So, they made the playoffs. What’s next?

Not what’s going to happen this week or next week, but what’s going to happen this summer. The question isn’t about this series, but what’s going to change between now and the next time the Bulls are taking on the defending champions in the playoffs? As Bulls fans, what are our standards?

Of course the immediate outlook of the Bulls season was immediately brightened after the Celtics announced that Kevin Garnett will be out for the foreseeable future and beyond. The news changes this series because the Celtics simply aren’t as good as when he is in there. Although the Celtics are still better than the Bulls.

The national talking heads have piggy-backed the Bulls recent 12 win in 16 game run with the Garnett injury to spark interest in the series, and declared that the Bulls have a chance. Whether he is looking at the basketball version of sabermetrics, just speculating or really sold on the new and improved Bulls as a the terrific honor that is an “unexpectedly tough out.” No matter how they’re trying to say it, the message is the same. The Celtics are the favorite, but not by as much.

There’s no reason to buy whatever these heads are trying to sell. The Bulls improved play and recent run into the playoffs has been exaggerated into a blossoming for this young team, and its young head coach. It’s been turned from a good run needed to hold off the Bobcats, into Vinny Del Negro getting beyond his rookie coaching mistakes, Joakim Noah improving and Tyrus Thomas and John Paxson announcing their candidacies for all-defensive team and executive of the year respectively.

The Bulls are better. There is no denying that. And maybe the Garnett injury will give the Bulls a chance to be competitive in this series. And maybe they win two games or look decent on the road. Or, maybe they escape Boston with a win in one of the first two games, and do their best to turn this into a series. Whatever they do, not even a series victory, makes this team any more capable of ever winning a championship with its current lineup. Nothing that has happened in the past few weeks, or what is going to happen in this series, is a sign of things to come.

Why? Because the arrival of Del Negro as a real NBA coach, the defensive prowess of Thomas, the improvement of Noah, and the idea that the Bulls even care about playing defense are just not true. Not a one of these statements are true now, and they probably won’t be true next year either.

As currently built, only one guy looks to play a major role the next time the Bulls are ready to contend, no one on the Bulls staff is capable of coaching and no one is capable of playing the defense necessary to succeed in the playoff. Of course, the one guy they do have we’ll play a pretty big role in the Bulls development, and at least he looks interested in trying to play defense, so that’s a good thing. But still, he’s only one guy. Rose is only one guy in a league where it takes at least two. Until they get #2 and a coach who wants to ask if his team is interested in playing defense, the Bulls are nothing more than what they are now. A middle of the road playoff team, forever trapped in the deep, glooming depths of NBA Hell.

Many Bulls fans have accepted this depressing reality. Their life’s have been brightened since Luol Deng has been out, and John Salmons and Brad Miller have turned the Bulls into a watchable, high-scoring offensive team. They’ve enjoyed watching Bulls games a little more than they did in January and have started to recover from all of the “John Paxson wants to quit” rumors. And, for the postseason, they’ll enjoy watching these games, because they want to see how Derrick Rose is