His record with Rookies is terrible. I saw that he had a record that was 20 games under .500 despite having what some consider the best young talent in the league. His record was worse than Sacramento's.

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His record was what I expected it to be. Like I said your dislike of both blinds you.

You can't in one breath say that Butler isn't that good and that is why the Bulls couldn't get much for him and then in the next breath talk about how they beat the Wolves because you want to shit on Thibs talent evaluation skills.

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Be well

GO BEARS!!!

You never said they'd be 20 games below .500 sounds good now. Thibs gets it wrong quite a bit. Teague and Gibson were terrible signings and he only played Butler when Deng was injured. He also drafted the guy you believe will be a bust.

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I said they wouldn't be a .500 team or a playoff team. I said they would improve and then take the leap the following year and fight for a playoff spot. Looks like I was right.

You have to pick a lane. Eithe the Bulls got nothing in return for Butler because the league knows that he isn't good or the Wolves got robbed. It cannot be both.

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Be well

GO BEARS!!!

Lyin Nas!

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Fare you well, fare you well
I love you more than words can tell
Listen to the river sing sweet songs
To rock my soul

Go pull up the record.

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Be well

GO BEARS!!!

You had them better than the Bulls

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Fare you well, fare you well
I love you more than words can tell
Listen to the river sing sweet songs
To rock my soul

I did not. I had them worse than the Knicks and Bulls.

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Be well

GO BEARS!!!

I said it would takeba year for them to learn how to win.

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Be well

GO BEARS!!!

It appears I misremembered. Maybe I was thinking of your terrible Knicks love

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Fare you well, fare you well
I love you more than words can tell
Listen to the river sing sweet songs
To rock my soul

The Knicks really underachieved

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Be well

GO BEARS!!!

The Bulls return for Butler was about what he was worth. They got a few pieces but they didn't get anyone that's a game changer. I'm not disappointed because I never believed that he'd bring much back anyway. Neither team was fleeced to be honest. I just find it funny that some are using this as a further indictment of GarPax. This isn't the shield to die on for me. They weren't going to obtain future all stars for Butler. If two of them turn out to be starters it's a win for the Bull.

I don't believe Butler will make another All Star team.

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And he's 358-380 without Thibs. And 83-81 since he fired Thibs with the expectation the team should be contending for titles. Looks like mediocrity to me.

No he absolutely doesn't. You're yet again insisting on us taking your word for something that is totally and completely unknown. Again, the players who missed the majority of the games for the Bulls that year were Dunleavy, who was scarcely much of a starting 3 in 2014 or 2015, and Noah, who had been benched and lied about by his coach. Quit acting like Hoiberg had some impossible situation due to injuries primarily to guys who were role players at best; Thibs had no problem still making the playoffs when he lost his ACTUAL best player for the season twice.


WYC? You've never once failed to attribute Hoiberg's lack of success to Butler calling his own number or not buying into the playbook or being a big meanie in the press and have also cited him as a reason the Bulls did not achieve more. Yet now here you are insisting that we give Hoiberg credit for Butler's performances the last two years. You can't have it both ways.

I knew you would find a way to tie all of their success to Thibs that is why I purposely didn't extrapolate his years. At no point during his years with the Bulls did he ever have the sort of injuries that Hoiberg endured.

Can you explain how The Minnesta Timberwolves had a worse record than Sacramento? Before I continue that had to be explained.

Can you also explain how they were 10 games worse than the Hoiberg coached Bulls despite having better talent? That has to be addressed.

The Bulls were 23-15 When Noah was injured. That's with Rose missing the beginning of the season and playing with a damn mask on when he returned.

If Thibs is the great coach that you and others keep telling the world that he is then why in the he'll did he go 31-51 last year?

Also since you want to all of this parsing if you remove Paxson's first season the Bulls are 14 games over .500 without Thibs.

As far as Butler goes everything I stated was accurate. He played better under Hoiberg than he did under Thibs. it was accomplished at the expense of other players on the team.

