Pippen Ain't Easy
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Chicago Bulls at Miami Heat: Dwyane Wade’s Homecoming Takeaways

By Daniel Coughlin

Nov 10, 2016; Miami, FL, USA; Chicago Bulls guard Dwyane Wade (3) dunks the ball as Bulls forward Jimmy Butler (R) looks on against the Miami Heat during the first half at American Airlines Arena. Mandatory Credit: Steve Mitchell-USA TODAY Sports
Nov 10, 2016; Miami, FL, USA; Chicago Bulls guard Dwyane Wade (3) dunks the ball as Bulls forward Jimmy Butler (R) looks on against the Miami Heat during the first half at American Airlines Arena. Mandatory Credit: Steve Mitchell-USA TODAY Sports /
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Nov 10, 2016; Miami, FL, USA; Chicago Bulls head coach Fred Hoiberg looks on during the first half against the Miami Heat at American Airlines Arena. Mandatory Credit: Steve Mitchell-USA TODAY Sports
Nov 10, 2016; Miami, FL, USA; Chicago Bulls head coach Fred Hoiberg looks on during the first half against the Miami Heat at American Airlines Arena. Mandatory Credit: Steve Mitchell-USA TODAY Sports /

Fred Hoiberg: NBA Coach?

Take all of this with a grain of salt. I’m not a basketball coach and I don’t have that kind of IQ for what’s happening on the court and how to set the tables in this game.

Now, what is going on with this Hoiberg team? His after timeout play calls are either terrible or horribly executed and I often can’t exactly tell which is the case. If you bother to call a timeout before the end the half or a quarter that isn’t the fourth, there should generally be a good reason for it and there should be a playcall that is feasible. Any play call that suggests a single guard in the backcourt should be trying to beat the clock with no other outlet in a full-court press by the defense has either been terrifically outcoached or failed to assess the situation correctly.

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And that seems to happen a lot.

Elevator plays are rarely executed well. The offense seems to only understand what it is supposed to be about half of the time. A really frustrating series of fruitless post-ups and seemingly unsustainable mid-range volume and success finds its way into every single game. But again, it happens in every game and is repetitively that it seems Hoiberg wants them running this offense.

There’s some give and take here, because Chicago needs Wade’s scoring, which is best facilitated by letting him swim in the waters that he became a legend by swimming in. Let him get that mid-range game going, he doesn’t have the energy, the spring in his legs, to run and gun from deep 38 minutes a night.

There is plenty of room for improvement. I was particularly high on Hoiberg and gave him a pass last season because I felt bad that he, or any new coach, had to deal with Pau Gasol and the Noah-Rose combination. As we progress further into his second season with a new cast of players, it seems like Hoiberg isn’t Brad Stevens, but maybe more the Iowa State version of Stevens, which, you know, isn’t the good version of anything.

Oh, and let’s not even get to whatever it is he is trying to do with his lineups to end games.

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