It doesn’t look like Barack and Hillary are going to make up any time soon, so there really is no change. But I’m a true change agent, and I say it’s time for change, with the Bulls, and for myself and Tyrus Thomas.
I vote for Thomas to play, play more and play regularly.
Forget experience.
Tyrus today!
I’m excited, and I didn’t even know Iowa and New Hampshire were real states. Iowa, I was sure, was really a Farm & Fleet superstore.
I got to thinking about Thomas after a solid 14 points, nine rebounds and three blocks in the Bulls’ win over the Sacramento Kings on Saturday. Interim coach Jim Boylan even seemed to know his name.
Thomas has been the forgotten man of the Bulls’ disappointing season, which might be better than being the picked-on and discarded man of the Bulls’ disappointing season. Former coach Scott Skiles offered the second-most trenchant observation of his tenure when he volunteered that Thomas never once sprinted the court. This, of course, was second only to the immortal advice offered to Eddy Curry, who is here with the Knicks on Tuesday, about how to rebound better: Jump.
I’m already getting weepy about Skiles being gone.
Anyway, a reader asked about Thomas not playing, as readers often do, and claimed the Bulls were 20-5 when Thomas played at least 15 minutes. I’ll call the reader Joe only because that is his name.
So I looked it up, and it wasn’t quite that. He was close. It’s 6-9 this season.
But the Bulls were 25-5 last season when Thomas played at least 15 minutes, and though Boylan is working the veterans to get wins, which he hopes will lead to a return engagement next season, the real priority is to find out about players like Thomas.
Thomas and I didn’t start off well, which is a little like saying Britney Spears is having some trouble with parenting. (I really don’t know who this Britney Spears person is, as I’m over 50, but we have a pop culture handbook that allows us to use such clever references to pretend we’re hip.)
Now, if you’re talking hip replacement, I can dig that.
What we seem to have forgotten is the reason we were so high on this Bulls team. Perhaps we were just high? Nah.
It’s not because they had a star or a low-post presence or great overall talent. It was because they played hard all the time, they would defend and they could bring waves of young, long-limbed players into the game to defend, disrupt and frazzle opponents.
Those guys were Thomas, Thabo Sefolosha and Joakim Noah, primarily. They all were supposed to be in the rotation. They’d come into the game, good, young talent, and overwhelm second units. Noah would frustrate veterans like Jermaine O’Neal or Rasheed Wallace because he was too naive to know he wasn’t as good as they are and would keep running around. Those guys don’t like to chase.
Sefolosha would play shooting guard or small forward and excel on defense with his long arms and active presence. Thomas was the jumping jack, up and down and up again quicker than Curry and Zach Randolph could decide who got which low block (inside basketball talk).
The Bulls were to be the ultimate better-than-the-sum-of-its-parts team. They still could be.
No, the Bulls don’t scare the Celtics or the Pistons, but they’ve regained some spirit and wins. That had to be the short-term goal. But with plenty of days off this week and then a road trip, it’s time to see what the kids can do.
Most of all, management needs to know what it has in these players, all of whom were selected with high draft picks. The Bulls can’t truly make decisions about trades and the future of the club without knowing what they have. But it’s also time to give the team — and the opponents — some new looks.
Give Sefolosha some time in the backcourt and at small forward. It’s uncertain when Luol Deng will play again, but when he’s ready, he should get that long-talked-about time at shooting guard. While Boylan has gone to Chris Duhon to settle down the offense and give Kirk Hinrich more time off the ball, everyone knows Duhon is not a long-term answer. The backcourt needs to be bigger.
The balancing act, of course, stems from Boylan’s current commitment to the veterans. He aims to play them the majority of the time to obtain their loyalty. But ultimate success, if there is to be any, demands the extension of the rotation and the inclusion of the 2006 and 2007 draft picks.
In glimpses, they’ve all shown they can play and contribute. Noah has a high plus/minus rating for the few minutes he has played this season, and the minus wasn’t for his hair. Thomas had that remarkable correlation of minutes played to team wins when he was a rookie.
His LSU teammate Glen “Big Baby” Davis had 20 points in Boston’s big win at Detroit the other night. We know Thomas is way better than Davis.
I’ve been tough on Thomas, less for his play — Skiles took care of that for us — than for his attitude toward people around the team. I’m not suggesting we listen to Up With People songs together (sorry, another ’60s reference), but I do believe he has the talent to be a good player, and I think we should get a chance to see it.
All the polls seem to suggest it’s time.
———–
sasmith@tribune.com
