There are persistent reports of a continued beef. Accusations and insinuations floating around that there's a need to protect players from Thibodeau's unrelenting approach. Internal battles over minutes restrictions. Public displays of non-affection from both sides. And a rumored replacement for Thibodeau in Iowa State coach and former Bull Fred Hoiberg. Team Thibodeau has his belief deeply rooted in a process that has proven to lead to victories and overachievement. It might be at the expense of player health and physical well-being, but there's irrefutable evidence that Thibodeau has been successful. And Thibodeau is the one who has a championship ring as a Boston Celtics assistant for doing in his profession what no one in the Bulls' front office (with the exception of owner Jerry Reinsdorf, of course) can claim to have done in their current positions. How does this argument hold weight if Thibodeau has never won a title as a head coach? It is understood by many that under current and past circumstances, Thibodeau can't win. What else is he supposed to do? Should he acknowledge and adjust to the complaints being leveled against him? Should he comply with the issues Forman and Paxson apparently have with him and possibly sacrifice wins today to be in a better position to win later in the season, when it matters most? More at the link - http://espn.go.com/chicago/nba/stor...rs-tom-thibodeau-v-chicago-bulls-front-office
There are an awful lot of words in that article and none of them seem to mean anything. I would prefer if the coach and GM were on the same page. That being said, do we have any evidence it matters? Uncomfortable to follow, yes. Damaging to the team, I'm not sure there's evidence.
My point is that Jackson's piece is a cop out. Pick a lane. Either Thibodeau is a fool for not more closely watching player minutes; or GarPax are fools for criticizing their brilliant coach. The only dumb view you can really take about the situation is that they both need to put aside their differences and get along. This isn't kindergarten.
So it's not just me, that's good to know. It's like Scoop wanted to write an article with just enough info that either party could be blamed, but he wanted to make sure everyone knows that he has absolutely no opinion either way.
I thought it was a pretty good article. Not everything is black and white and there is a side to each story. Its pretty clear GarPax want to control minutes from on high. It was the same deal under Del Negro. Last time, Paxson tried to solve the problem with his fists. Now, hire a Jen Swanson expert and control the minutes that way. Better solution than the fists. Thibs is a great coach who has been there / done that. He's considered league wide to be one of the best and was "associate head coach" on a title winning team and quite frankly has pulled of mini-miracles with all the roster headaches. He seems like a guy that doesn't suffer fools well, and, when sitting across the meeting table from GarPax, well, you might have to bite your tongue from time to time, if you want to keep things calm. Thibs basically has the attitude of "i know what i'm doing better than you do and i'll just do my job and let the results speak for themselves." He knows he has a great league wide rep and will get a job right away on another team, so he doesn't really have that much to lose. GarPax and the Bulls org feel the need to smear him in the media, trying to tip public opinion in their favor if they decide to let him go. Obviously this can cause distractions. And yah, I'm sure they have a bruised ego about Thibs playing the ring card on them. The thing is, its true. Does it matter? Hard to say. Phil Jackson used the "us against them" mentality against the Bulls Org and it seemed to motivate the players. It does make the organization seem dysfunctional though. If GarPax are willing to stop the media smear and just ride the season out and Thibs abides by the minutes restrictions in the regular season the drama should stop. The issue is that coaches are judged by wins and losses and there are 82 games to play. There are lots of opinions of the diminishing value of the NBA regular season. The Spurs are considered smart for tanking games to rest players and not fielding the most competitive lineup you have every night. The league fines them for doing so since, as a business, they need to try and ensure that when you buy a ticket you are seeing legit NBA action. The minutes restrictions are another arrow in this quiver. If I am a customer and I buy 1 ticket to a game a year, why did my Bulls lose because Noah is only allowed to play 28 minutes a game? If you are a fan that cares only about playoff performance mostly, its not big deal, as long as they make the playoffs, but for the guy plunking down $100 and for the organization selling him that product, it is something to care about. That's why the league fines teams like the Spurs.
