Through the first month of the NBA season the Chicago Bulls have given us exactly what we expected from them. On some nights they look like a very good team, and on other nights they look outclassed by their opponents. It's the type of inconsistency that new head coach Vinny Del Negro warned us we'd probably see from his team for the first few months of the season.
Still, that doesn't mean there isn't anything to be thankful for this season as Derrick Rose has actually exceeded expectations during his first month of playing professionally, and the team did have it's best Circus Trip since that Jordan guy left to go ruin the Wizards, who coincidentally will be at the United Center tonight to face the Bulls.
In that game tonight, Vinny is hoping that his team will start to feel the Christmas spirit and share the ball more on the offensive end. The Bulls are currently ranked 26th in the NBA with 18.8 assists per game and six of them are coming from Rose, so Vin would like to see the rest of his team get in on the act.
''Sharing the ball is the first step,'' Del Negro said. ''They understand that; they just have to do it. We talked about that a lot [Friday]. We have to move the ball and go from strong to weak. The better teams in this league load up defensively on the strong side. If you move the ball and attack ... we have guys on the perimeter that break guys off the dribble. We just have to be smarter and get into more play sets so that we have the ability to move the ball.''
Too often this season the Bulls have gone into ruts where they bring the ball up court, make one pass, and then take an ill-advised jump shot. Of course, more often than not this happens when Derrick Rose is taking a breather on the bench, but Del Negro can't play the kid for 48 minutes a night no matter how badly we want him too.
I just wish Vinny would qualify his statement by saying that he wants his team to pass the ball, but only if they pass it to Rose.
