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Have the Bulls developed any players in the last 5 years?


I don't even care anymore. I have defended the Bulls and their ability to develop players for several seasons, but I can't do it anymore.

The only thing we appear capable of is taking 4 year college starters who don't need much development and turning them into decent NBA starters. (I know Deng was a one and done)

Who on this team has significantly improved their game from their rookie year? Gordon? Hinrich? Duhon? Even Deng's game hasn't evolved as much as we would like. He's still a jumpshooter with no post game, still doesn't drive to the basket nearly enough, and still has no 3 point shot.

I love Noah & Gray, but I think what we're seeing is what we are going to get (which isn't necessarily bad) but lulls us into this false sense of future security. We see them playing well and think "just wait till next year" Well next year comes, and they're the same damn player.

Is this post reactionary? Of course it is, but I can't help but think it rings true.

Am I an idiot? Is there something I am missing? Have we helped Hinrich, Gordon, Deng, Duhon, Thabo, TT, Noc become better players? Or are they essentially the same players we saw their first year out of college/international?

I've not mentioned the C word, so this doesn't denigrate into a Wallace, PJ Brown angry trade discussion.

Magilla_Gorilla wrote:I love Noah & Gray, but I think what we're seeing is what we are going to get (which isn't necessarily bad) but lulls us into this false sense of future security. We see them playing well and think "just wait till next year" Well next year comes, and they're the same damn player.

Great, you just gave me something more to be down about. Hadn't really considered that but its very true. Maybe Noah and Gray won't get better. Right now, I would at least like to see if they could though.

Same thing with Tyrus. Before the year I made a thread asking if this was a key year (maybe 'the' key year) in his development to know if he was going to be able to be a big time impact player. Maybe even a star, at least on defense. He had to be better than last year. Take some steps forward and start producing more consistent good games.

Well right now I don't even know the answer if he has improved or not. His jumper looks improved. But I'm certainly not going to try and make a judgment about it based on his > 10 minutes a game and DNP's.

Go back and look at the first 5 games Tyrus started. He had a couple very good ones and a couple of clunkers. He wasn't benched for being bad, but because the whole team (mostly Wallace, Kirk, BG, Deng) were sucking much more than him! But Tyrus took the fall. We might have stabbed his career right in the back for this season right there.

Who is to say where he would be if he kept starting at PF. Maybe instead of 2 good games out of 5, he would start putting in 3 or 4 good games out of 5 by now. But Tyrus has already lived a season on the edge, for fear of getting yanked by Skiles his rookie season. Now it's the same thing all over with Boylan. Do something in 5 minutes or your out. This is not any evidence to judge a guy's advancement on.

And I'm so sick of seeing crap about how people just assume Tyrus doens't work hard in practice. If that was the case why did he ever get the starting job? Skiles admitted Tyrus didn't lose the starting job because of not practicing, he just thought that would be the best move at the time (to get Joe Smith's offense in there) since everyone else stunk on offense at the time and he was too darn frightened of Ben Wallace to make a change there.

The revisionist history on this board that Tyrus doesn't play because, well, he has sucked all season(!) is just bunk. He was doing alright and we torpedoed him 5 games in.

When it comes to big men, we could really use a big man coach. Skiles did a perfectly fine job with Ben Gordon even though his way of developing him was somewhat controversial. Kirk has become an excellent defender and is a terrific point guard. He's having his worst shooting slump of his life, so right now that will of course bring a large cloud over his previous accomplishments.

I will say this, though. Bill Cartwright was never a good NBA coach. But he did play young guys and seemed to teach Tyson Chandler and Eddy Curry better than Skiles. So the big man effect isn't one to be overlooked, IMO.

I've previously stated my desire to bring in Horace Grant & David Robinson. The latter would likely stay loyal to the Spurs, but it's worth a phonecall. David had extremely solid ballhandling for a center, so having him work with Noah could have some nice benefits since Joakim share that attribute with David.

Horace Grant would do wonders with Tyrus, IMO. Horace was an excellent spot-up shooter and could back in to the post when necessary.

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar is working with Andrew Bynum. Have you all seen how Bynum has responded this season? 12/10/2 in under 30 MPG.

So all in all, we do a fine job of developing guards. Small forwards such as Deng is still a questionmark. He has terrific IQ but seems to lack some aggresiveness. Can that be because of the caching? IMO, it can go both ways.

Rerisen wrote:Great, you just gave me something more to be down about.

That made me laugh for some reason. Hang in there Re.

I don't the bulls have been good at developing players ever, Michael Jordan was developed himself, maybe we helped Pippen along, but I'm inclined to say he probably did most of his development himself as well.

Just because a player becomes amazing doesn't mean the credit to their development should go to the organization(as far as developing goes) and IMO Deng, Gordon, Tyrus(maybe not so much yet) and even Hinrich could be twice the players they are at the moment if our organization did the logical thing and did what needed to be done to put our players in a position to succeed and help them on their way.

And this has been a belief of mine for quite some time, its in part why I think Gordon is our best player, because while Deng has a larger upside, Gordon makes the bigger impacts now, and my lack of faith in this team developing either of them properly makes me go with the guy who makes the bigger impact.

Another problem is that we have tried to develop players against their skillset. For example Kirk Hinrich has been made into a point guard -- a position he never really played at Kansas. Ben Gordon has been made into an off the ball shooting guard, despite the fact that he can create for himself.

the organization does not try to build upon the strengths that our players already have.

Magilla, I used to defend the Bulls also. But...obviously with a coach who states he WILL NOT DEVELOP any of the young players, one can't really argue they are doing so.

Speaking of which, how do the Bulls set Tyrus' value, or do they just not give him a qualifying offer? Do you stay if you are Tyrus?

kyrv wrote:Magilla, I used to defend the Bulls also. But...obviously with a coach who states he WILL NOT DEVELOP any of the young players, one can't really argue they are doing so.

Speaking of which, how do the Bulls set Tyrus' value, or do they just not give him a qualifying offer? Do you stay if you are Tyrus?

Oh, they'll give him the qualifying offer, its good business. But I don't know what Tyrus thinks of his situation.

I think Gordon and Deng have both developed significantly in Chicago.

Whether you want to say that is due to them or due to the team is another matter, but both have improved their games tremendously IMO.

I think a little bit of this argument is leading. When a player does well and improves (like Deng/Gordon) it's dismissed as the player just doing well on their own. When a player doesn't improve it's not because maybe he was overrated, but because the organization failed.

Remember when Pippen was tutoring Deng his rookie season?

I give Skiles credit for developing Tyson into a guy who knew what kind of enviroment he could not flourish in.

I think for the most part, the CORE was pretty independent at working on getting better. In particular the Guards and Small Forwards. The BIGS on the other hand...There's a reason why we have gone for Vet Bigs (i.e. PJ Brown, Joe Smith, Antonio Davis, Othella Harrington etc.), we know what we're going to get from them. With young bigs, its like loading a gun in the dark with one bullet , and then just pulling the trigger. You'll fire some blanks, and eventually hitting something. And they aren't dependent, they need some type of extra coaching to play the big man roles. The only current young bigs with any kind of potential is Aaron Gray & Joakim Noah. IMO, I don't think TT is going to become a true PF, but similar to Marion part 2. I'm hoping I'm wrong about TT.