- Gilbert Arenas says the Bulls were the first small-ball team to form a dynasty
- Arenas says the Bulls were “big small” with a tall point guard and a shorter frontcourt
- Arenas wants to stop blaming the Warriors for making small-ball popular
With the old-school style big man on the verge of extinction in the NBA, many fans have expressed concern about the direction of the game. Thanks to shooters like Stephen Curry and Damian Lillard, perimeter shooting has become the new meta, and small-ball is often the team’s preferred method for putting as many shooters on the floor as possible.
According to former league point guard Gilbert Arenas, Jordan’s Bulls are the pioneers of the practice thanks to their run in the 90s with a backcourt led by Jordan and Ron Harper, who measured at 6’6″. Despite this, Arenas still cites the Bulls as small because they played almost completely around two-way wing players instead of tall centers.
“The small-ball started with the Chicago Bulls, people don’t realize that. Your point guard, 6-4, 6-5. Jordan, 6-6. Scottie Pippen, 6-7, Dennis Rodman, 6-8. Unfortunately, they were big small-ball. They were the biggest small-ball team because their point guard was 6’4″.”
Stop giving them old Suns and Warriors teams credit for “small ball.”
It was Michael Jordan’s Chicago Bulls. pic.twitter.com/3JGQ7JH4da
— Gil’s Arena (@GilsArenaShow) August 10, 2023
Despite the taller backcourt duo, the Bulls played with mostly wings on the floor in the form of perimeter ball-handlers and two-way defenders in Pippen and Rodman. Besides Luc Longley, who averaged 7.2 points per game for his career, Chicago never relied on big, 7-footers to do their bidding. Instead, they preferred to keep the paint open and allow Jordan to work.
It was a risky strategy at the time, but the Bulls had more than enough talent across the team to make it work.
Are The 90s Bulls The NBA’s First Superteam?
As 6x champions, the Bulls made an enormous impact on NBA history, and besides being the potential origins of small-ball, the team is also cited as one of the first examples of an NBA superteam.
In their heydey, the Bulls had Michael Jordan, Scottie Pippen, Dennis Rodman, Steve Kerr, Ron Harper, and Toni Kukoc, among others. Together, they proved to be unstoppable, winning more titles in an eight-year span than most teams have in their existence.
Today, that legendary 90s team will always be remembered for their dominance over the league and how they changed things for everyone that came after.
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