If ever a player’s performance was a microcosm of his team’s overall standing, then Jimmy Butler’s second-half explosion in the Chicago Bulls’ narrow 115-113 win over Toronto was it.
What to make of a display in which Butler scored all of two points in the first half before running amok in the final two quarters with a franchise-record 40 points?
Well, maybe don’t elbow him in the lip, for starters.
Butler copped an elbow to the face from Toronto’s DeMarre Carroll in the second quarter, and while the Bulls star required stitches to stem the bleeding, it was the Raptors who were left to lick their proverbial wounds when the final buzzer sounded.
Butler has picked up right where he left off last season’s breakout campaign, averaging 21.1 points, 4.9 boards, 3.6 assists and 1.9 steals per game to establish himself as perhaps the best two-way shooting guard in the league.
Stand Butler alongside James Harden and it’s a fascinating argument as to what you’d rather: a positively lethal scorer who averages six-plus assists per game but who also turns the ball over more than four times each night, or the loose-limbed athlete who has a considerably lower usage rate but has consistently been a defensive threat (for a statistical breakdown of the two players, click here).
And that’s not so much a knock on Harden (whose unique, amazing herky-jerky style has a rhythm all of its own) as it is a statement on just how fluid Butler is, a snaking apparition who smoothly elevates at a moment’s notice, catching opposing players unawares as they grasp the space where Butler was just a moment hence.
Look at the yeoman labour Butler does during Monday’s heroics, he simply outworks his opponents to death at both ends of the court. The 6’7” swingman out of Marquette now has a 40-game streak of at least one steal per game, the longest such active run in the league.
In scoring those 40 second-half points, Butler broke a Bulls franchise record that had stood for more than 25 years, when Michael Jordan (who else?) dropped 39 points against Milwaukee on February 16, 1989.
And fittingly, it was Butler who got the Bulls over the line in the end, nailing a twisting three-pointer from the sideline with a tick over 30 seconds remaining, drawing a foul to complete the four-point play.
And so, what to make of the Bulls? A team with a not-terrible 20-12 record that has beaten the likes of Cleveland, Oklahoma City (twice) and San Antonio, but suffered defeats to, among others, Minnesota, Phoenix and Brooklyn.
Despite the gritty road win over the Raptors (who, incidentally, haven’t beaten Chicago since the very last day of 2013), the Bulls themselves seem to raise more questions even as they answer others.
There is no question, however, that this is Butler’s team – the Derrick Rose era sadly finished before it even had a proper chance to flourish. The 2011 NBA MVP sat out his third straight game with right hamstring tendinitis. Perhaps ominously, Rose will undergo an MRI on his hamstring and his twice-repaired right knee after also complaining of knee soreness.
Combine that with his ongoing vision issues after fracturing his left orbital bone and injury updates have once again become depressingly de rigueur for Rose, the Bulls and their legion of fans who ache to see a complete return of the exciting phenom. Alas.
Meanwhile, Chicago has desperately missed the influence of Mike Dunleavy, who has yet to suit up this season, sidelined after off-season back surgery had complications that further hampered his recovery.
And finally, what to do with that crowded frontcourt rotation?
The absence of Joakim Noah with a shoulder injury has presented rookie Bobby Portis with an opportunity, and the 6’11” Arkansas alum has grabbed it with both hands, further fuelling talk the Bulls would be best to explore trade options for both Noah and Taj Gibson while they still have cachet around the league.
Throw in the development – albeit stuttering at times – of both Doug McDermott and Nikola Mirotic, and Chicago need to start weighing up the win-now focus with the balancing act of planning for the not-too-distant future.
But with a new coach in Fred Hoiberg and the ever-present struggle to find a fresh identity that comes with such a change from the long-term defensive intensity of predecessor Tom Thibodeau, there will always be growing pains – witness Butler’s comments in mid-December that the first-year mentor “needed to coach harder”.
Chicago remains a work in progress, albeit an enigmatic one that may never be actually completed in its current form.
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