Mirotic hitting the rookie wall

[coldfish]

Here are Mirotic's stats by month:

November: 18.0mpg 7.1p 5.0r 43.6%fg 38.9%3p
December: 19.1mpg 9.9p 5.7r 43.9%fg 41.2%3p
January: 17.5mpg 6.9p 3.3r 34.2%fg 23.1%3p

Mirotic is aggressive on defense but he isn't particularly good on that end and he has always fouls a lot. He really, really struggles with off ball positioning on that side of the court. Here are his per 48 minute stats by month:

November: 19.0p 13.3r 7.1fouls
December: 24.8p 14.2r 5.2fouls
January: 18.9p 9.1r 5.5fouls

Mirotic has basically played the month of January at less than Tony Snell / Kirk Hinrich levels of play and was definitely part of the reason the Bulls were struggling versus December. Despite that, he continued to get his entitlement minutes until last night.

The first question is: Why? Well, we know its not the minutes because up until last night, his minutes have been the same pattern all year. That leaves two logical explanations:
- He is just tired. I would not be surprised if this was the case. He isn't used to all the travel. People tend to forget that Spain (where he played) is roughly the size of Texas. He played 31 games for Real Madrid total last year. He has played 44 (plus preseason) so far this year and has another 40+ to go.
- Teams have the book on him. He really doesn't have a huge offensive repertoire. His go to move is that pump fake and drive left thing that everyone is now sitting on.

So the obvious follow up is: What should the Bulls do about it?
- Let him play through it and hope he gets through it himelf? This will cost the team games and playing him extended minutes while doing poorly has a lot of bad side effects. It sends a bad message about entitlement minutes to a team already having locker room issues. It might hurt his confidence. It might reinforce poor play patterns.
- Cut his minutes down and let him rest and work through it on the practice court? That seems like the logical thing but something tells me that won't be popular.

[BeatDaCavs420]

Cut his minutes if they did that he barely ever play,he went down hill when Taj came back and thibs cut his minutes down a lot....killed his confidence if you ask me

[Rerisen]

Thibs should just keep giving him his lowly 10-12 a game now with everyone back and hope he pulls out of it soon.

For all our big depth, 96 minutes is too many right now for just Noah, Taj and Gasol. Noah isn't ready for 33 a game, and Pau's needs to come down below 35 ideally too.

Maybe if you are facing some kind of old plodding center, you can steal some Nazr minutes vs those teams if he really wants to avoid Mirotic minutes. But now that we've seen what he can do, its not like a Doug situation where you are dreading his minutes, just need to get him going again.

He still has a 14 PER in January, though his efficiency is way down. But his low volume means 1 or 2 games could turn that around fast.

[coldfish]

Cut his minutes if they did that he barely ever play,he went down hill when Taj came back and thibs cut his minutes down a lot....killed his confidence if you ask me

http://espn.go.com/nba/player/gamelog/_ ... la-mirotic

There is his whole game log. Outside of a very good game against Houston, he started his decline in late December and had a lot of 20+ minute bad games. It really doesn't overlap with Taj playing.

[kulaz3000]

We have more important things to achieve this season than to give Nikola entitlement minutes. He is our future, but he will need to earn his minutes the same way Jimmy and Taj did as rookies.

Right now, it's the right move to continue to increase Taj's minutes because it seems to more he plays the more he produces and right now we need to gell and wins games, and not get too caught up on spoon feeding Nikola minutes. He will still get play, but he also needs to do his part by starting to show a little progression in his game and not continue to make things easier on defenses by doing the same moves over and over, and start to show a little more effort and understanding of our defensive scheme.

Again, he is our future, but for this season at least we will be better off with him remaining at around 10 minutes per game or less, with Gibson's mintues going up a touch.

[bullslas]

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.

[Mech Engineer]

He is having the most productive rookie season since Taj with obviously more flashier offense. But, he is on a contending team. There is obviously less room for error. He is going through an adjustment period.

I think the recent losing streak obviously had some impact even though his game went bad a little earlier. The Bulls absolutely need his 3 pt shooting and energy.

IMO, it is also a lot about the bad first quarters the Bulls have had. It made Mirotic try to do too much on the court and not play with some control. If the Bulls starters keep playing well in the beginning, it helps guys like Mirotic, Brooks to not jack up risky shots.

[Chicago Brawls]

Thibs is the greatest coach of all time at being blamed for things.

[bennjuiced34]

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.

No, Thibs always makes rookies earn their minutes. Niko will bounce back. He's a mentally tough guy. He's going through a tough stretch right now.

Niko needs discipline right now. He's often out of control and gets himself in bad positions. Playing more won't fix that because it would perpetuate those bad habits. Thibs will make him earn those minutes which makes him a better player in the long run.

[logical_art]

I can imagine you grinning from ear to ear posting this.

[coldfish]

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.

