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I know Thibs would never do this, but I had an idea for next year. We will probably move either Noah or Taj, but I love them both. However, Gasol and Noah is not a good pairing. What about this crazy idea:

First and last 6 minutes of each half-Taj/Gasol
Middle 12 minutes of each half-Noah/Mirotic

When healthy, all 4 guys play the same, 24 minutes. This way, they can play harder and be fresher. Of course, they would all average more minutes, with injuries, but with all 4 available we get their best for half the game.

Thoughts? I think it would develop awesome chemistry

Between Taj being moved, Pau's injury, Noah's clashes with the new coach and his own lingering injuries, there will be more than enough minutes for Niko.

All 4 can get their minutes.

Give Noah and Pau some rest days throughout the year. Play Niko some at 3 when match-up allows it.

It's really a non issue. The last thing I do is deal Taj away. He's not untouchable, but I'm not dealing him to try to make space for Niko. That'd be a terrible idea imo

pylb wrote:Between Taj being moved, Pau's injury, Noah's clashes with the new coach and his own lingering injuries, there will be more than enough minutes for Niko.

That forecast sounds about right.

pylb wrote:Between Taj being moved, Pau's injury, Noah's clashes with the new coach and his own lingering injuries, there will be more than enough minutes for Niko.

With how Noah's issues don't seem to be resolving, I'm not so sure Taj can be moved. Its becoming clear the Bulls need 3 bigs to be a good post season team, and I don't think Noah will be workable, even in the near future. I don't know what you do with Noah, barring a resurgence in the post season and summer.

pylb wrote:Between Taj being moved, Pau's injury, Noah's clashes with the new coach and his own lingering injuries, there will be more than enough minutes for Niko.

Yeah...it looks like most of these threads are about how to get Niko more minutes It seems to be the ultimate goal rather than what is good for the team. As long as Niko gets minutes, the Bulls will win seems to be the philosophy.

fleet wrote:

pylb wrote:Between Taj being moved, Pau's injury, Noah's clashes with the new coach and his own lingering injuries, there will be more than enough minutes for Niko.

With how Noah's issues don't seem to be resolving, I'm not so sure Taj can be moved. Its becoming clear the Bulls need 3 bigs to be a good post season team, and I don't think Noah will be workable, even in the near future. I don't know what you do with Noah, barring a resurgence in the post season and summer.

Bulls missed on selling Noah high after last season. I remember people were scoffing at the thought of including Noah in a package for Aldridge. Now we'd be lucky to get a mid-late first rounder IMO.

There's no doubt in my mind. If Noah performs at a high level in the playoffs you keep him. If he doesn't, you offer him a significantly discounted extension and if he doesn't accept it, you trade him for the best return available.

He's played like a 5-8 mil player this year. Because there is a solid chance he bounces back next year and because he's a team leader and to not humiliate him, I'd offer him 2 years extension at 10 mil a year with a team option for a third year.

[e] wrote:All 4 can get their minutes.

Give Noah and Pau some rest days throughout the year. Play Niko some at 3 when match-up allows it.

It's really a non issue. The last thing I do is deal Taj away. He's not untouchable, but I'm not dealing him to try to make space for Niko. That'd be a terrible idea imo

Basically this. Gasol and Gibson start with Noah and Mirotic off the bench. It's not rocket science.

We need to invest into a young Center for the future.

[e] wrote:It's really a non issue.

Disagree. The Bulls are cluttered. They are a mess to coach. One of the reasons that the team looked so good last night was that the rotation was simplified.

The Bulls next year will have 12 rotation players -- Rose, Brooks, Kirk, Snell, Butler, Doug, Jimmy, Mike, and the four bigs. That's not counting Moore and not counting the draft pick. Time to consolidate, including moving a big.

qianlong wrote:We need to invest into a young Center for the future.

Yeah...but not at the expense of any of the existing ones. It all depends on the direction of the team. If the goal is to rebuild, definitely invest in place of one of the older front line guys. If not, invest like how they did with Bairstow(red-shirt).

