6th seed for the playoffs right now. A bit over .500 and no threat to contend. No good draft pick coming this year. We're back to "core 4" land my friends! We have a hard driving coach who preaches D, although our Thibs is twice the coach of Skiles since he's willing to work and get the most out of all NBA players other than those whose name begins with V. The star of the show is once again Kirk Hinrich. He's older, perhaps wiser, certainly slower and ready to dive all around the court if he manages to not get kicked out of the game for being too mouthy. Another returning star is Luol Deng. He's turned into an all-star and no longer hails from Duke instead he's from South Sudan (is that in Carolina?). His game is tight. He's very tired. Ben Gordon has exited stage right along with the former 300 level hero Andres Nocioni. Replacing them are Carlos Boozer and Joakim Noah. That's definitely an upgrade. If you loved the old "core 4" you gotta love this this new one. You gotta be there! Who is ready for the playoffs??!?????!?!!??!!?
Great thread. Just when I didn't think I could feel any worse about the current plight of my beloved Bulls...
Chin up, Transplant. Actually, K4E, didn't you say basically this at the beginning of the season, but in a far more positive light? I mean, nothing has changed. Except our expectations for when Derrick would return. And that doesn't make us feel good. But, when healthy, the team is a'ight. (I think that's how you say it.) I have no problem with where we are, given the injuries. I confess that the injuries themselves are a problem. Some of that is just "so". Some is surely the product of a hard-driving coach. The FO has begun to step in and keep guys off the court, I think. Thibs can't help himself. But it's killing the team. He just has to spread the minutes around, deserved or undeserved. I guess that's a hard principle to surrender for him.
I don't know about positive or negative, but yah, I think if you said that the Bulls would be at where they are currently at one year ago, I'd' be highly disappointing. This has been a disappointing season. I think that the players that have suited up and the coaching staff have performed admirably under tough circumstances. Thibs may have to adjust his hard driving style a wee bit over the years. It serves us well in a regular season W-L department, but perhaps not as much when it comes to having a healthy team and there seems to be a rep developing about the Bulls being an organization that will ride you hard and ask you to play hurt, perhaps to the detriment of your career. I know they are being patient with Rose now, but last year's treatment of Rose falls under that, along with Noah the last two years and Gibson this year.
But you know, he believes that the minutes apportionment purely on merit is a crucial element in building a "championship mentality". It's easy enough for us to say that this only works in the regular season. His fundamental philosophy is this is how you win a championship.
No denying his regular season success and getting the most out of his talent. Thibs is a great coach IMO. We'll see if his way can lead to a championship. He'll need a healthy Rose and another stud from GarPax. They say one of the main transitions an assistant has to make when becoming a head coach is to focus less on the current play or current game and start thinking of things from a longer term perspective.
I don't know that this is true. I think most head coaches try to win every damn game. In nearly every organization, winning games is what keeps a head coach employed. The most notable exception is Popovich in San Antonio who began very openly resting star players a few years ago (he didn't do this when his stars were in their 20s). Ironically, more often than not, this strategy has led to great regular season success, but disappointment in the playoffs...go figure. In any case, I think that you would need to feel very, very secure in order to emulate Popovich. As for running players into the ground, the Bulls don't have any players in the top-10 in terms of total minutes played which I feel is the true measure of "wear and tear." Deng is first in minutes per game and Noah #12, but the next highest is Boozer (#70 overall) at 31.5, which is pretty pedestrian starters minutes. I don't believe that Thibodeau is pathological in this regard.
Perhaps its can't be proved quantitatively, or perhaps it can, but it seems to be from my readings that this is the rap on Thibs. Pathological is a strong word and not one I'd use. Great coach. Demanding. (Do. Your. Job.) Gets the most out of almost all types of players. Wins. And if the medical staff says "green" you'll be playing lots of minutes if he wants you to. I like Thibs a great deal as a coach. Our team of course is banged up but its hard to prove its his coaching style. Its not like we're the only banged up team. The great head coaches win titles. Here's hoping that the Thibs way leads to him being considered a great NBA head coach.
I'm quite happy with Thibs as coach, too. But I don't think it's fair to say he's not great because he's not won a title. PJax won titles with MJ and Pippen. We don't have MJ or Pippen. PJax won titles with Kobe and Shaq. And Kobe and Pau. We don't have a Kobe or a Shaq or Pau. As far as regular season goes, he's exceeded my expectations. As far as playoffs goes, he's met them. I didn't think we were going to beat the Heat two seasons ago and we didn't. Getting us to the ECF was a significant accomplishment. Our MVP was like 22 years old. Last season? He absolutely gets a pass for his top two players getting hurt.
