http://blogs.bulls.com/2013/02/bulls-without-hinrich-boozer-and-noah/ If Noah has plantar fasciitis again then he could be out some weeks.
https://twitter.com/KCJHoop If he would miss 18 games again...he would be back March 15th vs Warriors.
Thibs still has to play players, and the way he plays them puts a lot of pressure on them, physically. Having 4 out of 5 starters (or 3 out of 5 and the back up for one of those positions out) is going to put you in a bind. Carlos should be back soon, and that will help Taj and Lu. That 48 minutes of intensity is a little too much when it is demanded of individual players, literally. And I was never excited about Nazr, except briefly in the pre season...You did hope that he would provide a bit more than he has...I would hope that the FO sees what's going on and finds a way to take the pressure off our bigs.
With Noah and Boozer both out, Mohammed starts, plays the first 7:54 and is done for the night? And no injury? Not good. Really not good. When Thibodeau doesn't trust you, he'd rather eat glass than play you and it seems he doesn't trust Mohammed. I agree Good Hope, I can't think of any team that can go without their two best players, 3 of their best 4 plus another rotation player and win many games. It would kind of be like the Thunder missing Durant, Westbrook, Ibaka and Collison. As Denny sorta alluded to, it's sure a good thing that Thibodeau is a noted alchemist.
I gave Thibs huge praise. I am a huge fan. The good news is Kirk is out. Nazr has cobwebs for lack of play.
"It's just a flesh wound!" [video=youtube;zKhEw7nD9C4]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zKhEw7nD9C4[/video] The Black Knight = Thibodeau?
Surely there's some warm body that could occupy space around the basket for 12 minutes to start the first and third quarters, no? The situation with backup C was always worrying, in case something like this happened. So I guess we'll see. The box score tonight was a little unreal. We basically have a 6 player rotation right now, with 4 of them playing 40+ minutes.
http://www.suntimes.com/sports/basketball/bulls/17966428-579/kirk-hinrich-out-for-about-a-week-with-bad-elbow.html
When Kirk came in the league, the management mouthpiece announcers raved about him. Son of a coach. Solid fundamentals. And the one that really bugs me is that he's a great PG because he never loses his dribble. As I see it, you don't want to dominate the ball, not lose your dribble, for most of the 24 second clock. Rather, if you're not the primary scoring threat, you want the ball out of the PG's hands as early in the clock as possible. I remember the PJax Bulls, and him saying things like "everyone gets a touch every possession." For 5 guys, that's about 4 seconds each. So when I say it's good when Kirk is out, it's because I expect the rest of the team to be far more involved. And Taj isn't getting the ball at the top of the key with :03 on the shot clock. Maybe Taj makes 6 of 24 of those kinds of shots, and Kirk gets an assist. Let me put it another way. How much of the shot clock do you want the ball in the ~10 PER guy's hands, and how much do you want the ball in the hands of the guys with ~20 PER last season?
When it comes to evaluating Kirk, what's a better indicator of his impact, his stats or his coach's opinion of him. If you go by his stats he's a D-League player. However, I don't think there's a coach who's ever had anything but very positive remarks about Kirk.
Maintaining your dribble is extremely important in basketball, particularly for a PG and yes, Hinrich's very good at it. However, I've never felt that Hinrich dominates the ball. Most of the time when basketball-ignorant (IMO) fans claim that Hinrich is "over-dribbling," the offensive set has broken down and he's looking for someone to pass to...specifically someone who has an advantage on his defender. If he loses his dribble in this situation, he's pretty much forced to pass to the first teammate available and this can lead to turnovers. The way you describe basketball, the only offense that makes sense is to get the ball to your best scorer as quickly as possible and have everyone else get out of the way (and presumably get in position to offensive rebound). As you know, there are times, generally on a final possession, when this is exactly what a team does. However, no successful team I know of ever used the iso as their base offense. The object of every offense is to get an "easy" (high-percentage) shot...the easier the better. In general, you'd rather have your worst player take an uncontested layup than your best player take a difficult shot. What makes your best scorer your best scorer is almost always that your best scorer converts a high percentage of contested shots, i.e., when the offensive set fails to produce an easy shot, you look to your stud scorer to bail the possession out. No one I've ever seen did this better than Jordan. Have you ever heard a respected head coach mention PER in evaluating a player? Me neither. Coaches love players like Hinrich...and Deng. Fans don't. C'est la vie.
transplant Did you miss the part about all 5 guys touching the ball? And I remember michael jordan ISO in the post over and over and over. 30 shots a game. The Bulls offense when Rose was healthy, especially two seasons ago, sure looked like end of quarter ISO for Rose pretty much every play. The Grizzlies just hired Hollinger, who invented PER. Dan Rosenbaum was hired by the Cavs years ago. So yeah, i think the coaches and teams are into moneyball and advanced stats like PER. rosenthal, I remember Washington trading for Kirk and saying how he was going to mentor John Wall, what a great pickup, etc. Kirk lasted in D.C. for less than half a season. He lost his starting job after 29 games (see game log: http://www.basketball-reference.com/players/h/hinriki01/gamelog/2011/). He started 31 of 48 games he played for Atlanta the season after - they thought they needed a seasoned vet instead of Teague, but Teague proved them wrong. So here's Kirk on his 4th team in 3 seasons (Bulls twice). Hard to see how "coaches love him" or at least they don't to the point of convincing management to keep him.
