I am enjoying this Bulls season so far. For having such a tough schedule out the gate, they’ve played well. You look at this team with Derrick Rose, Luol Deng, Joakim Noah and maybe Tyrus Thomas after this season, you add in a free-agent acquisition (Chris Bosh?), and the Bulls are primed to make some serious noise going forward.

But, are they going to be a truly elite team, one that has a chance to win an NBA Championship? I’m not so sure.

And as ESPN’s Future Rankings ($), which just dropped today and project on-court performance for the next three seasons, predict, the Bulls will be a very good team, as they’re ranked No. 7. But it might be management that holds them back:

Even more encouraging should be the Bulls’ top-six rankings in the money and market categories. We project the Bulls to have max or near-max salary-cap room in 2010. Given the desirability of the city, the glamour of the franchise (thanks, MJ) and the opportunity to play with a superstar point guard, we think they’re likely to land another star to run alongside Rose.

So what’s holding the Bulls back from an even higher overall ranking? We have questions about them in the management category, starting with heavy-handed owner Jerry Reinsdorf and extending down to new GM Gar Forman and neophyte head coach Vinny Del Negro. The Bulls over the years have seemed paralyzed at key moments: They hesitated in hiring Mike D’Antoni and ended up with Del Negro, and they’ve passed on several great opportunities to land a post player while overvaluing and showing great reluctance to trade their young players.

So while the Bulls, on paper, have the potential to become contenders with some shrewd moves, their track record of the past few seasons means we have our reservations about their ability to actually pull it off.

This, sadly, is all true. But hey, man, we’re not here to talk about the past. We’re here to talk about the future. And in the future, maybe the Bulls front office can finally get it right. I mean, they went with Derrick Rose over Michael Beasley, which, so far, has been the correct call, right?