I mean the tt, noah and thabo threesome. Im not including Rose

Mo is a average coach…he’s not the answer either.

We should have checked into Tyrone Corbin or Jeff Hornacek, either one of them would have been better prepared and have some experience as assistants under Sloan.

has George Karl ever done? He’s a good coach but overrated.

Not a fan of his.

This is a huge improvement over where the Bulls were twenty two games into the season last year. 10-12 keeps up without most “expert” predictions of them coming in at or under .500.

You can’t expect a rookie coach, in the truest definition, to come in and then expect everything to be fixed immediately. Look how long it took Skiles to get the team going and even in 2004 they started off 0-9. We are looking at, sadly, one of the team’s best starts in recent memory so we should go a little softer on VDN because our average team isn’t up to par with Boston or Cleveland.

Yes this team is not good by any means, but 10-12 is way better than 3-19 or anything remotely close to last season. Derrick Rose and VDN can’t be expected to turn sinking ship around, they can only hold it up for a little bit longer before it either gives out entirely again, or gets fixed and everything goes back to being how it used to be in the 90’s.

I’m not losing faith, not yet. It’s too early to start talking about firing VDN. Trades however need to be made sometime when Reinsdorf is taking a nap and isn’t micro-managing Pax.

Give it time, there’s still work to be done.

if vdn was really a “development” coach, he would bench noc forever and give his minutes at the 3 to thabo (remember him?) and his minutes at the 4 to tyrus.

I started thinking about it, but I meant to focus on how bad his rotation is. His lineups often feature players whose skill sets do not compliment each other. Instead, he puts players who have redundent skill sets and who are often poor defenders. Look what happened tonight when he played noah and tt together also (however, they also have similar skill sets). I do like this though, because they are our best defensive big men. They actually protect the rim and can defend the pick and roll. Its painful watching Gooden and Gray defend the pick and roll. In short, we need to focus on defense if we want to win. We are best when we run and if we create turnovers and more importantly force bad shots and rebound we can run and play to our strengths. If we dont, we realize that we are not a great half-court team and we lose. To me, it seems quite simple. Anyway, thats what I wanted to accomplish with this and maybe I focused on my dislike of many of our players that receive regular playing time.

This team is Rose and a bunch of mismatched and/or lousy parts. You should be happy with a near .500 record. Deng can’t score when it matters, BG has no handles or defense, Gray is slow, Noah can’t play more than 9 minutes without needing oxygen, Tyrus likes to jack 18 footers and get lost on defense, Noce forgot how to play basketball, etc. Let me know what part of any of this is VDN’s fault. Some of his rotations are basically experiments to see what works. As everyone knows, he is a rookie coach who inherited one of the worst teams from last season and he is trying to figure out some solutions.

People on this board like to complain about some of the lineups, but ask yourself if it really matters. If he played Blogabull posters’ “dream” lineups, how many more wins would we have? At best, maybe one or two. We would probably have many more losses as everyone here wants 40 minutes for each of Tyrus, Noah and Thabo.

I’m not saying that VDN is the second coming of Phil Jackson, but it blows my mind to see people asking VDN to be fired when he has largely made the most of this slop lineup of a team. The guy is a rookie coach. He will not be perfect. The Bulls have had one of the toughest schedules so far this season and the team is 2 under .500. What more do you want?!

I thought Paxdorf had an idea as to what they were doing, and they said they were very impressed with what VDN had to offer, so I was excited and thought he would be pretty good. I was pushing for Tom Thibodeau, but since he wasn’t available, I was optimistic about him. Then I found out that Paxdorf is permanently high, and they don’t have a clue. Also, you’d think that in years of following the NBA, VDN would have some knowledge of the Bulls.

but that has little to do with his coaching ability. It sends the wrong message to fire a coach this early into his contract and would make it difficult to attract a high quality coach. I think he can get better, but what really bothers me is his redundant lineups (using players with similar skill sets) and his lack of consistency with young players. I understand that tt and noah make bonehead plays and piss us off at times, but they have to be given consistent minutes. Whether it be 20 or 35 it should be consistent. They shouldnt play 5 minutes one night and then 30 the next. This is especially true with tt as it seems that he is has a tendency to get down on himself and play tight because hes worried about getting taken out after a mistake. Moreover, hes making progress. I know his shooting % is low, but hes played well recently (not just last game). Despite the fact that we seem to think hes lazy, that doesnt seem to be the case. From all accounts he works very hard.

Also, in VDNs defense, my biggest criticism of him (besides his rotation) is the offense. For much of the season it has been a pick and roll with the rest of the team standing at the perimeter. This is great for Rose, but terrible for most of our team (especially Deng, Noah and TT). However, there has been much more movement lately, which has corresponded with improved play from Deng, TT and Noah. Unfortunately, we have the tendency to revert back to 1 vs 1 late in games and that may be responsable for Dengs lack of scoring. It almost becomes watch a guard (Rose, BG or Hughes) run the pick and roll with Gooden. This is also the cause of all of TT’s 18 foot jumpers.

Finally, I really think that giving up on Noah and/or TT would be a mistake. They are both young and could be effective with a veteran team with well-defined roles. Tyrus does have talent. He handles the ball well for someone his side and despite the fact that his shot isnt falling consistently he can hit from 15 feet. He is a good ft shooter and that should be enough evidence to suggest that a 22 year old will eventually be able to hit that shot. I personally think a lot of it is low confidence that may be tied to his minutes being yanked around. If you look at his shot it seems to usually be out-of-sync (like he is second guessing himself as he is shooting). It can be argued that he is too mentally weak, but I really do think he could be the 2nd coming of kenyon martin…not great, but good enough with a good point guard and a center that can man up and allow TT to roam the weakside. I guess I am really scared that we are gonna trade him and watch him finally reach his potencial like Tyson. Also, why doesnt he ever run the pick and roll with Derrick? Does he set really bad picks (I havent paid much attention to that part of his game)? Does he set illegal picks (like noah seems to ALWAYS do, but rarely gets called)? Or do we think that Gooden is a really good offensive player (despite his fg% being poor for a big man)?

Man, I can’t believe this…

….definitely much better than B*%$#, tactically much weaker than Skiles but certainly better with people. I think we are all pissed b’cos we could have had D’Antoni who is certainly much better, but firing VDN now is just not an option. And look on the bright side, at least DR gets 40 minutes a game, Skiles would have made him “earn” the minutes.