Solving our offensive hierarchy, is it possible?

[suckfish]

I don't even believe we are in that much trouble. If Thibs can get the team back to playing hard and out working teams again like we used to then we would be in great shape.

The fact that the team has tuned Thibs out is the real issue.

[kingkirk]

Taking a step back, why do we even need a defined hierarchy?

To me, that is part of our problem. We've gone to a very isolation heavy offense, where we clearly know who is getting the shot in a particular possession.

Whether it's pounding the post with Gasol, Rose taking his jumpers or Butler trying to find his offense within that, when we go to one of those guys, it's pretty much that player looking for his own score with lots of standing around and waiting.

Our offensive aim should not be about getting Rose X amount of shots, Gasol Y amount of shots etc. It should happen organically with the ball moving all around and finding the best shot.

Rose, Gasol & Butler is a good enough 'big 3' offensively. That's a lot of talent. The issue is how they're being used, and not why they're being used at their respective volumes.

Rose needs to be aggressive and look to get people more shots of quality, instead of taking 26 himself. Pau needs to find himself facing the basket more on jumpers than trying to bang down low like it 2007. JB needs to be more assertive and willing to take some offensive responsibility when Derrick is on the floor.

Watch our offense, though. There is more standing around now than there has been in the last 2 seasons where we had far inferior rosters in place. The 'way' we played offense the last 2 seasons is fundamentally better than what we're doing now, except we couldn't execute.

Now, we have the talent, but we're just playing dumb.

We've gone too far the other way and haven't found a balance.

[lastmanstanding]

Offensively I think one of the biggest problems for this team is movement. Not just lack of movement, although there is that, but the lack of purpose to their moves. Cuts are at half speed. Somebody sets a pin down and the cutter comes off with a complete lack of urgency or purpose to the cut. Completely waste the screen. When someone is posting up, the rest of the team sorta meanders around without a clear destination. Harder more purposeful movement will make the offense a lot harder to defend

[matt3254]

I personally think our best offense comes from when Rose creates. I feel so much more confident about offense when Rose has the ball. He just has to quit taking stupid long shots. Every time he drives around a pick, he opens up an offensive rebound/tip-in almost every time.

It's just his stupidity and stubbornness to take those 3's. It makes no sense, he is supposed to be our best player, we're paying him a lot of money, yet he is the only player on our team that takes stupid shots.

[micromonkey]

Watch our offense, though. There is more standing around now than there has been in the last 2 seasons where we had far inferior rosters in place. The 'way' we played offense the last 2 seasons is fundamentally better than what we're doing now, except we couldn't execute.

Now, we have the talent, but we're just playing dumb.

We've gone too far the other way and haven't found a balance.

I'd agree and I think Thibs managing the offense a little more (and being demanding on the guys) should fix it.
You want pops--that is what he'd do. Tony Parker only takes corner 3s from certain spots. You need to play the right way or you sit--and that should go top to bottom. The play is so bad that I don't care if it means 40 mins of Snell or McD even to prove a point.

Now we are playing like crap and no one is learning any hard lessons, getting embarrassed, etc. Or they just go out and repeat the same mistakes.

That said even simple offense Rose can't run right now. You see several easy dump off or dish passes per quarter he rarely takes; watching film there are probably many more.

Rose is using too many possessions either early in the clock with jumpshots or head down drives to the hoop.
We saw some basic floor generalship in 2012 but that Rose is gone. Not CP3 but basic screen roll, passing to open guy--it's rarely there.

The only problem I have is every time we hear about read and react it sounds like Rose can't make it work so we abandon it. With his offense so inefficient and this team playing like *** I don't see why not

[drbg43]

Rose needs to shoot less. That's the obvious answer but it doesn't mean he isn't the number option and it doesn't mean he won't get it together by the playoffs.

He is the number 1 option and he will get it together by the playoffs.

