1995-96 Bulls vs. 2010-11 Heat (part 2)

Corrections 

I messed up a few things in my post last night (I guess that's what happens when you're up typing at 1am) so I'll start with those and then finish up some other thoughts I have on this.

Point Guard comparison should be Ron Harper vs. Mike Miller

These guys are the starters as opposed to the guys I compared in last night's post (oops!) who all get added to their team's bench. Even though Steve Kerr actually played more minutes than Ron Harper, Harper was the starter for 80 of 82 games and Kerr never started. This is an interesting match-up as Mike Miller is a pretty decent offensive player although his numbers the last two seasons weren't as good as they were earlier in his career and Ron Harper is a pretty good defensive player. Maybe it is simply a matter of aging but that makes the match-up even more interesting as Ron Harper was also aging by the time the 1995-96 season rolled around. Just strictly looking at the numbers makes them nearly identical - 11.3/10.9 ppg, 4.0/3.9 apg, and 4.1/6.2 rpg (the difference here is probably because Miller plays more SF that Harper). I would argue Harper was a much better defender but Miller is a much better shooter. As I really don't think Miami is going to use Miller much for offense (Harper actually scored a little more than Miller anyway) with The Three Am-EGOS handling the ball 95% of the time, I'm going to call this a wash.

Edge Even

Heat Game Schedule

Since the Heat and Bulls are NOT in the same division, they only face off 3 times instead of the 4 I mentioned yesterday although 2 of the 3 are in the United Center (i.e. tougher road games for Heat). They still play the Bucks 4 times although the Bucks are in the same division as the Bulls. Interestingly, the Bulls are the only Central Division team not to play the Heat four times which does make it a little easier for the Heat overall as they get to play two pretty bad teams in Detroit and decimated Cleveland 4 times each. That means they "only" have to go 16-9 in those tough games I mentioned yesterday but 57-0 in the rest in order outdo the 1995-96 Bulls...I still think they will NOT be able to do it.

NBA Expansion

The Bulls also had the advantage of facing a somewhat weaker NBA in 1995-96 as expansion added two teams north of the border in Vancouver (Grizzlies - now in Memphis) and Toronto (Raptors). When teams are added, they do start from scratch, but not totally...there was an expansion draft where the new teams could draft players from other NBA teams. The Raptors picked 14 players while the Grizzlies picked 13 from current NBA teams. It's not like the new teams could pick the top players from the current teams as the teams were allowed to protect a certain number of players, but what an expansion draft tends to do is weaken the benches of all the teams. Ironically, the first player selected in that expansion draft was BJ Armstrong from the Bulls which certainly hurt their depth a bit, but apparently not too much as they went on to decimate the league to the tune of 72-10 during the regular season. With no expansion happening this year, that further hurts the Heat from exceeding that 72-win total as predicted by Jeff Van Gundy.
Edge Bulls

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I meant to also discuss coaching as well as bench comparisons...

Phil Jackson vs. Erik Spoelstra or Pat Riley
This isn't much of a contest, but that's why I want to bring it up...Let's just count rings to start with - Phil has 11, Erik has ZERO (should work well combined with LeBron and Bosh also with ZERO), and Riley has 5 plus both Phil and Riley each won a ring as NBA players as well (Phil - Knicks and Riley - Lakers and they beat each other in the Finals back-to-back years). I'm not sure how long Erik will last as head coach which is why I added Pat Riley to this discussion as most everyone believes he will be coaching this team before the end of the season. So let's just play it Phil vs. Riley...they have faced off against each other in the playoffs on several occasions. Riley's Knicks "beat" Phil's Bulls in 1994 on the infamous phantom foul call on Scottie Pippen that sent Hubert Davis to the foul line in Game 5 of that series. Other than that, Phil has gotten the better of Riley each of the other times they faced each other in the playoffs - 1991 Finals (Bulls beat Lakers 4-1), 1992 EC Second Round (Bulls beat Knicks 4-3), 1993 EC Finals (Bulls beat Knicks 4-2), and 1996 EC First Round (Bulls beat Heat 3-0), 1997 EC Finals (Bulls beat Heat 4-1). That makes Phil 5-1 against Riley in the playoffs. Of course, Riley would LOVE to change that this year by taking over the Heat and keeping Phil from achieving his unbelievable 4th threepeat (more irony...I believe Riley is the one that coined the term threepeat although NONE of his teams have ever achieved it).
Edge Bulls

Bulls Bench vs. Heat Bench
This may be the biggest difference in the two teams. The Bulls bench featured the NBA's Sixth Man of the Year in Toni Kukoc along with several important role players. The Heat bench features Udonis Haslem and whoever isn't starting from my previous post. Kukoc alone is enough to give the Bulls the edge here, but let's talk a bit more on the rest of the bench. The Bulls had defensive players like Randy Brown and John Salley as well as a few other role players that would run through a wall for this team like Jud Buechler and Bill Wennington. But in addition to Kukoc, the Bulls also had sharp-shooting Steve Kerr on the bench. The Heat have Jamaal Magloire who hasn't done much of anything since leaving the Bucks following the 2005-06 season (that's 5 years ago!), Juwan Howard who is on his 9th team and also hasn't done much in 5 years, Carlos Arroyo, Eddie House, and Mario Chalmers who I discussed in yesterday's post. This one just isn't close folks...

Edge Bulls


It's the age old story...wouldn't it be cool to see how this team from this era would fair against this other team in this other era? As much as I'd love to see how these Bulls would stack up against that 1971-72 Lakers team, I'd REALLY love to see how they match-up with this year's Heat! Heck, I can't wait to see how this year's Bulls match-up with this year's Heat! At least I know that match-up IS going to happen (although not until Jan 15th) where the others will most certainly NOT happen without a time machine and I'm still working out the kinks there.


GO BULLS!!!