Nikola Mirotic Must Play Bigger Role for Evolving Chicago Bulls Next Season
The Chicago Bulls have a handful of action items on their self-improvement list this summer, and the most important one is committing more minutes to Nikola Mirotic.
The newly minted All-Rookie first-teamer is a 6'10" forward with a guard's perimeter game and a finesse player who stands out starkly against a Bulls frontcourt otherwise composed of lumbering plodders.
He was named Eastern Conference Rookie of the Month in December and March, led the Bulls in on-court net rating at plus-6.1 points per 100 possessions and posted a higher true shooting percentage (55.6 percent) than any other big man on his team.
Mirotic's spot-up and drive-and-kick skills mark him as a new-age frontcourt player. He provides space and playmaking at a position that, up to this point, had only ever given the Bulls interior scoring and defense. At just 24, Mirotic is also Chicago's youngest frontcourt talent.
Given those facts, Mirotic shouldn't need anyone advocating for him to have a larger role in the Bulls' future plans.
But the recent past says he needs a champion.
The Bulls' clogged-drain offense and devastating scoring droughts got them bounced from the second round of the 2015 NBA playoffs, and through it all, Mirotic was often nowhere to be found. He played just 14.9 minutes per game in the postseason, seventh-most on the team and dead last among the Bulls' rotation bigs.
As Joakim Noah proved himself to be an offensive nonfactor time and again, and as Taj Gibson and Pau Gasol struggled through injury, Mirotic languished on the pine.
It's only fair to mention Mirotic was banged up, too. He tweaked his knee in the first round against the Milwaukee Bucks and didn't look quite the same afterward. But head coach Tom Thibodeau didn't need an excuse to snatch minutes away from Mirotic in the playoffs.
The regular season taught us that much, and the first four games of the Bulls' series against the Cavs reinforced it, according to Grantland's Zach Lowe:
Per ESPN.com's Bradford Doolittle, Thibodeau only gave Mirotic significant playing time when he had no other choice:
"He's averaged 25 minutes when at least one of Chicago's other primary bigs is out but just 15 when they are all together. And of those 15 full-contingent minutes, many of those see Mirotic playing small forward, where his impact is marginalized. According to 82games.com, Mirotic played the 3 for about one-fifth of his minutes during the season. His PER at 4 was 19.5; at 3 it was 15.2.
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Not only did Thibs cut Mirotic's minutes in favor of less effective alternatives, but he also structured his lineups in a way that made the minutes Mirotic did see less than optimal.
In the modern NBA, 6'10" forwards who can shoot the ball play the 4. Everybody's doing it, and it works.
Mirotic has plenty of limitations. Mainly, he's not a terrific defender, and we know Thibodeau is loathe to play anyone who can't execute his defensive game plan perfectly.
After giving the rookie a grand total of nine minutes in Games 1 and 2, Thibodeau explained to reporters: "He's going to be situational right now. But we need him."
Based on that assessment, Thibodeau was halfway to realizing Mirotic's value. He conceded Mirotic was needed, but he qualified it.
That was a mistake because the overarching situation in the Cavs-Bulls series was that Chicago couldn't score. Mirotic should have been playing as much as possible.
Making Mirotic a featured player will likely require some defensive sacrifice. But if the Bulls could only consider the bigger picture, they'd see playing Mirotic provides an offensive boost that overrides the marginal defensive backslide.
His team-high net rating attests to that.
With Mirotic on the floor, Chicago scored more points per possession this year than it did with Noah, Gibson or Gasol. There's plenty of noise in that data, but it's easy to see the value of the spacing Mirotic provides for his teammates on offense.
And it's even easier to see the continuing decline of Chicago's other bigs. Noah and Gasol are on the wrong side of 30, and Gibson will be when the 2015-16 season begins. Expecting returns to health or improved performance from any of those three is a stretch.
With Jimmy Butler due a max extension and the Bulls butting up against the luxury tax, moving someone like Gibson makes financial sense. If that's how Chicago manages to create more playing time for Mirotic, so be it.
The Bulls were done in by brutal scoring droughts that rendered them offensively helpless for huge swaths of crucial playoff quarters. Part of those recurring dry spells had to do with overall system failures. Chicago's offense lacks the off-ball movement and creative use of space that mark effective offenses of the modern era.
But the Bulls' failure to utilize their best scoring personnel was just as damaging—both in the playoffs and during the regular season, where their No. 10 offensive rating was disappointing given the talent on hand.
Ramping up the offense will require broader strategic overhauls, and if Thibodeau holds onto his job with the Bulls, it might be unrealistic to expect big changes. Whether Thibs is in Chicago or not next year, the Bulls have to let the offense breathe.
They need some space.
Mirotic's strong rookie campaign says he's the guy to give it to them.
Stats courtesy of NBA.com unless otherwise indicated.
Grant Hughes covers the NBA for Bleacher Report. Follow him on Twitter @gt_hughes.
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