Mirotic hitting the rookie wall

[dougthonus]

As far as entitlement minutes, let's look at two players:
Player A in January: 6.1p 26.1mpg 43%fg 33% 3p Mediocre to above average defense
Player B in January: 6.9p 17.5mpg 34%fg 23% 3p Poor defense

The Bulls board wants player A killed basically but yet the minutes player B is getting is fine? Player A is supposedly getting veteran entitlement minutes yet player B isn't getting entitlement minutes for playing worse? I'm somewhat confused.

1: I disagree strongly with your view of player A's defense. It has been poor to average.

2: Look at these advanced metrics on the season comparing the two players:

Stat - Player A - Player B
MPG / 27.4 / 17.9
PER / 7.8 / 17.1
ORTG / 99 / 116
DRTG / 109 / 101
TS% / 49.1% / 57%
OWS / .2 / 1.7
DWS / .7 / 1.3
VORP / -.1 / 1.2
BPM / -2.1 / 1.2

Why would you focus on a small stretch of poor play for player B and say if he plays it is entitlement minutes when player A is playing nearly 10 minutes per game more on the season despite RADICALLY worse play on both ends of the floor in every statistical way measured by advanced stats.

I mean the gap is staggering. Player A is playing at a far sub Bogans level right now. He probably does not belong in a rotation at this point. He should be an emergency player only.

[Mbrahv0528]

No rookie wall, Thibs killed his confidence. Any little mistake he gets pulled. You can see him look at the bench when he does something. Mirotic runs into a 3 point shooter he gets pulled, Taj or Kirk don't get pulled. Mirotic has to play perfect or he gets pulled. He had a nice 3 at the corner, Thibs pulled him.

Your hate for Mirotic is a bit too much. Mirotic was playing good, then Thibs took all his minutes away for Taj. He plays Pau the entire first quarter while he lets Mirotic rot. Thibs had it out for him from day 1.

This times 1000. I'm not seeing ajy rookie wall. I'm seeing a rook who gets sporadic and inconsistent minutes afraid to do his thing. It's Thibs Achilles heel and it always has been.

[dougthonus]

ORTG / 99 / 116
DRTG / 109 / 101

To put it in perspective, there's effectively a 25 point difference per 100 possessions between A and B in how they impact the game. That's the difference between a superstar and a D-League player.

[Mbrahv0528]

I haven't been on here a lot, but why does ColdFish hate Nikola or was he just joking in one of his prior post?

I don't want to speak for him, but in the 5 years I've been posting/lurking here, it seems he doesn't like most rookies in general, but turns pretty quick once they prove they belong, which is totally cool in my book. I'm the opposite, I shamelessly hype and hope until they flame out or put up lol.

[bullslas]

I haven't been on here a lot, but why does ColdFish hate Nikola or was he just joking in one of his prior post?

For some reason he hates him which makes the OP's opinion useless. He eould give Mirotic a 3 when he played good. He has something against him.

If anyone is getting entilement minutes its Kirk and Taj. Taj has played some awful games, not blocking out, not passing, letting players get around him, running into shooters who yup pump fake.

Mirotic gets pulled for the smallest mistakes, but the other 2 get more minutes. Again, you have Mirotic, Pau should not be playing 38 minutes.

The stretch of bad games, Mirotic was getting pulled for the smallest thing. He looks at the bench each time.

This thread is just trying to put Niko down, he's a rookie and a valuble asset that like it or not, will need him in the playoffs. Niko got less minutes and Brooks started playing worse also.

The OP is trying to point the finger at Niko for a bad January, but they seem to dismiss the poor play by Taj, Noah, Kirk, and Butler in that stretch.

Butler played good yesterday in his natural position. Taj also played better, as he passed the ball slighty more than usual. Taj kills the ball movement but let's not talk bad about him.

[Wont PerDont]

ORTG / 99 / 116
DRTG / 109 / 101

To put it in perspective, there's effectively a 25 point difference per 100 possessions between A and B in how they impact the game. That's the difference between a superstar and a D-League player.

...and Thibs argument for Kirk is always, "we play better when Kirk is on the floor."

