Noah's knee is going to be a problem all season long. So they said. It seems like it's more than just a problem, it seems to be holding him back. Sure he's putting up decent numbers, but he's 8th on the team in points scored, his assists are way down, his minutes are down (big deal, actually), and his FG% is a retched .429. His offensive rebounding seems to not be helping as much as in past years, and is down at 3.2/game. His PER is a shockingly low 12.9. His ORtg is only surpassed on this team for futility by Kirk (93 vs 90). Taj's PER is amazing at 21.2. In fact, we have 5 guys with PER over 20, which I don't expect to last (Brooks at 23.0?). Speaking of the golden one, his PER is 9. Over under for the season: 10?
Butler's mpg is third in the league behind two Cavs - Lebron and Kyrie. I'm liking their new Euro-Coach. Wow! It took 7 whole games before Hinrich's PER made an appearance on this forum. Couldn't be because two games ago it was at 16 or so...nah.
I agree with this. Whenever this gets raised I always like to look at the NBA leaders in MPG. http://espn.go.com/nba/statistics/player/_/stat/minutes/sort/avgMinutes We have one guy in the top 10, one guy at #30. Does not seem too cRaZy. If anything, this is the first time I've seen Thibs work with a minutes restriction before, with both Rose and Noah. Maybe Pau is getting a few too many minutes, but that's more to do with Gibson and Noah missing time. I agree with this.
Taj has looked very passive on defense compared to year's past. Since his first year he was always a guy that you could count on to bring hustle plays, get to loose balls, etc. Hasn't been the case this year. His offense has looked great. If he's playing on a bad wheel, it hasn't stopped his from scoring at an all time high clip in his most minutes/year to date. I doubt his defense has to do with physical ailments. He's either gone into "veteran" mode where he prioritizes maintaining his health over diving after every loose ball, or like you alluded to, maybe he just feels less of a need to prove himself these days. I think it's one reason why the team has struggled with rebounding and hustle so far this season. An underrated one, in fact. Taj is 1/2 of our defensive core and if he's in cruise control then the team's motor will suffer. Agree that neither of those guys are going to blossom into superstars this year. For the positions they're in I think both are doing fine, but you're right that neither one is going to win the expectations game this year. This quote for some reason made me remember a unique difference between Skiles and Thibs. Do any of you guys remember Skiles' willingness to throw out goofy lineups when things weren't working? He seemed willing to experiment with oddball combinations on a game-by-game basis, and he'd occasionally clear out the starters when they were playing like shit with end-of-bench guys just to get some energy in the game and send them the message "Fuck you, if you won't play like you mean it then I'll find others who will." He didn't do it too often, but it seemed pretty effective when he did. I have a few nostalgic moments of Pike-Nocioni-Othella Harrington-Chris Duhon lineups in the third quarters of important games where you were going "huh?" but it was a good way to change tempo. Thibs does not seem to have this tendency as a coach at all.
I think that this is the kind of high school / college coaching stuff that loses a veteran NBA team in a hurry. There are some key differences between Thibs and Skiles and one of them is that Thibs can work with all types of NBA players. Skiles seemed to do better with young guys or marginal guys where those kind of tactics would work for a while. But just for a while. There are reasons why Skiles didn't accomplish much as a head coach and is basically out of the league. This is one of them, IMO.
I am not alarmed by players playing big minutes. Many of the all-time greats played big minutes. I've written that a few times now... The minutes really need to be consistent to develop the younger guys. As 4th and 5th options on the 2nd unit, they're not going to grow so much.
