Why Nikola Mirotic is the Man of March (and some April, too)

The Nikola Mirotic Conundrum

Here is what I put forward: The presence of Taj Gibson in the Chicago Bulls lineup has, in some way, contributed to the struggles of Nikola Mirotic.

You could say, “Well, duh. Gibson gets the minutes and a lot of the starts.” I would agree. But that doesn’t change the facts. Niko without Taj is basically a 30 MPG player who shoots somewhere in the neighborhood of 45 percent from the field, nearly the exact same number from 3-point range and contributes at career level rebound numbers while he assists also increase slightly.

I do not know if Mirotic can keep this pace going long term, but that’s the biggest question there is right now.

Other than the alignment of the calendar, the only other potentially obvious and major contributing factor is that Mirotic has put up his massive March and April numbers for three consecutive seasons during times when another, specific player at the same position isn’t in the lineup for either all, or a majority of those games.

Gibson has been traded to the Thunder, so the big question moving forward beyond the next three games, regardless of playoff results, will be this: Is the post-Taj version of Mirotic the version that Chicago can expect to take the floor next to Butler moving forward?

To the chagrin of Forman and the Bulls front office, Mirotic is getting hot at the perfect time from his end of things. He’s in a contract year as a restricted free agent. One month ago, Niko was likely going to be set free from Chicago, picked up on a very cheap deal by some team called the San Antonio Spurs, or you know, some other squad. And he was going to be on the cheap, so even if the Bulls did want to bring him back, he wasn’t going to break the bank.

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Now, that has all changed. Chaos has once again been introduced into the ecosystem for Chicago. Not only does Mirotic increase his value daily, he increases his value for the Bulls specifically, and my crazy, but obvious theory would also point to better days ahead for the player once dubbed the next Nowitzki-type player.

It’s a long way to go, the offseason, but the correlation between the recent form of Mirotic aligns with his performances in prior season with one similar condition – no Gibson. With Gibson gone, there is a real possibility that Mirotic could become a primary auxiliary for a Butler-led Bulls squad.

Of course, Niko has also loved playing with Rajon Rondo and wouldn’t it just be Forman-esque to want to keep that flow intact, picking up the option on the second year of Rondo’s deal, trying to run it back with the same squad.