In the tribune this morning I read that skiles wants to shorten his rotation and really liked the look of the lineup that made the comeback in the 4th yesterday

in case u missed it, that was...

duhon, hinrich, deng, noc, and big ben

I think it's become clear that kirk and deng can carry the offensive load for the starters, and I think both will be averaging more than 18ppg by season's end. So it makes sense, put in a third scorer in noc and play another defensive player like duhon.

If Gordon continues to struggle for another game, no one could argue with a change like that one.

Duhon and Kirk is obviously an extremely small backcourt. If we are giving up ben's offensive punch in the starting backcourt, why not go for some size. My hope is that in the next couple years the starting lineup is kirk, thabo, deng, tyrus and oden (well, probably not oden but.....someone tall) giving us great size, defense, and looks like everyone can average double figures.

So here's an idea

How about adrian griffin as the starting SG of your championship chicago bulls. Let's not forget that six months ago he was the starting 2 for the almost world champion mavs. He doesnt do a lot on offense, but it's not like he's inept. He can knock downt he open jumper, even an occasional three. But now, you have a legit defender guarding the vince carter's and kobe's of the world, not 6'3 krich.

This would be huge for the team for many reasons.

1) Kirk will average around 20ppg without having to deal with foul trouble when he's guarding guys 6'6 or 6'8 even. Krik has had some good scoring games this year, and without having a bunch of games where he's in so much foul trouble he can't get into a rhythm on offense his average will get up there.

2) If this team plans to score a lot in transition off turnovers, which is more important? Getting the best defensive team out there you can to create more turnovers or who is finishing the break? That's why you gotta be excited for thabo to earn regular minutes (and he will, once he adjusts to the nba three in the next year or so like noc had to) as he's already proven to be a steal machine and finishes great on the break. But for now, griffin will get you more turnovers as kirk can manhandle pgs on D and griffin is very capable of holding a superstar's numbers down more often than many.

3) giving up size in the frontcourt, it'd be nice to not do so at absolutely every position.

4) Gordon will thrive off the bench, as he has before. When his shot isn't falling, he seems lost on Offense having to consider that as much offense runs through kirk and deng as him. In the second unit he can be featured and can really run the offense.

I like that lineup. (Duhon, Kirk, Deng, Noc, Wallace)

Kirk, Deng, Wallace are obvious starters.

I am a PJ Brown fan but we are having too many slow starts to games, need Noc in there to start. PJ can still get plenty of minutes.

I love the way Kirk and Duhon work together and Ben Gordon needs to sit for a while, he is playing like ass.

I dont really like Duhon being in there. I like Sefolosha though.. Nocioni is probably our best inside the paint guy because he is fearless. Duhon is perfect off the bench in certain situations like when were ahead and not when we are down 3 with 20 seconds left in the game. We need to get a few wins on this road trip and gain some confidence. Wallace had a huge game yesterday and it looks like were building some chemistry which is a good sign. We still need a lowpost scorer.

theres noo way skiles would put sefolosha in to start, hes a rookie, and he already said he didnt want to put too much pressure on thabo or tyrus. i like noc starting thoe, pj just isnt doing it for me. i like hinrich, ben for no deng, noc and wallace.
does anyone have any video of noc geting tackled?

IMO, PJ should be starting. He's our only low-post threat and he actually has some skill. Against Clevleland, we were in the game until we stopped giving PJ the ball.

Ya PJ is a solid starter, I dont think he would be very good off the bench however, he doesnt get alot of minutes as it is and if you dont start him that only magnifies even more lost playing time.

I also am not a big fan of Duhon starting. Hopefully before the end of the year Thabo will break into the top 5 and this will all become moot...our backcourt defense would be so much better if Hinrich wasn't guarding the toher team's 6'7" shooting guards.

It would probably be a good idea to bring Gordon off the bench, maybe that will get him going.

I kind of like Duhon and Noc starting with Gordon and Brown coming off the bench. That gives you a stronger defensive lineup with better ball-handling and it lets Gordon concentrate on his offense coming off the bench. I think he'd be very well suited for that role, kind of like Vinnie Johnson. Plus you can use Brown as more of a matchup-guy or possibly spell Wallace a bit more often.

Griffin is just not a starter, he doesn't do enough things well to warrant it. Also, though Duhon starts Ben needs to be in there in crunch time when we need buckets.

I noticed...
Hinrich's offensive numbers are up this year. He is averaging 17.2 ppg, shooting 50% from 3pt land and 50% overall from the field.

Hinrich can be an effective enough scorer that starting him with deng and noc as the only real offensive players will be fine. That is, if griffin starts at the 2. The two numbers that don't look good for kirk this year are minutes played and fouls per game. He's averaging 4 less minutes than last year (32.8 vs 36.5) but still fouling more (3.3 vs 3.1) per game.