Personally, I think most of the local fan concern over the minutes Thibodeau plays his players stems from the "familiarity breeds contempt" factor. As kinda die-hard Bulls fans, we have them under a microscope. We watch nearly every minute of all of their games live or on TV. We read stories written by people who make their livings covering the Bulls. We listen to local sports-talk radio that tends to focus on the negative aspects of our local teams. The significance of this factor was brought home to me a few years ago in a message board thread on Ben Gordon when he was with the Bulls. A poster complained about how inconsistent Gordon's shooting was. I had to admit that I agreed...Gordon did seem to be on fire one night and cold as ice the next. Why couldn't Gordon be as consistent as payer A, or player B, or even player C? Another poster who had some serious quantitative chops brought out really compelling statistical evidence showing that Gordon was in fact a fairly consistent shooter/scorer and actually more consistent than players A, B and C. It made an impression on me. I don't follow the Thunder, but I wonder if some of their fans worry about Scottie Brooks running K. Durant's skinny ass into the ground. And is D'Antoni out of his f'in mind playing Kobe all those minutes at Kobe's advanced age? If a player is very good on both ends of the court, and is in his 20s, he's going to play 35+ minutes/game in today's NBA. Lebron, Durant, Harden, Curry, Aldridge, George, Rondo, Horford, DWill, Melo, etc. all do. Deng and Noah are both very good on both ends and both in their 20s so you can add them to this group. If Butler continues to develop and gets the starting job at SG, he'll probably be a 35+ mpg guy. This doesn't mean that Thibodeau is a ruthless taskmaster...it just means that Thibodeau is a NBA head coach who, like every other NBA head coach, is trying like hell to win the next game his team plays.
I don't think the 40+ minutes thing is an issue for the reasons transplant states. Basically, you have a lot of the uberstar type players always got those kinds of minutes. Where I would differ is that in a game you're up 10 with a minute left. Or a game you're up 20 with a quarter left. You play your bench players for all sorts of reasons. If you need to bring the starters back in, you do. What reasons? Thanks for playing so hard in practice. Your starters with near 100% certainty are less at risk of injury sitting on the bench. Your starters don't need to be playing against their 15th man. And I think it's the gentleman's thing to do - to get your starters a cheer from the crows and to not pile on a defeated opponent. The 40+ minutes is also a concern when you're playing Noah during a plantar fasciitis bout - something seems very odd if rest is the indicated treatment and the trainers and coach are allowing him to play.
And Gordon was (and still is) a pretty elite scorer. You put the ball in his hands and he puts points on the board. More than just a shooter. The thing about guys like him, and this would go for Hinrich, too, is that when they go 0-8 in the first 3 minutes of a game, you don't go away from them. You encourage them to shoot and shoot and shoot. In Gordon's case, he'll not stay cold for long and can give you a 20 point quarter. In Hinrich's case, he needs the confidence, and we need him to hit shots to keep defenses honest. A comparable would be the old bears stop handing the ball to Payton because he didn't get a first down the first two series. You just knew he'd break one and end up with a massive rushing day.
HaHa, my high school coach always told us that we could win the game so long as we were down no more than 10 points per minute left...and this was without the 3-point line! While we'd all nod our agreement, none of us bought it. Anyway, good post. I don't know what the formula is, but for sure I agree that, if you've got a big lead and the opposing coach wheels up the white flag by putting in the end of his bench, you need to put in the end of your bench. Like you said, it's just good sportsmanship. Maybe I missed some cases where Thibodeau failed to follow this protocol. I'll try to pay more attention, but it's been a while since the Bulls have been on the right side of a laugher. As for the Noah thing, we all know that the front office gets pretty upset when the head coach ignores the docs' playing time restrictions. I just don't know if it's fair to say that Thibodeau has been an offender.
My general impression is that Thibs rides his guys pretty hard, but I've been loathe to lay a lot of criticism on him because a). The team has done very well under him b). Perception isn't always reality To build on what Transplant said, despite some of my priors, I suspect that if you looked at our guys' injuries before and after Thibs came the "Taskmaster" label wouldn't hold up. Deng has been playing banged up for 5 years it seems like. Hinrich's been slowly breaking down for the last 4 years. Noah had plantar fasciatis before Thibs came. Boozer's been an ironman since joining the Bulls! So who knows? In any case, I don't see it changing anytime soon. Thibs seems like he'd rather quit than renege on his scruples and muddle his approach.
FWIW, I think Boozer should have been played ~40 minutes, too. Gotta love these 28 point / 18 rebound games. At ~40 minutes, he'd get quite a few, and no matter how bad his D is, that's pretty big production on his part they'd need to overcome.
I actually think Boozer kind of gets the Bogans treatment. When his offense and defense are going Thibs rides him as far as he can, but if he's not in sync then he gets shut down after about 25 minutes, and has one of those 1-6, 5pt 7reb games.
My feeling precisely. If management doesn't want him playing guys so hard and long, it needs to get more and better guys.
