Such is the sad lot of Chicago fans, who until recently regarded their Bulls very rightfully as nothing less than a civic treasure. With their double championship three-peats, Michael Jordan, Scottie Pippen, Phil Jackson and company transformed that toddlin’ town from solid Cubs and Bears turf into a basketball mecca. In a city that had already enjoyed its fair share of sports gods–Bobby Hull, Dick Butkus, Walter Payton, Ernie Banks, Gale Sayers–Jordan reigned as its supreme deity.
But it is now the the fifth season since Jordan last donned Bull red, since his departure rendered Chicago an NBA wasteland. In the previous four (one of them strike-shortened) sans His Airness, the Bulls have won a grand total of 66 games–or just six less than the team won in their pinnacle 95-96 campaign. The basketball team now stands on the very bottom rung in a city where the collection of pro sports teams is the most dismal in all the nation. So as the Bulls opened last night against the Boston Celtics, one of the NBA’s two other legendary franchises, the faithful at home had to be wondering if the pain would ever cease.
The Bulls were, of course, opening in a city which might provide some intriguing insight into that very question. Boston knows pain–and not just from its Red Sox jones. The Celtics glory years ended with the ’90s, just as Jordan and company were soaring to the top of the NBA fray. There was decided hard luck in Boston’s freefall, the tragic deaths of both Celtic captain Reggie Lewis and a budding superstar Len Bias certainly the most notable. Still, Boston brass was criticized harshly for not recognizing that the end was nigh and failing to ship off its fading stars in return for a leg up on the future. The aging team remained intact. And when Larry Bird’s cranky back and Kevin McHale’s damaged foot surrendered to time, the Celtics were plunged into mediocrity and eventually worse. Last season, when the Celtics made a suprise trip to the Eastern Conference Finals, was the team’s first above .500 in almost a decade.
The Bulls, of course, went to school on the Celtics and chose to do things differently. Chicago’s management broke up its championship team before either the players or the fans were ready for it to go, clearing salary-cap room for free agents and positioning the team to draft at or near the top for several seasons. (I’m sure they never imagined that in 2002 both Jordan and Pippen would still be playing and that Coach Jackson would already be the architect of a three-peat elsewhere.) This season should go a long way to determining whether there was rhyme or reason to the Bulls’ decidely unsentimental strategy and whether it will prove any quicker fix than Boston’s did.
Chicago now boasts a talented go-to guy in Jalen Rose, some veteran muscle on the bench and everybody’s favorite rookie in Duke’s Jay Williams. (He went from Jason to Jay to distinguish himself from a couple of homonymic NBAers, Memphis’s Jason “White Chocolate” Williams" and ex-Net Jayson Williams, who is charged with manslaughter in the death of a chauffer in his New Jersey manse.) But whether the Bulls can rise again will depend to a very large extent on a pair of towering kids snatched out of high school just last year: 6-11 Eddy Curry, a muscular 19-year-old, and Tyson Chandler, a 7-1 stringbean who just turned 20 a few weeks ago.
The Bulls brought their young duo along slowly last year and the youngsters’ stats almost mirrored each other: Chandler averaged some six points and five rebounds in 20 minutes per game; Curry seven and four in 16 minutes a game. But fans and management alike are a little anxious for that next dynasty to arrive so coach Bill Cartwright needs to discover soon whether the kids can be the foundation of the future, bookend Kevin Garnetts, or a very large bump in the road. When the season tipped off on the famed Boston parquet, both Curry and Chandler were in the starting lineup.
Their sophomore debut was a decidely mixed bag. Curry looks a bruiser, but on this evening played soft and without passion, managing to go 18 minutes without snaring a single rebound. Chandler, by contrast, played frantically, scoring 13 points in just 17 minutes. He threw his body around with abandon and displayed enough emotion for him and Curry both. Too much, in fact. Early in the third quarter, he delivered a vicious slam dunk, then glowered at the referee as if it was payback for an earlier technical foul assessed him. The payback proved to be on the other foot and Chandler was T-ed up again and tossed from the game. “I told Tyson, ‘I love your enthusiasm, but we have to channel that emotion in a different way,’” said Cartwright, the center on those first Bulls championship teams. “He doesn’t have any anger problems. He’s just young.”
Young, but not necessarily foolish. On the heels of Chandler’s departure the Bulls scraped back from 13 down and held the freewheeling Celtics to just 12 points in the fourth quarter to come away with an exhillarating 99-96 victory. In the dressing room afterwards, Chandler was a little sheepish and borderline apologetic. “I was just trying to fire my team up,” he said. “It wasn’t to disrespect [the referee].” But he was unabashedly cheered by the upset, not for a second confusing his evening’s sour end with that of the team. “What counts is we won,” he said. ‘I’ll take one for the team–definitely."
Very little else is definite about the Bulls right now other than that the team finally can put some talent on the court. But talent abounds in today’s NBA. Chemistry, let alone championship mettle, is a far more elusive proposition. The Celtics feature two young and celebrated stars, but it wasn’t until their fourth season together that Antoine Walker and Paul Pierce could even propel Boston into the playoffs. It took the Lakers’ incomparable duo of Shaquille O’Neal and Kobe Bryant four years (and the stewardship of Phil Jackson) to win their first championship. The Bulls remain a world away from that. But at the very least, hope is back in Chicago. And this time it’s not just a TV series.
