There weren’t a whole lot of changes to the Chicago Bulls this past offseason. (There will likely be a bunch next summer, but that’s another story for another time, will Joakim Noah and Pau Gasol be back? We’ll see) The only major change is regime change.
With Fred Hoiberg taking over for Tom Thibodeau, you have a team that’s more fun and exciting to watch offensively, but doesn’t come anywhere close to rivaling the 48 minutes of hell kind of defense that we saw during the Thibs era.
What had previously been a “If Derrick Rose is healthy yadda yadda/as Derrick Rose goes so go the…” has been replaced by a Gestalt. Now you have a team with a new alpha dog in Jimmy Butler, but also a unit that is more than the some of its parts. On some nights, Nikola Mirotic will be the hero, other days it’s Pau Gasol.
Saturday night, it was actually Aaron Brooks of all people! He’s the guy getting a lot of Rose’s minutes anyway.
Pau Gasol articulated the some of the issues this team has had with consistency.
“We have long stretches where we don’t play with enough intensity, concentration, focus, and that’s a pattern,” Gasol said.
“We’ve got to find an emotion and intensity for 48 minutes. We can’t expect teams to come here and roll over.”
Obviously the biggest difference between this season and last season is that Hoiberg doesn’t over-play his starters to the point where he’s grinding them down into a grainy powered from all the excessive minutes. Hoiberg, like any normal coach, rests his starters in blowouts.
He’s also been giving his team some time off from practice this week. That’s well deserved as they had a home game Saturday, Monday, tonight and Friday.
Hoiberg also discussed the adjustments that have come from regime change and why that might bring inconsistency.
“I get that, I’ve been on teams where there’s been a lot of change. I remember playing with Garnett, Spreewell, Cassel, when that group was put together, I think it was a .500 start,” Hoiberg said.
“It was an 8-8 or 9-9 start out of the gate, and then we just took off when it all came together. So I understand that when there’s change that it takes time to get everything in and to get the habits where you want them,” he continued.
As of now, the Bulls are just one game behind the Cleveland Cavaliers for the top spot in the Eastern Conference. Obviously, the Cavs are also working on getting everything to all come together themselves. It will be interesting to see who gets it all together first.
Paul M. Banks owns, operates and sometimes writes The Sports Bank.net, which is partnered with FOX Sports Engage Network. The website is also featured on News Now.
Banks, a former writer for the Washington Times, currently contributes to the Chicago Tribune RedEye. He also appears regularly on numerous television and radio talk shows all across the country. Catch him Tuesdays on KOZN 1620 The Zone.