[Red Larrivee]

Just let him play. It's a long season and everyone is prone to struggle at times because of it. He'll pick it up.

[dougthonus]

- He is just tired. I would not be surprised if this was the case. He isn't used to all the travel. People tend to forget that Spain (where he played) is roughly the size of Texas. He played 31 games for Real Madrid total last year. He has played 44 (plus preseason) so far this year and has another 40+ to go.

He played 31 Euroleague games, but you are forgetting he also played 43 games in ACB. His games played in the previous year were similar. He was also playing more minutes per game there than here, so he's played over 70+ games at more MPG the past two years.

- Teams have the book on him. He really doesn't have a huge offensive repertoire. His go to move is that pump fake and drive left thing that everyone is now sitting on.

I think this is more it. He needs to ditch that pump fake and either shoot or drive immediately when he has space. The pump fake frequently just gives his opponents time to catch up rather than fake them out. I think he'll adjust to use it more judiciously.

So the obvious follow up is: What should the Bulls do about it?
- Let him play through it and hope he gets through it himelf? This will cost the team games and playing him extended minutes while doing poorly has a lot of bad side effects. It sends a bad message about entitlement minutes to a team already having locker room issues. It might hurt his confidence. It might reinforce poor play patterns.
- Cut his minutes down and let him rest and work through it on the practice court? That seems like the logical thing but something tells me that won't be popular.

I don't think he's any worse than Snell/Hinrich right now. I think you let him play through it. Even with poor shooting and everything else, his offensive and defensive rating in january are both better than both Hinrich and Snell. The Bulls tend to do well when Mirotic is on the court relative to those guys.

[AirP.]

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.

Didn't his play start to slide greatly when the Bulls decided to move him to SF for a bit? I understand he shot ok some but to have to learn a whole different position in the NBA really took away a lot the progress he made(mental). Just when he was getting somewhat use to the bigs in the NBA he then had to learn to cover wings and the different dynamic that entailed with team defense. It was just too big of a change for a rookie. PF to C, SG to SF are much easier transitions then C/PF to SF.

[DuckIII]

Thibs is the greatest coach of all time at being blamed for things.

I had lunch with both Thibs and Van Gundy in Dallas yesterday. Thibs made two things clear to me and Jeff:

(1) The Chicago Bulls front office is nefariously planting stories with the press to undermine his authority in an attempt to run him out of town.

(2) He HATES Mirotic and his stupid beard. Paraphrasing on memory but it was something like, "I want to get this hairy euro-trash where he breathes! I want him DEAD! I want his family DEAD! I want his house burned to the GROUND! I wanna go there in the middle of the night and I wanna PISS ON HIS ASHES!"

[musiqsoulchild]

Thibs is the greatest coach of all time at being blamed for things.

Nicely done. You timely one liners have kept me from going over the edge this last two weeks.

Keep 'em coming.

[musiqsoulchild]

Nikolas greatest strength will be the impact he makes in the playoffs.

The thing about him is that when he's on the floor he's always doing something good for the offense.

In the playoffs, I dont care if its for 8 minutes or 24 minutes, I think he'll have impact plays. Someone like Kirk for example is a stabilizing force in the playoffs. Niko is a re-vitalizing force, even in short bursts of time. I like it.

[aaqubed]

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.

That foul looked like a BS call to me. He also knocked down a three. So I don't think he was all bad last night. He was decent in 2 minutes and deserved more time out there.

[Mech Engineer]

Mirotic even fouled out in a game just playing 15 minutes. If he cannot handle benching for bad play, the Bulls will need to make plans like the 76ers giving confidence to Nerlens Noel and MCW.

Thibs can give confidence to Mirotic by playing through bad periods and contend for lottery balls.

It is fascinating how fans view their favorite or non-favorite players so much outside of the team context. I am sure Thibs has his share of favorites /non-favorites. But, he has already shown that he will play Mirotic in 4th quarter of close games.

Thibs is the master of making all-stars.....Pau, Jimmy, Noah, Deng, Derrick.
He has some kind of all-star recipe for Mirotic in a few years. We just need to be patient.

[RedBulls23]

Thibs should just keep giving him his lowly 10-12 a game now with everyone back and hope he pulls out of it soon.

For all our big depth, 96 minutes is too many right now for just Noah, Taj and Gasol. Noah isn't ready for 33 a game, and Pau's needs to come down below 35 ideally too.

Maybe if you are facing some kind of old plodding center, you can steal some Nazr minutes vs those teams if he really wants to avoid Mirotic minutes. But now that we've seen what he can do, its not like a Doug situation where you are dreading his minutes, just need to get him going again.

He still has a 14 PER in January, though his efficiency is way down. But his low volume means 1 or 2 games could turn that around fast.

I think this is the best solution. Pau played 38 mins last night and I don't think that's a good thing long term. Ideally you want him around 33 and like you said, 35 being the max.