Not unexpectedly, Larry Hughes said he thinks he should be playing more. At this point I am inclined to agree with him. His play has been much improved of late. And his defense is better than BG's. Again, if you bring BG off of the bench for 30+ minutes a game, he's going to get his regardless of when he is in. And this way the backcourt isn't as much of a sieve, especially to start. It's not like the bulls are playing .500 ball now, either. On the other, this might make the bulls a .500 team at best. So not making a change isn't that harmful, either.
More to the point, I think Hughes is probably rather surprised that Thabo's getting the start over him, despite the fact that Hughes has been playing better than him and playing significantly more minutes. In every way, Hughes has been ahead on the depth chart, so it must be pretty odd to see the guy in front of you go down and somehow still lose minutes to the guy that's been behind you. Doesn't mean I think Hughes is good... I'd actually prefer him gone, but if he's here and going to play, then this is a textbook example of how to jerk around an established NBA player.
What do we do to make him happy? Bringing Rose off the bench would be the only logical option, and the franchise has made clear they'er going with Rose over the next few years, good or bad.
Hughes will probably get a minute increase after the trade deadline. It seems that Paxon is trying to showcase Sefolosha, Thomas, and maybe Nocioni. Paxson will probably try to pull off some consolidation trade involving Hinrich, Nocioni, Thomas, and Sefolosha, or even two separate trades. Otherwise it doesn't make much sense to bring Sefolosha into the fold, when you have a capable third guard in Hughes. Hughes is royally screwed if and when Hinrich comes back. I think this is just a little pre-emption on that, as Rose and Gordon are going to get their minutes, so it's only logical to think Hinrich will take away Hughes' minutes.
If there's any showcasing going on, I want it to be of Hughes and not Thabo or Thomas. Still don't see it.
I feel like I'm becoming a basketball curmudgeon, but does "showcasing" even exist? I mean, scouts and GMs have pretty firm valuations of every player in the league, and those aren't swayed -- for better and worse -- by a string of games. Darko got paid long after he had proven he was bad. Same with Olawkandi. I think scouts and GMs either like or more likely, don't like Thabo, or any other player, and their views aren't going to change if the player has a string of five or six good or bad games. As per Hughes, I think you make a good point about pissing off veterans. At the same time, I'm somewhat sympathetic to the benching. One of the many reasons the Bulls are bad is that there is a real leadership gap. That can be filled by a coach, at least for a little while. If VDN is serious about winning with the team as currently constituted he has to try to force team ball, because no one else will. It just almost never works when it's the coach trying to force discipline through playing time.
I think it would go along way aas far as our team goes to make the best players the captains. Rose and Gordon are by far the two best players on the team, and neither are a captain. I think that would help put a little bit more order to the team, start developing a hierarchy. You can already see their on the court leadership. Both players will direct traffic so to speak on the court, which is good, because I think last year, Gordon didn't take control of the offense enough, even though he was by far and away the best offensive player. I really like Rose/Gordon as the backbone of the team. Both are in great shape and can handle huge minutes, both guys are the ultimate professionals, hardworkers, absolutely love basketball, and are either great talents (Rose) or highly skilled (Gordon)....although Rose has a lot of good skills, and Gordon has one great talent (his shooting).
