It was not surprising to walk in the gym here in Las Vegas, nearly 90 minutes before tipoff of Thursday’s first Summer League game, and find Tom Thibodeau already sitting courtside, the first NBA higher-up in the building. Thibodeau is a legendary basketball junkie, fresh off one of the most successful three-season spans of any first-time NBA head coach. The principles of the defense he helped pioneer in Boston during the Celtics’ 2008 championship run have spread around the league, and Thibodeau’s ability to coax his players into almost maniacally consistent adherence to those rules is a major reason Chicago kept winning games last season amid an unending flood of injuries. With Derrick Rose set to return next season at full health, the Bulls look primed to resume their fierce pursuit of Miami’s perch atop the Eastern Conference. Thibodeau sat down with Grantland for an extensive one-on-one about all things Bulls — but not all things Thibodeau. As a coach, could you sit back during the playoffs and take some satisfaction in real time over what the team was accomplishing with all the injuries — with Joakim [Noah] limping around, Luol [Deng] in the hospital, and all that? Can you enjoy the big-picture perspective that way, or is it just not possible to step outside the games like that? I don’t think we really look at it that way. You look at each situation as an opportunity to learn about your team — and to grow. Injuries are part of the game for everybody. You have to manage those circumstances as best you can. A byproduct of having a lot of guys out this year is that you saw the growth of Jimmy Butler, Joakim took a step forward, Luol had another terrific year for us, and Carlos [Boozer] was very good. And [Kirk] Hinrich was terrific. So that’s the way you look at it. Hopefully next year we can be a little more healthy. What specifically did you see from Joakim that was new in his game? Offensively, he played a lot better. He still has a ways to go, and I still think there’s a lot of room for growth. But his all-around game, his passing — when Hinrich went down, we had to run our offense through him, and I thought he did a terrific job with that. His team defense has always been outstanding, but now I think his individual defense is starting to come around as well. Read a lot more at the link. Good interview: http://www.grantland.com/blog/the-t...-return-and-where-in-the-world-is-joakim-noah
Here's the part I found interesting: The conflict between Thibs and Gar, to me, is a case of learning how to support one another in achieving a common goal, when each feels different constraints. Thibs is a system coach who wants continuity, because of the investment in getting players up to speed, and who is loath to "grant" playing time to guys who he feels don't get it, so that they can figure it out, resulting in heavy minute loads on the people he can trust. Gar as a GM is constrained by the CBA to look more and more to short termers to fill out the roster. What I like in the quote is you can see they have been addressing this dynamic so that they really can "unite and move forward". Go bulls!