Well, if that's the case, based on these numbers, we should be runaway favorites for the ring with Niko out there. Seriously, the idea of Niko getting "entitlement minutes" on a roster playing Kirk, Snell, and Nazr is laughable. Hell, if that's a "real" thing, than Kirk's getting any burn at all last night was total bias considering how well he closed out regulation vs. Dallas last time we matched up. (Niko got pulled immediately for a similar "foul" call last night - albeit in a much less critical point of the game. Thibs took the blame for Kirk doing it).

...and one last thing for the OP...

More likely than not, Thibodeau has told him to stop these things and him doing it is hurting him, his team and is insubordination. It would really not be in Chicago's best interest for Thibodeau to reward that kind of thing with additional minutes.

Likening breaking a potential habit (suggesting Thibs might have told Niko to stop pump faking - and if he has, he might be better off asking Kirk to quit sucking) that hasn't necessarily translated well during his transition to the best league in the world to insubordination? REALLY?!? It's become SO transparent that you can't be objective on the subject of Mirotic that you should probably just recuse yourself from starting negative threads about him at this point as it just seems to be a personal issue you are dealing with.

[Rerisen]

I don't think Niko's game is in any way 'figured out'. You can't really figure out a stretch 4, its a structural mismatch in the NBA. Ryan Anderson has less moves than Niko and have never been figured out.

All he has to do is pull the damn trigger when he's open. He got a pass in the Dallas game, his man was at least 5 feet off him, and he pump faked for no reason and drove in to end up with nothing. He's his own worst enemy there, but if he just takes the open shots that are there, and saves the pump fake for a tight close, his arsenal will be fine. He's much quicker than most of the bigs that try to guard him, so will be able to get around them plenty when the time is right. Also a good passer.

[coldfish]

As far as entitlement minutes, let's look at two players:
Player A in January: 6.1p 26.1mpg 43%fg 33% 3p Mediocre to above average defense
Player B in January: 6.9p 17.5mpg 34%fg 23% 3p Poor defense

The Bulls board wants player A killed basically but yet the minutes player B is getting is fine? Player A is supposedly getting veteran entitlement minutes yet player B isn't getting entitlement minutes for playing worse? I'm somewhat confused.

1: I disagree strongly with your view of player A's defense. It has been poor to average.

2: Look at these advanced metrics on the season comparing the two players:

Stat - Player A - Player B
MPG / 27.4 / 17.9
PER / 7.8 / 17.1
ORTG / 99 / 116
DRTG / 109 / 101
TS% / 49.1% / 57%
OWS / .2 / 1.7
DWS / .7 / 1.3
VORP / -.1 / 1.2
BPM / -2.1 / 1.2

Why would you focus on a small stretch of poor play for player B and say if he plays it is entitlement minutes when player A is playing nearly 10 minutes per game more on the season despite RADICALLY worse play on both ends of the floor in every statistical way measured by advanced stats.

I mean the gap is staggering. Player A is playing at a far sub Bogans level right now. He probably does not belong in a rotation at this point. He should be an emergency player only.

If you go in the B-ball breakdown thread and look at the video, it shows Hinrich coming in to help to cover for a blown assignment by Rose. Hinrich does that kind of little thing all the time. People apparently don't care, but its a huge part of what makes the Bulls defense work. The fact that guys like Mirotic aren't doing it is a big reason why the Bulls defense has struggled.

Hinrich's on ball defense continues to decline and his off ball defense has become more inconsistent but its there. Mirotic's isn't at all.

As a side note, I'm not really defending Hinrich here. He has played pretty crappy all year. I'm using him to point out that Mirotic has been playing at sub - Hinrich levels for about a month. That's a significant amount of time and its really crappy too.

[coldfish]

More likely than not, Thibodeau has told him to stop these things and him doing it is hurting him, his team and is insubordination. It would really not be in Chicago's best interest for Thibodeau to reward that kind of thing with additional minutes.

