Chicago Bulls
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An opposing team's scout sizes up the Bulls

I could see them finishing anywhere from seventh in the conference to third ...

The Bulls seem to be trying to follow the model of the Pistons in the makeup of their roster, but the difference between the two teams is that Chicago doesn't have anyone like Rasheed Wallace. Chicago's guards as a group are better than Detroit's, but the Bulls don't have the guy up front who commands a double team. Scott Skiles is as good a coach as we have in the league because if you put that same Bulls team with any other coach, they wouldn't be as successful. He doesn't run anything complicated, he's got pretty simple tenets of what he's going to run and they haven't changed a whole lot from four years ago. They run their plays like the old Green Bay Packers, where you know what's coming but they run it hard and sharp in their execution, and they're very efficient that way ...

Defensively they are the most consistent hard-playing team in the league. Every night they're going to play hard, and over 82 games that's a big difference because no other team can make that claim ...

Skiles talks a lot of junk to opposing players during games, and he starts a lot of stuff and gets away with a lot of stuff that people aren't aware of because he hides it so well. But there's a point in life where Skiles can be like Larry Brown, where guys get tired of hearing him bitch every day. Players might think his style is cool when they're young in the league and they're from good programs where they were used to being coached as a lot of the Bulls players were. But after they've signed their new contracts and he starts to get on their nerves, they might start saying, 'I've got a lot of power too.' You could see one or two important guys saying, 'Screw you.' ...

The biggest deal is still the lack of a low-post scorer. You don't have to guard Ben Wallace. Joe Smith is fine, but he's not going to scare anybody anymore. Joakim Noah can't score in the post. Plus, they're going to miss Malik Allen, who could face up and shoot like Udonis Haslem, and P.J. Brown, who was a good teammate, a smart defender who allowed Ben to roam around a little bit more on the defensive end, and somebody who played pretty well in the playoffs ...

The one guy who could eventually solve their problems up front is second-year forward Tyrus Thomas, who isn't as tough as Skiles would like. His attitude has surprised me. They invested a lot in him and he could be a Darko [Milicic] for them. He's not a brain surgeon and he picks and chooses his times to appear that he's playing hard, and he made quite a few mistakes last year that changed games for them in a bad way. Then he also had those games where he was playing good, and I think ultimately he's going to be a really good player. He's been a guard for the majority of his life and he has some good skills, and he has continued to grow all the time. LSU screwed him up by telling him to stand under the basket and block shots and they didn't teach him a whole lot. He has the tools to be a dominant player. If he learns to play hard, he'll be a difference-maker. Usually it's in the third year that a guy like him decides whether he's going to make $10 million a year or $6 million a year on his next contract ...

Thomas is at least a full season away from turning the corner, and even then I don't know if he wants to go in the post and be doubled, rather than be out on the floor where he can show all the things he can do. That's why I think they're going to have to package a couple of their guys and trade for somebody who can score in the post. It has to be a face-up post player, a guy who can go to the elbow because Ben has to be in the block where the defender is going to be. So the guy they acquire has to be somebody who can score from the elbow enough to draw a double team ...

Their most important player is Kirk Hinrich. He struggled in the playoffs against Detroit because his shooting is inconsistent. He's really streaky, and because they base their offense on making jump shots, they can sometimes look very bad when his shooting is off. A lot of times he just plays too fast. It's to his benefit to play fast, but he should play at operational speed -- a speed where he can still think and play. As a result, they do turn the ball over a lot as a team because Skiles tells them to push the ball and because Hinrich goes too fast at times. But I don't see Hinrich changing his style because he's had enough success doing it this way. He's the identity of their team. As a defender, he's tenacious. Some players don't respect him so much because they think he gets a lot of accolades as a white guy trying to guard, but he's an annoying defender. He beats you to spots a lot, he pressures the ball, he's longer than you think and he's more athletic than he's given credit for ...

Ben Gordon is a killer. Every shot he takes you think he's going to make. When he comes off a screen, it's down. He can miss five in a row and No. 6 will have a good chance of going in. He has three-point range, he can drive. The best thing that can happen is when he goes to point guard, because while he's a good passer, he's not going to create for other people, and when he puts the ball on floor, it's for Ben Gordon ...

They may feel the need to trade Gordon for a frontcourt scorer, but I don't think Hinrich is as good without him. Defensively their pairing works because they can put Gordon on the ball and Hinrich can guard the bigger shooter. Gordon is not a terrible defender, but he doesn't want to get in foul trouble ...

Based on what I've heard about his work ethic and the way he's improved each year, Luol Deng is definitely an All Star-type player. That's if he's not too tired from playing internationally this summer for Great Britain -- with so many guys playing this summer, I think you're going to be seeing some key players getting hurt. He's a hard guy to guard. It used to be he would only drive right, and that he was a spot-up shooter. But he's improved a different portion of his game every year. If he's succeeded in doing that again this summer, then he'll be as good as a lot of the top guys in the league ...

If they're hoping that Deng can become a franchise star who can create his own shot, that's going to be hard for him because of the way their team is built. For Deng to become a dominating scorer, the ball will have to get out of Gordon's and Hinrich's hands, and they'll have to space the floor as spot-up shooters; I doubt whether Gordon's mind-set is to be content as a swing guy or spot-up guy. The other issue is that it's not one of Deng's strengths to create off the dribble. He's great in transition and he's an excellent mid-range shooter who has become more efficient by shooting fewer threes. He can go one or two dribbles and pull up for his jumper, but he isn't the type to take it further than that ...

It isn't always a bad thing that Wallace's man will leave him to go double-team Gordon or another shooter, because that creates holes for Wallace to go to the offensive boards and keep the ball alive. But at 33, Wallace is beginning to wane a little bit in his effort more so than in his ability. He is still capable of dominating games, but more often than not he's picking and choosing his moments, probably because he knows he can no longer play 82 games like a maniac. With the Bulls, he gets less touches to score [than he did with the Pistons]. He'll work his butt off defensively and doesn't get rewarded as much for it because their guards are shooting before he can get down the floor. But Skiles is smarter about that than Flip Saunders was in Detroit. Coming out of timeouts they often run plays for Ben as a passer, which is something he does well, and it keeps him content so that he doesn't feel like a complete outcast in the offense ...

They drafted Noah in hope that he can be Ben Wallace in a couple of years. But he's flaky, and I bet that he and Skiles will have a few issues. Noah is a smart player and a good athlete. He can pass the ball, he has a good feel for the game and he plays hard. But his flakiness may drive an old-school guy like Skiles crazy. If a little deal like Ben's headband bothered Skiles last year, then how is he going to react to the individuality of somebody like Noah? Those little everyday incidents on the bus are the things that will get under Skiles' skin, I bet ...

The injury to Andres Nocioni hurt them in the playoffs because he wasn't quite himself. He can be a difference-maker when they go small and he's at power forward ...

Thabo Sefolosha is an interesting prospect, but I don't know where they'll find minutes for him. He's got more polished skills right now than Thomas -- he can play a couple of different positions, he has the length to be a good defender, can pass and he's a good athlete. But he's not going to take minutes from Hinrich, Gordon or Deng. If they trade for a frontcourt scorer by packaging Nocioni, Chris Duhon and somebody else, then maybe Sefolosha will have a better opportunity. But they had to have some sort of plan when they drafted him, they had to know that somebody was going to have to go ...

My gut feeling is that they'll never make the NBA Finals until they address their need for frontcourt scoring. If they bring in the right kind of guy, then they could win the championship because of their defense and because they play so hard.