I also called it about the team looking better once the ball was out of his hands. Guys like you never wanted Rondo and Wade signed because you knew that with them the Bulls would have a good chance to make the playoffs. With that your 1-2 go to of always bashing GarPax and Hoiberg would be crushed. Once they accomplished that you played they would be better under a better coach routine (obviously Thibs) yet you keep avoiding the fact that Thibs coached a team last season. His team finished 10 -11 games worse than their projections. They were considered to be the most disappointing team in the league.

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The Bulls lost 188 games due to injury in 2012-2013 and Thibs led them to 45 wins, more than Hoiberg ever did. And before you come back with the Rose excuse, he was a far better player missing for far longer than any of the players Hoiberg was missing for an extended period of time (and 106 of those missed games that seasn were stil from non-Rose players). So once again, your claims that Hoiberg was in some kind of impossible situation are complete crap as usual.
The Wolves clearly played in a tougher conference and the Bulls top player was far better than anyone on the Wolves. I'd expect their records to come close to flipping if the conferences themselves were swapped.

Noah was benched and "player's coach" Hoiberg blatantly lied to the media about it to boot. Spare me the crocodile tears about how poor Fred would have definitely done better if he had access to a player he clearly didn't value highly.

As for Rose, I think Thibs knows a thing or two about winning games without a healthy Rose. It's pretty interesting that you spend all this time complaining about the mask when the Rose down the stretch was the healthiest he'd been for years. Seems it didn't help "The Mayor" make the playoffs however.

It's actually pretty logical to remove the games of the coach whose quality you've been desperately trying to downplay to big up the competence of the front office. Surely if Paxson was as great as you've been suggesting, he'd have amassed a notable record as an executive without that terrible no good coach.

It's also interesting that you focus on the "14 games over .500" rather than the actual winning percentage of .511. I'm sure that has nothing to do with the vagueness of the former stat sounding potentially impressive and the latter stat once again revealing the actual mediocrity of Paxson's tenure, especially given the conference the Bulls play in.

Simple question. Both guys coached in the NBA last season. Which coach did the better job of coaching their team last season?

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Why should I continue to indulge your questions when you ignore my actual substantive points and extended replies that refute your agenda, as above? You have nothing to defend Paxson's record as an executive without Thibs, nor can you back up your special pleading to somehow excuse Hoiberg's record in 2015-2016 or defend the assertion that he totally definitely would have finished better than Thibs if he had the services of a benched Joakim Noah for an entire season.

I've already called into question the relevance of looking at last season's records alone because it's not an apples-to-apples comparison given the makeup of the teams and the conferences they played in. I also don't think it's particularly clear which coach did better given those very different team makeups, though I think we can conclude neither exactly set the world on fire. I never made any kind of grand prediction about the Wolves at all at the start of the year, despite you constantly trying to lump me in with those who overrated them.

I do note that it's most interesting you want to extrapolate a bunch from their records on different teams in different conferences, yet when I bring up the even more pertinent comparison of the 2014-2015 vs 2015-2016 Bulls, you either assert without any evidence that Hoiberg definitely would have done as well without the injuries or alternately argue that those two teams are somehow conveniently too different to draw any sort of conclusion.

Again ducking Sacramento Kings. How was their makeup? They traded a top 10 player and lost their 2nd best player and finished with a better record.

It's interesting that you don't seem to ever take into account the different "makeup" of the Bulls during Hoiberg's first two years. Again doesn't fit the silly message board bash Hoiberg narrative. The Bulls had 5 returning players in Hoiberg's 2nd year. Only one was considered vital. You hated the Wade Rondo signings so you can't praise them now. He still made the playoffs. That wasn't enough because they were mediocre.

Does anyone believe that Minnesota will be anything more than mediocre the next couple of years? They will be in the 45-48 win range and people on this board will continue to make excuses.