Likening breaking a potential habit (suggesting Thibs might have told Niko to stop pump faking - and if he has, he might be better off asking Kirk to quit sucking) that hasn't necessarily translated well during his transition to the best league in the world to insubordination? REALLY?!? It's become SO transparent that you can't be objective on the subject of Mirotic that you should probably just recuse yourself from starting negative threads about him at this point as it just seems to be a personal issue you are dealing with.

I generally look at basketball from a coach's perspective. I find the player movement, position and execution both very interesting and as having a huge impact on the outcome of games.

Earlier in this thread, someone pointed out that I hate rookies. That's true. I almost always hate young players. That said, its not some knee jerk thing. Young players tend not to do the right thing when they are on the court. You know who agrees with me? Virtually every NBA coach. Its backed up by the fact that high level teams virtually never are based around young players.

So, yeah, I am definitely in the minority on this website. That said, I know one guy who agrees with me. The guy who gave Mirotic 2 minutes last night. He most definitely isn't perfect and isn't above criticism but he is also one of the top minds in the NBA and has a rather impressive list of young players that he has developed and improved.

You can continue to believe that Thibodeau and myself have some irrational hatred for Mirotic or you can sit and wonder: Maybe there is something you are missing?

To address something specifically: As a coach, you can't tell a player not to suck. Thibs can't tell Rose to be 7 feet tall and he can't tell Gasol to have world class speed. That said, he can give explicit instructions. For example, telling Mirotic that if he gets the ball around the arc he has to shoot it. I guarantee you that he has told Mirotic this countless times. Hell, he was on guys like Deng for this and Deng listened. Mirotic has been ignoring him for months. At some point, a coach has to escalate things if he wants people to listen. His best tool for getting a player's attention is playing time.

Mirotic doesn't suck. He is very impressive . . . for a rookie. That said, in order to be a consistently contributing player he has to improve. I applaud any effort taken to push him along that path and I'm not going to evaluate him with a second set of "rookie" glasses when going over what makes a team win and lose.

[DanTown8587]

As far as entitlement minutes, let's look at two players:
Player A in January: 6.1p 26.1mpg 43%fg 33% 3p Mediocre to above average defense
Player B in January: 6.9p 17.5mpg 34%fg 23% 3p Poor defense

The Bulls board wants player A killed basically but yet the minutes player B is getting is fine? Player A is supposedly getting veteran entitlement minutes yet player B isn't getting entitlement minutes for playing worse? I'm somewhat confused.

1: I disagree strongly with your view of player A's defense. It has been poor to average.

2: Look at these advanced metrics on the season comparing the two players:

Stat - Player A - Player B
MPG / 27.4 / 17.9
PER / 7.8 / 17.1
ORTG / 99 / 116
DRTG / 109 / 101
TS% / 49.1% / 57%
OWS / .2 / 1.7
DWS / .7 / 1.3
VORP / -.1 / 1.2
BPM / -2.1 / 1.2

Why would you focus on a small stretch of poor play for player B and say if he plays it is entitlement minutes when player A is playing nearly 10 minutes per game more on the season despite RADICALLY worse play on both ends of the floor in every statistical way measured by advanced stats.

I mean the gap is staggering. Player A is playing at a far sub Bogans level right now. He probably does not belong in a rotation at this point. He should be an emergency player only.

If you go in the B-ball breakdown thread and look at the video, it shows Hinrich coming in to help to cover for a blown assignment by Rose. Hinrich does that kind of little thing all the time. People apparently don't care, but its a huge part of what makes the Bulls defense work. The fact that guys like Mirotic aren't doing it is a big reason why the Bulls defense has struggled.

Hinrich's on ball defense continues to decline and his off ball defense has become more inconsistent but its there. Mirotic's isn't at all.

As a side note, I'm not really defending Hinrich here. He has played pretty crappy all year. I'm using him to point out that Mirotic has been playing at sub - Hinrich levels for about a month. That's a significant amount of time and its really crappy too.

I don't get your issue with Mirotic's minutes; he was rookie of the month in December so I'd say he earned minutes in the beginning of the month then Noah get's hurt half way though the eighth game and after Noah comes back, Niko plays two minutes. What entitlement did Niko have? If you're saying he should have been benched during that seven game stretch where Noah was healthy, where was the posts then?

