Right, where did that come from? NBA trainers and dieticians must know magic. McRoberts went to Duke too, so it's not like he didn't have trainers and coaches in college that were subpar. Drafting is such a crap shoot.
I loved that Ronnie Brewer poster on McRoberts I especially loved Stacy King's call : I see you Josh McRoberts - trying to run away ... pretending that "it wasn't me" ! This is a man's game Josh McRoberts! Good times
I don't think McRoberts worked very hard his first couple years. Two summers ago he pretty dramatically transformed his body. The Indy Star article on O'Brien's firing was interesting because Bird came out and really hammered O'Brien's handling of his players, which you almost never see I found that a pretty stunning thing for the GM to just out and out say. First, because it reflects badly on him because he let it go on for so long, and second, because it's just so damn honest. Generally teams say these things are the coach's domain, but we all know that's not really the case (and nor should it always be).
You need to get over the Bogans thing, it's not hurting the team and actually helping them when Bogans shows even a hint of a game. And when Scalabrine comes in, the other team has already been embarrassed, the other team doesn't give a shit about the player or the crowd, they already know they are going to get chewed out by their coach at that point. I'd much rather have Scalabrine in for a few minutes and hopefully Deng out.
Stacy is having a good time this year. Poor Neil Funk. He's a little bit like Josh McRoberts -- tryin' to get out the way, but not succeeding.
That is amazing. I would guess that Bird tried to talk to O'Brien about it (hopefully without any tie-pulling going on), and wasn't satisfied with the outcome of their discussion.
Imagine if we actually played a guy who shows even a hint of a game most of the time instead of Bogans. What are our home and away records?
Have you seen how egregiously bad Bogans' defense has been? It would be one thing if he was a mediocre defender, but he's killing the team on both sides of the ball, not to mention all of the turnovers. I went back and looked at the last ten games to see if they really have been as bad as I remembered and they are. Bogans has been lit up by all of the larger opposing two guards. The most recent of examples of this are verse the Pacers on January 29th (Mike Dunleavy, 6 points during the part of the first quarter when he was guarded by Bogans); verse Milwaukee on January 24th (Chris Douglas-Roberts, 6 points in first covered by Bogans); verse Dallas on January 20th (DeShawn Stevenson, 6 points in first covered by Bogans); verse the Heat on January 15th (Wade, 6 points in the first quarter guarded by Bogans); and verse Indiana on January 14th (Mike Dunleavy, 6 points in first covered by Bogans). Six points doesn't seem like a huge amount but that's in the first six to ten or so minutes of the games. And you know what usually happens when two guards start hot -- they stay hot. Hows that going to work in the playoffs when all of the teams we will be playing have big guards?
They won all of those games, right? I'm not saying I think Bogans is a starter, or a good player, but he is the right guy to start for the bulls given the roster. Out of Bogans, Brewer, Watson, and Korver, none of those guys is a bona fide nba starter at 2. Brewer is the closest, but Utah didn't even want to pay him a few million to stay and paid almost as much to Raja Bell. So the bulls don't have a legitimate starter. It's up to Thibs then to put those guys in the position to help the team. The bulls need defense first, and 3pt shooting second from the 2. Bogans is the best bet to provide both of those. And again, we are talking about a guy who plays 15 minutes a game and if he were coming off of the bench you wouldn't even notice much. But by starting him, Thibs makes Brewer and Korver much more effective players and gives the bulls much more flexibility matchup wise. Bogans takes his lumps, but he is a sound defender. Here's something you might not have considered, the guys he matches up against are good players... All of those guys are likely to get points in the first quarter. It happens. But the fact that if Bogans scores 6, the bulls are undefeated ought to tell you that they don't need much from the 2, and a look at the roster ought to tell you they don't have much. And the fact that they won all of the games you listed ought to tell you that he isn't costing them games.
And one other thing that starting Bogans does is pretty much guarantee that the bulls get first choice of any 2's that get bought out, or are mid level free agents this summer. They are basically advertising the spot because Bogans is on a one year contract and nobody thinks he is the guy going forward.
