I'm not seeing many pundits saying the Bulls are even the 2nd best team in the East. Even the ones that have us knocking off the Heat have us losing to Indy in the next round. Rose shot 10+ FTs in several preseason games. Sounds like he's changed his game to be more shot selective, to draw contact and shoot FTs, and to make the pass to Deng or Boozer for easy buckets. He could score 30+ this year. Hinrich is our backup PG and SG. He's also brittle. We all know Thibs. When Kirk misses 30+ games! those are 30+ that Rose and Butler will play all 48; more if OT. I bet Jimmy logs decent minutes at PG. We're effectively playing one guard and four forwards whenever Noah sits. OT one guard and three forwards with Noah out there. We could see a five forward lineup of Butler, Deng, Boozer, Taj and Dunleavy. Noah hasn't exactly been an iron man the past few seasons. We could be seeing Erik Murphy a lot. Without Noah: Boozer 42, Nazr 12, Taj 42 for 96 minutes? Deng can play PF, so you'd play Dunleavy a bunch. Mike Dunleavy has really good 82games.com stats. He always seemed way too slow at SG and still too slow at SF. Maybe not so much against opponents' 2nd units.
No doubt injuries will play a big role this year. I think we're great 1-8, but thin 9-12, so if we have to tap into the bottom of the roster we might be hurting. I'm hoping at least 1 of Murphy, Snell, or Teague steps up and becomes a legit NBA player by years end. That'd help ease the pain a bit. So far I like the Dunleavy signing. I think he'll fit right in. He's a savvy player and has a knack for doing the right thing at the right time. He sough us out because of our team culture and it looks like the Bulls and him are natural pairs. I have no idea what to expect of Thibs and the minutes/injuries dilemma. The guy clearly has his priors about how things ought to be done, but management seems ready to put their foot down about this. (In fact, I wonder if the whole Jen Swanson thing is just a way to give GarPax the clout necessary to override Thibs' minute distributions.....sort of like a corporate consulting kind of thing). To me the issue isn't minutes so much as how injuries are handled. Our guys are relatively young and capable of playing large minutes if they're healthy (with the exception of Kirk and Nazr). And I'm of the opinion that the best way to get guys accustomed to playing heavy minutes is just to play them heavy minutes. But the issue is whether or not they're being pushed over the edge when they're "on the mend" which might allow injuries to linger on.
