Are the Chicago Bulls ready to be an offensive team once again?

Discussion in 'Chicago Bulls' started by Denny Crane, Aug 1, 2014.

  1. Denny Crane

    Denny Crane It's not even loaded! Staff Member Administrator

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    http://www.cbssports.com/nba/eye-on...ulls-ready-to-be-an-offensive-team-once-again

    Thibodeau is known as a defensive coach, and for justifiable reasons. No matter who has been in the regular rotation over the last four seasons, the Bulls have been the best defense in the NBA twice, the second best once, and their worst defensive effort landed them fifth in the NBA. But the combination of Thibodeau and next level Rose landed the Bulls as one of the better offensive teams in the league, as well.

    The year before Thibodeau took over the Chicago sidelines, the Bulls finished 28th in the NBA in offensive efficiency. In Thib's first season with the Bulls, they jumped up to the 12th best offense in the NBA. In 2011-12, the Bulls wielded the fifth best offense in the NBA while also throwing out the best defense in the league. A bit part of that was having Rose on the floor, and surrounding Rose with valuable offensive weapons helped tremendously. The 2011-12 team that finished fifth in offense was fourth in the NBA in 3-point accuracy and assist ratio (number of assists over 100 possessions). This team could move the ball and give Rose proper support.

    Once Rose went down, the front office skimped a bit on role players to round out the rotation and went fairly barebones about the offensive weapons on the team. Kyle Korver was allowed to leave and relying on Carlos Boozer and Luol Deng as the top options on offense led to a disaster. In 2012-13, the Bulls dropped to 24th in offensive efficiency. Last season, the Bulls were a putrid 28th on offense with Joakim Noah's passing the only thing keeping it from looking like a tanking team. The Bulls knew without Rose on the floor, they had to grind out games and win ugly contests.
     
  2. transplant

    transplant Global Moderator Staff Member Global Moderator

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    If they have reasonable health, this should easily be a top-10 offensive team.
     
  3. Denny Crane

    Denny Crane It's not even loaded! Staff Member Administrator

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    I expect an improvement over putrid.
     
  4. transplant

    transplant Global Moderator Staff Member Global Moderator

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    I bet when you saw the word "putrid," you just couldn't wait to see it in bold.

    Anyway, now that you got in the above clever quip, what's your real expectation for the Bulls' offense this coming season?
     
  5. Denny Crane

    Denny Crane It's not even loaded! Staff Member Administrator

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    I've written a number of times that people talk about Thibs like he's a defensive minded coach. He's a great defensive coach, but he's a great offensive coach, too. He'll play the offensive players over the defensive ones, if history is any indication.

    As I've also written, there's only one primary ballhandler type who can create his own shot in the lineup. I'm not expecting to see Brooks and Rose together much.

    The other guys, without Rose, were putrid. The game plan against the Bulls is take Rose out of the flow.

    A few fast break easy baskets would be a nice change.

    We'll see how it goes.
     
  6. Bullsville

    Bullsville Intelligent Bulls Fan

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    It's amazing that you can ask one simple question and get a 9-sentence reply that does pretty much nothing to answer the simple question you asked.

    Is that the sort of thing you were talking about when you made your "agenda" comment in another thread?

    Personally, as long as Rose stays healthy, and there are no other major injuries, I expect the Bulls to be top-5 in Offensive Efficiency this season.

    The last season Rose played more than 10 games, the offense ranked 5th in efficiency - and this year's team should be better on offense IMHO. On paper, anyway.

    Ronnie Brewer was 4th in total minutes on that team, and he was putrid on offense, with his .465 TS% and .275 on 3's. Deng led the team in minutes played and was 2nd in field goal attempts, and he was quite the inefficient scorer that season as well with his .500 TS%.

    Really, top-10 in OER should be good enough, the way this team defends. But IMHO, top-5 should be the goal, and it's not unrealistic at all.
     
  7. Denny Crane

    Denny Crane It's not even loaded! Staff Member Administrator

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    9 sentences of analysis too much for you big guy?
     
  8. kukoc4ever

    kukoc4ever Let's win a ring! Staff Member Moderator

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    Increasing the offensive efficiency in the regular season is great.

    If Rose is the old Rose and Dougie can play well out of the gate and Snell / Butler both improve we should we increased offensive efficiency. The addition of Gasol should help as well, one would think.

    The real question is did the Bulls build an offense to a state where they can win the NBA Championship?

    When the Bulls were last NBA Playoffs relevant, 3 years ago, the Bulls squared off against the Heat in the ECFs. This was when the Bulls roster was pretty stacked with good, established player depth at the 2/3. (Korver, CJ, Brewer)

    We probably all remember what was clearly the problem in that series down the stretch. Lebron could contain Rose on his own and the Bulls didn't have an answer for this - no second shot creator.

    That was a long time ago now. The Bulls signed the aging former champion Rip Hamilton who was hurt off and on the following season but appeared ready to go for a bit at least in the playoffs. Then Rose's knee ended the dream.

    So we're at where we're at today. Let's say the Bulls face off against the Cavs in the ECFs. Let's say Rose is the old Rose. (kind of a big if sadly) Lebron likely can still shut him down. Have the Bulls done anything to remedy this situation? The roster is now missing Deng and we used to have Korver remember (rookie dougie is likely a downgrade this season). The big addition in the off season was Gasol but in order for him to play down the stretch of games Gibson will have to be benched. I don't see Thibs doing that, but I guess we'll see. (perhaps offense / defense swaps down the stretch, but that's hard to pull off perfectly over the course of a say the last 5 minutes of a 4th quarter)
     
    Last edited: Aug 2, 2014
  9. kukoc4ever

    kukoc4ever Let's win a ring! Staff Member Moderator

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    Plays like this should help the offense :)

    [video=youtube;oFN01ugBMak]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oFN01ugBMak[/video]
     
  10. Denny Crane

    Denny Crane It's not even loaded! Staff Member Administrator

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    Terrific analysis, K4E.