The Bulls need 96 minutes of veteran play from their frontline if they want to compete for championships. And, Niko is not going to be a 2-way championship level PF for 40 minutes a game next year. He might be in the future. And, Pau's defensive problems/age issues are well known. In general, nobody is great enough to decide on anything.

But, I agree, they need a project Center to play with Niko in 3 years from now and the faster they get him, it's better. Unless, Jimmy/Rose become top 5-8 two-way players, you need all kinds of other talent to help them especially at the bigs. That is the only way you can be a top seed/win a lot of games and contend. There is no top 10 big on the team next year to reduce the depth.

For me, the front-court depth is more important than SF depth. Those guys are much easily available and that is a bigger pool of talent in the league compared to front-court.

Mech Engineer wrote:

qianlong wrote:We need to invest into a young Center for the future.

Yeah...but not at the expense of any of the existing ones. It all depends on the direction of the team. If the goal is to rebuild, definitely invest in place of one of the older front line guys. If not, invest like how they did with Bairstow(red-shirt).

The Bulls need 96 minutes of veteran play from their frontline if they want to compete for championships. And, Niko is not going to be a 2-way championship level PF for 40 minutes a game next year. He might be in the future. And, Pau's defensive problems/age issues are well known. In general, nobody is great enough to decide on anything.

But, I agree, they need a project Center to play with Niko in 3 years from now and the faster they get him, it's better. Unless, Jimmy/Rose become top 5-8 two-way players, you need all kinds of other talent to help them especially at the bigs. That is the only way you can be a top seed/win a lot of games and contend. There is no top 10 big on the team next year to reduce the depth.

For me, the front-court depth is more important than SF depth. Those guys are much easily available and that is a bigger pool of talent in the league compared to front-court.

I think that the best target is a young player but already in the league from at least a couple of seasons, someone finishing the rookie scale, or already at their second contract. In this way you get some one you can trust enough, not a rookie to develop from scratch, but who provides a solution for the coming years. Morover, if they are going to be paid or have just been unhappily paid, they me be available below their true value.

I said invest because imho we need to use some assets to get that kind of player. Rose,Jimmy and Niko are out of the table but all the rest can be talked about. I would love to find a package with some combination of our picks and Sacramento's but I am willing to talk about Jo or Taj and McD or Snell. I would also include Pau, but i doubt the FO is of the same opinion.

I wanted to create a very similar thread a few months back, using the example of line changes in hockey (hockey..ehhhh)

I also envisioned the combo of Pau playing with Taj and Noah playing with Niko. Breaking it down to just defense and offense, Noah and Taj are the superior of the four on D, with Niko's shooting and Pau's skill set being the superior of four on offense. Split it up and you have a scoring and defensive threat in the front court at all times. Noah with the ball at the high post and niko playing stretch four....the whole lane is an open campsite

Everyone gets a planned 24 minutes, with injuries, whose hot, whose not, and matchups being the variables dictating a player getting a few minutes + or -.

This also may improve overall durability and health for Jo, Taj and Pau.

I really like this frontline, Id love to see them mesh more for a couple more seasons.

I would love to see Niko on the floor with Rose a lot next year and think he should start. I could see Niko being the pick and roll partner we have been searching for with Rose when we settled on Boozer.

As far as the "clutter" goes... Noah has historically had injury issues (he had a good two year reprieve from it last year and the year before... but other than that if you look at him funny he gets plantar fasciitis) and Gasol is aging. I agree with everyone that having them on the floor together is not optimal because they aren't totally compatible with each other, but using one as a 24 minute substitution for the other will only keep them both fresh and effective and extend both of their careers. I wouldn't be so eager to get rid of either. Taj is a great backup PF and I wouldn't be eager to jet him either unless we get great compensation for him. I wouldn't try to thin the herd until we need to free up the money to make extensions on star caliber players possible.

We'll see after the playoffs. I predict that we go down because Thibs tries to play all his guys, which ends up with Niko out of position, Taj with too few minutes, and the Bulls off to a slow start every game because the Jo/Pau combo is poor. In which case you will all be begging for a change.