Why does Rose feel he must shoot more than 2011? Is it the roster construction, or something maniacal about his comeback making him do it?

I feel like there's many things at play here. First of all, I'm sure Derrick's legs are feeling it right now after his long layoff. His legs are tired. I don't blame him. He's gotta work through that and he will and hopefully he'll be better conditioned in the playoffs.

Second of all I feel like Derrick is viewing the regular season as just a time to get back in the game and hone in his "improved shooting" from his time off. He is just chucking the hell out of it because he's convinced himself that he can be a good 3pt shooter and that he needs to add that to his game to take it to another level and to give him an extra edge. I feel like this must be a sort-of planned thing, with his family (reggie), and maybe with the bulls staff. If he can become more versatile in that way he can maybe slow down his game a little bit. He's pump faking a lot and it's working lately because everyone knows he's chucking. Maybe he's just trying to make everyone aware that he loves shooting 3s. They'll go for the pump fake cus they have it in the back of their minds.

But I don't think it's maniacal at all. He's probably tired physically and plain just wants to get good at 3s before the playoffs. Like I said, it's probably a concerted effort to somehow add that to his game, and at the same time it's less exerting on his body.

This is still a tough transition for him, I think he'll keep getting better, but let's face it, his legs have looked very heavy recently. He looked much more spry at times earlier in the season so It's obvious why his missing every 3 short and on a huge drought. I guess you want him to stop since it's not working, but I don't think he cares about the regular season as much as you do.

But the big questions are: Can we get him to stop. And do we have enough quality scorers to pick up the slack.

No, we need more shooting. The amount we're relying on Dunleavy is scary.

[Rerisen]

This is still a tough transition for him, I think he'll keep getting better, but let's face it, his legs have looked very heavy recently. He looked much more spry at times earlier in the season so It's obvious why his missing every 3 short and on a huge drought. I guess you want him to stop since it's not working, but I don't think he cares about the regular season as much as you do.

The problem with this approach is even if Derrick using the whole season as a training camp, the team isn't going to understand how to play properly without practice in doing so, when Rose would finally flip the switch and supposedly 'play smart' in the postseason.

Further, if he never does get back 90-100% back all the way this year, we will have wasted the whole season on a team strategy that is destined to failure, when at some point it will be smarter to say, Derrick just isn't the MVP level guy anymore, and we need to instead start learning a team style that is a little less dependent on him for mass usage, and instead figures out how to rely on Jimmy more, as well as team offense and spreading the ball out.

Though I tend to agree on the point about Dunleavy, we are putting far too many high hopes on one lone low volume shooter. Other great teams with real high underlying talent are not falling off to the Bulls level by missing one role player.

The Bulls missed far better players in the past, Noah for long stretches, Deng, even Rose himself in 2012, and kept on winning at a great team pace. They certainly didn't fall below .500.

[AirP.]

What are you talking about wait for everyone to be healthy when this is talking about a rumor from summer not now.

When folks are injured the next logical step is to wait.

When a wing hole is perceived, you are suggesting:
1) Trading an untradeable player because Phoenix will waive his physical
2) Get another PG for Noah and then move that PG to SG
3) Move the all-star version SG of Jimmy to SF

How do those things logically follow?[/quote]

This was before the season began. Why are still thinking this is a current offer.

Phoenix made the offer so I do believe they knew the situation.

And yes, we would have moved Jimmy to SF and had to live with way less Hinrich and Snell because an actual good player was playing in their spot on the court.

[drbg43]

This is still a tough transition for him, I think he'll keep getting better, but let's face it, his legs have looked very heavy recently. He looked much more spry at times earlier in the season so It's obvious why his missing every 3 short and on a huge drought. I guess you want him to stop since it's not working, but I don't think he cares about the regular season as much as you do.

The problem with this approach is even if Derrick using the whole season as a training camp, the team isn't going to understand how to play properly without practice in doing so, when Rose would finally flip the switch and supposedly 'play smart' in the postseason.

