The Bulls Optimal Strategy Should be Defense

Oddly, they've always paid lip service to grit and defense, but now they're shitting away their cap space on "floor spacing". I like a good three point shooter, don't get me wrong. I do think you need that. But from the bigger picture, we have to look at our likely competition.

The Bulls comparative advantage is going to be in defense. If you want to beat the Heat, get a bunch of guys who can rebound, play defense, smother those pretty boy assholes and generally make them work for everything.

These guys are very good, yes, but they’re not MJ or even Kobe mentally. When the Pistons came up with the Jordan Rules, MJ responded by becoming a total bad ass. I suppose that could happen with Mr. One Hour ESPN Special, but I’d like to at least make him work for it.

By signing a bunch of one dimensional shooters, we not only won’t do that, we probably also have our new coach wondering what the hell he signed on for (I’m assuming he hasn’t really talked to Pete Myers much either). Good shooters come cheap to good teams down the road, but we're paying a premium for them up front. Guys like Iggy never come cheap, because they're top notch defenders and very good all-around players.

If you want to compete with the Heat, in the absence of lucking into Carmelo or Chris Paul is going to be getting someone like Iggy. Get a very good all around five that have the right combination of talents
1. Inside/Outside scoring- Boozer + Rose- Check.
2. Great rebounding- Noah, Boozer, Deng, Iggy would give us possibly the best rebounding team in the league, and I'd expect it to hold up in the playoffs.
3. Potentially smothering defense that can at least hope to mount a plausible challenge to the Heat's offensive weapons. You aren't going to get a better set of guys to battle the heat together, defensively, than Iggy, Deng, and Noah, combined with a defensive mastermind coach in Thibs.

 

I think we can have our cake and eat it too

but that's why I'm Fat Jerry

We've got KK ( whose middle name just happens to be Karl . That's right with a "K" ) and hell I'll even take JJ "Danny from Memphis Belle" Redick . Shooters.

But we still have room for Ronnie Brewer ( Defender / ball handler )

And we can still load lots of goodies with Luol Deng to buy Andre Igoudala ( slasher/driver, handler and defender ) Yes that includes Taj and picks . And yes I think its worth it

And if we whiff on Danny Boy Redick well then we've got ourselves a great shot at defender/shooter like Shane Battier next summer.

BTW I think it would be hilarious to have a Brewer and a Boozer on the same team

 

I'm no fan of Bulls mgmt but there is zero evidence Iggy is available.

 

I do agree with Mike's OP. It's a joke if we don't get a defensively oriented guy like Brewer on the team. I would get him and Barnes who would gladly man up to the challenge of guarding Lebron.

 

I think we've paid lip service to that strategy but not fully implemented it defensively. I'm not talkin about gritty but undersized and unathletic guys who are fundamentally sound.

Rebounding is a big part of it though, yes. With 4 excellent rebounders on the floor, thats a big part of the defensive philosophy we need. But having size, strength and athleticism is also a big chunk as well as the coach to put it all together. It's not just covering well, but being physical and making them pay.

Also, it's fundamentally different from the Skiles era because, unlike most of that time period we'll have a cohesive, actually NBA calibre offense with Rose on the outside And Boozer on the inside. By comparison, Deng was arguably our best player in that time, and Iggy has clearly been the best offensive talent on the sixers teams he's been on. Here, he'd be the third or fourth best.

 

Tax would be at lest three years away unless they got really stupid. And we don't know what the new c a brings.

Basically the same sort of result we'll get by overpaying for a slew of mediocrities and the. Having to re-up Rose and Noah. We'll be at the LT line soon enough because we'll have to spend more to overcome today's bad decisions.

 

The one on one stats you're showing don't mean much outside of context. Obviously one shouldn't expect any individual defender to consistently "win" matchups against a guy like Wade or Lebron. That doesn't mean Andre Iguodala is just as useless as JJ Reddick though.

