No team should have to suffer through prolonged stretches without their three best players. Imagine the Spurs without Duncan, Parker, and Ginobili or the Celtics without Garnett, Pierce, and Allen. Certainly Hinrich, Gordon, and Deng are not in the same stratesphere as those Big 3s, but their presence in suits instead of shorts have had a large impact on the 2007-08 season. As a result, Chris Duhon has started sixteen games. Thabo Sefolosha has been brought back from the dead. Tyrus Thomas is seeing minutes at small forward.

Make no mistake, this is not a good thing. The more a team starts Thabo Sefolosha at shooting guard now, the more likely it is that OJ Mayo or Eric Gordon will be starting there later. The more minutes Joakim Noah plays in the middle, the better the chance that DeAndre Jordan is taking part in pre-draft workouts against Roy Hibbert in the Berto Center in June. While many want to applaud Thabo Sefolosha’s emergence during this difficult time, he is averaging 12 points per game over the past fourteen games while playing 33 minutes on average. The team is 6-8 in that stretch. This puts him in a category with Anthony Parker and DeShawn Stevenson, solid rotation players no doubt, but not long-term starters at the shooting guard position for a contender.

I have long thought that if Thabo maxes out, he would be a Raja Bell-type. For this to happen, of course, Sefolosha has to develop a consistent jump shot, not the 39 percent from the field and 28 percent from behind the arc he is currently at. And even if he does, is that what the Bulls want out of a starting shooting guard? I don’t see Steve Nash or Amare Stoudemire walking through that door, I see Kirk Hinrich and Ben Wallace.  The Bulls need a big time scorer at the two guard position. Ben Gordon can provide that, but as most can see he is better off battling Leandro Barbosa for 6th man of the year awards for the next decade. With the Bulls sifting closer and closer to the lottery, they are two and one-half games out of the 8th spot and also only one and one-half games ahead of Charlotte who has the sixth worst record in the NBA. At some point, the question is going to have to be posed whether if this team gets a high lottery pick where do they go. They have gone big in the past two drafts, and spent $60M for Ben Wallace and Joe Smith in free agency. While they still don’t have a post presence, if Paxson was presented with the option of getting a guard with star potential in O.J. Mayo, Derrick Rose, or Eric Gordon, has Thabo done enough to sell him that the backcourt is set? Likewise, if a team with cap room makes a sizeable offer to Ben Gordon, is Paxson willing to let him go in either a walk or sign-and-trade? I wouldn’t, but I think Paxson is a bigger fan of Thabo than I am.

Likewise, the injuries have opened up more minutes for the Bulls young bigs. Tyrus Thomas and Joakim Noah have gotten more consistent minutes with Nocioni manning the small forward spot and relieving some of the glut at the four. While both have had their moments, neither has showed any consistency in their play. Noah will have a game where he picks everything out of the air and drops it in, like he did against Indiana and Charlotte, and then have a road trip where he was invisible. Tyrus Thomas is easier to get a read on, because in games against teams that run, he plays well. He can run, jump, and play in space. It is the style that made him a lottery pick, but against teams like Portland and Utah that have real bigs he gets beat on both ends. Basically for Thomas to have a big game with the Bulls, he needs to face an opposition that does not care if he does.

Much like with Thabo, the Bulls young bigs have showed just enough to make them intriguing. Nobody doubts that Tyrus Thomas is a world class athlete, or that Joakim Noah can spark a game-turning run by diving all over the place and keeping plays alive. I’m not sure, however, that this is enough. Unless the Bulls change course, draft an open-court point guard, hire a coach from the Suns staff and become a running team, they aren’t main cogs of a championship contender. Certainly the possibility is there that the Bulls can get lucky in the lottery and have a chance to get Derrick Rose, pluck Alvin Gentry or Phil Weber from the Suns staff, and make a few moves to reform this team into a free-flowing unit. It is possible, and with each passing game the lottery becomes more and more of a reality as well as the likelihood that Jim Boylan will not be retained as the head coach. Then again, wouldn’t just be simpler to just admit that Thabo, Tyrus, and Joakim aren’t all that good and rebuild the old fashioned way by finding and developing real talent?

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