Ruh roh! A verbal salvo from Jimmy Butler to the Mayor. Never saw much of these types of antics when the previous coach was around. Anyway, this guy is the star of the team at this point and by all accounts one of the best two way players in the game. I can't remember Jimmy ever calling Thibs out like this. Yikes. Its cool that Jimmy respects Fred. For being laid back.
This will get interesting. How will the Bulls front office react? Officially Butler likely get fined? Perhaps we will see something different next week.
Ruh Roh is right. Hope Butler talked to Hoiberg about his concerns in private first. In any case, it's out there now and needs to be dealt with. We can only hope that something positive for the team comes out of this.
Yeah, I didn't like reading that either. Like Transplant, my first thought was "God Jimmy, I hope you brought that up to Fred in private before airing that out in public", but we'll see what transpires.
These were the last gasps of a guy used to playing under Thibs. Its all he knows. Rose doesn't care anymore. Gasol has been around the block several times. Noah certainly played great under the Thibs style of management (2 all-star appearances, 1 all-NBA 1st team, 4th in MVP voting one year) but he also is older and wiser than Jimmy at this point and has been in other environments. Remember when Noah spoke out about the crappy environment he was drafted into as a young player? Ben Wallace and Paxson put him in his place. Never really heard him complain when under Thibs. But he knows no good can come from going to the media on this stuff as a seasoned vet. You very rarely, if ever, has this kind of public drama coming from the players under Thibs. They respected him. Jimmy is likely outraged at the losing and laid back style. He's used to being on title contending teams for the most part that were hard driving. For those that are blasting Jimmy for this, yes, of course, there are better ways to handle the frustrating culture change from Thibs style to "Hoiball." He'll probably have this out of his system and be content cashing his million dollar checks while half-assing it through the regular season soon enough. Many were upset about trying so hard to win the games anyway, and actually winning them. They were only regular season games after all. The pace is up and we don't hear about Jen Swanson anymore. The Thibs will be completely out of this team soon enough. It certainly wasn't in New York a couple nights ago or at the United Center tonight. ---- This same roster for the most part was widely considered to be a title contender last season at this time. And the team was a whisper away in the playoffs from having a clear path to the NBA Finals. Now this roster is losing to Nets at home and the culture appears to be a confused clusterfuck.
Butler is the FO's choice for team leader...oops. I don't want to believe what it appears is happening...the beginning of a brand new soap opera. If I'm Reinsdorf, I have zero tolerance. Everyone shut the F up and play. Win, lose, whatever...just play ball.
Honestly, I think we just need to take a breath. Fred Hoiberg is not Tom Thibodeau. For better and worse, he is not a dictator, as Joakim Noah described Thibodeau. And publicly questioning Fred Hoiberg's tactics is not disruptive like it would have been if a player called out Thibodeau. I was watching the New Jersey feed yesterday. Donny Marshall, who was a teammates of Fred's, noted that Butler's comments are no big deal because Fred Hoiberg isn't the type of person who is going to get into an ego filled pissing match. I think we're getting sucked in to over valuing outcomes in particular games. The Bulls suffered a quadruple overtime loss to what is turning out to be a pretty darn good team. More importantly, Derrick Rose looked pretty darn good in the loss. The Bulls then played a travel back to back against New York, and were blown out as any of us would have guessed would have happened before the game began. The Nets loss is a little more concerning but it's a long season. Of more concern to all of us is the general average level of play we're seeing. It's still early -- we need to see how this plays out through the rest of this season. Fred is working in Portis now, he's working in McDermott, he's working in Mirotic at the three. There are a lot of moving parts.
I've seen you write this a number of times and I just can't agree with it. One of things I think you see after following the playoffs for a while is that the outcomes of games are not independent of each other -- that one game's outcome seems to affect the next so that the better team wins with regularity. The Bulls lost the series to the Cavs 4-2, which is exactly how close they were; as in, the Bulls were not very close to beating the Cavs.
I think you are wrong on this. The Bulls were a missed Lebron 3 / Gasol healthy ankle away from winning that series. The Cavs then went on to sweep the top team in the East record wise 4-0. Budenholzer. Pops lineage. Stretch 4. Either way, this Hoiball team is pretty disappointing so far. The sad thing is that the Bulls likely won't be that close again for quite some time it seems, unless things turn around. Basically same roster this season as last season. The pace is up and Jen Swanson isn't mentioned much anymore though.
That's for sure. The starting lineup is seemingly changing on a daily basis. Desperately flailing about to try and turn around one of the worst offenses in the NBA and to scrap out a win or two. Much better than when the lineups were stubbornly "set in stone" and we were winning all those games and were considered title contenders, right?
I think you drastically overstate things. The changes you see on the starting lineup seem connected to me. To give Portis minutes you have to clear room at the four, which pushes Niko to the three. I didn't get the decision to start Gibson without the additional context. We're right about twenty-five games into this season, right? Those feel like the series of moves you make about now to begin to work your rookie into the lineup. Other than that, there was the Snell-McDermott move. I would hardly call this change on a daily basis.
Perhaps, but Gasol didn't come to the Bulls on a below market value contract to play reduced minutes. He came to start for a contender and Thibs got him to an all-star game. If it was an issue, why didn't the front office and Jen Swanson put a minutes restriction on him? They are supposedly the experts on this front and the coach last season did what they told him to do. Anyway, the players are well rested now (except for Jimmy, he still is being "abused"). Now the issue of course is that the team isn't very good anymore and isn't a title contender with the same roster as last season. And that the star player is calling out the coach. And that Hoiball is one of the worst offenses in the league. Mirotic has taken a step back. McDermott has a PER under 11 after being "unleashed" from Thibs. (wow!) But Gasol is playing 4 fewer MPG. So we have that going for us. Woot.
Gasol is playing fewer MPG, on pace to be healthier in the post season, and the Bulls have virtually the same record they did last season. That's a step up, though not near as much of a step up as you would hope for. I've been happy with McDermott's progress though I think the lineups are still figuring out how to use him. The long range bombers that seem particularly valuable now days don't always fair well in terms of PER. Kyle Korver has never had a 15 PER even though I think he's at least an average wing. JJ Reddick's highest PER is 16.6 which he hit once. Doug's TS% of 56% is pretty darn good given his decent usage rate, and the fact that his teammates are still learning how to play with him, and he's still figuring out how to get open. I'm still very high on his prospects, if he can stay healthy.
We can both agree that Dougie is a very good shooter. Is he a very good NBA basketball player? That still remains to be seen. PERs of 6.1 and 10.7 as an older rookie starting out tend not to end up at very good, but anything can happen.