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How could I "again" be ducking the Kings when the post I was responding to, one that actually did duck my entire extended reply in favor of a simple agenda-driven question, didn't mention them at all?
Uh I have scarcely discussed the 2016-2017 Bulls at all in this thread. I have discussed the in fact same makeup of the Bulls between 2014-2015 and 2015-2016, yet it seems you're not particularly interested in those overlaps and the conclusions we could draw about the coaches given that you're now whinging about a season that has been scarcely central to the discussion at all.

And to the extent they are, it's in part a product of the rest of their conference getting even more loaded around them. Meanwhile when the Bulls scraped into the playoffs in the East last year, you were as ready to pop bottles as GarPax, despite the fact that they wouldn't have even come close if they had to play 52 games against the West.

So the only card in your Hoiberg deck happens to be that he was 8 games worse with essentially the same talent? ok have at it. Meanwhile the Thibs gets to skate while his teams have underperformed the past 2 seasons that he has been a head coach.

Also you have consistently made the fallacious argument that the projections regarding the Bulls last season weren't due to the talent level of the team as much as they were due to Hoiberg being the coach. He either met or exceeded every projection. You still didn't give him credit. Meanwhile Thibs bombed royally. Thibs best 2 players were injury free the entire season and yet he still won only 31 games. Their announcers were all over him the entire season questioning his decisions as coach also.

You've increasingly demonstrated biases when it comes to Garpax and thus it renders any opinions useless. They haven't been the best executives in the league but they have been far from the worst. You seem to want to attribute any and all successes of the team to the great Thibs and not the roster that John Paxson constructed. With that being the case it is relevant and essential that Thibs be assessed on what he does without them also. You don't wish to do that because the early returns are atrocious.

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If Thibs underachieved his last season with the Bulls, then Hoiberg finishing 8 games worse and missing the playoffs entirely is an even more significant instance of underachieving. I note that you accuse me of being low on cases to conclude that Hoiberg is a bad coach, even when I compare how they fared with the same roster, but you're more than ready to draw the broadest conclusions possible by comparing last year's Bulls and Wolves. The sample size is exactly 1 in that case as well.

Actual gamblers take everything into account, including yes, the competence or incompetence of the coaches. How did Hoiberg fare relative to the predictions for 2015-2016 BTW? Why aren't you as interested in discussing his performance when he was a blank slate, as opposed to when he had already shown his ability to coach up (or down) a team going into 2016-2017? How did Thibs underachieve at all if he didn't already have a reputation as a good coach? You seem to be suggesting the optimum strategy is to be crap at your job from the start, then latch onto any subsequent success and declare that you've met or exceeded expectation.

As for projections, no it was not the case that the Bulls "met or exceeded every projection." 538 had them winning 45 games and being in a race for top 4 in the East, not barely making the playoffs the last week of the season.

How have the returns been for the Bulls in a post-Thibs world? Why don't you want to apply the same rigorous evaluations to the Bulls front office? I suppose you think Paxson's .511 record as a GM is quite the accomplishment, huh?

Your desperation to bash Thibs or cry about how difficult Rose's injury made things any time I've actually tried to hold the front office accountable for having literally no tradeable assets outside of Butler shows far more pro-GarPax bias than anything I could ever post in the opposite direction. I'm quite happy to give full credit to Paxson for constructing a roster with literally no assets anyone in the NBA wanted.

It's interesting that you don't give them credit for drafting Butler either. There was a time when they had plenty of tradeable assets. The Bulls need to rebuild has more to do with Rose's injury than anything. Paxson had no control over that. It wasn't just the injury but it was also the money. There was 20 mil in salary tied up in Rose. The mere fact that they could stay relevant is a testament to the job that they did. Thibs did a good job also during that period.

My issue with Thibs had to do more so with the last season of him coaching. I saw flaws with coaching. Major flaws that led me to come to conclusion that he wasn't the guy. That was the most talent that the Bulls have had during the post Jordan era and he underperformed with it.

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Matt Llyod ran the Bulls draft from 07-11.

https://www.blogabull.com/2015/5/18/861 ... -lloyd-and

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He sucked in Orlando and the Bulls had drafted well before 2007. I credit Paxson for the good picks and well Gar hasn't had 1 yet.

