Chicago Bulls: 3 stats from 2019-2020 which bring hope
By Ryan Heckman
1. Chicago led the NBA in steals
When Jim Boylen first took over as head coach, people found out exactly what he was all about. Boylen ran tough, intense practices from the get-go. Though he didn’t turn out to be capable NBA head coach, it appears he did one thing right.
The Bulls played aggressively on defense. Whether or not that paid off all the time is another story, because obviously they gave up a lot of points. But, that aggression turned the Bulls into the league leader in terms of steals.
This past season, Chicago averaged 10.0 steals per game as a team.The next closest team came in at over a full steal behind them — the Toronto Raptors with 8.8 per game.
First of all, that’s a pretty impressive margin between the top two. Secondly, it says a lot when you’re right up there with the reigning NBA Champions in a major category.
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The Bulls averaged this number by doing it as a team, too. Kris Dunn led the way averaging 2.0 steals per game, but the Bulls had several players averaging at least one or more behind Dunn:
Zach LaVine (1.5)
Thaddeus Young (1.4)
Tomas Satoransky (1.2)
Otto Porter (1.1)
Chandler Hutchison (1.0)
The Bulls may not have done a lot of things right on the defensive end in 2019-2020, but they took the ball away more than any other team — and they can build on that. Whomever comes in as their next head coach can use this as a positive building block for how they play defense going forward.