Look, I think you're right to an extent: Thibs was given a tough, tough coaching task this season. The front office went out in free agency and got talent in Pau Gasol, but it was not talent that well suited for Thib's preferred system. That being said, Thibs has forced his talent to fit his system, and not not vice versa, and that is why the team has failed. This roster is not the same team that Thibs took to the conference finals in 2010-2011 but he keeps trying to coach it as if it was.
I think it was. Pau's a pro. He knows that he doesn't pair well with Noah now, and nobody knew that for sure this summer. I think Pau would move to the bench if you gave him his touches, and he'd kill backup centers. With Thibs coaching as he is, I think the team would be better off without Pau on the roster. But that's Thibs' fault, not Pau's or the FO's.
And I see Gasol's strong statistical output this season and Niko being at least second in ROY voting as examples of Thibs being flexible with 4s and 5s that are not his prototypes. But, the D is going to suffer with those guys. Do you think its a realistic option to just bench Gasol, given that there were likely assurances make to get him to come here at below market value and was good enough to start in the all-star game this season? I just think its a trickier situation than people want to realize.
Is it going to suffer with Mirotic? Taj has put on a lot of weight over the last couple of years and he's definitely more of a center than a power forward. The league has changed -- you have Lebron in Cleveland, Paul Mislap in ATL, Amir Johnson in TOR, Ilyasova and Giannis in MIL, Brandon Bass and Jonas Jarebko in BOS, Mason Plumlee in Brooklyn. Those are all match ups better suited to a player who can really move. Part of it is that Thib's defensive schemes aren't going to be as effective anymore, and part of it, I think, is that you need more mobile bigs to run his schemes. With the exception of Washington, I'm not sure you can say that Gibson is going to be a better defender.
Gibson is one season away from runner up for 6th man of the year. He's no center - Thibs played Boozer at backup C last season and according to 82games.com, Taj played 0% of the time at C last season. 12% of the time this season, but I think that's due to Noah missing a lot of games and for lack of anyone else. Taj did hurt his ankle or foot and was in a walking boot for weeks. He may not have the lift he had prior, but I think he's been working back into shape.
Well, here's what who is widely considered around the league as one of the top defensive minds in the game thinks about Mirotic. “We’ll see how it unfolds,’’ Thibodeau said. “A lot of it is going to be matchups too. He’s gotta defend better than he’s defending right now.’’ http://chicago.suntimes.com/basketb...wants-see-big-playoff-minutes-defense-improve The last couple games I've seen several transition lapses and close out lapses. Its to be expected from a rookie. Of course, if you consider Thibs an idiot, this doesn't matter. And, unless Rose plays at an elite level against playoff competition, it won't matter either. The Bulls are not NBA Championship caliber without an elite Derrick Rose.
I think if there were one big change we could make that would impact our winning it'd be to pair Gasol/Taj together and Noah/Mirotic together. My summation after watching the team this season is that it's 1 good offseason away from being a true contender. We just have too much talent locked up in the 4/5 positions. I think our best lineup looks like this: Rose Butler Snell/Dunleavy/Brooks Mirotic Taj/Noah/Gasol When you have to choose between the reigning DPOY, a 5-time all star, and 6MOY runner up to get playing time at 1 position that's a serious roster bottleneck. I don't fault GarPax for this....Niko and Pau are absolute steals for how they were acquired. We didn't get Melo, so what options would've been better? It sure beats Lance Stephenson. But the roster came into this season 1 season away from having the shape of a true contender. I didn't see it then, but I see it now.
At the trade deadline, it was widely reported that Stephenson was available. If it cost us Taj, it would have been $8M in salary out, $9M in. Stephenson was a triple double machine last season for Indy. At least 5 of them last season. He was also well regarded as a defensive player. He's not shown it in Charlotte, but Charlotte is a place where a lot of good careers go to die. The risk for us was Stephenson didn't pan out, though he'd easily have become one of the starting 5. For sure he was on the path to being all-star talent and close to it already before Charlotte. If he didn't pan out, his recently signed contract has a team option this summer. So worst case is we get out from under Taj's $8.5M for next season, and $8.95M the season after while reducing that logjam at the 4/5. On the surface, it looks to me like Stephenson moving DunVP to the bench (where he belongs) would have balanced the roster and given us another solid defensive wing with playoff experience. The thing is, Jimmy's getting paid. The Bulls will be over the LT. They're more likely to dump Taj's salary for cap space than bring in talent to beef up the roster.
Stephenson's $9mil is guaranteed for next season. The team option is for the 2016-17 season. http://data.shamsports.com/content/pages/data/salaries/hornets.jsp
Yup, my bad. The Bulls could still save Taj's final season pay in the worst case. But the Bulls being over the LT, they surely wouldn't want to bring in equal or even slightly more contract for Taj. That explains why they didn't make the trade (offer).
