Official Season is a Wash Thread (Players fined for locker room feast, cursing coach)

Happy New Year!

The increasingly tabloidish KC Johnson is the right man for the times. Let's lead off with tonight's debacle:

And follow up with:

Lovely. Is there anything more to add?

Perhaps we get it together, but we've looked like we were holding it together with duct tape and bailing wire this last month already. The team's chemistry sucks, it's dreadfully balanced, not that good, and generally close to a salary cap nightmare. We've got a whole set of important guys with major injuries. No one can offer a reasonable clue about what, exactly, the GM is even trying to accomplish.

The season is a wash.

 

Re: Official Season is a Wash Thread (Players fined for locker room feast, cursing co

I thought after the game yesterday that Del Harris or Bernie Bickerstaff might have saved Vinny for a little bit longer when they told him to put Gordon/Gray back in the game. I was wrong, Vinny has already lost the team.

Vinny is Jim Boylan 2.0. What do we do? Most obviously, fire Vinny. But what do we do? Do we go instantly out and try to replace Vinny to get this rebuilding process started right away, by signing a guy like Avery Johnson, who will demand defense from his players. Or does John Paxson come down from the front office and coach the team for the rest of the year? Or do we put in Bernie Bickerstaff as an interim coach? He's part of Vinny's staff, so the players might not respect him enough to tune into what he says. Then go after Thibodeau in the offseason.

Shockingly (this was sarcasm if you couldn't tell), Paxson was wrong. We should have went my direction, and hired a defensive coach. That's what we need, Avery Johnson or Tom Thibodeau. We aren't much of a fastbreak team, and only would be great in that with a coach like D'Antoni, who makes everyone great in a 7 seconds or less offense. We'd be much better if we had a committment to defense and opportunistically fastbreaked (we would have more fastbreak opportunities if we were a good team).

It's probably time to start cleaning house as well. Rose and Gordon are keepers. Everyone else is completely expendable, but also, should be enough, to consolidate into some nice player. If we could trade for a legitimate third player (Chris Kaman, Carlos Boozer, etc.) now, while clearing capspace for 2010, and then rebuild around that 4 man core, that would be the best course of action imo.

 

Re: Official Season is a Wash Thread (Players fined for locker room feast, cursing co

I really like Avery Johnson because of what he did in Dallas. He is the highest win % coach in NBA history from his stay in Dallas. He took a small backcourt too the finals with no defensive problems (shocking). He forced Dirk to learn to play in the low post, making Dirk into the MVP.

He led a team to the best regular season since Jordan, and took a team to the finals. Avery's problem was that his team leader is "soft". Rose/Gordon, our team leaders aren't soft. I think we have plenty of raw talent in Gray, Thomas, and Noah in the frontcourt, and that we can do something with them (run a bit of offense through Gray in the low post, teach Noah/Thomas how to play in the low post). Johnson is a disciple of Popovich, and so we would be doing a lot of what the Spurs do.

I also like Thibodeau though too. He's fresh blood, and he is clearly a defensive genius, and I think defense should be our #1 priority, because Rose/Gordon can just freestyle on offense and get us wins if our defense had any shred of quality.

 

Re: Official Season is a Wash Thread (Players fined for locker room feast, cursing co

The thing with Del Negro is that we have to watch D'Antoni exceed expectations with a roster that makes the Bulls' look positively inspiring.

But yeah, I think in the grand scheme of things, he's been put in a position to fail. This roster has the same problems it's always had and the team seems just as studded with frustrating cancerous players as the day Pax took over.

 

Re: Official Season is a Wash Thread (Players fined for locker room feast, cursing co

The question is where the team goes in the future. Watching this team, it looks to me that there are two groups on the team. Rose and Gordon, then everyone else. Both Rose/Gordon have followed the coaches orders, have developed some chemistry with each other, and have been rewarded with 40+ MPG roles.

I think Kirk will probably fall in line with Rose/Gordon more so than the other bunch as well.

Then you have Larry Hughes, who is following the coaches orders on court, but is resenting every minute of playing for Del Negro. You have Luol Deng who has went into a shell and has closed himself off. With Derrick Rose telling Deng to man up, he will probably just fake injuries, and take longer than he should be to recover. You have Andres Nocioni and Tyrus Thomas who just ignore the game plan and do whatever they want on the court. Then you have Joakim Noah who does some good things, but is out of shape. You have Aaron Gray, who works hard to do the right things, but is out of shape. Sefolosha, who just lacks NBA talent.

So what do we do? Blow up the team.

You can call it a day in the backcourt. Rose/Gordon/Hinrich are your backcourt for the next 12-15 years. Rose/Gordon are legit NBA starters and Hinrich is a great sixth man, who can give them breaks so they don't get run down for the playoffs. They won't get killed for being short, because guards in this league simply lack the post up skills to take advantage, and both Kirk/Gordon are physical defenders anyhow.

