I think both Gordon and Hinrich took a step backward at the defensive end this season. Hughes is a studly defender.
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (BG7 Lavigne @ May 10 2008, 10:40 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}></div><div class='quotemain'>Well first off, Ben Gordon was our second best defender at guard last year, only behind Thabo Sefolosha. I am going to call BS that we will have a good defense because our players have defense embedded in them. We didn't play defense with Boylan as coach. We had Gordon playing defense hard against the opposing point guard, and Thabo on his man. Now the obvious choices are get one of Avery Johnson of Tom Thibodeau. But if Thibodeau signs with Phoenix, and Johnson decides to sit the year out, what do our options look like? We will likely have Flip Saunders as a possible option, as Joe Dumars doesn't want to lose Michael Curry it seems (especially to a division rival no less...of course, Saunders might take a year off if he gets canned...but then again, if they are in the finals, they really can't can Saunders), but so then if not Saunders, then Curry. Tyrone Corbin is the other assistant available. Michael Cooper is always there, and Mark Jackson...although he doesn't have any experiecne. I think Jeff Van Gundy might come into play if this happens...someone said if the Bulls wanted him, he could be convinced to come back to coaching (despite saying he will not for family reasons).</div> Do you honestly believe that Ben Gordon was our second best defender? Whether you have confidence or not in the Bulls defense doesn't eliminate the fact that they actually can defend. The team as a whole didn't defend well like in previous years. We need offensive training and D'Antoni was the best option to help tone that for us. Instead of being last place in offense field goal percentage, we could have become one of the better teams. The Bulls have always been known for hard defense, so how ever you are concluding by the success we had under Boylan doesn't say much and it doesn't address our offense issues.
I'm hardly crushed by losing out on D'Antoni. 1.) I don't think offense first, defense whatever style wins titles in the NBA. Even in this "new" NBA the last couple years the Heat and Spurs are winning the rings. 2.) This guy had Steve Nash, Marion and Amare. We don't have anything close to that. And he still could not win the big ones. Give him average talent and what on earth makes you think he'll be able to accomplish much? Paxson has left the cupboard bare. His "right way" scheme was a total failure and we're left with the afterbirth. A bunch of OK guys who could perform under Skiles (for a while) and now are just average NBA players with seemingly bad attitudes. While picking the coach is important, as always, developed, productive talent wins in the NBA and the Bulls simply don't have it. Damn near every article I've read have Carlisle or D'Antoni as the guys the Bulls have been most interested in. Now that Paxson struck out on these guys, its on to the next rung. Perhaps Phoenix won't want the next guy on the list and we'll get him. Lord knows Paxson isn't on any kind of timetable or hurry. How this career loser can operate as he does is one of the more shocking displays of ownership ineptitude I can remember.
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (kukoc4ever @ May 10 2008, 11:22 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}></div><div class='quotemain'>I'm hardly crushed by losing out on D'Antoni. 1.) I don't think offense first, defense whatever style wins in the NBA. Even in this "new" NBA the last couple years the Heat and Spurs are winning the rings. 2.) This guy had Steve Nash, Marion and Amare. We don't have anything close to that. And he still could not win the big ones. Give him average talent and what on earth makes you think he'll be able to accomplish much?</div> The Bulls have a pretty established defense, they just failed to show it this year as they have in previous years. So I am guessing that you would feel the same way if we lost out on Avery Johnson aswell? After being eliminated 2 years in a row with players like Dirk, Josh Howard, Jason Kidd (this year), Devin Harris (last year) and Jason Terry, do you think he'd be a completely useless coach of we pick him up? I mean, Dirk, Josh, and Kidd or Harris or Terry is extreme talent that has beaten the Bulls either way, right? We've beaten Dallas like once or maybe twice over last two years and Phoenix maybe twice. It is more about the style than the players in this case. You need the right players to make a style work and the Bulls have the young, fast, high energy, talented and athletic team that fits D'Antoni style play. When we compare Hinrich, Gordon and Deng to players like or groups like Nash, Amare and Marion we must remember that our players are developing and may one day become stronger not necessarily as individual players but as a group. We need post play and toned offense mostly. Avery could do a good job, too. D'Antoni was a big loss though imo. The Bulls need to think faster and make decisions because other teams are snatching up all of the good stuff.