I seem to remember you were suggesting Taj for Kevin Martin. In any case, I was very much in favor of trading Taj for competent wing help to balance the roster and was satisfied that Mirotic could replace Taj's minutes just fine.
To me, this is poor roster construction. You have the starting all-star from this season's team making 7.1 mil, last years DPOY and two time all-star making around 13 mil and last years runner up to 6MOY and making 8-9 mil in some kind of timeshare at the 5. Those guys are the 2nd, 3rd and 4th highest paid guys on the team. That's just poor planning and very difficult to manage from a lockeroom standpoint. Also, just a lot of money for guys that are not going to get lots of minutes, if they are timesharing the 5. That, and none of those three are really the player you want playing next to the stretch 4 going forward. Gasol, certainly not for defensive purposes. Noah is deteriorating (over the last 30 days he's averaging .5 blocks a game!) and Gibson is undersized for the position. The Bulls need a Mosgov or an Asik type if they want stretch 4 and gritty rim protecting dirty work guy at the 5. Also, just because the stretch 4 is the latest trend in the NBA, doesn't mean that the Bulls necessarily need to blindly follow. If this league has shown you anything over the years, the next trend will be built to counter this one. Paxson is the type to blindly follow, but a smart org will be looking to be the 1st on the new trend.
As I said, they'll dump Taj's salary to avoid the LT. So Rosenthal's lineup really should be: Rose Butler Snell Mirotic Noah With a bench of Gasol (PF/C), Brooks (PG), and McShooter and Kirk. I assume that unless DunVP will re-sign for vet minimum, he's gone, too.
And if Noah continues his free fall, then the Bulls have a pretty big hole at the 5. And if Rose keeps giving you PERs in the 15-17 range with inefficient shooting, well, good luck to the Mayor with that!
My take is the Bulls knew Noah was iffy due to the knee operation and brought in two guys just in case. I'm not sure that Noah is in a free fall. Rather his role has changed from being the point center that the offense ran through to 5th option when the team has its starters able to play at the same time. His minutes are reduced due to management interference, but we can look at the per 36 minute numbers for a clue. FGA down from 10.2 to 7.5. Or per game from 10.0 to 6.4. Offensive rebounds are up from 3.5 to 3.8. Defensive rebounds are down 11.5 to 11.3 Blocks are down from 1.5 to 1.3 Steals are down from 1.3 to 0.8. Assists are the same 5.5. The only real drop is in his FG% and FT% and FTA (from 4.3 to 3.1). What I constantly hear from announcers doing Bulls broadcasts is the Bulls have two of the best passing big men in the game at the same time with Noah and Gasol. This is typically after one or both have made brilliant passes. A lot of Noah's (statistical) "decline" can be attributed to having an all-star at C who blocks a lot of shots and grabs a lot of rebounds. In spite of missing a lot of games, Noah is 13th in the entire NBA in offensive rebounds (219), and 13th in rebounds per game (9.6). If he played 36 minutes a night, like last season, his 11.3 would be 6th in the league. His DRtg at 102 is worse than last season, but still 2nd on the team for players with 2000+ minutes. I'd chalk that up to the team playing at a higher pace than last season and having much better offensive players who aren't as good on defense as our players were last year.
There isn't that much of a decline. Anyhow, I was looking at last year's playoff results. We got killed by a team with actual talent. Thibs used an 8 man rotation of Noah, Butler, Hinrich, Dunleavy, Boozer (starters) and 3 men off the bench: Gibson, Augustin, and Snell. The rest of the roster did not play: Fredette, Amundson, James, Brewer, Nazr What a load of shit foisted on Thibs last year. And some people were optimistic about our chances
As for Noah, I have to disagree there hasn't been a decline. http://www.basketball-reference.com/players/n/noahjo01.html PER from 20 to 15.3. Win Shares from 11.2 to 5.5. TS% is down by about 50 points. But the PER and Win Shares can be explained a bit by how he's being used. The counting stats, other than shots attempted and points are not down much on a per 36 basis, that is true. Steals are down a bit. It is encouraging that the rebounds and blocks are not down though, that's a good point.
Last season, he was pretty much the only guy the Bulls had worth a damn. So Thibs played him 38 minutes a game and because of the team's success, particularly on the defensive end (we had terrible offense), someone had to get the recognition. Noah was a pretty good choice. Though I think a Noah focused team pretty much looks like last season (good defense, terrible offense). Compare to the season before, an all-star season, his per 36 numbers are: Rebounding up assists way up steals down 1.7 -> 1.2 FGA down 14->10.8 and points down by 3 PER down 18.1 to 15.3 He's not going to get many steals playing on the perimeter more. Last season with he and Boozer, Thibs could put Boozer on the worse of the two PF or C. This season, he does the same with Gasol. So I'm not really buying the playing out of position theory.