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Be well

GO BEARS!!!

Again I'm inclined to give Lloyd the credit for Butler considering how atrocious the Bulls drafting has been since he left. Good to see the "But injuries!" excuse trotted out yet again for the lack of literally anyone desirable on the Bulls outside of Butler.

People here have spent 2 seasons cataloging the awful specific things they see Hoiberg doing in game, such as his piss poor timeout playcalls and his throw crap against the wall approach to rotations, and your response is always "But his record and expectations!" Either Thibs' even better record was enough to exonerate him of your specific charges as well or you simply have to accept that you can't excuse the specific flaws listed for Hoiberg by pointing to his record alone.

Butler was picked when Gar was the GM. And if you're going to say it was a Pax pick, all you're doing is revealing how committed you are to attributing all bad decisions to Gar and letting Pax off the hook. Pretty Bernsteinish IMO. I suppose Pax also shouldn't be blamed for LMA for Tyrus, right?

As for Lloyd, he definitely hasn't done horribly. The only real miss in the first round was Hezonja. Everyone else has been at worst a decent rotation player, and his biggest misses were ones pretty much everyone else in the league missed like Booker and Giannis. I'd still definitely trust him overseeing drafting than both Tweedledee and Tweedledum for the Bulls.

The Bulls had better talent when he coached the team. Thibs last season with the Bulls he won fifty games when some of the experts believed he should have won 60. He struggled with a terrible Milwaukee team in the playoffs and lost to a Cleveland team missing 2 of its top 3 players. In a deciding game his team laid down on him and it was reported that 3 of his starters wanted him fired.

I'm sure you have an abundant of ready made excuses and it's obvious that you can't be objective where Hoiberg is concerned. He did an excellent job of going up on a No.1 seed while on the road in the playoffs. Probably pops them with Rondo. You know him. The guy that you didn't want and the guy that I predicted was making a difference in early March.


You demonstrate obvious bias when you can't even admit that Thibs did a shitty job last season. Your constant obfuscations in that one area is really all that needs to be said. He didn't have injuries other than Lavine and they looked like Garbage even when he played. The same issues that cropped up with the Bulls propped up again there for people that paid attention

1. Overuse of Starters

2.Predictable offense

3.Terrible player development.

He is a decent coach probably middle of the road but the allegiance that Bulls fans have towards the guy is spooky. For the record I've already advocated for the firing of GarPax. I don't want them to be in charge of the rebuild. That doesn't mean that I believe they are raging incompetents it just means that they didn't get it done in 14 years and it's time for a new voice. Everything that has gone wrong with that organization is not on them though. That is where there is a strong difference in opinion between me and you.

You tie every mishap to the organization and you have not the slightest bit of objectivity when it comes to the Bulls management.

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I'm sure you never play the "whole league missed" on him card when it comes to GarPax missing on Draemond Green though. Small sample size and with Lloyd and when you get down to it they essentially drafted Payton also. He isn't that good either. You also don't play your apples to oranges crap when it comes to comparing relative draft positions. In the last 4 seasons the Bulls have only had one pick inside the top 10 which was this season. During that same stretch Orlando had drafted 2nd 4th 5th and 10th. They haven't drafted anyone that looks like an All Star and the best pick V.O. is probably better suited for 6th man. Again you're willing to cut some slack because it's a guy you like.

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You're damn right I'm not willing to cut slack for Draymond because the coaching staff actively wanted him and GarPax instead took Marquise Teague because of their own egos. It's a bit different from talking about players everyone missed on vs players that members of your staff actively lobbied you to take only to ignore them out of spite.

As for Lloyd, I'm still far more comfortable with his work even in better draft positions than I have been with the Bulls. The Bulls have been completely awful at drafting ever since he left. I'm pretty sure he wouldn't have been blown through 3 picks to first acquire and then unload Doug McDermott.

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Rick Hahn is the best GM in baseball.