To win the NBA Championship the Bulls need...?

The Chicago Bulls need nothing.

This team is set to make a strong run at the championship right now without having to make any roster changes to improve their chances. They do not need to trade for Dwight Howard or add a shooting guard to put them over the top, for the pieces are place now. Barring any injury to Derrick Rose this year the Chicago Bulls will be in the NBA finals.

Defense wins championships.

As of right now the Chicago Bulls are 12-2 with 9 of their games being played on the road. The Bulls have kept their opponents under 85 points a total of 8 times this year. The combination of the Miami Heat, New York Knicks, Boston Celtics, Atlanta Hawks, and the Orland Magic have kept their opponents under 85 points is a total of 9. Also, the 5 home games the Bulls have played this year they have kept their opponents to an average of 66 points. If the Bulls end up with home court advantage is their a team outside of Miami that has a chance. I doubt it.

Derrick Rose is a superstar

It seems now a days many teams think they need multiple super stars to win the championship. The Celtics won the title when they surrounded Pierce with Garnett and Allen. The Heat thought they could win theirs with James and Bosh joining Wade. The Knicks signed Stoudamire and traded for Anthony with hopes of landing Howard. Even the Nets pushing their new Brooklyn stadium traded for Williams with hopes of landing Howard. The truth is one superstar with a great supporting cast is all you need to make a run at the title. Derrick Rose is that superstar. In fact, with a game on the line, outside of Kobe or Wade, there is nobody in the league I would want to have the ball in the last few seconds of the game than Rose.  

The bench mob

The Chicago Bulls have the deepest bench in the league right now.
Last week, with Rose out, the Bulls played the Wizards with John Lucas, Kyle Korver, Luol Deng, Taj Gibson, and Omar Asik playing the majority of the 4th quarter. I kept asking myself why is Boozer and Noah not in the game but this group not only held their own but actually outscored their opponents. That was done without Rose, Boozer, Noah on the court as well as Rip Hamilton and CJ Watson who were both injured.

The Chicago Bulls are deep, talented, and hungry and barring injuries will win the NBA tital this year.

IMO, it's really doubtful that this Chicago team as consisted right now can beat Miami in 7 game series.

Bulls patched up glaring hole at SG, but to beat Miami we need a dominant big guy who can overpower Miami down low (or at least score like crazy on them from PF/C position), and Boozer unfortunately isn't that guy.

The tactic to beat Chicago is pretty much simple, shut down Rose on offense and score just enough to win the game, it's good that there ain't many teams out there with amazing defenders to do that, but Miami has Wade and especially LeBron who can actually do that.

This season will give us an answer, and I really hope Chicago doesn't end up being something like NYK or Utah from the '90, great team that's just missing that little something to win it all.

Bottom line is, this team needs another player who can take over games other then Rose (no matter the position), and there's currently none of it on Bulls roster, heck, even Jordan had Pippen and all props to Luol, but he's not even close to Pip from '90-'98 (Deng and Boozer are more of a complementary players, like Grant from '90-'93 and Rodman from '95-'98, but there's no Pip on roster, i.e. legit #2).

The Bulls need a more efficient offense. That, or as Scyte said, they need another guy that can shoulder an offensive load.

The Heat have Lebron and Battier on defense. Thats pretty much all you need to know about Why I think they can beat us in a 7 game series. 

Health and fresher legs than their opponents.

I disagree.  I think with the improvement of Brewer, Korver, and the addition of Rip, we can take Miami in a 7 game series.  We gave them a run for their money last season and we didn't have Rip while Brewer and Korver were tentative with their confidence.  Rose had a tough time cuz all he had to pass the ball to when Deng was locked down is Bogans.  With Deng and Rip, he has both wings open.  Rip is one of the best at running around the court to get an open shot.  And lately, I've seen Korver do the same.  This type of running around will tire out Dwayne Wade and make him less effective on the offensive end.

With regards to our inside game, all I can say is Asik would be a starter at center if he was on the Heat.  That's how deep our bench is. 

With regards to our inside game, all I can say is Asik would be a starter at center if he was on the Heat.  That's how deep our bench is

Doesnt really say much, because half of the NBA backup C's in the league would start in Miami, and also because there are probably at least 10 NBA teams that Asik would start on if he were there.

We need more scoring, Asik is good defensively, offensively he is quite offensive, so is Noah. I don't think we can win a championship with the team we have. We are a great regular season team but will lose to the Heat, Oklahoma City, and possibly Dallas and the Lakers. I would love to see Dwight Howard come to the Bulls but I don't think he wants to and I can't figure out if he wants to win or just have fun with friends like he is playing on the blacktop. If he still wants to go to New Jersey that would answer my question. In my opinion Rose could definitely use some help I just don't know who that would be. Since the Celtics suck would they get rid of Ray Allen?

