Nice article from McGraw, I kept hearing last night that Noc might start, but they're being very coy about who might be headed benchward:<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'></p> <p class="News">"Nocioni's a guy that has made shots for us, historically," Skiles said. "Right now, when we're struggling to shoot, it makes sense to get him into that lineup. Normally after five or six games in the regular season he really starts shooting the ball well. He's really shot it (at practice)."</p> <p class="News">The Bulls could either use a small lineup with Nocioni starting at power forward or go bigger with Luol Deng sliding over to shooting guard and Nocioni stepping in at small forward.</p> <p class="News">Going small might make sense against the Suns, who probably use the league's shortest lineup.</p> <p class="News">"I think everybody's kind of expecting there to be some sort of lineup change, just because of our record," guard Kirk Hinrich said. "They feel like they have to do something to try to shake it up."</p> <p class="News">"It's a logical moment right now to try something different," Skiles said. "Unfortunately it's against a team like Phoenix. They make you play a little bit differently anyway."</p> <p class="News">Ben Gordon, who had success early in his career coming off the bench, said Tuesday he could deal with being removed from the starting lineup. Gordon does lead the team in 3-point shooting, although his accuracy is an unimpressive 31.4 percent.</p> <p class="News">"I don't have a choice right now," he said. "We're 1-5 and we need some kind of change to get everybody going. I don't know if me coming off the bench will help or somebody else coming off or whatever. But I'm all about winning right now. Whatever it takes. I just want to win."</div></p> <p class="News">You know what I want to talk about? I want to talk about why this guy isn't a team captain. He raised his hand and the team voted for a couple of other guys, who as best I can tell, have put their heads down and played like garbage.</p> <p class="News">Gordon's not played well, but he's not been quite as awful as those two. But beyond that, I see him doing the right thing to be a leader, and I don't see the other guys saying much. Meh.</p> </p>
Either Tyrus or Big Ben is going to be the one benched imo. Nocioni for Gordon is a lateral move at best, and in reality, a backwards move. Gordon, despite being in a slump, is still scoring more efficiently than everyone except Nocioni or Smith.</p> PG-Kirk Hinirch SG-Ben Gordon SF-Andres Nocioni PF-Luol Deng C- Tyrus Thomas/Ben Wallace</p> Allows Deng to continue to use his assinine post game until he gets benches with that nowhere post game, while adding another shooter in Nocioni. In addition, with Phoenix being our next game, benching Wallace and going to a center by committee approach makes sense.</p>
Gordon's taking it a lot better than I thought he would. He deserves a huge, huge thank you from Paxson and Skiles if Wallace follows his example.</p> Though I feel bad for Gordon. If he gets benched and plays better, he may never start again for the Bulls. Even though he proved he's starter caliber last year. </p> I guess I'm in favor of this move. Mostly because off the bench he'll be playing against weaker players and will expend less energy. And that means he'll have more stamina at the end of games, when we need his shot-creation the most. He lost his late game magic as a starter. Hopefully he can regain it as a reserve.</p>
After thinking the the Sam Smith article the other day I think I decided benching them Gordon and Thomas wasn't that great of an idea. I guess when I look at the starters, what it boils down to me is that if I had to rank them in order of "who's the biggest problem amongst the starters", I'd rank them 4th and 5th.</p> If we want to really consider who's playing bad and who's playing pretty much like they always play, how about we bench Kirk and Lou and start Duhon and Nocioni?</p> Kirk has been awful, no two ways about it, and if running hte point has been our biggest problem, well, Duhon has always seemed better as a pure PG to me.</p> And Deng, he's been a bigger disappointment in my opinion than Gordon.</p> So wouldn't that make the most sense and send the biggest message?</p> Never mind the fact that with Deng and Noc, we're suddenly starting probably the slowest pair of wings in the league against the freaking Phoenix Suns. For that matter, the other thing I see Skiles talking about is improving our shooting and spacing. How do we do that if we put our best pure shooter on the bench and start a two guard who's made 2-8 three point attempts this year and last?</p> I guess the more I think about it, the more this talk is not making a heck of a lot of sense to me.</p> </p>
I'm only okay with Gordon off the bench if Skiles is willing to play Gordon to start the 3rd.</p> If Gordon came in and played the last 16 minutes of the first half...played the first 8 minutes of the third, and came in for the last 10 minutes in the game, for a full 34 minutes, that'd be pretty good for Gordon imo. He leads the charge for the Bulls when the other team has starters resting, and gets a rest before the 4th quarter surge. If he doesn't get to start the beginning of the 3rd, such a thing is assinine.</p>