The Good Stuff = Talented, all-league, productive players. I really don't care who the coach is if your main guys are Hinrich, Gordon, Deng and Nocioni. You are not going accomplish much of note with those guys as your "core." Its time to change that. That should be priority #1. I don't buy into nellie-ball or d'antoini ball. I just don't think it wins a lot of NBA titles. I'm not jumping off a cliff about losing out on a coach who could not win (or get to) the big one with Nash, Marion and Amare and has a questionable ideology. Johnson is another guy that I'd like to see win in another environment before anointing him as a great coach. It seems to me that he took over a talented group and won with them. He got closer to the NBA title than D'Antoini did. I think that he believes in playing both ends of the floor as well. But, ultimately, if you put either one of these guys in Minnesota next year i don't think they are making a lot of NBA noise. I do think that this situation is another great example showing how Paxson's dithering has led to the Bulls reeling / lacking focus/vision due to indecision and management ineptitude.
Straight from the horse's mouth... http://www.suntimes.com/sports/basketball/...-bull11.article <div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'>'[On Saturday] morning, Jerry and I spoke and agreed that Mike was a good fit,'' Paxson said. ''I placed a call to his agent [Warren LeGarie]. Jerry wanted to meet with Mike again and talk about a deal. Unfortunately, we were never given an opportunity to make an offer of any kind, which is the most disappointing thing. ''I thought it would have been fair to listen to what we had to say, but at the end of the day, we simply weren't given the opportunity to do so. I now will continue to search for the proper fit for our current roster.''</div> "It would have been fair" for the hottest coach to wait until Pax stopped dittering. Fair would have been getting off you ass and making something happen. Paxson is SO OVERMATCHED in his job. Un**********believable. "It would have been fair"
It would have been fair for Ben Wallace to defy the laws of physics and aging and played up to his contract, too. If would have been fair for Chandler not to have a bad year and scare me that he was a bust. It would have been fair for the Grizz to tell me they might trade Gasol primarily for ending contracts a year later. It would have been fair for Donnie Walsh to take a bit more time before going after D'Antoni so hard. Does Paxson think this is some ******** high tea event with an etiquette from Emily Post?
I don't think Paxson was sincere in anything he said there. Paxson never comments like that. That was just some lip service right there to all those Bulls fans who are angry we didn't get D'Antoni. But it will backfire, instead of them seeing that he tried and say...well he tried, they will just call him incompetent. I think Paxson is much more enamored with Thibodeau and Johnson. And yes, our guys have proved that they can be good defensively. But we had Gordon as our second best defender at the end of the year (third if you count Larry Hughes, but he will hopefully be gone by the start of next year). Noah was making huge strides too by the end of the year (his personal coach that he hired is responsible for this I assume). Kirk/Deng were meh. Gooden was a lazy defender coming in. Tyrus Thomas has no idea whatsoever to do on defense. He never got in a position to block shots last year. Nocioni was easily the worst defender in the league last year. He no longer got in position to take charges, and he didn't guard his man. It isn't something saying, look, Gordon was a great defender! No, it was more of he improved upon what he did last year, and everyone else regressed rapidly. I think the defensive collapse under Boylan shows we need a defensive coach to get good defense, we won't just play good defense because we played good defense under a great defensive coach. I still have Avery Johnson as my number one. He has learned from Gregg Popovich...looking at what that little clan did post MJ...Gregg Popovich, 4 finals appearances and 4 championships, Larry Brown 3 finals appearances and 1 championship, Avery Johnson 1 finals appearance, and Mike Brown, 1 finals apperance. That is 9 finals appearances and 5 championships from that line of coaches since MJ. Another way to look at it, is that they own 50% of the finals appearances and 55.6% of the championships since MJ. Then you have Phil Jackson's line with 4 finals apperances and 3 championships, or 22.2% of the finals apperances and 33.3% of the championships. I would take the guy who spent like a decade learning under Popovich, hoping he can be a great coach. Then Thibodeau would be my second choice...a defensive mastermind. People want to fastbreak. Do you know the best way, for our team to fastbreak? Block shots and get steals. AKA, Thibodeau or Johnson is best for our team fastbreak wise.
