Underrated players in Chicago Bulls history: Tom Boerwinkle
One of the early underrated players in Bulls’ franchise history is the seven-footer and former Tennessee Volunteers center Tom Boerwinkle. A career Bull that was one of the great big men in the franchise’s early days, Boerwinkle doesn’t get enough credit for what he did for this team back in the late 1960s and throughout the 1970s.
Boerwinkle played in more than 600 career regular season games and 35 postseason games with the Bulls over the course of roughly one decade.
There were also some legendary teammates that Boerwinkle had with the Bulls, such as Hall-of-Famers Jerry Sloan and Bob Love. But Boerwinkle often falls through the cracks when basketball fans look back at some of those better 1960s and 1970s Bulls teams.
Boerwinkle was one of the more dominant rebounders, and underrated passers, among big men in the 1970s in the NBA. There were three seasons where Boerwinkle averaged at least eight points per game, 11 rebounds, and three assists in his career. And while it’s difficult to quantify modern advanced stats with the game so long ago, it still speaks volumes that Boerwinkle posted a career 2.0 defensive box plus/minus.
Boerwinkle was one of the smarter defensive big men of the 1970s, perfecting positioning and rebounding in the paint during his playing days in the NBA. In fact, he had five career postseason games where he registered at least one block and a dozen rebounds.
As he played alongside some multi-time All-Star selections during his run with the Bulls, Boerwinkle did a lot of the dirty work that led to a decent amount of postseason success for this team in the 1960s and 1970s.