The all-bench Bulls unit has been floundering (and used a lot)

At 3-1, and that loss being just a shot away, the Bulls have had a pretty successful start to the season under new coach Fred Hoiberg. I wouldn't say they've subjectively played all that great, but the results have been positive.

One thing that hasn't worked so far though is the all-bench lineup, something Nate Duncan has referred to a 'Hoibergo' lineup as it seemingly is being rolled out there by an impostor. Brooks/Moore/McDermott/Gibson/Noah has a -9 raw plus-minus and a -17.5 pace-adjusted net rating. You can see the offensive struggles devolve into Aaron Brooks just trying to pull out highly-difficult attempts.

Worse yet, this lineup is being used quite often:

Bulls starters have played 71 mins together, +7.4/100. Hoibergo lineup, 30 mins at -14.6. No other lineup more than 6 mins.

— Nate Duncan (@NateDuncanNBA) November 2, 2015

As noted on his podcast, Duncan sees the Bulls as having depth but this particular lineup is just a bad idea. With no Rose, Butler, Mirotic, or Gasol, the top 4 offensive players are being benched here.

On the one hand the Mirotic-Gasol starting combination has been as good as this lineup has been bad, so a change there may be too much. Getting a bit healthier will be nice as well, as Rose could probably see a few more minutes as he gets back into 100% game shape, and Dunleavy's return would potentially push out E'Twaun Moore, who was 9-13 the first two games and 0-8 in the next two.

An easier way around this is just doing more staggering of the starters in with the bench. Hoiberg did a bit of that on Sunday in playing Jimmy Butler the whole first quarter, and it's something to look for going forward.