You demonstrated your objectivity when you pretended your own blustery predictions for 2015-2016 didn't exist for months (thus the conspicuous death of the "Narrative" thread) and now when called on it trot out the injury excuse, despite the fact that the majority of the games missed were accounted for by the already benched Joakim Noah and the role player Mike Dunleavy. The majority of the Bulls games in 2015-2016 featured their 3 best players Butler, Gasol, and Rose in the starting lineup, yet Hoiberg still couldn't muster a playoff appearance in a weak East with the same team that should have been in the finals a year previous.

As for last year, you're once again pretending that the Bulls stumbling into the last playoff spot is somehow a reason to celebrate. You seem to think the Bulls defied the odds when they actually underachieved according to projections like 538 for instance. It seems to really hurt your feelings that I never predicted the Bulls to be worse than the Wolves or Knicks or that you can't play gotcha with me. Regardless, last season does little to nothing to prove Hoiberg is somehow a quality coach.

It's not a reason to celebrate but bashing a guy for essentially holding serve while ignoring a guy that underachieved for 2 consecutive years hurts your credibility. Hoiberg did a better job of coaching his team last season than the guy he replaced. Until Thibs proves otherwise it was the correct move.

Hoiberg probably isn't the guy but it still doesn't mean that Thibs shouldn't have been whacked

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It's not a reason to celebrate but bashing a guy for essentially holding serve while ignoring a guy that underachieved for 2 consecutive years hurts your credibility. Hoiberg did a better job of coaching his team last season than the guy he replaced. Until Thibs proves otherwise it was the correct move.

Hoiberg probably isn't the guy but it still doesn't mean that Thibs shouldn't have been whacked.

As far as Noah being benched its a misnomer of sorts. He was,still performing at a high level and he was still playing about half the game. Check his numbers

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Hoiberg failing to reach the playoffs altogether was a far greater instance of underachieving than any season in Thibodeua's time with the Bulls, including his last one. You're desperate to gloss over this and instead prefer to wax poetic about Hoiberg "holding serve" in 2016-17 after his failure the preceding season had already lowered the net and significantly downgraded the expectations for the team.

Is Zeph the biggest masochist on the board?

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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

Hoiberg sucks and will never be HC in the league again.

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Successful calls:

Kyrie Irving will never win anything as a team's alpha: check
T.rubisky is a bust: check
Ben Simmons is a liability: check
The Fields Cult is dumb: double check

2013 CSFMB ROY

This doesn't make sense. The Bulls won 42 games his 1st year. Ok they didn't meet expectations that year. They slightly exceeded them last year.

THEY ARE PURPOSELY TRYING TO LOSE THIS YEAR. WHY ARE WE DISCUSSING THE COACH WHEN THEY HAVE THE WORSE TALENT IN THE LEAGUE AND ARE INTENTIONALLY TRYING TO LOSE GAMES?


Even if Hoiberg wasn't the guy it's obvious that neither was Thibs. Funny how Thibs the genius talk has subsided during the past year. Worse case they will have had to fire 2 coaches instead of one. I don't think Hoiberg is the guy but the wosre thing affecting the Bulls now is talent. They are trying to address that. once they do he will be gone. I'm convinced of that.

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it doesn't help that they're both kinda right and kinda wrong.

It really was idiotic to fire Tibs, but the Bulls had to rebuild (even though they didn't realize it) and Tibs wouldn't be that guy.
Fred Hoiberg had a season to prove he was a good coach. He failed spectacularly, although he was undermined by his best player.
Fred's never going to prove his coaching prowess with this bunch o' crap.

Tibs should never have been given GM control in Minny. He's screwing himself, GM Tibs is screwing Coach Tibs.

Any coach is going to be challenged to work with GARPAX, they have conclusively proven to be poor at evaluating talent over the long run.

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Ба́бушка гада́ла, да на́двое сказа́ла—то ли до́ждик, то ли снег, то ли бу́дет, то ли нет.

Uhhh, what? Thibodeau has made large strides toward turning around the Wolves franchise.

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Rick Hahn is the best GM in baseball.

Everything you said is pretty much spot on. I don't believe Hoiberg finishes out his contract. I think he will be whacked after next season.

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he has made some moves that are hugely questionable and could affect the long term prospects of the franchise.

holy crap, ltg agrees with me

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Ба́бушка гада́ла, да на́двое сказа́ла—то ли до́ждик, то ли снег, то ли бу́дет, то ли нет.

He inherited a team with the 2nd best young talent in the game and traded a good portion of it to in order to get bounced in the first round of the playoffs. This isn't a championship team. They won't be 2 or 3 years from now either.