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (JayJohnstone @ May 11 2008, 05:13 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}></div><div class='quotemain'>Straight from the horse's mouth... http://www.suntimes.com/sports/basketball/...-bull11.article <div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'>'[On Saturday] morning, Jerry and I spoke and agreed that Mike was a good fit,'' Paxson said. ''I placed a call to his agent [Warren LeGarie]. Jerry wanted to meet with Mike again and talk about a deal. Unfortunately, we were never given an opportunity to make an offer of any kind, which is the most disappointing thing. ''I thought it would have been fair to listen to what we had to say, but at the end of the day, we simply weren't given the opportunity to do so. I now will continue to search for the proper fit for our current roster.''</div> "It would have been fair" for the hottest coach to wait until Pax stopped dittering. Fair would have been getting off you ass and making something happen. Paxson is SO OVERMATCHED in his job. Un**********believable. "It would have been fair" </div> I was just coming here to post that. Cry me a ****ing river, Pax! Is he really going to talk about "fair"? Wow. You said it all. Pax and Reinsdorf conducted three interviews with the man. He obviously walked away thinking "I don't care what they offer, it ain't enough".
I look at it this way. If D'Antoni couldn't win an NBA title with a team that's had the likes of: Steve Nash Leandro Barbosa Raja Bell Amare Stoudemire Grant Hill Shaquille O'Neal Then, quite frankly, I don't think he could win here. His style of play just simply doesn't cut it in the NBA. It's fun to watch, but it doesn't work. Beyond that, our roster couldn't even do what he'd want to. In the end, it's a good thing that he's not coming here. We don't have the personnel and I'd rather get a coach that can teach defense anyways.
Marc Stein has a pretty solid looking article on things. It's depressing to read as a Bulls fan. <div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'>Where will the Bulls turn now? They will interview recently dismissed Dallas coach Avery Johnson after moving away from Johnson this week to focus on D'Antoni. They will continue to consider former Minnesota coach Dwane Casey, who has already interviewed once with the Bulls and is bound for Dallas as an assistant to Rick Carlisle if he can't get the Bulls' job. And they will request permission to speak with Boston Celtics assistant coach Tom Thibodeau, architect of the defense that's giving LeBron James so much trouble in the playoffs. The Bulls will almost certainly hire one of those three -- odds favor the less experienced (but less expensive) Thibodeau -- and then start working on boosting the morale of players like Luol Deng, Ben Gordon and Joakim Noah, who were hoping so much to play for D'Antoni.</div>
moo, I do think our roster is perfectly suited to play D'Antoni's offense. The morale bit in DC's last post is really interesting. It's been my belief, all along, that the players have been held back by the coaching schemes; the only real recognition the guys get are for their defense. Well, maybe the announcers around the league appreciate Gordon's shooting and scoring abilities... It's getting late in the careers of most of the players we consider core. If they'd played under D'Antoni's scheme all along, maybe Hinrich would have us calling him a top PG in the league, Gordon a near 30 PPG scorer, Deng and Melo in the same sentence, and even Tyrus and Amare in the same sentence. Problem for Bulls management is that gaudy stats and awards don't make for lowballing on the contract offers and getting those offers accepted.
People keep saying "He had Steve Nash and couldn't win." There was no Steve Nash before D'Antoni. He was a career 12 and 6er.
And people keep saying that his style can't win. Can we really assume that, though? If it weren't for some totally unpredictable events (Joe Johnson's injury, Diaw's/Amare's suspension), the Suns very well could've made it to the Finals in two different seasons. And each year, in between that, they've been a legitimate contending team. I'm not saying the Phoenix model is the only way for the future, but I also don't think its a given that every team has emulate the Spurs to be a legitimate title contender anymore.
Not to mention that every player in the league wants to play for D'Antoni. After watching Devin Harris with the Nets, I can't imagine ANYONE wants to play for Avery Johnson.
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (ghoti @ May 11 2008, 04:17 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}></div><div class='quotemain'>Not to mention that every player in the league wants to play for D'Antoni. After watching Devin Harris with the Nets, I can't imagine ANYONE wants to play for Avery Johnson.</div> How so? I read a post firing Q/A with Avery where he really talked Harris up and basically said he wouldn't have made that trade for Kidd if he were running the show. I didn't watch a ton of Knicks or Mavs games, but Harris' stats looked more or less worse with the Nets. Of course he was playing with worse teammates, but the point is I don't see reason to thing he was any worse off there than he is with the Nets.