The Spurs were fined once for resting players, back in November of 2012, and haven't been fined since then. They were fined that time because they rested players very, very early in the season, and they didn't notify the league in advance (according to David Stern). “The result here is dictated by the totality of the facts in this case. The Spurs decided to make four of their top players unavailable for an early-season game that was the team’s only regular-season visit to Miami. The team also did this without informing the Heat, the media, or the league office in a timely way. Under these circumstances, I have concluded that the Spurs did a disservice to the league and our fans.” - David Stern http://probasketballtalk.nbcsports....fends-250000-fine-to-spurs-for-resting-stars/ In just the last week, the Hawks rested a healthy Teague, Carroll and Millsap one night, and the Warriors rested a healthy Curry, Thompson, Bogut and Iguodala in a game. http://www.nba.com/2015/news/03/13/warriors-rest-curry-thompson-iguodala-bogut.ap/ http://www.foxsports.com/nba/story/...-lakers-despite-resting-three-starters-031615 Neither team was fined. Not one signle team has been fined even once for resting players since it happened to the Spurs on that one occasion more than two years ago. It will be very interesting to see what kind of job Thibs gets if he's no longer the Bulls' coach after this season. Teams know that he is an outstanding teacher, especially of defense, but they also know that he doesn't believe in the league-wide trend of making sure you don't overwork your players in the regular season so they will be fresh for the playoffs.
http://www.theatlantic.com/entertai...ontroversy-over-the-purpose-of-sports/265786/ The NBA Spurs Controversy Is a Controversy Over the Purpose of Sports Should teams try to win or to entertain? By fining San Antonio for sitting out its star players, Commissioner David Stern sides with "entertain. http://grantland.com/the-triangle/s...king-sense-of-the-spurs-benching-controversy/ San Antonio vs. Stern: Making Sense of the Spurs’ Benching Controversy I'm not coming down one way or another, but if its going to become standard practice to "get through" the regular season to get to the games that matter, the playoffs, then they are going to have to rethink some things. Why have 82 games? How should coaches and front offices be evaluated? Do things like MVP and the like even matter anymore? Does Niko winning "player of the month" matter if its just in "who cares" regular season contests? Is it fair to charge customers huge amounts of money for contests where the team isn't giving their all? Is it fair to market Duncan vs Lebron and then have a healthy Duncan not playing? Just an anecdote, but the place where I view NBA games usually has a chat room going and I like to watch the out of town broadcast to escape the Bulls Org spin and get a better sense about what other people around the league think about things. The Toronto fans were very much hoping the Bulls would let Thibs go so he could come coach the Raptors. The Toronto announcing team were saying lots and lots of good things about Thibs and were surprised about the rift between him and management.
Running ruins your knees! The more mileage, the worse they get! This simplistic view is "just common sense." And, from non runners, you hear it a lot. It makes sense if you are talking about your car after all. The thing is, its not exactly true at all. Its complicated. http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/10/13/phys-ed-do-marathons-wreck-your-knees/?_r=0 I think the simplistic "just common sense" analysis of minutes in NBA basketball games is the same. The more minutes a player gets, the worse off they are from a health perspective. Heavy minutes = bad. I imagine as sports scientists understand this issue more and more and more research comes out, the answer to this one will be complicated as well.
Well, there has to be something to limiting players' minutes - if not, wouldn't everyone just play their best 5 players 48 minutes every night? It's happening in other sports as well - pitchers are now on pitch counts and they use 5-man rotations instead of 4. Running backs don't carry the ball 30 times a game any more - hell, 20 carries is now a fairly big workload. NBA teams are playing guys fewer minutes, and not playing them so many consecutive minutes without a break, so you'd have to assume they have some kind of scientific, statistical reason for doing so.
This sentence blows. Thibodeau has won the same number of NBA championship rings in his current position, zero, as have Forman and Paxson. As for the rest of the Bulls' front office (the Bulls' FO is more than GarPax), at least 2 (Irwin Mandel and Steve Schanwald) have rings in their current positions.
