I really don't know what to expect from him. He was super hot at the end of preseason, but he's been the opposite the first two regular season games. It is still early - too early to panic. But I hoped for the guy who both looked better than the others on the court, and who took over games. The latter made best record look easy, but not built for playoffs. Jordan had similar problems, but led the league in scoring and dazzle. His teammates stood around and watched the MJ show. Only when he figured out how to do his thing within the team concept PJax had did we truly dominate. Again, it's early, but we need Rose to be the 25 PER guy AND all the others to be involved.
Rose showed me in preseason action that he's physically just fine. After the Heat game in which Rose looked ordinary at best, he explained away his poor shooting performance by saying that he's had lots of worse shooting nights before. True dat. Then he went 7-23 against the Knicks. I didn't hear his post-game comments, but if he said that he's had consecutive bad shooting nights before, I'm sure that's also true. For anyone who has played the game, you understand that your shooting touch can come and go. However, one of the things that tends to separate the run-of-the-mill from the great is that when the great's shot isn't falling they find other ways to help their team win. Bigs hit the boards and guards work to set up their teammates. As a PG, you'd hope that Rose was efficiently dishing assists during his mini-shooting slump, but that hasn't been the case...9 turnovers to 7 assists is awful. With 2 games down and 80 to go in this 2013-14 regular season, his game-winning shot notwithstanding, Derrick Rose has not only failed to show that he's returned to superstar form, but he's played downright poorly. As a Bulls fan, this isn't how I hoped the season would start. I can understand anyone who is a bit concerned. Fortunately, I've got my worry-trigger on safety until December.
The Heat game was just terrible. Our top two defenders, Lu and Jimmy were saddled with fouls early and played 3/4 their regular minutes. Those minutes they did play, trying not to pick up a ticky tack foul. From the one game: Kirk looks old and slow. Dunleavy looks unathletic. The two guys can shoot, though. But I think we suffer with them on the court against a team with really athletic players like the Heat have. There was one play where Dunleavy tried to guard Wade, and it was really embarrassing to watch. Kirk was +/- -19, and was no match for the younger and more athletic Norris Cole (5-7, 7 assists). Noah was also playing for the first time in several games. Rusty.
What I find most interesting about the last two games is that IMO we played very well for about 43 minutes in each one but suffered through disastrous stretches where the wheels came off. In Miami it was too much to overcome, but we had enough to finish off NYC. Barely. I'm not sure what this indicates, if anything, at this point in time. Hopefully it's just an aberration. I actually think Kirk's looked very good so far. His defense and decision making is very good as usual, but he's been getting in the paint in ways he didn't do very often last year. His +/- was bad in the Miami game, but the team got its biggest lead against the Knicks with Kirk playing and Rose on the bench. In general I'm confident that both Rose and Noah will regain their form, so I'm not up in arms just yet over their performances so far. Boozer's been the MVP through the first two games. What I liked best in the Miami game was the way he scored. He did a great job of taking advantage of their overpursuit on defense. FWIW the beginning of the season has been very strange so far. Miami has a losing record. Philadelphia is undefeated. Oklahoma and Brooklyn have suffered from embarassing losses to inferior teams. So we shouldn't be too concerned.
Hinrich's PER is 2.2. Not much of a sample size, but I am quite sure he's going to struggle to get it over 10 for the season. He did look good guarding Pablo Prigioni.
Maybe it's just me, but using PER two games into the season... If Kirk Hinrich is the team's biggest problem this season, I'll take it.
It still speaks to how awesome he's been playing. Rose hasn't been playing well, either. PER seems to be a decent indication even at this point.
I posted in the game thread, Rose is averaging 14.3 pts a game through 3 games, 29% shooting and almost 6 turnovers a game! A bad three game stretch to say the least.
Speaking of 3 consecutive games, I think it's fair to say that these are the worst 3 consecutive games Rose has had in his NBA career. I looked back over his game logs and not even in his rookie season could I find anything that quite measures, um, down.
Can you guys give him 20 games or so to get back to regular season game speed? The guy missed a full season of basketball. Its far too early in the season (3 games) to start worrying about his shooting percentage. If he's still playing like this by the end of November, then its cause for concern. Right now, no.
First off, if you want anyone to be able to give you a focused response to your posts, you might want to change your sig. As for patience with Rose's rough start, the much-esteemed Denny Crane stated that he's convinced that: and I said that: Net, we cool.
After the preseason I was smug in my prediction that the Bulls would come out of the gate with all cylinders firing but clearly I'll need to dial back my expectations. Derrick's not quite ready. It looks like we might need about 20 games to hit our stride. That's fine. I still see no reason we won't be able to repeat previous success. The hysteria on the RealGM board is giving me giggles. The sky really is falling over there.
I also had apparently unrealistic expectations. But I don't think any of us are that concerned about performance issues that don't project to be issues in the playoffs. I think I'm the biggest alarmist here, and that's been about the minutes distribution, not the on-court play. Denny's worries about Dunleavy and Hinrich are legit. The biggest concern this season, injuries aside, are whether the Bulls will have enough shooting when it matters. Dunleavy and Hinrich were the two players brought in to address that issue and thus far they've both been mediocre, even granting them leeway for adjustments. The recipe for beating the Bulls appears to be packing the paint and waiting for the team to hit open jumpers. Butler, Rose and to a lesser extent Deng, have all looked hesitant at times with open looks, and Hinrich and Dunleavy haven't helped that much. Edit: And I'm feeling . . . um . . . patriotic.
Right now, Boozer, Taj, and Jimmy are carrying the team, it seems. That's not the formula for winning. Boozer's ~30 PER is great, but I think we win with something like: Rose 25 PER Boozer 20 PER Noah 20 PER Deng 17 PER Butler 17 PER Kirk had a really good game last game. I don't think he's terrible all the time, just 3 out of 4 games or something like that
I agree that outside shooting is the issue that'll be most difficult to fix by playoff time. Compared to last year it's hard to see how we've made very much progress. We drafted Snell and Murphy, but it's hard to say whether or not they'll see meaningful minutes this year. We added Dunleavy but lost Belinelli and Nate. So where does that leave us exactly? The best thing we have going for us is the addition of Derrick Rose, which will presumably give the team more breathing room on its jumpers. But we're not exactly a dangerous team from behind the arc.
With regard to (3-point) shooting, I think the concerns are well founded. Unlike many teams, the Bulls don't have a "stretch-big" in its rotation and Dunleavy's the only volume 3-point shooter (5+ attempts per 36 minutes) in their rotation. Rose is said to have worked hard on his distance jumper though we've yet to see the results. If he could up his volume a bit and convert on at least 35%, it would help a lot.
Stretch 4? Or stretch 5? Boozer, Taj, and Noah certainly aren't going to become 3pt shooters. Jimmy's taken 125 3pt shots in his whole career. Deng is a career .331 3pt shooter, .322 last season. Rose is a career .309 3pt shooter, .312 last season. Jimmy is a career .352 shooter, and he shot .381 from 3pt last season. He's maybe our only hope with this group of 5 starters. The logical thing to have done would have been to move Deng for a SG who can handle the ball, shoot 3pt shots, and score. Then we'd have 2 wing players capable of making 3pt shoots with some consistency (Jimmy at SF).