    The thing is, we can't easily project what the team's ORtg and other advanced stats are going to be. It really all depends on who the Bulls play most of the time.

    If they're playing a lineup of Rose, Jimmy, Noah, Taj, and Dunleavy most of the time, they're not going to be that much better than last year. If you're expecting Rose to be the difference between last and top 10 in efficiency, then you may be in for a disappointment. Even in his MVP season, he wasn't even in the top 20 in shooting efficiency.

    [​IMG]

    Whether teams focused on him on defense opens up the offense for the other 4 on the court remains to be seen.

    It also remains to be seen if Gasol and Taj combined are as efficient as Boozer and Taj were in Rose's MVP season.

    We haven't seen Rose play in games that matter recently, and the last time we did, his numbers were rather poor. A PER under 10 even.

    We haven't seen if Mirotic and McBuckets can stay on the floor and score efficiently. I hope they are great. I wouldn't presume to assume they are before seeing them in games that matter.
     
  11. kukoc4ever

    kukoc4ever Let's win a ring! Staff Member Moderator

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    Would anyone be that surprised if Taj Gibson is better than 34 year old Pau Gasol and Mirotic this season? I would not be. And we know that Thibs values defense. (and its not like Taj can't stick the open mid range J and finish strong)

    The two main additions of the offseason, Gasol and Mirotic, both more offensive players than defensive players, very well may be on the bench during crunch time in playoff games, unless we end up going with quite a funky lineup.
     
  12. Denny Crane

    Denny Crane It's not even loaded! Staff Member Administrator

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    Thibs hasn't played his rookies starter's minutes. That said, it would be ideal, IMO, if he started Rose, Jimmy, Jo, McBuckets, and Mirotic AND the rookie forwards round into shape over the first 20 games.
     
  13. transplant

    transplant Global Moderator Staff Member Global Moderator

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    Appreciate the effort K4E.

    If, after all this time, Coach of the Year Thibodeau and MVP DRose can't figure out a way to beat the "big man on Rose" defense, they don't deserve to advance.
     
  14. Bullsville

    Bullsville Intelligent Bulls Fan

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    Exactly.

    Comparing this year's Bulls team to the one that lost in the 2011 ECF seems rather silly, since only Rose and Noah remain from that year's finishing lineup.

    And since LeBron no longer plays for the Heat. And since Irving, Waiters and Sideshow Bob aren't anywhere close to being in the same league as 2011-era Wade, Battier and Bosh on defense.

    I'm pretty sure Thibs is a better coach now than he was 4 years ago as a rookie. Ditto Noah and Gibson. Give me a future Hall of Famer in Gasol over Boozer all day long.

    Korver is no loss, because he did absolutely nothing in the 4th quarters of the 2011 ECF. I look forward to seeing Mirotic or McDermott out there instead.
     
    truebluefan likes this.
  15. rosenthall

    rosenthall Well-Known Member

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    I think the best way to answer these questions is to look at who the Bulls would have to leapfrog.

    I know we all know this, but it's worth pointing out that the Bulls really were terrible on offense last year.

    These were our neighbors at the bottom in offensive efficiency:

    Utah Jazz
    Milwaukee Bucks
    Chicago Bulls
    Boston Celtics
    Orlando Magic
    Philadelphia 76ers

    That's a pretty sorry bunch.

    Obviously I think we'll be much improved next year, so I don't think that comparison is very enlightening.

    Who would we have to leapfrog to get into the top 10?

    The top 10 offenses last year were:

    Clippers
    Heat
    Mavericks (this one surprised me....didn't realize they were that good).
    Rockets
    Trailblazers
    Spurs
    Thunder
    Suns
    Raptors
    Wolves

    I think we can have cautious optimism that we might be able to crack the bottom half of the top ten if things go well, but I think top 5 is going to be very tough.

    It's hard to see the Clips, Rockets, Trailblazers, Spurs, Thunder, or Suns moving all that much. Those are all offense first teams that largely have the same nucleus in place as last year. They were also all within 2 points/100 possessions of one another, so there's really not a whole lot separating them.

    Obviously Miami is going to take a hit. I wouldn't be surprised to see them drop out. Ditto Minnesota if they deal Love.

    Dallas and Toronto are harder to project.

    Dallas as the #3 offense in the league strikes me as overachieving and reliant on a fading Dirk. But they're an extremely well coached team and I think the addition of Parsons will help them more than the loss of Calderon. (I think....Parsons is the bigger name, but Calderon is one of those players that's highly regarded around the league despite not having a lot of recognition). Never the less, you'd think they could have a good year and still fall a few notches on the totem pole.

    Toronto was #8, but their offensive efficiency was closer to the #14 team than the #6 team (the Thunder). Their roster looks like it's going to be very similar to what they had last year.....I'm not sure if I should think that's good or bad for our chances.

    Thibodeau offenses have consistently had very good ball movement and egalitarian scoring loads. An under reported fact about the Bulls is that they've always been top 5 in assisted field goals since he took over the team. I don't think selfish play will be an issue either.

    The big "ifs" are Derrick's play and how much shooting we'll actually get out of Snell, McDermott, and Mirotic.
     
  16. truebluefan

    truebluefan Administrator Staff Member Administrator

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    Love your take on the Bulls!

    We did love Deng, however, Butler takes the sting out of that!

    I think Gasols length playing with Noah is going to five teams problems.

    We never had Dunleavy on the 2011 team, ditto for Mirotic, and McDermott.

    I can't wait to see what we can do!
     

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