Further, if he never does get back 90-100% back all the way this year, we will have wasted the whole season on a team strategy that is destined to failure, when at some point it will be smarter to say, Derrick just isn't the MVP level guy anymore, and we need to instead start learning a team style that is a little less dependent on him for mass usage, and instead figures out how to rely on Jimmy more, as well as team offense and spreading the ball out.

I'm not saying it's a good strategy.

We need more shooting regardless though. We all knew coming into the season that Rose would need more help and that he was having to exert himself too much to create offense for us in the past. That's why we brought in Gasol, Mirotic, and McDermott who hasn't panned out. It's not enough but we have most of the pieces in place.

You're judging Rose too quickly. You can't make an assessment at this point that he won't he back close to form perhaps next season. Indications are that he is capable of playing at a high level but his body is going through an adjustment period.

I agree with you though that we need to play a more team style offense, and Rose's 3s don't help that. We've shown spurts of good ball movement and tempo but not consistently. Rose needs to become a better distributor.

[Rerisen]

You're judging Rose too quickly. You can't make an assessment at this point that he won't he back close to form perhaps next season. Indications are that he is capable of playing at a high level but his body is going through an adjustment period.

I'm not judging his end goal or potential though, I'm judging the path he is taking to try to reach those things. It's the wrong path. There is no dictate that the only way Rose can recover his game is to turn into a inefficient 3pt bomber, till he is comfortable to drive more. There is no dictate that Rose stops trying to playmake while he dotes on his own individual ability to take his man off the dribble when he wants.

The only way back isn't shooting 18 times a night and 12 of those shots are beyond what he is likely to succeed in doing.

Instead, it would be just as possible, and far more team friendly, for Rose to simply pick his spots better and dial back his usage, till his conditioning and rhythm catch up to the role he eventually hopes to play again. And even better, if he fails to reach the same level again, he will already be on the proper learning path to figuring out how to still being an effective team player, even if he's only 80% say of what he was.

Rose at 80% can still be a positive very good player for the team. But Rose at 80% pretending and trying to still have the role as if he's 100% is more often just a net negative, because the extra 20% he doesn't have become utter failures of plays: turnovers, bricks, blocked shots at the rim he can no longer convert due to super athleticism, heat checks, bad decision-making etc.

[drbg43]

You're judging Rose too quickly. You can't make an assessment at this point that he won't he back close to form perhaps next season. Indications are that he is capable of playing at a high level but his body is going through an adjustment period.

I'm not judging his end goal or potential though, I'm judging the path he is taking to try to reach those things. It's the wrong path. There is no dictate that the only way Rose can recover his game is to turn into a inefficient 3pt bomber, till he is comfortable to drive more. There is no dictate that Rose stops trying to playmake while he dotes on his own individual ability to take his man off the dribble when he wants.

The only way back isn't shooting 18 times a night and 12 of those shots are beyond what he is likely to succeed in doing.

Instead, it would be just as possible, and far more team friendly, for Rose to simply pick his spots better and dial back his usage, till his conditioning and rhythm catch up to the role he eventually hopes to play again. And even better, if he fails to reach the same level again, he will already be on the proper learning path to figuring out how to still being an effective team player, even if he's only 80% say of what he was.

Rose at 80% can still be a positive very good player for the team. But Rose at 80% pretending and trying to still have the role as if he's 100% is more often just a net negative, because the extra 20% he doesn't have become utter failures of plays: turnovers, bricks, blocked shots at the rim he can no longer convert due to super athleticism, heat checks, bad decision-making etc.

I agree. It's not good for the team's development.

[RayClayMatthews]

We need an offensive minded head assistant. We need the right line ups out there. Needing Pau's offense is killing our PnR D. So, if we still need a lot from him then we need to have more balance in minutes and the right combos out there. We need more Niko and we Jo to keep his energy high and be with the right line up or he needs less minutes. Thats all there is to it