8.7 Points on 51.6 TS% in ~28 MPG His defense has been solid. It was extraordinarily good his first few games back, but has gotten very mediocre since. The jerking of Gordon's role to make room for Kirk Hinrich's 28 MPG role has obviously affected Gordon for the worst. Given Hinrich's production, the decrease in Gordon's role is not justified. Kirk Hinrich is scoring at a low volume since coming back. Almost all of the shots he takes are wide open, yet his scoring efficiency is still poor. He is a point guard, just like our newly anointed franchise player. He isn't playing that well and he is expensive, yet somehow is reportedly pretty high trade value wise. This is the one guy that needs to be moved at the trade deadline. He absolutely needs to go. It's obvious he has no future here that will be bountiful, so there is no use forcing him into a future here. Ben Gordon might have a future here, is the better talent, and the team is clearly better off long term imo, without both Hinrich and Gordon than with just Hinrich. It was clear that Kirk Hinrich needed to go this summer and it's even clearer now. John Paxson has to do this, otherwise the probability is high that the Bulls will lose a #3 overall pick, their leading scorer for the past 4 seasons, and top scorer from his draft class for absolutely nothing, all over Kirk Hinrich, who isn't that good at basketball.
Man, you may find yourself best served by taking a step back every once and a while. Of course Hinrich is playing poorly. He was out for like three months. You don't come back from that in five games. It's going to take him a full month before he's back in the swing of things. And I hate it when people rip on players who are coming off injuries. Weren't you one of the one's saying that about Deng a week ago? It's just bad form.
The guy who's gotten no playing time is Hughes. The Bulls are in a losing rut. Nothing wrong with shaking things up when a guy gets back from injury. Plus, you have to see what everyone on the team can do when everyone is healthy. When you're not looking like a playoff contender, you may as well evaluate the roster to see who should stay and who should go. At this point, the Bulls may or may not be able to re-sign Gordon. If they have no intention to, they may as well not play him at all.
Since Hinrich has been back he's had two bad games in 9 games, and one meh game last night. 6 of those games he shot 40% or better. Not coincidently, while continuing to average ~34mpg and play the most, or second most minutes in most games, BG has had 5 games shooting less 40% on much higher volume. Hinrich has had 44 asts to 18 TOs, 2.44 ast/TO; BG has had 34 asts to 27 for 1.26 ast/TO. Hinrich is a much more versatile player who's scoring numbers would go up if he looked for his shot more. Hinrich has done an excellent job of being the sixth man and IMO would be a better option to start next to Rose (but you probably knew that ;-)). BG's problems are related to BG, not Hinrich. If BG needs to play 40+ minutes per night to be an effective player, he needs to go somewhere else. And you don't see teams gameplanning to exploit Hinrich, either. BG's continued to start and continues to be generally poor in the beginning of games, a few notable exceptions not withstanding. There is absolutely no way to blame BG's poor play of late on Hinrich or anybody else except BG.
Gordon's been getting hurt by being taken out for Hinrich at any little mistake, being taken out for Hinrich when he is on a hot streak, and having Hinrich play over him in the fourth quarter. Kirk Hinrich looking for his shot more would be scary. He's already at 51.6 TS% when taking mostly wide open shots. If he started forcing up more shots, his scoring efficiency would be scarily bad. What Hinrich is doing since coming back from injury is playing like Classic Kirk. That is an inefficient scorer. 2006-2007 was Kirk's only year with a good scoring efficiency, otherwise he's been bad. We now know that the probability of that being the real Kirk is very low. There are a few things you have to consider with Kirk Hinrich. 1. He's not a good offensive player. 2. He's solid to good as a defensive player. 3. He is a point guard. 4. He is not a good fit next to Derrick Rose. 5. Despite all this, he still has some trade value. Not trading Kirk as a result of some dumbfounded love for him will only end up screwing this team over.
I agree it's bad form, but I also agree that in some ways moving Kirk and Noc is a bigger priority than moving Hughes. If we send Hughes him, at the end of the day, so the hell what. He's off the books after next year. Kirk and Noc are long-term boondoggles for this team, regardless of what one thinks about them as individual players. I mean, even if/when Gordon is gone and Hughes is sent packing, I don't see Kirk as any sort of fit for playing next to Rose. Kirk is (more or less) a PG and good enough he could fetch something that could help us at another position. And we need help.
Strangely, the "struggling because he returned from injury" meme seems hard to fit. He started off with his better performances and is trending down. It ought to be the other way around.
Yeah, that is a disturbing trend. But Kirk is a way better sixth man than BG because he can accept the role and can play both guard positions well. BG is a one trick pony who isn't doing his trick particularly well right now. And Kirk is much better next to Rose if for no other reason than he can take defensive and ball handling pressure off of Rose. If BG isn't scoring, he isn't helping anybody. And if you can't sit a guy when he is screwing up, then you pretty much can forget about winning. Complaining about pulling BG when he isn't playing well is about the lamest thing I can think of. Every player needs to be accountable. BG really should have been pulled sooner in a lot of recent games, but VDN has left in both in the hopes that he will snap out of it and not to embarrass him. If BG doesn't start playing better he's going to be a total loss because there won't be any market for him other than taking somebody's MLE. And you don't sign and trade a guy for the MLE. So BG needs to play better for both the bulls and himself otherwise this is truly a pointless discussion.