Ray Allen has a monster expiring Contract I believe, so they wont dump him. And even if they were to move him, its hard to imagine them forking him over to the Bulls.

The Heat are the only Team I fear in either conference for the Bulls in a 7 game series. Out West, nobody jumps off the page. 

@ Go Bears

It's all about health and gas in the tank.  The Bulls beat the Heat 4 times in a row (3 reg season games with playoff atmosphere) and 1 playoff game (that's a series, 4 games, 4 victories).  After that the Heat was running on "E" but healthy the Bulls were running on fumes but were not healthy (Boozer, Noah, Asik).  I believe that was the difference.  Beating a team 4 times, in a row, is not a fluke.  There was a reason the Bulls won the those 4 games but not the last 4.  The first 3 victories the Bulls were healthy and not exhausted (the 4th victory was just homecourt advantage/the Heat had their guard down a little after beating the Celtics).

With the addition of Rip, the addition and improvement Lucas (really like what Lucas brings off the bench, fast pace energy) + health is enough to beat the Heat.  But I mean it's still 50/50, can't make confident prediction.  But the Bulls do have enough to the point I don't fear the Heat, just realize it can go either way.

The only thing that scares me is the offense.  Just because were holding opponents to 70 points a game several times does not excuse us to score 80.  Yes, that is a victory but to score less than 90 points several times scare me because you are going to need close to a 100 points to beat Miami in the playoffs.  I think last year we were a few game changing shots away from winning more games in the Miami series.  I remember all the times we were making a run in the games or Miami was making their run to come back and Korver or Bogans miss a wide open 3 that could have changed the momentum and the outcome of the game.  I think the Rip signing was the best thing possible for this team considering he is the "poor man" Ray Allen.  Once he gets healthy, that is 14-18 points per game out of him and we should be set. 

Injury played a huge part in that series, yes. But the Heat were banged up a little bit too. The two key factors in the Bulls Heat series last year was Lebron on Rose, and Korver being on the floor.

We all know the Bulls offense is incompetent and useless if Rose is'nt making much of an impact.  When the Heat put Lebron on Rose defensively, our offense was useless. The Heat didnt do this in any of those regular season games. This is not going to change in any 7 game series in the forseeable future. The Heat have the luxury of Putting Lebron on Rose whenever they want. Whats worse, they now have Shane Battier to throw at Rose too, so it can only be worse.

The epic coaching failure of leaving Korver on the floor was the other reason the Bulls lost the series. Im 100% positive the Bulls +/- when Korver was on the floor instead of Brewer or Bogans was astronimically lower than it was with Korver off the floor. It was SO OBVIOUS how much better the matchups were when Korver was on the bench. But Thibs blindly left him in anyways. The last 2 games, Thibs finally realized  this, but still, he didnt cut Korver's minutes much, and the runs the Bulls went on with Korver on the bench were not enough to overcome.

I still see the Korver thing being an issue in the next 7 game series with the Heat, because Thibs is too stubborn, or something. 

Noah and Boozer both spend the entire 4th quarter on the bench yet again...what a shock.

Noah, especially, should be embarassed by his play. 

I hope you guys still arent praising that early lock up of Noah at nearly 11m Per now....

Rip is one of the best at running around the court to get an open shot.  And lately, I've seen Korver do the same.

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The key part of that is "lately". January is not May/June. Many things that worked in January last year were non exsistant against Miami in the playoffs. especially in the 4th quarter on the offensive end of the court. I stated before that I like the addition of Hamilton, but he is not the fix to what was wrong against Miami in the playoffs. They still don't have someone outside of Rose that can create their own offense. Thus, Rose will still be smothered defensively come the 4th quarter in the playoffs.

The Heat are the only Team I fear in either conference for the Bulls in a 7 game series. Out West, nobody jumps off the page.

Really? I think the Thunder stand out. This team looks scary to me. I admit I haven't seen a great deal, but I think enough. They are going to be a tough matchup for anyone.

As far as the orignial thread, I say the Bulls need health more than anything. Sure it would be nice if we could work a trade and somehow bring in another big time guy but really, who is even attainable?

Dwight Howard: Already said he doesn't want to be in Orlando, but doesn't want to be in Chicago either.

STAT: Don't see how the Knicks can stick with both guys long term. It isn't working, that's not going to change. Both need the ball too much to impact the game. Bulls could maybe work a trade centered around Boozer. Probably have to add Asik or Noah to that deal though or NY wouldn't have any interest. But Boozer doesn't need the ball, and not playing defense wouldn't be anything new to him!

Those are the only 2 people I know of that can make a big enough impact to warrant trading for and have even a remote possibility of being acquired. I think the Bulls stand pat and I think, if we get the production we've seen we can in the regular season from Carlos Boozer, and Richard Hamilton, I think we do have what it takes to win a championship on the roster.