Chicago Bulls Rumors @chicagobullsbot Chicago Bulls Derrick Rose, Jimmy Butler, Mike Dunleavy, Pau Gasol, Joakim Noah started today and likely to be the starters on opening night
Chicago Bulls@chicagobulls Thibodeau singled out Gasol, Butler, Brooks, Hinrich and Gibson for their performances in this morning's practice.
Sam Smith@SamSmithHoops Thibs Thursday report card: "Pau was very good. Jimmy was very, very, very good. Aaron Brooks played well, Kirk played well.Taj came to life
Sam Smith@SamSmithHoops Rose/Brooks race? “Am I faster than Derrick? Probably line-to-line I might be just as fast as him, but he’s definitely more explosive."
Sam Smith@SamSmithHoops Pau's nickname, according to Aaron Brooks: "Pau – we call him Paul … Pau and Taj playing well, and Jo is Jo."
ESPN player rankings has Dunleavy at #150. Divide by 30 teams and that makes him the 5th best player on the worst team in the league. That's not very good for a starter, even if he's our 5th best/option/whatever. As 6th man, though, he's pretty darned good. As 7th man (Taj is 6th), he's really good. So I'm saying maybe we should start McBuckets.
Dunleavy's a placeholder. I'm not surprised he's the starter now and expect he'll be the starter on opening night. I'll be surprised if he's starting in January. Agree that Dunleavy's a weak starter. He's a strength coming off the bench.
Read Thonus' last two blog posts about the rookies. He makes a good point: If we don't play the rookies, we've effectively swapped Boozer, Deng, and DJ for Gasol. Compared to the ECF team we had, not as good on paper. On the other hand, I fail to see the harm in starting McBuckets. There's no upside to starting Dunleavy. It's hard to fathom that McBuckets would contribute less, and he doesn't need to contribute much. The upside is he turns out to be an elite rookie, worthy of everything we gave up to get him. The downside is he surely will contribute more than Dunleavy. I guess the real downside is he turns out to be the second coming of Adam Morrison, but better to find out right away? If Mirotic is as seasoned as euro fans tell me, then he really should get Taj's minutes.
Like you, I'm pulling for DMcDermott to start, but you're being too hard on Dunleavy IMO. Scoring 13 points per-36 on .549 True Shooting ain't bad for a 3rd or 4th offensive option. He also takes good care of the ball.
His 12.6 PER says he didn't do much of anything well but shoot. His TS% says he was good for 4 buckets a game, roughly 3 of those from 3pt at a good/not great .380 clip. If McBuckets can't shoot .380 from 3pt, we wasted the pick and everything we gave up to get that pick, no? My expectation is he'll shoot over .400 for his career. His career starts game 1
And as Buddy Ryan famously (and disparagingly) said about wide receiver, Chris Carter, "All he does is catch touchdowns."
If you're disparaging Dunleavy's defensive expertise, I'm throwing the flag. Dunleavy was surprisingly adequate on defense last season.
He was not so surprisingly embarrassed whenever he had to guard a man one-on-one. His DRtg was higher than Boozer. Go figure.
Oh, you stat-o-phile you. Boozer's DRtg was not only better than Dunleavy's, but also better than everyone on the Bulls other than Noah and Nazr Mohammed...better than All-NBA Defensive Team second-teamer Jimmy Butler. Dunleavy's 102 DRtg was equal to defensive stalwarts Luol Deng and Kirk Hinrich.
I think it says more about Thibs' schemes than about Dunleavy's defensive ability. If you watched the games, he was burned repeatedly. His best defense is being tall and sometimes in the right place at the right time. Like I said, I don't see how McBuckets can be any worse.
Yet you've used Boozer's DRtg repeatedly to defend him, never attributing it to Thibodeau's scheme. Yes, I watched the games and yes, when Dunleavy was isolated against an athletic wing, he sometimes was beaten. We don't need to demean Dunleavy to call for McDermott. Dunleavy is a good player. Maybe the difference between the two of us on this issue is that you seem to firmly believe that DMcDermott is better than Dunleavy right now while I hope that DMcDermott is better than Dunleavy right now. Obviously, you put your "gut" over actual performance since we have yet to see McDermott perform in a NBA game. I prefer the "ready-aim-fire" method over the "ready-fire-aim" method. All I'm saying is that we should let DMcDermott win the job (or not) based on his on-court performance.
It seems TThibs' defensive schemes were not harmed by bad defenders, even three old guys at the same time who started for us. McBuckets ain't going to hurt us any more than Boozer did. I don't know if McBuckets is better now. All I know is he better be better, and the sooner the better. You better get what I mean