Iggy is quite a good defender, and the stats on 82Games, I don't know what they would indicate one way or another. But defense is about context. A good individual defender, especially on the perimeter, is going to be hard to detect statistically on an otherwise fairly shitty team. It's not a matter of getting one guy to go out and lock someone down, it's a matter of getting the best you can there, but also layering your defense, having good interior defenders, contesting every rebound, and being able to switch. In each of those respects, Iggy is a much better option than the guys we've pursued, and the rest of our team is better by a mile than the rest of the awful Sixers teams Iggy plays for.

No one is a lock down defender type on their own, as a perimeter player any more. However, by creating the right combination of guys, you can make a suffocating defense even against a superstar laden team (see Boston or Detroit of the last decade). A guy like Iggy has way more going for him to those ends than a guy like Korver or Reddick.

Boozer is actually a fine team defender with really quick feet when you watch him. He's obviously a major plus rebounder as well, which is a big chunk of good defense. Noah doesn't just "get by on energy". He's gotten much stronger and the "energy" is the manifestation of him making superb defensive decisions, moving to the action and fighting for boards. The goal with a guy like him is NOT to have him battling a heavier post player. Now that we've acquired a 280lb tank of a power forward, there's even less need for him to do that. You want Noah freed up to challenge and help defensively, and come out and help on a guy like Bosh. That is, in fact, the sort of defensive scheme that leads to excellent results against star-driven teams.

This team needs to be built to beat the Heat, and the Heat are not going to have a huge, physical center that we need to worry about. So you're going to have Boozer, Noah, Gibson, whomever, cheat off of them as much as possible, challenge guys. Which is what Noah does best, and why he's an excellent defender and why the Bulls improved so much defensively last year.

Well, now that we've shot our wad on a couple of guys that don't fit in our optimal strategy, pretty much nowhere. The Bulls, by picking the wrong strategy, have made the wrong personnel choices.

 

Also, I think Reinsdorf needs to realize he's not gonna be able to maintain the accustomed level of profits and sellouts in the age of the Heat by being a pretender contender. It's one thing to generate sell outs when you can reasonably sell hope for the future. But the advent of the Heat's big three changes that. Which is an awkward moment for the Bulls, since they just sort of stepped up with signing Boozer, but now appear to be backing off with the signing of all these sucky, overpaid players.

I think Reinsdorf would do well to hope the Redick deal doesn't pan out, and then go for the jugular and true contention. Because unlike in the past, folks are going to be able to look at this Bulls team, compare it to the Heat, and decide they're not serious. While some folks, like Doug Thonus might be cool with that, lots of other folks who are more casual about their fandom (and yet, somehow, more discriminating), will decide they don't want to pay to watch the Atlanta Hawks. Just like real Atlanta Hawks fans.

 

It sort of makes sense except that the guy were talking about, Iggy is not a 9ppg or less no offense player. In that regard he's closer to a "Deng" type than, say, a Thabo. I'm not advocating a team of thanks surrounding rose and boozer.

 

Not sure who the sucky players are, but there isn't a lot out there. It's going to come down to the system and how much the players buy into it. Redick might be a better player than some are giving him credit for being. While I'd prefer Iggy, he doesn't seem to be available right now. That might change if Philly gets their teeth kicked in for a few months trying to break in rookies and young guys and Iggy gets tired of Doug Collins yelling at him. Redick's deal is also front loaded and will basically be an MLE deal for the next two years. He's a solid player who the bulls should have no trouble moving in part of a deal, and they need to use the cap space while they have it because Noah's extension is going to eat up a lot of it when he signs this summer or next. And Korver is an excellent 3pt shooter who should be able to play backup minutes at the 2 and the 3.

And from what I'm reading about Brewer, he's not as good defensively as it might seem on the perimeter, and he's not a shooter or a ballhandler at all. His offense is mostly a product of the Utah motion. He might be ok to sign to a small deal as a 9th or 10th guy, but that's it. I'd rather get Miller signed before Brewer.

 

Do you think Tony Allen is a starting SG or worth the full MLE? The guy only played in 54 games last year and averaged 6 points. Do you honestly think he is better than Redick? Or worth the rest of the bulls cap space?