Revisiting the Bulls draft in light of holes on the team exposed by Miami

So, last night the Bulls lost to the Heat in a pretty bummeriffic way. On the positive side, they didn't have Luol or C.J. and still hung tough while the Heat were at full strength. On the other hand, Wade looked awful and the other non-Bosh and LBJ Heatles did not really impact the game, which is something that probably won't remain consistent across games. Derrick Rose played 45 minutes last night and was clearly gassed at the end of the game. Playing those kind of minutes as the sole offensive option (Boozer and Rip were crap on O last night) against the league's second best defense and most athletic team will do that. He left a FT and the final shot of the game short. C.J. being injured forced John Lucas III into the game for the 3 meager minutes that Rose sat. He was a total disaster. He took one wild fade away jumper, turned the ball over, and managed to go a -8 in just 3 minutes (!). Frankly, Lucas is too small to ever play against the Heat. Which brings me to the purpose of this post. I think the Bulls missed an opportunity in the draft. I suggested in the SBNation Mock Draft that the Bulls draft combo-guard Charles Jenkins and big-man Jon Leuer. Jon Leuer has posted an 18.9 PER in his rookie season and frankly looks great, but we have a plethora of capable big men, so he's not the guy I want to focus on in this post (although if Boozer keeps disappearing in big games, it might be nice to have another offensive minded big).

I think the Bulls failure to have a competent third PG cost them the game and if CJ is hurt again during the playoffs (which is certainly unlikely, but possible) then the Bulls stand zero chance of beating the Heat. Simply put, John Lucas III does not belong on the same floor with the Heat. Charles Jenkins has put up relatively pedestrian numbers with a 12.4 PER, but he has a 52.2% True Shooting percentage. His low PER is largely a function of his very low usage (12.7%). Jenkins, thus far, doesn't take a ton of shots, but he also has an incredibly low 7.8 TOV% and decent AST% (23.7%). He also has actual NBA size, unlike Lucas. I find it hard to believe that Jenkins would have been as atrocious against Miami as Lucas was. Lucas has an egregious 46.7% True Shooting percentage on 18.1 shots per 36 minutes. Jenkins takes about half that many shots per 36 minutes and is much better at scoring on those shots. He turns it over much less and gets slightly more assists, pace and minutes adjusted. Basically, JL3 is a miniature chucker on the level of Jannero Pargo without any of the sometimes positive things on defense that Pargo would occasionally bring. Considering Jimmy Butler's inability to get off the bench, I think the Bulls missed by not drafting Jenkins. I think with even competent play during JL3's minutes last night, the Bulls win. I also think if the Bulls had someone competent who could have allowed Derrick to play 38-40 minutes instead of the 45 he played last night, the Bulls win. Basically, C.J. needs to get well and stay healthy in the playoffs. Or, you know, the Bulls could have cut JL3 and kept Mike James, who looked better in just about every way to Lucas in his brief stint with the Bulls and actually has the size to belong on an NBA court.