Rerisen wrote:Just think about the Spurs last year. Macro Belinelli was a more efficient and well rounded offensive player than Mike, and Pop still pretty much buried him in the Finals as not good enough.
We don't know if Snell is for real yet, but we should really hope he is and try to do everything in our power to promote him to be. Because if you are modeling a depth team to try and win the title, Tony as a player that can shoot threes, defend multiple positions, pump and drive past a closing defender to score on him own, or make a pass, fits the Spurs versatile depth model potentially far more than a singular spot up guy like Dunleavy.
I guess if one is in the camp that the Bulls had the most talented team in the NBA to start the season, and somehow see that Derrick Rose has played at a high enough level to justify this belief, then maybe your position is more of a "Don't rock the boat" with the rotation and just everyone does their job and the Bulls win the championship.
I don't really see the talent on this team to that level, certainly not with where Rose has been this year or looks likely to end up, esp now with this new surgery. As such the Bulls need to find new and unlooked for areas of production and talent to reach that end goal. I hoped that might be trade, now I hope its via internal growth.
Tony Snell doesn't shoot well off a screen if he's still moving nor does he do it on a high volume so now playing him with Rose, Butler, and the two bigs creates a problem because no one is screening away from the ball and forcing attention away from the ball. Right now if Mike starts on the right wing and gets a screen near the rim by a big, the other team is going to be aware of this action and stay with it and have their big man take a step with Mike; if it's Tony then they now are going to trail Tony and call that sufficient defense and the screener's defender doesn't have to get involved. That's a HUGE difference in the styles of the two guys. While Tony is more likely to take a dribble and go to the rim, he's not going to go against most teams starting front lines, dribble 20 feet and finish over length like say a DeAndre Jordan or Tim Mozgov even, especially when you consider there isn't a ton of space to do that playing next to seven footers who like to play close to the rim.
If I have Rose, Butler, and Gasol on the floor, I want active cutters + floor spacers + guys who finish off screens next to them. Noah hurts a lot of this because he's not a spacer and he's only ok at cutting, but Dunleavy does all those things well.
I mean complaining about Dunleavy with the starters is almost hysterical.