What exactly
makes a team bad? Is it the players, the
front office, the coaching staff or some combination thereof? With the Bulls, I’d start with the
coach. Who hired Fred Hoiberg to replace
Tom Thibodeau? That’s right, the same
front office that assembled this roster.
If Thibodeau
expected too much from his players, Hoiberg looks satisfied with the barest of
efforts. For going onto two seasons now,
I’ve watched Bulls’ players unable to fight off a screen or to set one, for
that matter. If there’s an offensive
scheme, it seems to consist of four guys hanging back while Jimmy Butler tries
to go five against one. That doesn’t
produce many points.
On the other
side of the ledger, the Bulls now employ what I call middle-school defense,
with two or three players chasing after whoever has the ball; this leads to a
lot of passes to open players, who make their shot more often than not; that
would explain last night’s stretch against the Rockets, when Houston went on a
33-2 run from in the second third quarters.
So, it’s hard to say for sure what kind of talent the team has because
no one’s being coached.
Watch and listen
to Fred Hoiberg, and he comes off as another Robin Ventura—calm deprecating
and, ultimately, clueless. You’d almost
think Jerry Reinsdorf hired both of them.
Oh, wait, he did.
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