Fred Hoiberg acknowledges the Bulls offense is terrible
By Ian Levy
The Chicago Bulls are bad. Bad enough that even their head coach, Fred Hoiberg, is talking about it.
It’s been a rough year for the Chicago Bulls. At a practice just before the season began, two of their players got in a fist fight that sent one of them to the hospital. Things didn’t improve much once the games started.
The Bulls are currently 2-10 and getting outscored by an average of 12.8 points per 100 possessions. To put that in context, their point differential is about as far below average as the Golden State Warriors’ is above average. The problems for Chicago have been mostly on offense where they are scoring just 92.9 points per 100 possessions, the worst mark in the league by nearly three full points.
That’s why it had to hurt head coach Fred Hoiberg’s heart to see the splendid Houston Rockets hang 90 on the Phoenix Suns…in the first half. Hoiberg was asked about it the following day and he took the opportunity to deprecate all over himself and his team.
Fred Hoiberg on Rockets scoring 90 in the first half: "I'd like to score 90 in a game."
— Cody Westerlund (@CodyWesterlund) November 17, 2017
The Bulls have already scored less than 90 points in four of their 12 games so far this season. Chicago has been below that threshold now in 17 of the 176 games (about 10 percent) that Hoiberg has coached over the past three seasons. This is a rebuilding year for Chicago and while their efficiency might tick upwards they’ll almost certainly finish the season as one of the worst offenses in league. I mean, Robin Lopez is third on the team in field goal attempts per game.
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There is some young offensive talent in Chicago (see: Markkanen, Lauri) but there’s just not nearly enough of it to really take apart NBA defenses on a nightly bases. For the foreseeable future, Hoiberg is going to need to keep watching Houston or Golden State tape to keep the inner darkness at bay.