MUCH BETTER RECEPTION NOW
Unlike last season, Butler likes having Hoiberg at the helm
BOSTON — Bulls guard Jimmy Butler again admitted to missteps Tuesday after a practice at Emerson College — and not just with his words.
Butler, the two- time AllStar and self- proclaimed best wide receiver not playing in the NFL, was seen catching a football from coach Fred Hoiberg in the basement practice gym. Yes, the same Fred Hoiberg whom many outsiders assumed had difficulties coaching Butler last season.
“Maybe I judged somebody too quickly last year, but I know he’s here, he’s working, and that’s all you can ask,” Butler said of Hoiberg after a few well- thrown passes.
That’s a different take than Butler had last season, when he declared Hoiberg needed to “coach harder.”
The two didn’t need a game of catch to get on the same page.
“When you work, everyone is going to go to war for you,” Butler said. “Oh, yeah, he’s definitely changed for the better. I look at him a lot differently, as well. It seems like he knows his guys a lot better now, which is great. Look at him joke around with us, if you were in the locker room after games or before games — throwing the football. It’s the littlest things that go the longest. Nowwe know that he’s in the fight with us. He’s one of us.”
Butler, who didn’t apologize for making life a bit more difficult for Hoiberg last year, added that coaches, like players, can get better in the offseason.
“Whether you’re watching film, whether you’re getting to know your players and where they like the ball on the floor, drawing up plays to get guys going to their left or to their right, or to shoot the ball here, that’s all part of knowing the game, knowing your players — which is the coach’s job just as much as the players’ job,’’ Butler said.
While the Bulls’ 3- 0 start this season is impressive, especially with a new- look roster, last year’s dysfunction — which led to the trades of Joakim Noah and Derrick Rose — still has been hard to escape for everyone involved. Asked if the old core of players was getting stale, Butler said, “Yeah, kind of, sort of.”
“I think everybody had been playing with one another so long, maybe it was time for a new look for a lot of different guys,” he said. “Not in a bad way, but sometimes that’s the way it looked and felt out on the court. It’s a new team now. Asmuch aswe talk about last year’s team, I think we should start focusing on this year’s team a lot more.”
Butler, who cautioned he wasn’t looking to take shots at last year’s roster, said that groupwas harder to get close to, unlike this year’s team.
“Everybody is over at [ Dwyane] Wade’s house or my house, not only talking about the game but just talking about life in general,” Butler said “If you can care about someone’s life off the floor, then whenever they get on this floor, they’re definitely going to be bought in.”