What can we do going forward? We could start with taking a risk, like with my Carlos Boozer trade.

Bulls Trade: Luol Deng, Joakim Noah, Larry Hughes, Drew Gooden, and 2009 First Round Pick, Top 3 Protected (Unprotected if need be to get the trade done)

Jazz Trade: Carlos Boozer, Andrei Kirileinko, and Matt Harpring


Yes, Boozer has had injury problems, but he is a legitimate 20/10 guy when healthy. He's the type of risk we have to take, people are down on him for whatever reason, so strike when the iron is hot.

Then trade Thomas, Nocioni, and Sefolosha for assorted expiring crap.

We'd be looking at a shell like:

PG-Derrick Rose/Kirk Hinrich
SG-Ben Gordon/Kirk Hinrich
SF-Andrei Kirilienko
PF-Carlos Boozer
C- Aaron Gray

That would be for the short term. Then fill in the gaps. Maybe Rasheed Wallace at the MLE, we have Asik coming in in 2010, and fill in our wing position with another sharpshooter.

 

Re: Official Season is a Wash Thread (Players fined for locker room feast, cursing co

Deng is a problem. I've had two recent thoughts about him
1. Thabo makes me appreciate him a lot more. Even Deng playing badly is orders of magnitude better than Thabo.
2. Deng's probably my biggest gripe with Del Negro. Early in the year, there were a couple of dismissive sort of comments from him about doing things to suit Deng on the court. Deng has certainly been largely to blame, but the "offense" we run seems tailor-made to highlight his weaknesses and make no use whatsoever of his strengths. When I see him camped out in the corner I die a little inside.

 

Re: Official Season is a Wash Thread (Players fined for locker room feast, cursing co

I really don't understand you guys sometimes. Look at who are the guys creating problems: Hughes, TT and Noah. We knew Hughes was going to be a problem sooner or later so why is it a surprise and why should we be concerned. TT, as much as I was hoping he might have turned a corner, has a history for this stuff. Won't be big a big deal to move him either although I still think he is more an immature 22 year old than anything else. And Noah, while also a free spirit, was one of the few guys to respond with a good effort against the Magic. So I'm not all that worried about him.

This was a flawed team to begin with and it's not like the bulls dreams of contending this year have been smashed. I'd still say Vinnie is overachieving given the club's record so far. Hughes will get moved for sure, and maybe TT too so problem solved. They say on every team there are five guys bought in, five gives tuned out, and five guys somewhere in the middle. All I see are malcontents being contentious, nothing more and nothing unexpected.

And you're pining for Avery Johnson? Really? And what do you think his first move as coach would be? It would be to bring BG off of the bench just like he did with Jason Terry. I know that idea thrills you guys, so why would you advocate AJ's hiring? Especially since VdN is doing about as good a job as you can do figuring out ways to minimize the inherent liabilities that playing BG 40 minutes a night brings.

 

Re: Official Season is a Wash Thread (Players fined for locker room feast, cursing co

Absolutely, the difference is now there isn't nearly the ball movement there was under Skiles. So Deng is basically useless until teams start triple teaming Rose as Rose is a better option to get to the rim and BG is a better option to shoot and there is almost never a third option right now.

 

Re: Official Season is a Wash Thread (Players fined for locker room feast, cursing co

Jason Terry was a starter for most of Avery's tenure as Mavericks head coach. Devin Harris and Jason Terry were the starting backcourt that took them to the finals.

And this is ignoring the fact that Ben Gordon is a much better player than Terry, so the rules regarding them will be different.

 

Re: Official Season is a Wash Thread (Players fined for locker room feast, cursing co

Terry has a similar game to BG, BG just shoots more. Terry's numbers last before he went out were almost identical to BG's. Terry just shot less on a more balanced team. And AJ was enamored of that backcourt that he started Adrian Griffin instead of Devin Harris the first three games of the finals. Good thing the bulls got rid of AG I guess.

 

Re: Official Season is a Wash Thread (Players fined for locker room feast, cursing co

You know, someone over at Blog-a-bull noticed a Sam Smith piece I'd noticed too. Look at Pat Riley on hiring Eric Spoelstra:

Does that sound anything like our team? It doesn't to me, which is probably what Sam had in mind when writing about it for a Bulls-centric audience.

 

Re: Official Season is a Wash Thread (Players fined for locker room feast, cursing co

What happened was Skiles/Paxson had that one person type of relationship. Then Ben Wallace came along. He was Reinsdorf's selection, and Skiles was completely underminded. Skiles lost his power, he was no longer top in the pecking order.

Jim Boylan was an interim, who the players knew wasn't going to be here past the year. He was bottom in the pecking order.