Basically, let hinrich guard pgs, he won't foul as much, so he can stay on the floor more and become a threat to score and play make more. He has been our most effective player so far, so the bulls should focus on taking bigger advantage of the variety in his game. He has always had an oddly low fg%, so the bulls need to really take advantage that he's shooting well now. The increased percentage is also a testament to hinrich being more aggressive, as he is getting off more of his shots at the basket.

Griffin was the starting SG for one of the best, if not the best, team in the league last year for 45 of the 52 games he played for them. He is a very good defensive player and while he doesnt offer much on the offensive end, rewatching the pacer's game reveals that he posted up a few times, leading to a couple baskets and one nice dish to wallace (that wallace turned over a second later) as well as one nice back door cut. He also was good on D agst a quicker daniels and a much taller (6'9) Granger.

Hinrich will be an all-star if you have a starting lineup that is as excellent on defense as krich, grif, deng, noc, and wallace would be and can rely on kirk playmaking and shooting and deng cutting, with a little bit of everything from noc, this team can go far. This, i think, is the bulls plan for the future with thabo, and until he's ready griffin is the answer.

I know 6 games is a small sample, but there is no denying that kirk has improved his game. Also, this sets a smooth transition to the future with BG7 as a 6th man/crunch time player with the team playing a tall 2 to start. Also, i dont think that noc needs to replace PJ, but if you take out gordon for a below average offensive player you have to plug in more O somewhere, and I would fully expect Noc's numbers to go up as he'd be more featured on offense.

this year with a first unit relying on kirk, deng, and noc to score and second unit defering to ben, helping all improve their stats and help the team.

Kirk-20pts 6.5 assists
griffin-5.5 pts-our redd, vince, kobe, pierce etc stopper
deng-18 pts 8 rpg
noc-16 pts 7 rpg
wallace- 7pts 11 rpg

gordon 6th man-16 ppg

'08-'09 Championship bulls (assuming we can resign everyone, and making gordon a bench player will lower his value and make him more signable)
kirk-20pts 8 assists
Thabo- 13 pts 5 apg 5 rpg
Deng-21pts 8rpg
Tyrus-15 pts 10 rpg 3bpg
wallace (or someone else?)-?????

Gordon 6th man- 16 ppg
Noc-13 ppg

great defense, a couple stars, and bonafide quality depth, scoring and d off the bench....if these rooks live up to potential they've flashed and we can re sign everyone, we will be champs soon with this approach

doesnt look like ben will be starting, i thik he plays better coming off the bench, he will get his minutes anyway.

Hopefully one of these days he starts to earn them.

Well we figured out that lineup doesnt work... Gordon was the only one who benefited, quite frankly Chris Duhon is terrible to say the least. Sefolosha needs to start IMO. He has all the tools, let him learn. He brings alot more to the table than Chris does. There about equal in shooting but Thabo from what I have seen so far is a better passer and obviously taller and more athletic than Duhon. If I were the coach my lineup would be...

PG Kirk Hinrich
SG Thabo Sefolosha
SF Luol Deng
PF P.J Brown
C Ben Wallace

6th man- Ben Gordon

2nd Team

PG Chris Duhon
SG Ben Gordon
SF Andres Nocioni
PF PJ Brown
C Ben Wallace

Subs:

PG Kirk Hinrich
SG Ben Gordon
SF Andres Nocioni
PF Tyrus Thomas
C Michael Sweetney or PJ Brown.

That would be my rotation.

Thabo isn't ready yet. If you want size, go with griff.

Personally, I say stick with the opening day line up. Ride out Gordon's rough patch and lets build his confidence so he doesn't need to look over his shoulder every time he has a bad game... and I think Sweets should be getting minutes ahead of Allen... but what do I know?

Griffin isnt a shooting guard. Isnt he a small forward? Even so, I still start Thabo over anybody right now, its not like we would have an extremley young lineup. Kirk,Deng,Noc, and Big Ben are all vets and we can live with a rookie in the starting rotation I think.

he can play both... they list him as a g/f

Dallas can get away with a lot of things because of Dirk. They're basically playing two undersized shooting guards in the starting lineup this year and it doesn't matter.

The problem with us starting Griffin is that we'd basically be playing 3-on-5 on the offensive end because Griffin and Wallace offer little to nothing. That would make life a lot more difficult for Hinrich, Deng and Noc, making it very hard for them to average the kind of numbers you are projecting. Duhon is at least an occasional threat and you don't lose all that much defensively (outside of height). Plus the ball-handling and passing is a lot better with Duhon as opposed to Griffin.

The big thing is that Skiles doesn't seem to be a big Griffin fan. he's averaging under 10 minutes a game. Malik Allen plays more than him. I don't see Skiles starting Griffin any time soon.

skiles shud trust thabo on the starting line up that kid can do damage really specially on D.... baaaaaaaaaaaa shake it up coach com'on..