After making the NBA playoffs twice in a row with a young roster, the Chicago Bulls are now poised to make a splash next season.

Without a big guy in the middle – unless you count seven-foot, 235 pound Tyson Chandler, who by the way doesn’t play big at all – the Bulls have led the league in field-goal defense two seasons in a row.

With big bad Ben Wallace, those numbers will surely be better. After all, Big Ben has been named Defensive Player of the year four times. 

So the Bulls shored up their defense. But in giving up Chandler and Darius Songaila, Chicago exchanged youth and frontcourt depth. As it stands, they have Wallace and PJ Brown up front, with Michael Sweetney, Malik Allen, and rookie Tyrus Thomas coming off the bench – all of whom are ineffective and unproven, at best.

And Wallace is not exactly a scoring threat inside, which was one of the things the Bulls needed.

The past two seasons, they have relied too much on their perimeter players for offense: Ben Gordon, Kirk Hinrich, Luol Deng, and Andres Nocioni were the only players to score in double figures last season. That does not figure to change now.

But those guys are all young, meaning they have lots of room to improve. And making the playoffs the past two years will only do them good.

More importantly, Wallace will do little to disturb the successful formula of Coach Scott Skiles. He won’t demand the ball. He won’t slouch on defense. The Bulls play his style: tough defense.

And in Chicago, he’ll experience what he should have in Flip Saunders’ Detroit: fast offense coupled with mean D.

How far will the Bulls go next season? Hell, I don’t know. I’ve just about had enough of this prediction business.

But stubborn as I am, I’ll say this much: second round, here we come!