Trib: Cavaliers coach sings praises of Bulls' Nikola Mirotic

The MVP is coming to america to be 3rd string PF. How's he going to accept that?

You'd think Gasol and Taj would be #1 and #2 (or #2 and #1) at the position.

 

I look for the Bulls to move Gibson at the deadline if, if Mirotic meets all of the hype. Taj won't be dumped, a quality player will come back.

 

The minutes for Mirotic have got to be few.

Noah 36, Taj 36, Gasol 24 leaves ZERO.

Cut Noah and Taj to 30 and there's only 12 for Mirotic.

 

We could go big. Gibson can guard a SF. Play Mirotic in limited minutes at SF, let him guard the pf.

 

Anybody know how many minutes, if any, Pau has played at center over the past couple of years?

 

82games.com is the only site I know of that reports on this. As you may have read on this site, some of their by-position #s are curious.

Last season, 82games has Gasol at 12% PF and 60% C. For 2012-13, the site has him at 29% PF and 12% C. I don't know what the percentages apply to, hence the curiosity. However, the relative proportions make some sense, that is, that Gasol played mostly PF two seasons ago when Dwight Howard manned the C position for the Lakers, but he was moved to mostly C when Howard left for Houston.

 

I can't seem to get worked up about the big man rotation. I think Gasol's played like a 4-5 tweener for a while, leaning center, and those playing time stats if reliable seem to bear that out. I also think Taj is a more natural power forward but is more than capable of playing either position. I think he played very little center last season, but I'm under the impression that was due to Boozer's inability to guard power forwards and not Taj's weakness at guarding centers. That leaves a lot of options. I think this will all work itself out relatively painlessly

 

Gasol's been a C for most of his career. But 2 of the past 3 seasons he played PF for the Lakers.

 

Centers are generally taller and slower than PFs. In the twilight of his career, Gasol will most likely be guarding centers most of the time.

 

He basically replaced Shaq in the triangle for PJax in LA.

He brings championship experience to the team as a key player, something the other players do not have.

 

Thonus wrote an article about the big man rotation here: http://www.chicagonow.com/chicago-b...-the-chicago-bulls-make-use-of-jumbo-lineups/

Lots of comments on it. Interesting read.

 

Thonus is as much an authority as the pimple on my ass.

Actually I don't have a pimple but you get my drift.

 

He's interesting to read and his blog posts get quite a few comments.

 

Ok.

 

I don't think I agree with any of the Thonus article. First off I reject the premise that you can't run with four bigs. The Bulls were just fine when they had Asik. And that's not even counting the inevitable injuries the roster will experience during the course of the season. But the bigger problem is Mirotic's greatest weakness in Europe was guarding three-ish tweener power forwards. He does fine guarding bigger players but doesn't fair particularly well against perimeter orientated power forwards. He's gong to have to get better at that with the way Thibs makes his big switch on to smalls. At the very least, I don't think you design a lineup which emphasizes that weakness.

 

Asik's minutes were so limited he bolted to a situation where he could start. FWIW.

Which of our 4 bigs gets the 14 MPG? Will they be happy with that?

 

nm.

 

This is also an interesting thread to re-read.

 

+1

 

Yeah, it's interesting on several fronts. A number of posters swinging big sticks and (in retrospect) missing.

I'm going to go way out on a limb and say that we can make the call on Mirotic now...he's worth the $5mil/year.