Wednesday, January 16, 2013

Another Year, Another TT Rant

One thing I feel bad about, in terms of not writing very much this year, is not being able to acknowledge that Boozer isn't a complete waste of space this year. In fact, I don't mind seeing him in at the end of games this year, as his improved offensive game (both going to the basket more and hitting his turnaround fadeaway more consistently) at least makes up for the (less-frequent) defensive lapses. Sometimes it's infuriating, because he's still not worth $15 mil, but he might be playing just well enough not to get amnestied this offseason.

Taj has definitely suffered as a result. I don't feel like Taj is the type of guy to get paid and stop trying, so I feel like his regression is at least partially a result of less consistent playing time from last year. I fully expected Taj's minutes to go up from last year, but he's basically stayed the same, averaging 20.2 this year, after 20.4 last year. Considering there's one less viable big man in Chicago, that means all of Asik's minutes are being divvied up among Jo and Boozer, which might be why the Bulls are having such a hard time holding leads late in games this year.

Of course, maybe Asik should have gotten more credit for the 2nd unit defense last year. Taj hasn't looked like the player he was last year at all. In bits and pieces, sure, but overall he's making more mistakes defensively and letting up rebounds he never gave up last season.

But that's not why we're here. We're here because TT is somehow getting worse. He seems to have little sense of who to play and when, or how to build any sort of momentum. It's pretty common knowledge at this point that the Bulls haven't won more than 3 games in a row all season, and I'm looking straight at TT for this problem. His rotations seem to be made using the opposite of logic. Anyone remember JFB playing out of his mind against the Heat? Then he plays 10 minutes the next game against Cleveland. He played a season-low 6 minutes tonight in a game where it might have helped to have someone playing perimeter defense. Kirk Hinrich is useless about half the time, NateRob swings from helpful to a huge detriment in the span of seconds, but Marquis Teague can't get off the bench unless Kirk is in street clothes.

Let's take, for example, Marco's minutes tonight. Rip was on fire in the 3rd quarter. 5 of 6 from the field, and getting pretty much whatever he wanted. Then Marco comes in at the start of the 4th quarter and basically plays like the opposite of that. Useless on offense and defense, and couldn't even be counted on to dribble the ball competently (for the 2nd game in a row.) So does TT go back to Rip to try to continue the hot hand? Go to Jimmy to play some lockdown defense and shut down their scorers?

Nope. Not only does Marco play the whole 4th (going 1 for 7 from the field, and 2-4 from the line down the stretch,) TT decided to run the final two plays for him. They both failed, and only through Toronto incompetence did they escape to overtime. Finally at the end of overtime TT called the play he should have in the first place (Iso for Deng.)

TT's faith in players that aren't helping is infuriating. It's not Boozer so much anymore, but he still can't manage to get his 5 best players on the court at the same time. Even if that 5 is more fluid these days, he still can't figure out pieces to use that make sense at the same time. And every 3rd or 4th game the Bulls drop a winnable game to a team they should beat. They tried again tonight, but the Raptors were feeling generous. It's still frustrating to sit through, though.

Come back and save us, Derrick!

Monday, January 7, 2013

A Carlos Boozer Flowchart

As you can clearly see, I have very little time to blog these days. But every now and then, I find 10 minutes to make a flowchart about Carlos Boozer. Here it is below:

It's pretty self-explanatory, really.