The 2015-16 NBA season starts soon, preseason hoops are in full swing, and playoff prognostications have begun in earnest. Because season previews can get bogged down by team-specific minutiae, and we cover every basketball team, we’re providing our readers reasons why you should care about all 30 teams in the Association.
DIME MAG’s 2015-16 NBA Season Previews
The Bulls are still an Eastern Conference contender, and some are so convinced Tom Thibodeau ground down his team like particularly tough pestle pulverizing the mortar, they think new coach Fred Hoiberg will lift this team to greater heights. While Thibs’ strong-side defense revolutionized the NBA on that end, their offense became stagnant and their players, exhausted. That won’t be a problem for Hoiberg, who ran a wide-open five-out at Iowa State that should reveal a lot of hardwood for a Bulls team with two stars in the backcourt. Plus, no one’s playing more than 32 minutes.
But the reduction in playing time works in their favor because their backups just got a jolt, and there’s no telling what a second unit of Joakim Noah at center, Taj Gibson (or Chicago’s newest rookie to fawn over, Bobby Portis) at power forward, Doug McDermott or Mike Dunleavy at small forward, Kirk Hinrich at shooting guard and Aaron Brooks at point will do against opposing substitutes.
Could this be the Spurs of the East? Are we going to watch a change in the power base of the East? Should LeBron and David Blatt be scared?
Plus, you’ve got Pau Gasol and Nikola Mirotic in a front court that could be deadly. Picture both along the three-point arc, with a five-out set of passes and pin-downs that turns the Bulls into a carnival of three-pointers and drives to the rim. It’ll be like a Daryl Morey Bacchanalia, so much so we wouldn’t be surprised if he instructed Kevin McHale to “watch some more of this Bulls experiment I’ve been hearing about.”
Some aren’t going to like the Noah move to the bench. They’ll argue that he’s finally healthy and ready to reaffirm his defensive prowess. Remember, we’re just two years removed from his 2014 Defensive Player of the Year award. Noah was the anchor of Thibodeau’s defensive system, and when Rose initially went down, he even turned into their offensive hub along the elbows — like a modern-day Bill Russell.
But that set shot is ugly, at least in comparison to Pau, and they no longer need him to run the offense, even if Derrick is out. Might Hoiberg benefit from some Pau-Noah frontcourt comfort? Yes, but we like the move if it’ll actually open up space without turning their defense on its head.
Noah’s health
Over the summer, sometimes the only time NBA writers can do so, James Herbert of CBS Sports talked to Alex Perris, Joakim Noah’s trainer, and Dr. Marcus Elliott, the founder of P3, about Noah’s summer spent in Santa Barbara — home of P3’s testing facilities.
They’ve maximized Noah’s on-court movements and reaffirmed his love for basketball again. While Joakim will be coming off the bench to start the year, this could mean a Sixth Man of the Year award, or even a Most Improved Player nod. That’s how worn down Noah looked at the end of last season — one marred by nagging injuries and a body that looked like only a slight vestige of its former svelte self.
Now Noah is bouncier. Former Los Angeles Lakers guard Mike Penberthy played with Noah in the afternoon this summer after his morning Yoga, swim in the Pacific and P3 training.
“The goal was just to get him to fall in love with the game again,” Penberthy said. “I think the hard part was just the pressure of trying to win and that whole situation with everybody last year in Chicago just really took its toll on him. I just wanted him to enjoy playing again.”
It seems he has, at least if his new coach isn’t blowing hot smoke up our butts about how he’s looked in camp.
“Jo’s been awesome,” Bulls coach Fred Hoiberg said recently. “His energy, he’s been a great leader out here. He’s knocking down shots right now. Offensive rebounds, he’s finishing with explosiveness. He’s been, I’d say, one of the top guys in camp so far.”
That hasn’t translated into on-court success in the preseason, particularly on the offensive end, where he and his teammates are learning Hoiberg’s system on the fly. He was ranked “poor” by Synergy in 53 offensive possessions that ended in a shot, turnover or foul, and it was clear he was still growing comfortable with where his teammates were going to be on the floor.
But his health, and his demeanor, can’t be overlooked. He’s moving more fluidly around the court, and you’re no longer worried an arm or a leg will simply fall off from overuse. Joakim Noah is finally healthy. While he might not be the ideal player in Hoiberg’s system, he’s smart, understands the game and will be counted on to help catapult the Bulls back to the top of the Conference.
We’re just excited he’s finally pain-free; last year was that miserable.
The Fred Hoiberg era: Resting starters, a five-out offense, and the Thibs run-off
When the Chicago Bulls hired Fred Hoiberg early last summer, they did so with an explicit hope that the rookie coach would stand in stark contrast to his predecessor. Tom Thibodeau wore out his welcome in the Windy City, but that’s more a reflection of his relationship with the front office than the Bulls’ roster.
Derrick Rose, Joakim Noah, and company came out in support of Thibodeau following his dismissal. Just a few official weeks after working with Hoiberg, though, Chicago is already a much different team than its been over the past several years – and potentially a much better one, too.
It’s hard to say just how high the Bulls’ ceiling actually reaches. Not just because of the sweeping changes Hoiberg will implement this season, but also due to the injury bug biting them so frequently in 2014-15. Noah, Jimmy Butler, Taj Gibson, Mike Dunleavy, and Kirk Hinrich all missed at least 15 games, while Rose and Doug McDermott were sidelined for more significant amounts of time. Other than Aaron Brooks, the only lasting members of Chicago’s rotation to play the full campaign close to unscathed were Pau Gasol and Nikola Mirotic – who just happen to be their team’s new frontcourt starters, too.
Yet amazingly, benching the suddenly limited Noah in favor Mirotic still isn’t the most drastic adjustment Hoiberg is making in 2015-16. Thibodeau was known nearly as much for his refusal to lessen the minutes load of his best players as his wildly innovative defensive scheme. It’s surely no coincidence, then, that Hoiberg has plans of following the mold of the San Antonio Spurs and Golden State Warriors by playing no regular more than 32 minutes per game. Still, it might be his ballyhooed motion offense that could most propel the Bulls to heights Thibodeau never took them.
Even with a diminished Rose and Noah, the Bulls still possess one of the most talented rosters in the league – and Hoiberg appears to be the coach best-suited to get the best from that estimable collective ability. If Chicago can take the next step offensively and maintain the fabric of its longstanding identity on the other end, there’s no reason it couldn’t seriously challenge for home-court advantage in the postseason.
That’s a tall task, obviously, and one that will be complicated by both the lineup change and Hoiberg’s new-school approach to player rest. But the risks associated with those moves and more come with potentially immense benefits, too, and they’re ones that didn’t exist as realistically under Thibodeau as they do today.
