Eastern Conference Playoffs: Where Do The Bucks Fit In?

 5) Chicago Bulls

The Chicago Bulls entire season rests on the shoulders (or more accurately, knees) of Derrick Rose. When Rose is healthy, the full-strength Bulls are a team capable of challenging any in the Eastern Conference. Or at least they were under Tom Thibodeau. New Bulls coach Fred Hoiberg has no NBA coaching experience, and will almost certainly be at least initially worse than Thibs.

Hoiberg looks to run a fast-paced offense, which is essentially the opposite of Thibs’ defense-first mentality. We’ll see how this plays out for the Bulls, but don’t expect them to start clicking right away. They do have talented players though, especially in their frontcourt.

That frontcourt may lose a man or two before the start of the season to trades, because the Bulls don’t have a good small forward outside of sharpshooter/puncher Mike Dunleavy Jr. Considering the Bulls have Nikola Mirotic, Bobby Portis, Taj Gibson, Joakim Noah and Pau Gasol up front, they could definitely afford to part with one or two of those guys and add a wing or some point guard depth.

That would probably cause me to swap the Bulls with the next team on this list, because that kind of uniform depth would make a very scary team in Chicago.

Next: The Fourth Seed