No reasonable person would say Niko has entitlement minutes, especially watching the games.

[kingkirk]

Well, first off let's ignore the +/- and RPM stuff. Its just evaluating the unit he is on for the most part with the Bulls. I believe that Brooks has the second best numbers of that type on the team, primarily because the starters have really struggled as a group in the first quarter.

As far as entitlement minutes, let's look at two players:
Player A in January: 6.1p 26.1mpg 43%fg 33% 3p Mediocre to above average defense
Player B in January: 6.9p 17.5mpg 34%fg 23% 3p Poor defense

The Bulls board wants player A killed basically but yet the minutes player B is getting is fine? Player A is supposedly getting veteran entitlement minutes yet player B isn't getting entitlement minutes for playing worse? I'm somewhat confused.

I'm not a big fan of +/- or RPM as i believe there are too many variables in play for anyone one player to control for us to properly evaluate one's worth.

That said, with Mirotic, his style of player and skills make some credence into the logic that is applied to his advanced numbers.

His skill set changes the outlook of the team from a structural perspective. He is a stretch 4. Whilst he has been off himself from deep, it offers the offense different options, and it certainly gives the opposing defense something different to think about. Just ask Memphis.

As to your comments about Hinrich vs Mirotic, my thoughts are as follows:

- The first thing i would notice is that the minutes separation is substantial. Hinrich plays 9 more minutes than Niko, so it's easier to come to the conclusion that he is receiving entitlement minutes.

- Niko's advanced numbers dwarf Hinrich's, even in his down month. It's not a comparison.

- The minutes Mirotic is receiving in January are only entitlement minutes if we're healthy and he is getting minutes over better players. Noah has missed game in January. He has missed game all season, as has Taj. When we've had the 4 bigs available, Niko is the one receiving less, and i am comfortable with that. When it's only 3 of the bigs available, naturally, he receives more. So, again, i ask, how can these be entitlement minutes when he steps up in the depth chart when one is out? Should Cam or Nazr get some of Niko's 'entitlement' minutes?

- I don't see how Mirotic has been worse than Hinrich. It depends on what you want to focus on, but i think it's pretty much a wash in January.

- You often perpetuate the theory that you can't play bad players extended minutes because they will cost you games. You've suggested that with Snell, you're doing it now with Niko. With that in mind, if a 34 year old Hinrich is getting 26 minutes a night with that level of production, isn't that a bad thing? If Niko is getting less minutes than Kirk, using this logic, isn't Hinrich hurting the Bulls more than Mirotic?

[kingkirk]

For some reason he hates him which makes the OP's opinion useless.

No, it doesn't make his opinion useless. It's his opinion, and he is presenting it in the correct context and posting in the right manner. Unfortunately, your post here is not following the same precedent.

Discuss the topic at hand. This is a worthy topic, even if you disagree. Claiming one's views are useless and shouldn't be taken seriously is an attack that isn't needed.

No more, please.

[barcodekiller]

Niko's 3 has been way off. Right after he releases it you can see it's off target.

[Wont PerDont]

More likely than not, Thibodeau has told him to stop these things and him doing it is hurting him, his team and is insubordination. It would really not be in Chicago's best interest for Thibodeau to reward that kind of thing with additional minutes.

Likening breaking a potential habit (suggesting Thibs might have told Niko to stop pump faking - and if he has, he might be better off asking Kirk to quit sucking) that hasn't necessarily translated well during his transition to the best league in the world to insubordination? REALLY?!? It's become SO transparent that you can't be objective on the subject of Mirotic that you should probably just recuse yourself from starting negative threads about him at this point as it just seems to be a personal issue you are dealing with.

I generally look at basketball from a coach's perspective. I find the player movement, position and execution both very interesting and as having a huge impact on the outcome of games.

Earlier in this thread, someone pointed out that I hate rookies. That's true. I almost always hate young players. That said, its not some knee jerk thing. Young players tend not to do the right thing when they are on the court. You know who agrees with me? Virtually every NBA coach. Its backed up by the fact that high level teams virtually never are based around young players.

