Preseason opener.

[thedoper]

I still find it strange that the biggest criticism of Thibs' coaching here seems to be his offensive scheme. Our offense was statistically great last year. It never bothered me that we didn't look like the rest of the offenses in the NBA, it was working. Our biggest problem was bench depth last year, every statistical metric pointed to that. Our defensive woes even were a result of a historically bad bench. It was GM Thibs that was to blame last year, not coach Thibs. Sadly, it looks like GM Thibs is going to be to blame this year as well. The solution seems so obvious to relieve him of one of these duties since he can't do both.

[Q12543 [enjin:6621299]]

We were 4th in FT attempts, and 2nd in FT percentage. That helps your offensive efficiency quite a bit (as old school as it is).

Yep. And that was attributable to KAT and Butler. Half of our efficiency based on free throws will no longer be with the team. In other words, we're going to take a big hit on the offensive side of the ball, not just defense, this season without Butler. That means the folly of Thibodeau's minimal ball-movement iso offense in today's NBA will be very apparent this season unless we somehow get an efficient 20 point per game scorer in a Butler trade.

Note that officials have been instructed to crack down on defensive holding. That should help KAT, who was held constantly last season. But overall, it further accentuates the increasing importance of offense in the NBA. And it also underscores the fact that defending effectively in the NBA has changed significantly from the approaches that worked when Thibodeau was coaching the Bulls or, before that, working as an assistant for the Celtics. I'll remind everyone of that chart last season showing that Thibodeau's defense emphasized defending the mid-range shot. That's just one small part of how Thibodeau's as out of touch defensively as he is offensively.

I do believe we will see an increase in bench FT's in spite of losing Crawford. We have multiple players that are active and aggressive on the offensive end (Okogie, Bates-Diop, Deng and we used to get that from Tyus).

Thibs or whomever is going to have to figure out that Wiggins can get offense (and collect ft's) in transition or in first 3 seconds (option 1), and then adjust to shitty slow down offense.

I also see high/ low being available in the shitty slow down where KAT takes low/bleeds out and week side makes strong cut. That was open on Sunday early on twice, the cut and cutting angles sucked, but when KAT starts in paint and bleeds out, a smart cutting week side will be there for easy buckets.

I'm not nearly as down on Wiggins as most of this board is. If Wolves can't figure out sets that get him dunks then there is a genuine and deep lack of creativity on bench.

If it were that easy to get people dunks, we'd see it a lot more often, believe me!

I do agree that he can have better success as an off the ball cutter and quick post duck-ins versus "point Wiggins" where we see him dribbling the ball into a horrible shot (or getting stripped of it) when isolated out on the perimeter.

[Q12543 [enjin:6621299]]

I still find it strange that the biggest criticism of Thibs' coaching here seems to be his offensive scheme. Our offense was statistically great last year. It never bothered me that we didn't look like the rest of the offenses in the NBA, it was working. Our biggest problem was bench depth last year, every statistical metric pointed to that. Our defensive woes even were a result of a historically bad bench. It was GM Thibs that was to blame last year, not coach Thibs. Sadly, it looks like GM Thibs is going to be to blame this year as well. The solution seems so obvious to relieve him of one of these duties since he can't do both.

True, Thibs the GM went into last offseason knowing damn well that 3-point shooting and floor spacing was still a major issue, yet he did nothing to address it. That resulted in a group of somewhat redundant players offensively with the likes of Teague, Butler, and Wiggins all preferring to do most of their work from about 18 feet in.

I think the question on offense is could it have been even better if he ran more of it through KAT? It's still amazing to me that one of the most gifted offensive players in the NBA was 4th on his own team in usage. That's incredible.

[longstrangetrip [enjin:6600564]]

Butler's stat line for Wolves preseason opener? Nothing. DNP sitting out until traded

Bulls' preseason opener:
LaVine's: 21 pts (8-13 FG, 5-5 FT), 4 boards, 3 assists, 2 steals, 1 block
Dunn: 12 pts (5-7 FG), 8 boards, 3 assists, 2 blocks
Markkenan: DNP (elbow injury)

Yeah, I'm sure we'll all be keeping tabs on these guys. I'd argue that LaVine was better than Wiggins offensively two seasons ago, but his defense was worse and then he got hurt. He has the potential to be a very dynamic scorer with that jump shot.

Dunn is a "do shit" player that has struggled to quarterback a team due to some weak handles and balky outside shot. I still think at worst he can be Marcus Smart 2.0. Heck, Okogie reminds me a little of Dunn in terms of his doggedness and defense. Let's just hope he doesn't have the same injury and attitude issues.

Those three guys will have plenty of opportunity to score on this team that they led to a whopping 27 wins last year. I'm more interested in how Zach plays defense and how they measure up in other stats. I note that in this game Zach and Dunn had 6 assists and 6 turnovers between them, and no made threes...not a winning formula for a NBA starting backcourt.

