What Are You Guys Worried About?

Thanks Rosenthall, you just ruined my day.

 

One positive I can say about Hinrich is as a third pt guard off the bench, he is better than Mike James.

 

I'm optimistic about the Rose-Butler thing. It's been overblown and will work itself out.

McDermott and Mirotic are the wild cards. On a 1 to 10 scale, last season McDermott was a 1 and Mirotic a 5 or 6. McDermott needs to become a 5 and Mirotic a 7 for the Bulls to be more than merely a good team.

Mark Schanowski was on the radio the other day and made the comment that we'll know if Hoiberg has a free hand to coach the team as he sees fit by whether or not he brings one of Gasol or Noah off the bench. Sounds right to me since I don't see how you can play a modern up-tempo offense with both of those guys in the game.

My expectations are modest.

 

Mine are too.

I share a lot of the minor concerns which were mentioned in the original post. I think the roster may be imbalanced toward shooting at the expense of athleticism to the point where the team only has one alpha defender. I worry about the backup point guard situation and the below replacement level play we saw from Hinrich and Brooks last season. I'm not particularly worried about the Rose and Butler rumors, but I am a little worried that Butler isn't going to bring the same heat after his payday.

I think you can group these concerns under the larger question that's supposed to be for another thread (sorry Rosenthall) about whether it's wise to bring this team back largely intact. I've probably been the least happy with Thibodeau's performance among posters here. I didn't think he set up rotations well last season, and I think the team tuned him out during large stretches, but I'm not going to blame his coaching last season for the fact that the Bulls didn't beat Cleveland -- that was on the roster. I think Thibodeau's willingness to play injured players heavy minutes led to some of the injury trouble and steep declines in play we've seen over the past couple of years (Rose, Deng, Noah). But if you look at least season in a bubble, Thibodeau's coaching was not the reason the team failed to make it to the conference finals.

Why should this team perform any better than last years'? Are we relying on internal improvement? That's a lot to expect, especially when young players often have seasons where they appear to regress.

 

Forman was very happy with the roster he assembled last season so I guess we can't be too surprised that he simply re-assembled it for the coming season. And yeah, I'm sure that he believes that Hoiberg will be an upgrade.

I think they'll be a strong player for the #2 EC seed. Unfortunately, if Lebron James remains ambulatory, I lack the imagination to see the Bulls in the Finals.

 

LeBrons carried such a heavy load, and has played so many minutes...it wouldn't surprise me in the least if he spent some time off the court fighting injuries this season. It's going to catch up with him one day.

 

Rosenthall brought up a number of good points.

My main concern is a lack a leadership and how the vacuum will be filled. There are a lot of problems on this team that can tear apart a locker room. We had a strong leader in Thibs who set the tone and kept everyone as focused as possible on winning.

Now that the team leader is gone, what fills that hole? Unknown.

The coaching staff is inexperienced. Let's say Fred Hoiberg is a Steve Kerr level coach. Best case scenario pretty much. Where is the Ron Adams and Alvin Gentry?

Winning a championship is pretty much off the table, unless Lebron just falls off a cliff. The Bulls didn't do anything to improve the team really. Gasol will likely be worse this season than last. If Noah is done and Gibson is on the decline its going to be tough to stay competitive.

Rose and Team Rose could be playing for their next contract while Jimmy wants to prove he's "the man." Who is going to keep that in check? Hoiberg? Can't see any reason why Jimmy and Rose wouldn't just Dave Blatt him.

The Bulls have been an elite team for a few years based mostly on defense and rebounding. If that continues to deteriorate we don't seemingly have the offensive firepower to compensate. Like Rosenthall said, the guys who deserve the heavy minutes can't shoot very well. Its a poorly constructed team that is now also leaderless and rudderless. This could change over the course of the season of course.

Worried? Not really, since my expectations are low and since the organization doesn't seem to care much about gunning for a title this season, I'm not really expecting it either. The team seems to be in a type of flux now. Noah / Gibson are fading away. The bloom is off our Rose. Butler is ascending. The hope is McDermott and Mirotic can be all-star level players soon. We'll see....

Winning and losing the regular season games doesn't really matter to many and I guess it will be interesting to see all the wearable tech and "smart" minutes management techniques implemented. That has to be worth an extra round of advancement in the playoffs, right?

 

Worried about Cavaliers. Don't see the Bulls beating them in the near future.

Sad but true.

 

How do you jump from leader unknown to leaderless and rudderless, K4E?

Which is it?

(Whatever was between Thibs and you must have been intense because you're grieving over a coach the same way people grieve the loss of a mate. And no one else is carrying a torch for the guy but you. I'm sorry for your loss.)

 

Leader unknown can be leaderless. The leader can be unknown because there isn't one. As of right now, its hard to say who is leading the Chicago Bulls. Rose? Butler? Del Hoiberg? Captain Kirk?

Do you have any thoughts in your head to share on this, basketball related?

Please, if possible, try to lay off the personal stuff and stick to basketball.

There is no torch being carried. We'll see where the Bulls go on from here. Based on what people are posting, the coaching change doesn't seem to be making any meaningful difference at all in terms of expectations. If anything, expectations are lower, since noone thinks that the Bulls can get to the NBA Finals. That wasn't the case last year, as some thought there was a decent chance.

 

That's true with any player. Age happens. Injuries happen. No kidding.

 

You think expectations are lower because of the coach?!?

 

There's definitely a torch being carried, btw. But it might not be a torch - maybe lightly scented, romantic, softly flickering candles instead.

But something.

 

Its unclear why expectations are lower. Many thought the coaching change would help matters. Curious that the expectations are lower after something that was supposed to be helpful for the team.

 

Once again, please stick to basketball.

 

There are many reasons that have zero to do The Mayor.

 

We're talking about a basketball coach, a basketball fan, their shared (one hopes), err, enthusiasms on a basketball forum, arent we?

 

What are they? Share your thoughts.

 

Teams a year older, competitors arent standing still (e.g. Milwaukee), developmental progress of the youth unknown at this point, this core is historically gimpy...c'mon...we've said all this stuff 1000x times.

When we were discussing this, what were you thinking abo- never mind.