So, yeah, I am definitely in the minority on this website. That said, I know one guy who agrees with me. The guy who gave Mirotic 2 minutes last night. He most definitely isn't perfect and isn't above criticism but he is also one of the top minds in the NBA and has a rather impressive list of young players that he has developed and improved.

You can continue to believe that Thibodeau and myself have some irrational hatred for Mirotic or you can sit and wonder: Maybe there is something you are missing?

To address something specifically: As a coach, you can't tell a player not to suck. Thibs can't tell Rose to be 7 feet tall and he can't tell Gasol to have world class speed. That said, he can give explicit instructions. For example, telling Mirotic that if he gets the ball around the arc he has to shoot it. I guarantee you that he has told Mirotic this countless times. Hell, he was on guys like Deng for this and Deng listened. Mirotic has been ignoring him for months. At some point, a coach has to escalate things if he wants people to listen. His best tool for getting a player's attention is playing time.

Mirotic doesn't suck. He is very impressive . . . for a rookie. That said, in order to be a consistently contributing player he has to improve. I applaud any effort taken to push him along that path and I'm not going to evaluate him with a second set of "rookie" glasses when going over what makes a team win and lose.

Let me start by saying that I appreciate you being patient with me in crafting your response. More patient than I obviously was with mine (and I apologize for that). I was mostly kidding about Thibs telling Kirk to quit sucking, but I think that was mostly borne in my frustration over the fact that if anyone is getting entitlement minutes in this scenario, I feel it HAS to be Kirk. You have nearly admitted as much (without actually doing so). Making the point that Thibs (and many other coaches in the league) have quick hooks when it comes to rookies allowing more seasoned veterans to make more mistakes without having to constantly be looking over to the bench to see if he is getting yanked or not (maybe that might have as much to do with Niko's recent struggles as any rookie wall?).

I admittedly am NOT the advanced stat "guy" that others are on this forum, but even an admitted novice like myself can look at the stats that Doug posted and see that there can't be much dispute over who has played better this season in the Kirk vs. Niko debate. It's overwhelming, in fact...yet Kirk is still getting 10 more MPG than Niko? I understand that much of that has to do with the position(s) they play as we are MUCH deeper in the frontcourt than on the wing, but this is my reaction based primarily on the side subject that Doug's stats have created.

With that being said, I think I would be doing the board a disservice if I belabored that point much more, especially considering that Mark basically made the point(s) I am trying to and MUCH more eloquently than I am capable of (thanks, Mark). I am more critical of Thibs than I probably deserve to be, but isn't that what this forum is all about? I think he goes a bit overboard with his rookie hatred and I think it cuts guys like Niko with both edges as if Thibs were more apt to play a rookie it would be due to his defensive potential and he (Thibs) can be pretty far sighted when it comes to seeing the offensive tools a young player may be able to contribute.

[bullslas]

The league saw him as rookie of the month. That is self proves they are not entilement minutes. Thibs needs to play him, and he shoild play him with Rose on the court so he can stretch the court. It's highly likey Noah will get gimpy by playoff time. Niko needs these minutes to be ready for the stretch run and playoff time. You can see it everytime he shoots and misses, he's looking at the bench to get pulled. At some point Thibs needs to trust Mirotic. Blaming January on poor play by Mirotic is not fair to Niko after a great month. As far as the pump fake, he needs to learn when to use it. Did you see Parsons yesterday? He used it perfect.

[dougthonus]

If you go in the B-ball breakdown thread and look at the video, it shows Hinrich coming in to help to cover for a blown assignment by Rose. Hinrich does that kind of little thing all the time. People apparently don't care, but its a huge part of what makes the Bulls defense work. The fact that guys like Mirotic aren't doing it is a big reason why the Bulls defense has struggled.

Hinrich's on ball defense continues to decline and his off ball defense has become more inconsistent but its there. Mirotic's isn't at all.

This is simply not backed up by fact.

With Mirotic on the floor, Bulls give up 103.5 and 108 without him. They're better defensively by 4.5 points per 100 possessions. With Hinrich on the floor the Bulls are 105 and 107.5 without him, a gap of 2.5 points.

