This team does not fit Hoibergs style at all. I think Thibs was the Chicago Bulls the last few years. Even injured we did not get blown out by 3 bad teams in a row! He would not allow it. Too late now. So, something needs to be done to this team and it needs to be more than minor tweaks. Gibson needs to stay. He has brought his lunch bucket the last few games! What are your thoughts?
He certainly was. Little doubt about that one any more. Certainly the guy driving the winning culture. The Bulls lost their culture when they smeared and dumped Thibs. Now they just have whatever Paxson and Gar could muster on their own. They pined and got Hoiball. The Bulls fans got an embarrassment.
Agree about Tim Floyd. Most disappointing to me is that, despite the coaching change, Jimmy Butler still was allowed to run himself into a wall, is producing nothing, and going to need off-season surgery. If Hoiberg isn't going to control minutes better than Thibs then what was the point of all of this?
Also important to note that there may be more important things to being a NBA coach than keeping minutes down. The Bulls should be well rested going into next season. Many of the guys are playing fewer minutes per game and Jen Swanson (or whoever) has free reign to impose whatever minutes restrictions she wants without any uncomfortable blowback from the coach. The Bulls could cyborg the lads up with whatever gear from the sports science cabinet they choose within league rules without a sarcastic look from the coach. Of course, little of this matters when the team is irrelevant, which the Bulls are without Thibs. The whole winning lots of basketball games thing is kind of the prerequisite before people throw down over quibbles. These arguments don't happen much anymore since GarPax and Hoiberg have made this team not worth caring a ton about anymore except for the diehards.
The point was to hire Hoiberg, a close personal friend of Gar Foreman. To hand him a 50 win team and he should have no problem continuing the "winning" tradition. FWIW, I think it's very clear Thibs won more games in the regular season than the team should have won and in the post season equally so.
TY Denny that was my point. Nothing against Fred, but Thibs year in and year out even without rose, got much more out of this team than Fred is.
Right. My point was that a GM can be forgiven for making a crappy hire, although Garpax's record on that front (and every front) is increasingly troublesome. But ownership and management told us that Thibs was fired for not working well with others in the organization. So what does it say when the very next coach they bring in plays Butler on his demand an ungodly amount of minutes? They should have at least gotten that right during their search.
They also directly said during his firing press conference that they were disappointed that this roster to be able to defeat the Lebron James Cavs of last season in the playoffs. The framework was in place last season to curtail minutes. Minutes limits / Jen Swanson expertise. Management could impose those if they wanted. Suddenly once they got rid of the guy they didn't like it wasn't an issue anymore. Its almost like they were just smearing a guy they were trying to fire.
I think the front office would argue that Butler has retained the bad habit from Thibs of wanting to play more minutes than injury statistics justify. And that Hoiberg was at risk of losing his superstar if he didn't play Butler the minutes he demanded. All that suggests to me is that the front office needed to bring in a coach with more gravitas; that a rookie coach wasn't the right pick for this team. The front office should have known that going in. Instead we ended up with the worst of both worlds: a coach who is both bad at Xs and Os and limiting player minutes.
Brutal. http://sports.yahoo.com/news/the-bulls-and-the-mess-they-re-in-043747909.html Fred Houberg era hasn't gone as planned for Bulls Remember last June, when the Bulls’ brass introduced Fred Hoiberg, declared him the perfect fit and smiled as Hoiberg gushed over a roster he openly declared had championship potential? That was before Jimmy Butler publicly criticized him, before Joakim Noah became annoyed with him, before a promised free-flowing offense eroded to a far less efficient version than the one former coach Tom Thibodeau ran last season. Better days indeed. ... Hoiberg is an easy target, and it’s fair to criticize the college coach who has yet to translate Iowa State’s up-tempo offense to the pros. But Hoiberg was the repairman brought to overhaul a team that just needed a tuneup. The Bulls never won fewer than 45 games under Thibodeau. They played with discipline, won with defense and battled each possession with relentless intensity. Hoiberg shouldn’t be faulted for trying to put his own imprint on this group, but no one should be surprised that it has been so resistant to him. ... The Bulls wanted to be rid of Thibodeau, and they have reaped what they have sown. No more friction, no more personality conflicts and, in all likelihood, no more playoffs. The rebuild Chicago didn’t need is coming. No stopping it now.
And another. http://www.chicagotribune.com/sports/columnists/ct-haugh-bulls-spt-0330-20160329-column.html
The Bulls seem to be better at hiring daddies (Skiles, Thibs) than mommies (Hoiberg, VDN). I think there's a chance Hoiberg's a good coach, but not for this team. I think the top of our roster sans Pau responds better to discipline than encouragement. So even though it may have been time for Thibs to go, the team would've been better served to stick with an edgy coach.
What qualifies for "ungodly" these days? Butler's has played more than 40 minutes 11 times this season (60 games). Last season he topped the 40-minute mark 28 times (65 games). Ain't that significant enough for y'all.
None of this is good. https://theathletic.com/2016/03/24/the-bulls-must-take-precautions-with-butler/ Capture by such sweet thunder posted Apr 7, 2016 at 5:38 AM
Last year the management fed narrative was that Thibs was to blame. One of the best coaches that the Bulls have ever had who day in / day out got the most out of the talent he was given and won basketball games. This year, new coach, basically same heavy minutes for Butler. Now Butler playing "iso-ball" and not playing losing Hoiball is to blame. Are GarPax ever to blame? Of course not, they dictate the narrative. Terrible moves by GarPax taking the #3 seed in the East into NBA oblivion. These jokers rode Thibs for half a decade, smeared him and now are exposed. Bulls fans deserve better than Paxson. 1 Thibs/Rose Eastern Conference Finals appearance under his decade plus reign. Brutal.