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (MikeDC @ May 11 2008, 10:16 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}></div><div class='quotemain'><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (ghoti @ May 11 2008, 04:17 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}></div><div class='quotemain'>Not to mention that every player in the league wants to play for D'Antoni. After watching Devin Harris with the Nets, I can't imagine ANYONE wants to play for Avery Johnson.</div> How so? I read a post firing Q/A with Avery where he really talked Harris up and basically said he wouldn't have made that trade for Kidd if he were running the show. I didn't watch a ton of Knicks or Mavs games, but Harris' stats looked more or less worse with the Nets. Of course he was playing with worse teammates, but the point is I don't see reason to thing he was any worse off there than he is with the Nets. </div> I also read something that said Avery had full veto power of any trade. He didn't stop Devin from leaving. IMO he's just showing regret.
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (MikeDC @ May 11 2008, 10:16 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}></div><div class='quotemain'><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (ghoti @ May 11 2008, 04:17 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}></div><div class='quotemain'>Not to mention that every player in the league wants to play for D'Antoni. After watching Devin Harris with the Nets, I can't imagine ANYONE wants to play for Avery Johnson.</div> How so? I read a post firing Q/A with Avery where he really talked Harris up and basically said he wouldn't have made that trade for Kidd if he were running the show. I didn't watch a ton of Knicks or Mavs games, but Harris' stats looked more or less worse with the Nets. Of course he was playing with worse teammates, but the point is I don't see reason to thing he was any worse off there than he is with the Nets. </div> <div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (NetIncome)</div><div class='quotemain'>He arrived with a level two ankle sprain...not a bone bruise as Dallas had reported. For those of you who don't remember, a level two ankle sprain is the type 1) RJ had last year and 2) VC had this year...minus the bone fragments and loose bodies. Then, while playing for the Nets, he sprained the other ankle. I am willing to give him a major break, considering that in spite of two ankle sprains, he set personal highs in points, rebounds, assists, steals, blocks, field goals made and attempted, three pointers made and attempted, offensive rebounds and minutes. The ONLY area where he didn't set a personal high was in free throws made and attempted...in 25 games.</div> His stats were better with the Nets. Year Team MPG FG% 3P% FT% Off Def Tot APG SPG BPG TO A/TO PF PPG 2004-05 DAL 15.4 .429 .336 .757 0.4 1.0 1.3 2.2 1.0 0.3 1.1 2.1 139 5.7 2005-06 DAL 22.7 .469 .238 .716 0.5 1.8 2.2 3.2 0.9 0.3 1.5 2.1 121 9.9 2006-07 DAL 26.1 .492 .280 .824 0.6 1.9 2.5 3.7 1.2 0.3 1.8 2.0 242 10.2 2007-08 DAL 30.4 .483 .357 .821 0.4 1.9 2.3 5.3 1.4 0.1 2.4 2.2 127 14.4 2007-08 NJ 33.6 .438 .320 .829 0.4 2.8 3.3 6.5 1.4 0.3 2.7 2.4 63 15.4 Totals: 23.8 .467 .322 .788 0.5 1.7 2.2 3.7 1.1 0.2 1.7 2.1 692 10.0 Watching him, it was painfully obvious how misused he was in Avery's iso-only "offense".
I like Devin Harris just fine, but looking at the numbers you posted ^^^, it looks like he got 1 PPG more and a little over 1 APG more with the Nets. That's in 3.2 more MPG, and that 1PPG/1APG makes sense just from those extra minutes. Otherwise, his FG% and 3pt% went down considerably with the Nets.
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Denny Crane @ May 12 2008, 09:49 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}></div><div class='quotemain'>I like Devin Harris just fine, but looking at the numbers you posted ^^^, it looks like he got 1 PPG more and a little over 1 APG more with the Nets. That's in 3.2 more MPG, and that 1PPG/1APG makes sense just from those extra minutes. Otherwise, his FG% and 3pt% went down considerably with the Nets.</div> Read NI's post. Before he sprained his other ankle, he was phenomenal. This is why watching is more accurate than looking at stats.
