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Few, if any, truths are revealed about an NBA team in the preseason.
The answers Bulls fans seek—most notably to the question, “Can they challenge the Cavaliers in the East?”—will have to wait until real games begin Thursday.
One thing is clear already, however: No matter what happens this season, the Bulls made the right choice in signing Dwyane Wade.
Much is made of teams needing veteran leadership to thrive. That even with all the energy infused by younger players, the rebounds they grab, the minutes they eat up, winning titles is next to impossible without an experienced hand on the court. And with a few exceptions, that perception is dead on.
Wade is the only player on the Bulls roster with three championships. If the Bulls are going to come anywhere close to a title while he’s here or shortly after, he will have to be the catalyst.
Yet unlike his pal LeBron James, who brought Cleveland a championship, it’s hard to see Wade’s time in Chicago being punctuated with a title. Although he’s still in great shape (he wouldn’t have been in ESPN The Magazine’s latest Body Issue otherwise), there are a lot of NBA miles on his 34-year-old tires. So before he retires to become a full-time fashion icon, his job is to at least get the train moving before he departs. At this point in time, we have every reason to believe he’s taking that responsibility seriously.
“When you’re coming off a season where as an organization you don’t make the playoffs, your goal can’t be winning a championship,” Wade said earlier this month, according to the Tribune. “Your goal has to be day to day making steps to improve yourself so you can get to a point where you’re a playoff team. And then you go from there. I’m not going to put a ceiling on us. But we’re not thinking long-term right now with so many new guys. We’re in the moment.”
Wade’s realism will be hard for some fans to accept, considering Bulls management pivoted from a “We’re going super young” strategy to a “Screw it, let’s try to win now after all” approach in a heartbeat this summer.
But attaching championship expectations to a team with this much turnover, so many potential defensive deficiencies and so many questions about its outside shooting is a fool’s errand.
Which is why the focus should be on Wade, and how the Bulls follow his lead while he’s here. Just as Derrick Rose is a homegrown NBA star who cares deeply for the Chicago community, Wade grew up in the south suburbs and has a strong social conscience. He also is six years older than Rose and more willing to seek the spotlight, which is helpful in the activism arena.
“For me, and for guys in this city from what I’ve seen, we have a different kind of battle here in Chicago, a different focus,” he said during the preseason. “And that’s what my focus is on, it’s on this city, and what am I capable of doing to help out youth in this city in a bigger way?”
In addition to reaching out to the city’s youth, you can find Wade using his celebrity to make commercials, movie cameos and the aforementioned foundation of a fashion empire. He will use this platform to benefit Chicago as a whole.
Beyond that, we can be confident he’ll leave the Bulls better than how he found them.
@redeyesportschi | chsosa@redeyechicago.com