Bulls vs Hornets @ 7PM CSN/NBATV

[Bulls03]

I don't know much about what would work for trades, but getting rid of Niko and Portis is a plus in its own, but acquiring Aldridge at the same time? Is that a valid trade?

There's absolutely no chance that happens lol.

[MC3]

Aldridge on a team he should have been drafted in first place. Like Wade. YES. Please god, make it happen. Give us some happiness. That's a kind of player we may have assets to get.

[ImSlower]

In terms of entertainment from watching one of two sports teams I feel truly passionate about, last year was really hard to get through. I found myself more upset watching games than happy I did, over and over. I think I just had my hopes too high. I saw all this potential and thought that surely some of it would be reached.

This year, I am going in with a remarkably more pessimistic attitude. I just don't like much about this team anymore. In a weird way, though, it's a bit of a relief. If they come out playing tight together, getting some good wins early on, I will be pleasantly surprised - hell, I'll be totally fired up. If all these players I don't really enjoy watching continue to struggle to work well off each other, well I am focusing more of my sports pie-chart on hockey this winter. But hey, it's only pre-season, we'll all have a much better idea of what's going on in November.

[fleet]

Just found out spurs may shop Aldridge for whatever reason. I would trade Niko and portis or taj if we have to for Aldridge.

I'm guessing guys like Valentine and or MCW would be included. Especially Valentine. Pop must drool over that guy.

[sco]

Thank goodness for LMA discussion saving us from another Rose-jacked thread!

[Stratmaster]

A drawback of Hoiberg being such a green coach. A tenured coach with lots of built in gravitas could conceivably make a call like that and have the team fall in line. As such, you may have a guy that simply cannot make best use of his roster

Or, we may once again be making the mistake as a board of looking at rooks and journeyman level players performance in summer leagues and preseason and assigning way too much significance to it. I would much rather have Rondo getting the ball to our alphas than Canaan, and neither Wade nor Butler are prepared to fill a point role while also being the main scorers. I have seen nothing in Canaan's history to indicate he is anything more than a 3 point specialist, and nothing to indicate he is starter material, despite managing to get starts half the time on the worst team in the NBA.

Hoiberg was not afraid to bench Noah. He was not afraid to bench Mirotic. Rondo was brought here to start, and if you believe benching Noah caused rifts try doing it to Rondo and see what happens. That has nothing to do with Hoiberg's gravitas. Thibs was more guilty of granting entitlement minutes than Hoiberg has been.

Safe to say a couple guys didn't respect Hoiberg last season, Noah or not. I have no reason to expect that to change much if the guy thought a given lineup move was hard to sell this time around either. It would he hard for any coach to sell something like this. Not necessarily a Hoiberg specific problem. But if Canon did happen to work better with the starters, it is doubtful that Hoiberg could pull it off without bickering as you say. It would be more of a thing that Hoiberg could run during the game rather than starting necessarily. It would be up to Hoiberg to get a guy like Rondo to accept sacrifice of some overall minutes in this example. Degree of confidence would be low in Hoiberg's ability to get Rondo to do it, but Rondo does seem enthusiastic. Im guessing because he thinks he can run all over Hoiberg

I took your post to be laying this at Hoiberg's feet. You seemed to start to clarify that; but then you went right back to using it as an indictment of Hoiberg. My points (opinions, of course) were:

1. Canaan has done nothing in his career to indicate he should be starting over a guy like Rondo.
2. I don't think we want Butler or Wade assuming point responsibilities. That doesn't mean they won't ever get the ball in that role. It means that shouldn't be a primary responsibility.
3. Rondo is much better suited with his experience and passing to get the ball to the alphas in the right place at the right time.
4. Canaan is a 3 point shooter, and not much else. He is a PG because of his size.

I will add that if Hoiberg were to give more minutes to Canaan at the expense of Rondo, the 2 guys likely to react the worst (other than Rondo himself) are the 2 alphas.

It's just not a good idea from any angle. The only thing that could change that would be if Rondo sucks; and if he does, I believe Canaan would still not be the best solution on the roster to take his minutes.

[Flopper]

Just found out spurs may shop Aldridge for whatever reason. I would trade Niko and portis or taj if we have to for Aldridge.

I'm guessing guys like Valentine and or MCW would be included. Especially Valentine. Pop must drool over that guy.

I dunno about that last part. Pop likes wings with size who can defend (Leonard, Green, Anderson). The ones who don't fit that profile don't seem to stick around that long.

[DASMACKDOWN]

I did, which is why I'm not putting myself through it again two seasons in a row, unless they improve.

