Cristiano Felicio has taken over as Chicago’s center at the end of games, writes K.C. Johnson of The Chicago Tribune. Felicio played the entire fourth quarter in Saturday’s win over New Orleans and has established chemistry with the Bulls’ guards on pick-and-roll and lob plays. “The other thing he gives us is a big-time defensive presence,” said coach Fred Hoiberg. “We can get out and trap ball screens with him because of his ability to move. There are not a lot of big bodies that move as well as he does.” The Brazilian big man is putting up slightly better numbers during his second season in the NBA, averaging 4.4 points and 5.0 rebounds through 33 games.
There’s more news out of Chicago:
- Starting center Robin Lopez has accepted the change without complaining, according to Joe Cowley of The Chicago Sun-Times. “I’m just trying to play my part a little bit,” Lopez said. “I think that’s kind of the good thing about our team. When we’re playing really well, we’ve got a lot of different options.’’ Lopez, who was acquired from the Knicks in an offseason deal, is under contract through 2018/19.
- The Bulls have been disappointingly average through the first half of the season, Johnson writes in a separate piece. Young players like Doug McDermott and Nikola Mirotic haven’t become the building blocks that management expected, and the team’s last two first-rounders, Bobby Portis and Denzel Valentine, aren’t part of the rotation. Johnson expects Hoiberg to be brought back next season, but his future after that could be uncertain.
- It’s too early for the Bulls to write off Valentine as a failure, argues Cole Zwicker of Fan Sided. Injuries and illnesses have helped to derail his rookie season, but Zwicker contends that Valentine still has the skills to develop into a productive NBA player.
id like to see the team blown up from the top down.
Agreed, the Bulls front office needs to go. They’ve done a terrible job trying to rebuild this team. Drafting Valentine was awful too, team needed to get younger and more athletic. Instead, they got an inury-prone, unathletic 24 year old who can’t shoot. Hopefully they do a much better job this draft and make some moves at the deadline for some of the vets like Gibson or trade McDermott and Mirotic for picks
Well here’s another front office of Reinsdorf that doesn’t know how to build a team or can’t draft either. It really sucks when they trade up for a failed player like McDermott. And the Bulls choice of Hoiburg as coach was a mistake. Another bum from Iowa St. But, Paxon won’t go anywhere. Nobody is held accountable for failures with Reinsdorfs teams.
I agree McDermott should be traded. Fred Hoiberg is a joke. We should of kept Noah, Captain Kirk, Robinson was pretty good at 3pt shooting. We need a new coach and another really good 3 pt shooter not a rookie like Felicio,
Doug and Valentine.
I believe that this is my last season with season tickets, I only get 10 games per year but I can’t bear to watch this any more…and I am sick of the lack of accountability on the part of both Paxson and Hoiberg. The Bulls seem lackluster on both ends of the court. Reinsdorf won’t respond to anything but losing money, so I hope that my seats go unsold.
Butler, who will grow old before they can rebuild around him, should be sold to the highest bidder during the offseason for young talent and picks, and Gibson should go in return for salary ballast and draft picks. If anyone wants McDermott they should get rid of him as well, he doesn’t have the chops for the NBA. Mrotic shows some promise, as a shooter, but can’t defend his way out of a paper bag, so if they keep him they need to draft some tough defenders and also a guard who can draw some attention going to the hoop.
I wouldn’t mind the losing if they were interesting doing it, but they are just plain bad and boring.
Man that must be rough having season tickets for this team. But like Strauss said, this team has no direction. They have no young, promising players and Butlers in the middle of his prime. He’s a star for sure but their front office is incapable of surrounding him with talent. I agree that Hoiberg is the best coach but we really can’t say for certain because this roster is not fit for his style of play. I do like some of the young kids on this team though like Felicio (probably the next Taj of this team), Grant who’s been decent when he’s gotten minutes, and Portis. The thing is they’re all 24 25 and they aren’t nearly close to being starters in this league.
Isn’t*