Jimmy Butler (21) dribbles against Houston Rockets guard Corey Brewer (33) in the second half at Toyota Center. Rockets won 101 tom90. Mandatory Credit: Thomas B. Shea-USA TODAY Sports

The Houston Rockets game the other night was a great example. Having a spot up shooter that spaces the floor isn’t why the Bulls lost that game. Chicago lost to the Rockets because Houston’s offensive mentality of spacing the floor with three-point shooting overwhelmed Chicago’s battered defense. The Bulls players can’t exert the force defensively they once did, and adding a 34-year old with 25, 257 NBA minutes on his odometer isn’t going to help them on that end.

Offensively, Dunleavy would give the players some more room, but is he really making that much of a difference? Despite their palpable drop in numbers, Dunleavy’s replacements (Tony Snell, Kirk Hinrich, and Aaron Brooks) can’t be left completely wide open. They are at least players the defense needs to run towards when they get the ball at the 3-point line.

Jan 17, 2015; Chicago, IL, USA; Chicago Bulls forward Doug McDermott (3) warms up prior to a game against the Atlanta Hawks at the United Center. Mandatory Credit: Dennis Wierzbicki-USA TODAY Sports

In the games before Dunleavy’s injury on January 1st, the Bulls were averaging 102.5 points per game and 7.6 3-pointers made per game. Since Dunleavy’s injury, Chicago is at 100.9 points per game and 7.7 3-pointers made per game. The scoring is just a minute difference compared to what has happened to the Bulls defense in the same time. In the 32 games Dunleavy played, the Bulls were giving up 98.4 points per game and opponents were shooting 43.3 percent. In the 18 games he has been gone, opponents shoot 45.7 percent and average 102.7 points per game. Since Dunleavy went down, the defense has played much worse, more likely a result of correlation than causation.

The fact that Dunleavy is depended on so much might be an indictment in itself. If a player like Mike Dunleavy were lost from the Hawks, Wizards, or Cavs, I don’t think it would cause the team to go into a tailspin. Dunleavy is an offense-first player who can’t create his own shot. He is more often described as a liability defensively than an asset. If the Bulls were playing well right now, Dunleavy being injured would be an afterthought. But since the team is struggling without really a way for improvement besides just playing better or trading Taj Gibson (PANIC-TRADE ALERT), Dunleavy’s absence is seen as vital to the team.

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Doug McDermott not getting any time at all since coming back from injury is concerning for a couple of reasons. The first is McDermott isn’t good enough right now on both sides of the ball to play for a contending team. And when you mortgage two picks together to pick the 11th player in one of the best drafts of the past 15 years, it is a huge investment. In not putting McDermott on the floor at all, the Bulls are showing that they have more problems than just shooting and spacing. The mere presence of McDermott would cause his defender to play close to him. But the Bulls realize, as a team, defense is more of a weakness right now than offense.

The NBA regular season is a behemoth. Dunleavy’s return certainly won’t solve the team’s poor play. If the Bulls were to win 9 of their next 12 games (completely possible) nobody is even going to remember this rough patch the past month. But the Bulls are going to have to show some kind of energy to string together a few of wins.

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Is a Healthy Mike Dunleavy Really the Solution for Chicago Bulls?

By Nick Jordan | Feb 7, 2015

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