Improve in wins, playoffs, personnel. Which ways

Improve in that they look like an actual team running smooth offense instead of looking lost out there and turning the ball over for no reason. If they can play with energy and make it fun to watch them, it's an improvement. From what I've seen in preseason, there's just sloppiness, and if anyone thinks they will turn around the play enough to actually accomplish that, they're in denial. They'll probably get it together enough to get more wins than last season, and clean up turnovers, but we will still be bad, and we will not look good enough to watch.

Unfortunately that is sort of who the Bulls are. The difference is in their sloppiness there is also some good in there.

But yes we will be a high turnover team. Wade is a career perpetual high turnover guy. Rondo with his 10 assists is basically guaranteed to get about 3 a game.

But I am hoping that we have improved in the defensive transition game to make up for it.

[kulaz3000]

The Heat were a mess and extremely inconsistent and sloppy when they first formed the now infamous Big 3. It takes time.

If anyone was expecting smooth sailing from the get-go you were only fooling yourself, especially if you remind yourself that we have added new starters in Lopez, Wade and Rondo, and you could even put Taj as a relatively new starter in a new role. And to add, Jimmy is now shifting to the small forward spot, no it's not a major shift but it is a change in position nonetheless.

My point is, it was inevitable that there was going to be an adjustment period and I remind myself of that every single game, especially in the preseason. A vast majority of the team is different, addition of dominate players in the starting line up, I'd be shocked if we didn't start the season quite sloppy and poorly, so much so that a majority of the fans will likely want everyone traded by game 5. But I do feel we have enough talent on this team that we can get close to 50 wins this season and hit our stride by around game 20.

[weneeda2guard]

I am actually more surprised at some of our good showings, and in not disappointed at all, this Charlotte game, was them coming out very hot, which happens quite often when you are a team with a target on you, once we settled in, defense kicked up, found some defense for kemba, we came back and was poised to wipe them out in the 4th, but we benched our starters and our bench, basically out 3rd string took them to ot.

I'm more impressed with the fact that we know Charlotte pnr'd us to death and pretty much ran us off the floor last season, and sample size, preseason of course, they couldn't do that to us this time around because we defended it a lot better. They just hit some tough shots and we came out cold. Once we got into our groove and there shooting came back down to earth we gained control. But the point is, we didn't get pnr'd to death, so just that much was improvement from last season.

[Jcool0]

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[MrSparkle]

I am actually more surprised at some of our good showings, and in not disappointed at all, this Charlotte game, was them coming out very hot, which happens quite often when you are a team with a target on you, once we settled in, defense kicked up, found some defense for kemba, we came back and was poised to wipe them out in the 4th, but we benched our starters and our bench, basically out 3rd string took them to ot.

I'm more impressed with the fact that we know Charlotte pnr'd us to death and pretty much ran us off the floor last season, and sample size, preseason of course, they couldn't do that to us this time around because we defended it a lot better. They just hit some tough shots and we came out cold. Once we got into our groove and there shooting came back down to earth we gained control. But the point is, we didn't get pnr'd to death, so just that much was improvement from last season.

That's what i saw too. Charlotte's well coached and very athletic. They're a tough match-up, but we kept the game while shooting like crap and making unforced turnovers. IMO our floor is good. Give a little effort and make more shots, and it's an easy win.

[kyrv]

The Heat were a mess and extremely inconsistent and sloppy when they first formed the now infamous Big 3. It takes time.

If anyone was expecting smooth sailing from the get-go you were only fooling yourself, especially if you remind yourself that we have added new starters in Lopez, Wade and Rondo, and you could even put Taj as a relatively new starter in a new role. And to add, Jimmy is now shifting to the small forward spot, no it's not a major shift but it is a change in position nonetheless.

My point is, it was inevitable that there was going to be an adjustment period and I remind myself of that every single game, especially in the preseason. A vast majority of the team is different, addition of dominate players in the starting line up, I'd be shocked if we didn't start the season quite sloppy and poorly, so much so that a majority of the fans will likely want everyone traded by game 5. But I do feel we have enough talent on this team that we can get close to 50 wins this season and hit our stride by around game 20.

The Bulls and Heat with their new teams in 2010 both started 9-8, kind of hard to believe looking back.

[FriedRise]

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Which Alpha is coming off the bench? Probably Wade. This would be a good test to see what our starting unit looks like with a pure shooter in the lineup.

Start: Rondo / Butler / McDermott / Taj / Lopez
Bench: MCW / Wade / Zippity Sir / Portis / Felicio

Or small ball: Canaan / Wade / MCW / Portis / Felicio