Rajon Rondo and Denzel Valentine’s Pecking Order on the Chicago Bulls
Rajon Rondo told the press that there was going to be a pecking order on the Bulls starting with the team being Jimmy Butler‘s, giving Dwayne Wade his points, then down to him then the rest of the crew. How will this work for Fred Hoiberg?
When Rajon Rondo gave deference to Jimmy Butler in his first presser with the Chicago Bulls, he was just being confident and genial about not being a disruptive cog as a new addition this year. Even Fred Hoiberg and the Bulls front office did not publicly commit to saying this year’s Bulls are Jimmy Butler’s to lead in a talk with the media in Las Vegas on Saturday, acknowledging that it was a team sport and that five guys on the floor needing to play smart together.
In the same article, Hoiberg indicated how he would go about looking for ways to make everyone in the team play well together starting by watching film of Rondo’s and Wade’s games.
“I think that’s what coaching is all about, is to figure out what the best system is based on the talent of your players,” Hoiberg said.
“When I was in college, I had a lot of fifth-year transfer kids and guys who were in there for one year. The big thing we tried to do is make the style fit the personnel. I played a different style pretty much every year I was there, at least the first three. It’s about molding your system and philosophy to who’s going to be on the floor and hopefully play unselfishly. It’s still predicated on ball movement. And again, if you have multiple playmakers, that helps everybody.”
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Hoiberg and Rondo are a perfect fit.
Although Rondo will feed both Jimmy Butler and Dwayne Wade during the course of a game, it won’t be the same as last year’s “your turn, my turn” offense with Pau Gasol, Derrick Rose and Jimmy Butler, which set back the Bulls from taking off as a team offensively. The Bulls have three passing point guards on the team now and major minutes are expected to go to Rondo setting up Hoiberg’s offense.
You can expect Jimmy Butler and Dwayne Wade to still get their numbers, but in a system that fits Rajon Rondo’s playmaking. he biggest surprise this year may be Bobby Portis as a legit stretch-four sixth man or starting power forward if he gets consistent minutes and production.
The offense will also flow to Nikola Mirotic and Doug McDermott just because all three guards don’t really chuck up a lot of threes and film of the new recruits always show them hitting the open shooter. There will be plenty of dribble-drive offense with Rondo that morphs into variations of Hoiball movement traps to free Butler and Wade, as well as Mirotic and McDermott.
In the first summer league game for the Bulls against the Celtics, Denzel Valentine didn’t shoot well, but looked good as a playmaker and was commended by Bobby Portis:
“There was three or four times I could have scored, but I wasn’t even looking for the ball and he passed it to me,” Portis said in regards to Valentine.
“Hopefully tomorrow I get it right. I kind of messed up four assists for him, but it’s OK, though. That was our first time playing together.”
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Hoiberg said he will be looking at a triple threat roster where there will be at least three people initiating the offense — a system that swings the ball around to three main scorers — because they have three new passing guards on the team. This is definitely an improvement over last year’s free-for-all offense that looked bad for most of the year.
If the “pecking order” for the Bulls truly means the ball moves around and finds the easiest score — from both Rondo and Valentine — we are looking at a Bulls team that is way better than everybody else gives them credit for.