Vinny is the lowest paid coach in the league. He is on a short term contract. The Bulls have no commitment to him. The players know this, they know that they have the power to dispose of him. Rose/Gordon will buy in. They're in Paxson's pocket, they're his players. But Thomas, Noah, Hughes, Gooden, Nocioni. They simply don't give a fuck about what the coach says. Thomas/Noah are rookies, looking for big contract extensions, rather than being pushed out of the league. Gooden and Hughes are looking for big pay days at the end of their contracts which are coming to an end. Nocioni? He's a mystery. Vinny has no control over the team beyond the backcourt, which is a big problem, because the big men positions are the most important when it comes to defense...and evidently, our defense is crap.

Just look at the 82games.com positional rankings. We're 8th in point guard play, 6th in shooting guard. We're dead last in both big positions. That's a problem.

Either Vinny needs to go, or our crop of non-chalant players needs to go. Probably both. If they didn't respond to the last 3 coaches, what's going to change? Conclusion, the players have to go. Hopefully the frontcourt is completely transformed at the trade deadline, either with new productive players, or a plan going forward towards 2010. If things don't change (either quickly if we go after productive players, or in the 2010-2011 season), Vinny will have to go just like Thomas, Noah, and Gooden.

 

Re: Official Season is a Wash Thread (Players fined for locker room feast, cursing co

Not a big deal, but it's a pretty big waste.

Who says that? but I'm pretty sure it's not true of most good teams, which is part of the point. I'd put it as saying almost everyone can be made to buy in given a good enough program. There are a few exceptions (maybe TT) who are just asshats. The other guys will buy in if their roles and the general program are right for them (It's not for Hughes). I agree Noah doesn't concern me much at this point. The other part of the point is that yes, it's a flawed, non-contending team, but there seems to be little to no progress in sorting this mess out and instilling much direction, despite nearly a year of seeing these obvious flaws.

It's like Pax got through last season and closed his eyes and hoped everything would go away.

Let's contrast that to the beginning of Pax's tenure. He started off with a ball full of energy and stupid, proclaiming the playoffs and signing up Scottie Pippen to get us over the hump. But ok, though he was completely unqualified for his job, he did get it together pretty quickly when his initial assessment of the 2003 Bulls turned out to be dead wrong. Within a little over a month, he identified the problems and attempted to fix them.

The really crazy thing is Pax has re-created all the problems he inherited.
1. A team with no veteran defensive big man, and hence, one of the worst defenses in the league. We've got Aaron Gray as the stand-in for Eddy... still needing to lose 20-30lbs. We've got Noah standing in for Chandler, but with twice as much lip, half the ego, and a third of the athleticism. We've got Gooden, who's about as similar a player to Donyell Marshall as you can get. OK rebounder and shooter, offensive player on a team crying for defense.
2. A team with a Roger Dornish has-been on a highly paid, long-term contract Jalen then, Hughes now.
3. A complete nitwit we've suck considerable stock into ERob then, Tyrus now. And before anyone gets mad, the comparison is pretty fair, except that ERobbery confined his nitwittery to stupid sweaters, stupid toe injuries, and stupid musings about consumer electronics. Tyrus, is the sort of guy his teammates probably want to beat mercilessly instead of just a clown.
4. A shooting guard with an impending contract negotiation that's problematic more than anything because the Bulls are completely and totally capped out and in danger of paying the luxury tax, which the owner won't do.
5. The coach was openly and frequently disrespected.
6. (Not like today) we had not a single NBA small forward on the roster

So yeah, Paxson finally come to his senses and in short order made a series of moves to set things right.
1. He fired Cartwright and hired Skiles, who demanded respect and defense.
2. He unloaded Rose and brought in Antonio Davis, a great defender and glue guy to hold it together with the kids.
3. He shortly unloaded ERobbery.
4. He signed Nocioni and traded a pick to get Deng and solve the lack of a SF problem.
5. He got very lucky in being financially bailed out by Isaiah and the Knicks (twice, but I'm mainly talking about that first summer with Crawford), something we probably can't count on again.
6. I've heard from one guy who said Duhon was Skiles' pick, but even so, I'll credit Pax for adding another glue guy and solid player with a throwaway pick.

All in all, he managed to make these moves pretty quickly, and he was certainly decisive in what he wanted to do.

And yet somehow, Pax walked away from that impressive set of moves and then recreated the 2003 Bulls and has sat around and let it simmer into a stinking pile of shit.

Maybe I should have skipped the margarita at lunch.

 

Re: Official Season is a Wash Thread (Players fined for locker room feast, cursing co

I think the bigger issues in the demise of Skiles was how long he had been there already and BG and Deng not getting their deals done. Those two played selfishly at times last year and that broke down the continuity they had and needed to be a winner. Skiles saw that happening and gave up too.