Nothing that's worth anything. Joakim Noah is really tall. The game felt really disjointed to me. I was expecting a loss to be honest. This wasn't as bad as the Denver back to back . . . but crossing three timezones for a 1:00 pm start? That's a recipe for a disaster the Bulls somehow avoided.
A couple general observations though: -- Niko grabbed three offensive boards against the Celtics, which may not sound like a lot, but he actually had only grabbed six total the entire season. I think it was partially by design. Before the Celtics game, you could see him dash back the moment a shot went up. Mirotic's defensive rebounding percentage, 26.1%, was a full six points better than the second best rookie, Nerlens Noel. While his offensive rebounding percentage was an abysmal 3.0%, only a half point better than Shabazz Napier. Now, I wonder if Thibs has given Mirotic the green light to crash the offensive boards. I think they're sending their twos and threes back on defense instead: Dunleavy, McDermott, Kirk Hinrich (and I think but am not certain) Jimmy Butler. I'm not sure what this all means, beside the fact that I think we can expect to see more offensive rebounding out of Mirotic. I'm hoping it means we can see Niko work more out of the post on offense. This team is still a work in progress. --Watching Jared Sullinger develop makes me think that it's impossible to project players with any type of certainty. That dude was a great college center who made hay by muscling around smaller competition in the post. But as a prospect, he was short and slow and didn't have one aspect of his game that he could execute at a pro level. So he gets drafted late in the first round, goes to the pros and complete remakes both his physique and his playing style. Sullinger lost a crap ton of weight to the point where he doesn't even look like the same person, and in turn, he gained a lot of foot speed. He honed his jumper so that he somewhat consistent on long twos and he's developing his three point stroke. More than that, now he has this burgeoning face up game and his handle actually looks okay. Sullinger is only in his third season in the league, and he's somehow averaging 16.0 ppg, 8.4 rpg, and shooting .479. Those numbers are inflated given the talent gap on the Celtics but you can't deny that he's an honest to goodness pro player. I didn't see that coming.
Sullinger was basically playing like a SG out there. A really, really big one, but I don't think I saw him try and do big man things once the entire game.
I guess the thing that makes me shake my head is trying to envision Danny Ainge's thought process: yeah, he doesn't have one aspect of his game that translates, but I think he can lose 60 lbs and I think he can learn to shoot, and I think he can learn to handle and play stretch four . . . so let's draft him because he'll be pretty good a couple of years from now. How does that work? Not to mention that he was picked 21st. You can usually still find players with skills that will directly translate at 21. Why did Ainge think that Sullinger would be better than the other players available and how on earth was he right?
Sullinger has and always has had a knack for rebounding. He's a legit 6-9 and has long arms. He was overweight. He needed to fix that and he fixed that. i wasn't wild about him coming out of OSU and certainly didn't see him adding SF skills to his game. Kudos to the Celtics for taking the risk on him.
Butler, Rose carry Bulls past Celtics 109-102 It's no secret that the Chicago Bulls are a much better team with a healthy Derrick Rose. He showed that again on Friday afternoon when the Bulls were struggling to get consistent offense. Rose scored 14 of his 21 points in the second half -- 12 coming early in the third quarter -- to help the Bulls pull away for a 109-102 win over the Boston Celtics. Read more http://scores.espn.go.com/nba/recap?gameId=400578515
I agree with your sentiments and I think its even possible you (and Doc Rivers) overstate things a little about Sullinger as a college prospect. Sullinger was listed at 6' 7.75" without shoes and had a 7' 1.25" wingspan at the combine. That's a size smaller than Boozer, 6'9" 7'2" and Mirotic, 6'10, 7'1", and put him squarely in the stretch four camp. I think you're right that Sullinger is a good rebounder, but his per 36s and advanced rebounding numbers are mundane. I think a lot of that has to do with the fact that he is a stretch four and is being asked to play away from the hoop quite a bit. I guess my problem with pointing toward Sullinger's rebounding as a draft rationale, as Doc did, is that I'm not certain you draft stretch fours because of their rebounding abilities. Poor rebounding may keep them off the court, but don't think it's something you point to and say, "well he's going to get minutes because he can board."