You can argue that subjectively you feel Mirotic is a worse defender [I disagree], but what you can't argue about is what is hurting the team and not. Mirotic isn't hurting the team on defense. The team is better defensively by the numbers [by a huge margin] when he's on the court than when he isn't.

This could be due to a huge number of factors including lots of times against backups, but it means the Bulls are absolutely not hurt with him on the floor. Quite the opposite, they've done really well with him on the floor, and even some of the games during his poor stretch he contributed key plays for the Bulls to go on runs.

As a side note, I'm not really defending Hinrich here. He has played pretty crappy all year. I'm using him to point out that Mirotic has been playing at sub - Hinrich levels for about a month. That's a significant amount of time and its really crappy too.

He hasn't played sub-Hinrich though in almost any of the advanced metrics though, but beyond that, he's played well for probably 2/3rds of the games so far and poorly for maybe 1/3rd. You take that every time over a guy who's just played poorly for probably 4/5ths of the games and well for 1/5th.

And whether Hinrich is a good or bad player is relevant to the discussion when one of your primary points is that the Bulls would rebel over having a guy playing as bad as Mirotic get minutes while two guys who are WAY worse on the season are getting more minutes right now, or is there any player to replace his role who is better, nor are his minutes that high.

I disagree strongly with that whole line of thought.

I agree Mirotic's isn't playing well right now, but Gasol is playing too many minutes and Gibson/Noah both had injuries at various times to open up most of his playing time. He's barely playing as it is and most of those minutes are coming due to injuries of other players.

I can't see any reason anyone in the locker room even blinks at that.

[bullsnewdynasty]

No rookie wall, Thibs killed his confidence. Any little mistake he gets pulled. You can see him look at the bench when he does something. Mirotic runs into a 3 point shooter he gets pulled, Taj or Kirk don't get pulled. Mirotic has to play perfect or he gets pulled. He had a nice 3 at the corner, Thibs pulled him.

Your hate for Mirotic is a bit too much. Mirotic was playing good, then Thibs took all his minutes away for Taj. He plays Pau the entire first quarter while he lets Mirotic rot. Thibs had it out for him from day 1.

I certainly hate Mirotic. Him struggling and getting pulled is like chocolate covered crack for me.

That said, he has been getting the same minutes for the entire season. In that same minute pattern, he is playing noticeably worse. There is really no evidence that this is being caused by someone on the Bulls. Its either that Mirotic is having issues himself or teams are now defending him differently. I think its a combination of both.

As far as last night, in 2 minutes he had a stupid foul and then did the stupid pump fake out of a shot and drive. This was not the first time he has done these things. More likely than not, Thibodeau has told him to stop these things and him doing it is hurting him, his team and is insubordination. It would really not be in Chicago's best interest for Thibodeau to reward that kind of thing with additional minutes.

If Bulls players got pulled for dumb fouls then why don't Kirk or Taj ever get benched?

It's painfully obvious that Mirotic gets the quick hook for any kind of mistakes. It's the surest way to destroy a young player's confidence. It's one thing when the young player hasn't shown anything worthy of deserving minutes (McDermott), but Mirotic has already displayed NBA level offensive skills from the PF spot. Thibodeau has trust issues, he uses certain players as his security blanket, which is why you look at the end of the game and realize stuff like Jimmy Butler once played 60 minutes in a game.

[BeatDaCavs420]

IF Mirotic was playing awful all year that is one thing but he hasn't the guy even won rookie of the month so he has showed he can play very good at the NBA level but as soon as he went through a bad stretch of games a long with Taj coming back from injury, Thibs has basically tried to bury the guy back deep into the bench which IMO he has been wanting to do for a while now and he is slowly doing it more and more as we speak lets face it if we didn't have the injuries we had Niko prolly wouldn't of seen the court much at all as he did and we wouldn't of been able to see him show what he can do but we did get to see what he could do too bad it seems all for nothing.

