Fred Hoiberg was ready to pull the plug on his team’s new starting frontcourt less than two weeks into the season. The issue that precipitated that much-maligned change in the first place, though, prevented the Chicago Bulls’ rookie coach from doing so.
Joakim Noah was slated to make his first start of the season against the Philadelphia 76ers on Monday night, but ended up not playing in Chicago’s 111-88 victory due to nagging pain in his his troublesome left knee. After the game, Hoiberg told ESPN’s Nick Friedell that he’d planned on the former Defensive Player of the Year replacing Nikola Mirotic as a starter.
Why? Defense has been the cause of the Bulls’ recent, relative struggles.
“Just wanted to change things up,” Hoiberg said. “Our defense in the first quarter hadn’t been very good, not to say that was directly on Niko, but I just wanted to change the rhythm up. Maybe change the rotation a little bit. It was great to see Niko have the type of night that he did knocking down shots, especially in that second half … but that was the thought, just to change up the rhythm a little bit to start the game.”
Except, when you look at their on/off numbers, Mirotic is a big improvement on the 2014 Defensive Player of the Year.
Please remember, it’s Nov. 10, so the 2015-16 season is still embryonic and the sample size for on/off numbers is almost tiny enough as to make it utterly useless. But we wanted to point out the divergence between Noah and the man who replaced him in the starting lineup, Nikola Mirotic. Chicago’s frontcourt foursome of Pau Gasol, Mirotic (their current starters), Noah and Taj Gibson seems like it’s divided between all offense and all defense. We can’t help but wonder if a combo of the two — say Pau at the five and Noah at the four to start, and Taj and Mirotic coming off the bench — might work better.
Fred Hoiberg is only two weeks into his first head coaching job in the NBA, so lets cut him some slack if you disagree with his initial lineup changes. It’s easy to watch on TV and think you know better, but he’s still experimenting and finding out what groupings work best. That’ll take time and patience, which doesn’t happen to be a strong suit of the Chicago media.
Thankfully, Noah says he’s not getting an MRI on his left knee and was primarily sitting out as a precaution against overexertion.
