Derrick Rose Is Stinking Up the Bulls

"I don't think there are any issues with the team," Derrick Rose said following the Bulls' third straight loss on Monday. The standings, and his teammates, appear to disagree.

Let's start with the standings. Owner Jerry Reinsdorf argued firing coach Tom Thibodeau last season was necessary for the team to "continue to grow and succeed." So far, though, the Bulls have appeared to regress with Thib's replacement, Fred Hoiberg. Chicago finished last season with the third-best record (50-32) in the Eastern Conference, and with a point differential of 3.0. Twenty-six games into this season, they're in seventh place in the conference (15-11), and their point differential is only 0.8. The drop in point differential suggests the Bulls are on pace to win five or six fewer games this season.

Rose's teammates think there are issues, although they don't necessarily agree on what those might be.

Jimmy Butler, the team's All-Star shooting guard, told reporters last week that the problem is Hoiberg. "I believe in the guys in this locker room, yeah, but I also believe that we probably have to be coached a lot harder at times," he said after losing to the Pistons on Friday. "I know Fred is a laidback guy and I respect him for that, but when guys aren't doing what they're supposed to do, you gotta get on guys, myself included."

Center Joakim Noah thinks the problem is with the team's identity.

"I mean, what is the identity of this team? It's hard to say," he told ESPN's Zach Lowe. "Our identity has always been: You come to Chicago, you're in for a war. It's not like that right now. I don't care what the numbers say. Just watch the games. There are 25,000 people in the building, and it's dead quiet. It has never been like that. It's tough to see the building that way. And it's on us. You bring the fire, and they will love you here. But if you're coasting, playing this low-energy game—I'm not sure we can win like that."

The veteran Noah also wants to see more from Butler. "The next step for him is to take a leadership role," he said, "and making more plays for his teammates."

So who is right? Is it the coaching? Is there not enough leadership? Could it be that the Bulls, as Rose contends, don't have issues? Or maybe everyone in Chicago is missing the problem.

First, we must understand why the Bulls were able to win 50 games in 2014-15. The cliché goes that teams win together and they lose together, but reality is a little more nuanced. Some players make wins happen, and many players either don't matter or are actually hurting the cause.

Looking at last season's numbers, we see the Bulls were led by Butler, Noah, Pau Gasol, and Taj Gibson. This quartet combined to produce 36.8 wins, or 76.8 percent of the Bulls' wins for that season.

Before Noah sprained his shoulder on Monday, that foursome was on track to produce 38.7 wins. So the coaching change didn't impact the players leading the way for the Bulls. It didn't really make them better, but it didn't make them worse. That lines up with general NBA experience, in that most coaches do not alter player productivity. Even lineup decisions are often more determined by player health than the coach himself.

Now let's consider the rest of the Bulls—we'll just call them "everyone else." Last year, everyone else on the Bulls produced 12.2 wins. Not much, but something. This year, everyone else is on pace to produce just 5.1 wins, and that's the difference. The team would be essentially the same as last year if everyone not named Butler, Gasol, Noah, and Gibson could just offer the team a bit more.

What explains this difference? Two injuries are the story. First, Mike Dunleavy, who produced 4.6 wins last year, has not played at all this year because of a back injury. His replacement, Doug McDermott, is on pace to produce only 1.4 wins. So losing Dunleavy has hurt Chicago.

There's another, bigger story. Remember how Rose said the team didn't have issues? Well, that's not really true. The team does have an issue, and its name is Rose.

Last year, Rose played 51 games. Thibodeau would have loved to play him more, but Rose wasn't healthy enough to get on the court. This year, Rose is healthy, he is playing, and he is awful.

Yes, Rose is one of those players really hurting the cause.

The average NBA point guard has an effective field goal percentage of 47.8. Rose's effective field goal percentage is currently just 39. This hasn't stopped Rose from trying, though: he's second on the team in shot attempts. In Rose's MVP 2011 season, his effective field goal percentage was 48.5—not exactly Stephen Curry, but if he could just shoot that well again, the Bulls would be on pace to win six more games this year.

Shooting is not the only problem with his game, though. Rose is also below average with respect to assists, steals, and offensive rebounds. He really isn't helping in any other way.

As long as the Bulls keep letting Rose take fifteen shots per contest, they're going to have trouble growing beyond an average team. Fixing that problem doesn't require a change in coaching or leadership. It simply requires someone in the Bulls organization to admit that the Rose they see today is not the Rose they saw in 2011. Until that happens, expect the Bulls to keep having issues.