Against dallas Niko played 3 MINUTES LITERALLY 3 WHOLE MINUTES that is not right and that is something that just has to kill Niko confidence level cause I am sure he was on top of the would after receiving rookie of the month with receiving attention from the media to now reduce to this role, all cause a bad stretch of games,a long with players getting healthy...Thibs is not even giving him a chance to break out of his slump, its one or 2 mistakes tops and done for Niko and Im sure Niko knows this so he comes into the game with added pressure on him now to not mess up,while Kirk gets away with playing like **** for 28 minutes(May I add Niko has even shown some glimpses to getting back into form but it still dont seem to matter)...I am a strong believer that thibs don't like playing rookies and gives them a very short leash, he also strongly plays favorites on this team lala Kirk for example......I have seen Pop take out Splitter in big game situations and play MATT FREAKING BONNER why because pops goes with who will help the team when needed who ever it may be not who fits his rotations or who is at top of his totem pole

So the only wall Niko has hit is the wall that Thibs has put in front of him and that is holding him back

[PrimzyBulls81]

No rookie wall, Thibs killed his confidence. Any little mistake he gets pulled. You can see him look at the bench when he does something. Mirotic runs into a 3 point shooter he gets pulled, Taj or Kirk don't get pulled. Mirotic has to play perfect or he gets pulled. He had a nice 3 at the corner, Thibs pulled him.

Your hate for Mirotic is a bit too much. Mirotic was playing good, then Thibs took all his minutes away for Taj. He plays Pau the entire first quarter while he lets Mirotic rot. Thibs had it out for him from day 1.

This times 1000. I'm not seeing ajy rookie wall. I'm seeing a rook who gets sporadic and inconsistent minutes afraid to do his thing. It's Thibs Achilles heel and it always has been.

yep.. its Thibs rookie WALL! confidence taken away..

[McBulls]

IF Mirotic was playing awful all year that is one thing but he hasn't the guy even won rookie of the month so he has showed he can play very good at the NBA level but as soon as he went through a bad stretch of games a long with Taj coming back from injury, Thibs has basically tried to bury the guy back deep into the bench which IMO he has been wanting to do for a while now and he is slowly doing it more and more as we speak lets face it if we didn't have the injuries we had Niko prolly wouldn't of seen the court much at all as he did and we wouldn't of been able to see him show what he can do but we did get to see what he could do too bad it seems all for nothing.

Against dallas Niko played 3 MINUTES LITERALLY 3 WHOLE MINUTES that is not right and that is something that just has to kill Niko confidence level cause I am sure he was on top of the would after receiving rookie of the month with receiving attention from the media to now reduce to this role, all cause a bad stretch of games,a long with players getting healthy...Thibs is not even giving him a chance to break out of his slump, its one or 2 mistakes tops and done for Niko and Im sure Niko knows this so he comes into the game with added pressure on him now to not mess up,while Kirk gets away with playing like **** for 28 minutes(May I add Niko has even shown some glimpses to getting back into form but it still dont seem to matter)...I am a strong believer that thibs don't like playing rookies and gives them a very short leash, he also strongly plays favorites on this team lala Kirk for example......I have seen Pop take out Splitter in big game situations and play MATT FREAKING BONNER why because pops goes with who will help the team when needed who ever it may be not who fits his rotations or who is at top of his totem pole

So the only wall Niko has hit is the wall that Thibs has put in front of him and that is holding him back

This is pretty much my opinion.

I would only add that playing Pau 35+ minutes in second of back to back games while playing an extremely talented rookie 2-3 minutes is short sighted at best and downright stupid at worst. Pau play will be worse in the future and Mirotics play will not improve unless he plays.

As far as Niko's play in January goes... It's noteworthy that he played out if position a good bit of the time and most of his teamates were playing like zombies. Niko plays a team game that can't improve unless he gets minutes and his teamates feel like playing.

It was symbolic that Thibs pulled Niko in the Dallas game shortly after he hit a defended corner 3 with time runninng down. What kind of "message" was that?

Finally I disagree with the criticism of Niko's help defense. He uses his quickness and court vision to make rotations other players can only dream about. If Thibs doesn't like his decisions, he should reconsider. Let the kid play!