LaVine missed half of last season recovering from his knee surgery. It's silly to judge LaVine, Dunn and Markkenan by the number of wins the Bulls had last season given LaVine missing half the season coming back from ACL surgery and the fact that Dunn and Markkenan were in their 2nd and 1st seasons respectively not to mention the lack of talent around them.

As for their performance last night, we know Zach is a terrific 3-point shooter, so highlighting the lack of threes last night isn't very telling. The turnovers were a negative, but were overshadowed completely by the 12 rebounds, 6 assists, 2 steals and 3 blocks between them. Getting 12 boards and 3 blocks from your two guards is more than impressive. I watched the game and saw some excellent defense from Dunn and improved defense from LaVine, understanding that improved defense from LaVine is faint praise. :)

Ha, faint praise indeed! And it's frustrating for me that Zach isn't a better defender. I remember your reporting that Flip thought he could be one of the best on-ball defenders in the NBA, and with his athletic ability he should be a better defender. Who knows, maybe he's a late bloomer.

Even though I continue to question if Zach will ever be an above average player, he was one of my favorite guys when he was here, and I'll be cheering for him in Chicago. Dunn too, I think, although his reported conflict with Hoiberg makes me question his character. I was happy when I saw that the Bulls had blown out the Pels, and that Zach and Dunn both scored well. But reviewing the box score changed my opinion...the aforementioned poor assist/TO ratio and lack of three point success, along with the knowledge that the Pels led the whole game and only a collapse by their reserves in the 4th quarter (similar to the Warriors against us) gave the Bulls the "win".

Anyway, I'll still be pulling for the Bulls because of my fondness for Zach and Hoiberg.

[Monster]

We were 4th in FT attempts, and 2nd in FT percentage. That helps your offensive efficiency quite a bit (as old school as it is).

Yep. And that was attributable to KAT and Butler. Half of our efficiency based on free throws will no longer be with the team. In other words, we're going to take a big hit on the offensive side of the ball, not just defense, this season without Butler. That means the folly of Thibodeau's minimal ball-movement iso offense in today's NBA will be very apparent this season unless we somehow get an efficient 20 point per game scorer in a Butler trade.

Note that officials have been instructed to crack down on defensive holding. That should help KAT, who was held constantly last season. But overall, it further accentuates the increasing importance of offense in the NBA. And it also underscores the fact that defending effectively in the NBA has changed significantly from the approaches that worked when Thibodeau was coaching the Bulls or, before that, working as an assistant for the Celtics. I'll remind everyone of that chart last season showing that Thibodeau's defense emphasized defending the mid-range shot. That's just one small part of how Thibodeau's as out of touch defensively as he is offensively.

I do believe we will see an increase in bench FT's in spite of losing Crawford. We have multiple players that are active and aggressive on the offensive end (Okogie, Bates-Diop, Deng and we used to get that from Tyus).

Thibs or whomever is going to have to figure out that Wiggins can get offense (and collect ft's) in transition or in first 3 seconds (option 1), and then adjust to shitty slow down offense.

I also see high/ low being available in the shitty slow down where KAT takes low/bleeds out and week side makes strong cut. That was open on Sunday early on twice, the cut and cutting angles sucked, but when KAT starts in paint and bleeds out, a smart cutting week side will be there for easy buckets.

I'm not nearly as down on Wiggins as most of this board is. If Wolves can't figure out sets that get him dunks then there is a genuine and deep lack of creativity on bench.

The bench didn't get to the line much last year. Tolliver took more FTs per game than Any Wolves bench player. Wiggins will get more FT attempts as well as Teague. I don't think this team will have a problem getting to the line and that would be the case almost no matter who would be the coach.

[MikkeMan]

Scoring is the most replaceable stat in the league. The Jazz lost their 2 leading scorers going into last year and ended up being fine. Guys step up when scoring holes need to be filled. The biggest hit we'll take with Jimmy gone is the defense. He was pretty much the glue making that unit respectable. That's why I don't think we are a playoff team without him. Slow iso ball is ideal when you can't defend to limit total possessions of the game, but it's not gonna be enough.

It's a little ironic you cite the Jazz since you were the one that thought they would be worthless offensively last season!

Yes, it's not hard for others to take more shots and score more points. But do we really want the likes of Wiggins and Rose to be taking shots that otherwise would have been taken by Butler? Efficiency matters. Let's hope those extra shots go to the likes of KAT and Teague, especially KAT.

Efficiency matters but since it looks like that Wiggins is more effective scorer when he is first option (or at least one of top2 options), we won't necessarily need super efficient another wing scorer to get same level scoring efficiency than we had last year.

If Wigging gets back to same efficiency level than he had 2015-17, we would need another starting wing to score about 850 points with better than 54.7 TS% to get same amount of points and efficiency than Wiggins and Butler gave together last year.

[crazy-canuck [enjin:18955461]]

Game 2.