Chicago Bulls Struggling in the Month of December, and Not Just from Deep
We’re now two whole months into the grueling NBA regular season, and the only consistent thing about the Chicago Bulls through those two months is their inconsistency. Why can’t they find a rhythm even after over 30 games?
The Chicago Bulls started this season with a bang, and it very well may be their undoing.
An exciting 3-0 start made its way to an 8-4 record by mid-November, and it looked as if the haters and the doubters might end up eating their hats. It’s a different story now.
With a handful of players in and out of the rotation and fourth quarter offenses that just can’t close, the Bulls seem to oscillate between an impressive team and a downright eyesore on a nightly basis.
In the month of December, we’ve unfortunately seen much more of the latter, save for a pair of exciting wins against Cleveland and San Antonio. It’s been a disappointing month of Bulls basketball so far. They’re last in Offensive Rating. 29th in effective field goal percentage. Last in 3-point attempts, makes, and percentage.
We can’t blame it on the competition either. Bulls opponents in November have a combined winning percentage of .451 percent, while the December opponents is higher higher at .502 percent.
It wasn’t always this way…was it?
Let’s go through each Alpha and take a dive into the numbers to see just how different the November Bulls were compared to our Bulls of the present.
Jeremy Brevard-USA TODAY Sports
Jimmy Butler
November (per 100 possessions): 35.1 points, 51.4 eFG%, 36.7 3P%, 8.6 rebounds, 5.5 assists, 7.5 Net Rating, 27.9% usage rate
December (per 100 possessions): 29.8 points, 44.8 eFG%, 26.2 3P%, 8.9 rebounds, 6.3 assists, -2.1 Net Rating, 26.3% usage rate
December has arguably hit Jimmy Butler harder than anyone else, and his scoring hasn’t seemed as effortless as it did to start out the season. Remember when it seemed crazy that he wouldn’t go for 20 in a game? He’s done that five times in December.
Butler’s struggles can be seen most clearly at the end of games, where the lack of other options forces him into bad shot after bad shot and forced isolations galore. Dwyane Wade told Cody Westerlund of 670 The Score recently how there was an undue amount of pressure being placed on Butler at the end of games. He’s not wrong.
Butler has shot 12-for-45 from 3-point range; a grisly percent for anyone let alone a purported superstar. But all this isn’t to say that Butler isn’t the star we think he is. He can still get to both the rim and the free throw line at will, and he held Paul George to just 14 points on 6-for-14 shooting Monday night. Every team and every player goes through rough patches, and Butler will bounce back soon enough.
David Banks-USA TODAY Sports
Dwyane Wade
November (per 100 possessions): 29.9 points, 49.0 eFG%, 34.1 3P%, 6.4 rebounds, 4.4 assists, 1.0 Net Rating, 28.2% usage rate
December (per 100 possessions): 31.4 points, 45.2 eFG%, 19.4 3P%, 6.5 rebounds, 7.1 assists, -2.8 Net Rating, 29.8% usage rate
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Late game heroics against Indiana aside, Dwyane Wade has had a disappointingly inefficient month of play.
As the season has progressed, Wade has had to take on a bigger offensive load at times, playing a bit more on back-to-backs and occasionally not sitting at all in the fourth quarter. It’s not a mystery why that would lead to lower percentages, but 6-for-31 from 3-point range is abysmal.
It’s even more disappointing since we saw a full month of what we thought was a new and improved sharpshooting Wade, but that might not be the case.
Whether his luck will improve or not, it’s not likely that defenses will respect Wade from deep, so I don’t have high hopes for the Bulls’ spacing going forward.
Soobum Im-USA TODAY Sports
Rajon Rondo
November (per 100 possessions): Bad
December (per 100 possessions): Still bad
Let’s all tip our caps to Fred Hoiberg who finally decided to bench Rajon Rondo for the entirety of the fourth quarter against the Pacers last Monday. The Bulls are just better off without him.
Let’s all also hope for some more sustainable success with the coming of the new year.