But I hope that I am wrong! In which case, sure, bring them all back.

Ice Man wrote:

[e] wrote:It's really a non issue.

Disagree. The Bulls are cluttered. They are a mess to coach. One of the reasons that the team looked so good last night was that the rotation was simplified.

The Bulls next year will have 12 rotation players -- Rose, Brooks, Kirk, Snell, Butler, Doug, Jimmy, Mike, and the four bigs. That's not counting Moore and not counting the draft pick. Time to consolidate, including moving a big.

Yes. It's also an issue because 'needing to keep' all 4 bigs would eat up the resources and money needed to fill the rest of the holes on the team.

I can't disagree that there are some arguments why it would be a nice luxury to be able to have all 4, but that kind of inefficiency makes winning a championship a lot harder. As a sensible roster would only need 3 quality bigs to man all those minutes. If you build one where you have so many guys that are injury prone together, duplicating the same roles, that you need an extra backup most teams don't, then you screwed up.

Ice Man wrote:

[e] wrote:It's really a non issue.

Disagree. The Bulls are cluttered. They are a mess to coach. One of the reasons that the team looked so good last night was that the rotation was simplified.

The Bulls next year will have 12 rotation players -- Rose, Brooks, Kirk, Snell, Butler, Doug, Jimmy, Mike, and the four bigs. That's not counting Moore and not counting the draft pick. Time to consolidate, including moving a big.

I disagree. There is no fundamental reason why 12 players could not play every game. If they were equal in talent, you just give each player 20-25 mpg. If different players have different skills (likely), a good coach would exploit the versatility based on matchups. Not to speak of the advantages quality depth provides for dealing with injuries, foul trouble and trade opportunities.

The problem with the Bulls is that the coach is not very good at utilizing any more than 8-9 players at a time. Maybe his brain just isn't up to the minor matrix algebra required to keep up with the adjustments required to accommodate diverse talent. It is popular to cite the success of young players (and bench players acquired in trade) as evidence of Thibs magical coaching abilities. Another explanation is that the front office is very good at drafting young players and choosing cheap free agents and that Thibs unimaginative coaching actually inhibits their development. I subscribe to the latter view.

pipfan wrote:I know Thibs would never do this, but I had an idea for next year. We will probably move either Noah or Taj, but I love them both. However, Gasol and Noah is not a good pairing. What about this crazy idea:

First and last 6 minutes of each half-Taj/Gasol
Middle 12 minutes of each half-Noah/Mirotic

When healthy, all 4 guys play the same, 24 minutes. This way, they can play harder and be fresher. Of course, they would all average more minutes, with injuries, but with all 4 available we get their best for half the game.

Thoughts? I think it would develop awesome chemistry

Thibs leaves the 4th quarter rotation up to himself and what he thinks is working. In the Philly game 4th quarter, Noah/Mirotic was the front court for the first 7 minutes and Gasol/Gibson was it for the last 5. I highly doubt that Thibs or any other coach would ever do it exactly at 24 minutes a player but Thibs is already moving in this direction.

McBulls wrote: I disagree. There is no fundamental reason why 12 players could not play every game. If they were equal in talent, you just give each player 20-25 mpg. If different players have different skills (likely), a good coach would exploit the versatility based on matchups.

Exploiting the versatility of matchups comes into play far less than was predicted, at least for our frontcourt. More often, its just random which players play good in a given night. And sometimes the coach doesn't even figure out which ones till its too late.

High quantity of average or even above average depth doesn't really win in the NBA, big gap talent wins.

A team with 12 players of decent talent is not a winning formula. Because you aren't gaining much overhead from the minutes you cut for each guy.

In terms of fairness sure it makes sense. Play each guy 20-25, but in terms of on court performance, your team ends up scarcely better than just having 8 or 9 guys of the same talent and playing them all 30 minutes. Shuffling deck chairs on the titantic for all the practical value it adds.