Yeah, I feel like I'm at risk of becoming a Bulls apologist. The Bulls should have won against Golden State, but last night, Portland was going for the jugular. It was a career night for Aldridge and by far the best I've ever seen Andrew Miller play. They were bringing it in a way they are not capable of bringing it every night, and their defense down the stretch was fierce. I don't think there are many teams that win that game -- Boston and maybe Miami would have had a shot. If Deng played better the Bulls probably would have won. I'm not displeased with the performance. The Bulls need a better center (and I'm guess the JoNo is back before the trip is finished) and a better starting shooting guard (no help there.) There were some pluses: Korver and Rose both played brilliantly. It was a mixed bag, and I think there was much more to be pleased about than we've seen in many of the home wins against struggling teams.
Two points about this game. I feel like we're wasting Thomas. You can see the wheels coming off over the last few games. I've said it before in other threads, but this is the point of the season where we can afford some developmental minutes. In fact, if not giving developmental minutes to guys like Asik means KT is toast at playoff time, then that could be a problem. And if you say Asik isn't even good enough to warrant a few more minutes in the meaningless middle of this long-slog season, I think you should question your hesitance to trade him for a guy who could actually help. ------------------- Second, I feel like our coach needs to think things through a bit more in game situations. Last night Korver's defensive problems wouldn't have hurt us at all. If you put Korver in, he covers who? Batum or Matthews? Big deal. I’d welcome the Blazers attacking Korver because it meant they were no longer attacking Boozer with Aldridge or Rose with Miller. More likely, the Blazers would continue to have gone to Miller and Aldridge, and Korver’s lack of defensive prowess wouldn’t have cost us much. Offensively, however, having him out there knocking down shots instead of Bogans out there doing nothing (and pretty much everyone but Rose being kind of off) would have helped a lot.
It doesn't look like Thibodeau believes in developmental minutes, outside of giving a young player five or six minutes a game where he writes off their mistakes. I'm not sure Thibodeau is wrong on this either. Is giving Asik more time now going to mean he is more prepared when called upon in the playoffs? I'm not sure. It seems to me that Asik is going to be limited in what he can produce until he has another off season working with the trainers and camp to work through the plays. I'm not sure playing Asik extended minutes will help him along in the process. And I can't say that I'm all that worried about Thomas' minutes. There's going to be a minutes crunch at center when Noah comes back anyway. Lastly, I don't see any connection between Thibodeau's level of comfort in playing Asik extended minutes now and whether they should consider trading him. He's a rookie big who was neither prepared physically or skill wise to make an immediate impact. That doesn't mean he won't develop into a strong contributor in some fashion in the near future. I think we continue to see regular development as he gets stronger and more experience through the end of the season and then he takes a big step up this off season.
Damnit, I lost my reply here... let me restate it more simply. To read your reply, you make him sound like he totally can't play. But what's Asik's big problem? It's fouling. He's not a 19 year old kid who needs to re-shape his body. Training isn't gonna fix that. Getting accustomed to NBA game speed will Last year Taj was playing big minutes despite fouling like crazy. At some point, really about this time last year... he started to really get a handle on things and stay on the court better. Asik is not a kid. He's a 24 year old man with experience against high level competition. There's no reason to expect, if he can really play, that he can't get out there and with a bit of experience, get a handle on the NBA. If you compare him to other "old" rookie big men, you'll see that they did very well. So if he can contribute, let's see him do it. If he utterly can't, then we ought to find out now, when we can do it at a low cost. The way I see it, Asik's a green banana turning yellow, and KT is a yellow one turning brown. If we can ripen Asik a little quicker, and slow KT's browning process a bit, then we've got the most available bananas when we hit the playoffs.
Au contraire mon frere. As you should know, bananas are treated with ethylene gas to make their peels ripen faster than their fruit. Bananas, thus, are rarely ripe before they are moderately speckled with brown spots. Game. Set. Match. [video=youtube;HktV2yGtLv8]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HktV2yGtLv8[/video]
Man I love me some Harry Bellafonte: [video=youtube;F3vgaCNY-aI]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F3vgaCNY-aI[/video]
