Wade still he game. He can't carry a team, but he can do it from time to time. Lopez is a legit NBA center. Rondo is a playmaking PG in the prime of his career. Kudos to the FO for the above acquisitions. Butler is a very good NBA player, but needs to play with his new teammates. McDermott fits nicely with his new teammates and has improved his defense and rebounding. Mirotic is critical to the success of the team, but he looks lost most times. For me, this is the scariest situation on the Bulls roster. No one else on the roster has impressed me.
My big takeaway is that our offense has looked fine but the defense has looked weak. Based on preseason I'd say our offense has a ceiling of being top 5, but our defense's is much lower.......probably middle of the pack, with a decent chance of being terrible. Wade kind of reminds me of late-career Dirk. Ever thinning margins of error on his game, but just enough mojo to keep on doing it. The key thing to pay attention to is how often he can still hit his high notes. If he can bottle that up from time to time then his presence here should be a positive even if his day-to-day play suffers. I'm really enjoying having Rondo on the team. Someone older than I am might correct me, but I think he's the best distributing point guard the team has ever had. It's nice seeing guy who's good at hitting players in their spots. Niko, Taj and Doug are all guys that can attack from different spots on the floor, but have never played with someone who was good at finding them in their spots. Even our backups were always shoot-first microwave guys. Besides the defense, I think a big problem might be that Jimmy Butler doesn't know how to play with the team yet. Him and Wade are a bad fit together. I'm concerned they might be the new version of Pau and Noah. Two really good players that probably ought to be separated on the floor but won't due to hierarchy and ego. Still remains to be seen if Hoiberg can coach an NBA team. I'm still much higher on the team than the mainstream media, who I think are focusing too much on our shooting and not enough on our upgrade in talent. Between Rondo, Wade, Jimmy, MCW and Valentine we should have two ball handlers on the floor at all times, something we haven't really had since the Jordan years.
I've never been able to learn much from the preseason. Wade doesn't look done, so that's good. If the Bulls make the playoffs it would be nice for him to be fresh and be able to perform at a high level. Then again, noone expects the Bulls to really make a championship run, so what's the point? He'll be a good leader I hope. But there are not really any meaningful young players to groom. Mirotic and McDermott don't seem to be impact players. Portis? Valentine? Maybe. Maybe help Butler mature a bit more and lead a team "the right way." Rondo has put up some of the best assist percentage numbers all-time in the NBA. http://www.basketball-reference.com/leaders/ast_pct_season.html There are not really any Bulls PGs that are close (unless you count Greg Anthony). EDIT: CHECK THAT Ennis Whatley! http://www.basketball-reference.com/players/w/whatlen01.html Go to 3M mark for Bulls Ennis magic. Stay off the drugs kids. http://articles.chicagotribune.com/1992-06-03/sports/9202190316_1_ennis-whatley-bulls-guard ---- Hoiberg is still an unknown. His supposed style doesn't fit this roster. I'm pretty sure Thibs (or a coach of his caliber) would be able to adjust style and motivate these guys to get the most out of them. This is an odd collection of talent though to compete in the 3 point happy modern NBA. That being said, the Bulls are not following the path of the Warriors right now. They are doing something different. Its hard to verbalize what exactly it is. But, if it works, they will look like geniuses!
transplant good thread, good post. I agree. I will add Zipser is a much better player than I had imagined. Surprised me at both ends of the floor and quite possibly could be one of the reasons we traded Snell. Hoiberg is a question mark. He now has a team that can move the ball. We will see if he is a good coach or not this season.
I agree with K4E that it's tough to draw anything from the preseason. There were a couple plays against the Pacers where the Bulls were rotating the ball all over the perimeter and I thought, those passing lanes aren't going to be there in the regular season. Lopez looks like a great pickup. I think he's the most complete center we've had in a long while. I think you can win with him. All of the new acquisitions are interesting, really. The roster needed an influx of talent and got it. I think this year shows how weird John Paxson's "Cut of your Jib" early 2000s era was. He seems like he has completely shifted course and now is acquiring talented but temperamental players.
K4E made the point that GarPax are GM'ing as if they're in NBA 2k. Single mindedly trying to accumulate talent by upgrading guys rated 6.5 for guys rated 7, without much thought to fit. It's a good analogy. Certainly hasn't been their MO in the past, so I'm curious to see how it turns out. This team is really..........curious. I honestly think we could win somewhere between 35-53 wins depending on how things turn out.
Agree. This team has a wide range. This is both because of the roster and coaching as well as what the other teams in the East play like.
I think they could even go lower than 35 wins if injuries strike, and the team gives up on Holberg like they did last season. Lot of moving parts on this team.
