What some mad baller fans never get, and post to prove it, is it's not all stats, PER and highlights in putting together a winning team. I said it before New Jersey has a highly paid roster of name players who individually can put up superstar stats but put them all on he same team and they have no roll players, not enough players who are willing to give up his scoring or even shot attempts, not enough willing to step up on defense, take a charge and rebound because it means fewer runouts and dunks for SportsCenter
Mike Brown says it:
“He’s just a tough, gritty veteran that really knows how to play. Derrick Rose obviously is the head of the snake for this team, but Luol is a very, very important piece,” Brown said. “He’s helped them win a lot of games. He makes them different because of his length and his ability to understand how to play the game the right way offensively. He’s a heck of a defender and he just does stuff that doesn’t add up in the box score, and on top of that, you have to game plan for him every time you step on the floor against the Bulls.”
Yes you need stars and big scorers to win but you also need to have players out there who see when someone else is doing it and step back and do the little things that win games. Game in and game out you see that Noah, Gibson, Hinrich, Butler and Deng all take that roll when necessary. If they had Rose out there to be the star this would be a championship contending team.
When people long for Mirotic, which role will he fill? Is he the instant superstar who will score every night or does he have the ability to be the smart roll player when he needs to be? You have no idea. Everybody lusts after lottery picks and these one year college players. Are they going to score 20+ every night? If you look at 3 current Bulls players, Gibson was 26 years old when drafted, Butler and Snell were seniors. They have had to adapt to the NBA but what they did not have to do is gain maturity and learn how to be an adult functioning in a new wide world on their own for the first time. And having to deal with immaturity holds many teams filled with young players back because their coach has to be their daddy and take time to exert personal discipline when he should be coaching ball.