Brewer started 76 of 76 games, 80 of 81 games, and 53 of 53 games his last 3 seasons in Utah. He missed 24 games his final season due to an injury which seems to have bothered him even this season, early. Those 53 starts were ahead of Korver and Wesley Matthews (who eventually became the starter). He's got a career scoring average of 10.3 on 52% FG shooting (efficient). He's been in the league leaders in steals. If you want big and defense and 6+ PPG which will all (likely) be wins, Brewer is much more of a sure thing. You cannot seriously make a case that Bogans does anything on the basketball court better than Brewer other than 3pt shooting, which Bogans doesn't do enough of to make a whole lot of difference. You cannot seriously make a case that we win games because of him, 6+ points or not. What he does is help put us in a hole early that we have to come back from, as well as kill us in Q3. Just about anyone who watches the games sees it.
I'm no fan of Bogans, but sometimes the confidence of fans just amazes me. Is there any explanation at all for why Bogans starts. Or is it just complete and utter lunacy? Or is this really the Matrix?
I think if you got Thibodeau drunk he would contend that he likes Brewer's energy off the bench. But if you were to really pin it down, I think it's because Thibodeau is stubborn. We've seen this from every rookie coach we've had; and all of our coaches, sans Skiles who had limited experience, were rookie coaches. This is the first time he's having his decisions questioned in the media. Thibodeau's response to the criticism -- which is mild at best but probably doesn't feel that way to him -- is to double down. I'd take the decision to start Bogans as growing pains, which is fine, except if the Bulls actually do have a chance to contend this year it'd be a shame if he didn't put them in the best position to win.
I never argued that the bulls are winning because of him. I argued that starting him doesn't prevent them from winning. I did argue that starting him allows other players to be more effective. And if you watched the games you'd see that teams leave Brewer a lot more wide open than they leave Bogans. Bogans does keep other teams honest. And his defense is good enough. Thibs is a very smart guy who knows exactly what he is doing. If he didn't think Bogans was doing a good enough he would have made a switch a long time ago. The only place he was hurting the team was passing up on open shots, but he's been more aggressive lately.
None of us accept this. Other teams are keying on Bogans on defense to start games -- this much should be obvious by the opposing shooting guard stats. That's 6 points in the first six to ten minutes of games, from 6 of the last 9 opponents . . . and I'm sure you'll see similar numbers if you go back further. That would work out to about twenty-four to thirty points a game if the opposing guard plays thirty to thirty-five minutes. And I absolutely do not see your argument about opposing teams leaving Brewer open. I think you could make the argument that the Bulls' spacing isn't as good with Brewer is on the court because he patrols the baseline more often, but I see guards slacking way off Bogans, waiting for him to beat them. Bogans can't even make entry passes because teams are daring him to shoot it. Can we also talk about turnovers for a second. There are stretches that Bogans kills play, similar to how Asik did at the beginning of the season. The numbers aren't lying. Our eyes aren't lying.
http://popcornmachine.net/cgi-bin/gameflow.cgi?date=20110108&game=BOSCHI Ray Allen goes 4-9, 2-3 3pt for 10 points in Q1 against Bogans. In Q3 he went 2-3, 1-2 3pt for 7 points against him. Allen finished the game with 19 points. Boston was up by 12 points by the time Bogans was replaced in Q1. They came from behind to take the lead in Q3 before Bogans was replaced. Typical.
My lasting image of Bogans for this season will always be our first game against Dallas that was on TNT. In it Dirk rolled an ankle in the middle of a play and was running with a visible limp. Instead of calling a timeout, the Mavs let the game play on as usual, but just switched him onto Bogans on defense. The game went on as normal.
Why don't you quote everybody the Pistons game since we all know they started a superstar SG in that one, right?.... If you want to prove something, you need to show that those same guys didn't score early in the other games they played. All you guys have shown so far is that SG's score to open games. I'm really blown away by that analysis... And SST, watch for it next time and you'll see it. Brewer is always open on the perimeter, much more so than Bogans, especially after Bogans hits a shot. Brewer gets a fair number of his buckets because his guy leaves him to go shadow somebody else and loses Brewer who is then wide open for a back cut when the ball is reversed. Again, not saying Brewer isn't a better defender or Korver a better shooter, but Bogans is a much better defender than Korver and a better shooter than Brewer.
