...is Noah the starting center or is Gasol? From what I'm seeing, Gasol's defending the other team's biggest/slowest guy and is the Bulls' primary rim defender. I noticed that in the TV introductions on WGN last night, Gasol characterized himself as a "power forward/center" while Noah simply said "center." This is sort of an iffy thing, particularly if the two teams both have big men who play both positions. How do you think this should work? How do you think it will work?
I think the obvious guy to defend their guy is the guy who should. You can play C on offense and PF on defense. Gasol's defensive weakness may mean he guards the weaker of the PF/C. Or if their PF is really mobile (like Nene), Noah is the better guy to guard hime.
Gasol has been better at center for two years or so now. Noah and Gasol are interchangeable IMO. It's awesome having Gasol on the team defensively because we can bench the majority of our starters and have him and Gibson play good defense together on the floor.
Should we just ignore positional stats until we understand how the statisticians are categorizing the positions?
It's not clear that there are true positions in the NBA anymore. You have a 6'9" 260lb guy who handles like a PG and scores like Jordan. In Jordan's time, that guy would have been a post up PF. In fact, I think the Bulls' championship teams led that trend. I'd argue Jordan played PF (he scored in the post, on the block) on offense, Pippen played PG on offense (led the team in assists, initiated all the plays, dribbled up court). Playing Jordan at PF was brilliant, as no defensive PF could guard him on the wing and no wing could guard him in the post. BUT Pippen mostly guarded the SF and Jordan mostly guarded the SG. So the positions blur even on offense and defense. Boozer was Noah's primary backup at C last year, even though he's a 6'8" PF with poor mobility.
I agree that the determining factor is not where you play on offense, but who you defend. However, is a Bulls opppondnt who is defending Gasol defending a center or a power forward? I'm perfectly willing to disregard positional differences, but some fans continue to insist that this player of that is "being played out of position" (e.g., Butler at SG rather than SF). Sent from my Venue 8 Pro 5830 using Tapatalk
I don't agree where you play on D is your position. There are really two general positions: bigs and wings.
On the Bulls it looks to me like there're bigs, wings and point guards, right? I feel like KH is playing two positions when he slides to wing. As to the original post, it's not just the starting lineup. Thibs has been switching Mirotic and Gibson against opposing centers and power forwards to see what sticks. I wouldn't be shocked if this is a point of emphasis for him this season: as in, he's trying consistently to not just default to position and is trying to see what works best against each opponent.
As an aside, did you see that Kidd put five forwards out on the court in the game on Saturday. I think he had a lineup of Ilyasova, Henson, Giannis, Parker and Dudley.
The Bulls used to trot out 6'7" Pippen, 6'7" Jordan, 6'7" Rodman, and 6'7" Ron Harper. Any one of them could have guarded Magic Johnson, no? The championship season, these guys were between 6'6" and 6'8": Booth, Buechler, Burrel, Caffey, Harper, Jordan, Pippen, Rodman, Simpkins, Vaughn. Those who weren't that size: Brown, Kerr, Kleine, Kukoc, LaRue, Wennington.
I think Gasol will generally take the bigger, less mobile defensive assignments that make it easier for him to camp out close to the basket. Noah will spend more time chasing people around pick n' rolls. Most of the time that probably means Gasol will qualify as the C, but I agree the positions are blurred in this case. One of the nice things about Gasol's defense is that, while it's not altogether very good, he definitely has a few spots on D where he can butter his bread which makes it much easier to "hide" him on defense than Boozer, who was a non-factor no matter where you put him.
Hey guys, if it counts, Gasol talked about his defensive role. judging from Thibs' comments, he's really pushing Gasol to evolve into an effective defensive player, even more so now that he will (at times) anchor the team down in the post.
I agree guys, we have bigs and wings. Gasols defense is better than the fan base as a whole thought it was. He defends the rim quite well.