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Every now and then you happen to get some things right COF

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That's part of failing spectacularly as a coach

I was fine with firing Thibs. Said it at the time. The team simply quit on him. But hiring Hoiberg has been an unmitigated disaster.

_________________
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

Even bringing up Butler at all when mentioning Hoiberg's spectacular failure is laughable.

Likewise, there was no reason to believe the Bulls were doomed or destined to have to completely rebuild as far back as 2015. They only locked themselves into that position as a result of repeated incompetence in free agency and the draft.

Also great to see how the "throw crap at the wall" approach to rotations is continuing even during a rebuilding period where wins don't even matter. Can't wait to hear how continuously screwing around with the rotations is somehow good for player development, which is ostensibly the one thing besides losing games that Hoiberg is actually tasked with this season.

Dunn, Markkanen, and Portis should be playing 30+ minutes every single game. Don't really give a shit about the rest.

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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

Once Noah Rose and Gasol declined as players it was necessary to rebuild. I don't know where all of these mythical transactions were supposed to come from anyway. Your speculations on what coulda and shoulda been done don't mean that such deals were possible. The Bulls didn't have much in the way of tradeable assets. Aging and injured players don't tend to fetch much in trades.

Butler was the only guy with any value. They traded him for 3 guys that might be starters. They also will net a top 3 pick in a draft that is top heavy.

Drafting Markannen who so far is the 2nd best player in this draft behind Tatum, was also a screwed move.

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uh...what? Butler wanted to go back to Tibs iso ball and forced his way on that. Did you watch their first season with Hoi after game 20 or so?

And no, they were never a championship team and didn't have a prayer of adding a good enough piece in the draft to make them a championship team. Explain how they would have become competitive with GS, Cleveland, San Antonio, Houston et al.

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Ба́бушка гада́ла, да на́двое сказа́ла—то ли до́ждик, то ли снег, то ли бу́дет, то ли нет.

You both hate Thibs and Butler. How is this surprising?

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Rick Hahn is the best GM in baseball.

That's on Hoiberg, who allowed and encouraged Butler to do that because it gave the team a far better chance to win. Hoiberg's complicity means he wasn't actually being undermined.
Uh by not blowing draft picks and sitting on the pieces they did have until they arrived at the point that Butler was the only player with any value whatsoever on the team? By not expecting that returning the exact same roster and changing coaches was sufficient to contend in the 2015 offseason? I don't think I have to give a step by step to challenge the idea that the Bulls were doomed to have to completely tear down everything as far back as 2015. It's silly to pretend that the strategy of adding no good pieces whatsoever is evidence that they simply could never add enough good pieces.

you don't have one because there isn't one. There's no path. And with the ability level of this front office, a rebuild is worthless, but I thought by now we'd have a new front office.

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Ба́бушка гада́ла, да на́двое сказа́ла—то ли до́ждик, то ли снег, то ли бу́дет, то ли нет.

No, it's because your premise is absurd and suggests at least 25 teams at any given time should be completely tanking. The Bulls stood completely pat in the 2015 offseason instead of upgrading anywhere. They refused to deal Gasol when he still had value during the season and missed the playoffs anyway. They pursued 2 washed up ball dominant free agents to play alongside Butler in the 2016 offseason when everyone knew it wouldn't work. They whiffed on every draft pick between Butler and Markannen. Again, the idea that they were doomed to have to completely rebuild as far back as 2015 is ridiculous. No single improvement on any of these moves would have instantly made them competitive with the Warriors, but that's a terrible standard to judge front offices by and it doesn't therefore make their failures from 2015-2017 insignificant or irrelevant.

Thibs loved Draymond

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I'm going to bounce from the spot for awhile but I will be back at some point to argue with you about this hoops stuff again. Playoffs have been great this season. See ya up the road.

I'm out.

Original member of the fanclub

viewtopic.php?f=91&t=106431

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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

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Where are all these spectacular failures? They missed on a few guys but it wasn't like they've drafted anywhere in the top 10. If you are drafting in the late 10's early 20's you don't "whiff" often because there isn't much to whiff on. McDermott was a mistake but it isn't like they missed on a franchise guy when they drafted him.

There wasn't much of a market for Gasol either. Again that is your own interpretation of what a guy's value happens to be. Doesn't make it a fact. When they signed Rondo and Wade the free agent market was bare. Butler also begged Bulls management to make those moves. Those were simple stopgap measures and really didn't impact the franchise much.

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"unmitigated disaster" is one of my fave put-downs. Apt regarding Hoiberg.

I will bump it for you since you have difficulty identifying the stuff that you say.

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What do you think this post proves for you exactly?

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Rick Hahn is the best GM in baseball.