Chicago Bulls player reviews: Nikola Mirotic
With his consistent finish to this season, Nikola Mirotic proved that it should have been him starting last year. Instead, we saw the Bulls showcasing Taj Gibson for trade purposes. The lost time cost the Bulls a stronger offensive option at the power forward spot.
Nikola Mirotic may be an enigma to most Bulls fans, but not to me.
He is a former Spanish League MVP and I have a hunch that not even Jimmy Butler can ever achieve that honor as a star in Europe. Mirotic started the 2017 season as a supposedly inconsistent scorer because he was assigned a catch-and-shoot role along with Doug McDermott before he was traded away. Both players are not corner specialists and are more of on-ball scorers.
What can turn Mirotic into a lethal NBA scorer is the Bulls committing to start him at the power forward spot ahead of any marquee player in the free agent market. Mirotic deserves a full season starting and set plays with Rajon Rondo or Denzel Valentine feeding him rhythm passes for walk-up triples; his deadliest weapon in his arsenal.
No power forward can really defend Mirotic as an off-ball attacker with Rondo feeding him as he cuts towards the basket and the defenses scrambling around not knowing if they should stick to Butler, Rondo or Robin Lopez. This is the best way to utilize Mirotic next year.
If Mirotic gets his March offense going as early as November and his teammates respect the fact that they need him going against any opponent, the Bulls will have half their scoring problems solved for next year.
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Mirotic’s March/April streak of good games spanned 11 games with an average of 29.4 minutes per contest and making 51.1 percent of his shot attempts. Mirotic also shot a whopping 49.3 percent from 3-point range and grabbed 7.2 rebounds with 1.5 assists per game.
All of that came with a underrated 17 points per game, which could go over 20 if the Bulls keyed their offense on Mirotic more on offensive sets while Butler gets his point off defense and hustle plays or off-ball attacks.
Rondo was initially responsible for nurturing a good teammate relationship with Mirotic as the second unit point guard who allowed the early shooting unit of the Bulls (Mirotic, McDermott, Paul Zipser and Valentine) to make up for the poor offense of the starters in many games.
Mirotic had strong scoring games from March after a five-game DNP-CD streak going into the Bulls’ playoff run to help the team make the postseason. Between him and Bobby Portis, it is important to note that both players are crucial for the front court perimeter offense of the Bulls and can start intermittently to keep their games sharp, especially with the amount of back-to-backs in a grueling 82-game season.
Without McDermott, the role of Mirotic is now more crucial because the team cannot find an equal high-volume scoring power forward, no matter what his liabilities are on defense.
But, if the front office does build around Butler and assign Mirotic to a corner shooting role again, expect nothing but frustration on everyone’s part.
On my part, I never want to see Jimmy walking the ball up the court and shoot the ball at the first opportunity for an entire first quarter and just have Mirotic inbounding the ball or being a last option pass-to teammate when Butler can’t get a shot off.