Fred Hoiberg says he will experiment playing Doug McDermott as a stretch four. Nobody would imagine McDermott playing the power-forward position after watching him last season. He’s a bit slow on his feet and the athleticism just isn’t there given that he doesn’t have much size to begin with. However, McDermott gained 10 pounds of muscle this off-season. Draymond Green is a good example of an undersized stretch four player. Heck, at 6’7 Green was playing the Center position in the NBA Finals. So, it’s definitely not unheard of to play stretch four and be undersized, but it helps if the player can make up his deficiencies with his athleticism.
“I think I can play stretch four in the NBA. I played a lot of four in college and I think it’s something that can work because I am really comfortable with it. We have guys like Niko (Mirotic) and that’s his place. But I also think we can play together and do pick and pop type stuff. Watching the Finals, watching high school teammate Harrison (Barnes), I’d never have guessed he’d be at the four. But there he is out there starting in the Finals at the four. That gave me a lot of confidence because he’s a guy who played the three his whole life and would never want to go to the four. But he was almost liking it more because of the matchups. I feel I can do the same.” – Doug McDermott
This plan could be a genius plan, or it could backfire on the Bulls. Doug McDermott played a lot of stretch four for the Bulls in the 2014 & 2015 Las Vegas Summer League. With the competition not being at the highest level, McDermott was able to shine on the offensive end as the defenders weren’t able to keep up with his crafty moves. That’s one word to describe McDermott; crafty. He’s not a player than can over power another player or speed past them, but he can sneak through the cracks of the defense and float up a shot with his soft touch.
There was a lot of question why the Bulls brought back Mike Dunleavy at the price that they signed him. The Bulls invested a lot in McDermott by trading multiple draft picks for him, so why keep a veteran who plays the exact same role? Well, if Hoiberg’s plan all along was to play McDermott at the power-forward, then where does that leave the already overloaded front-court? Goodbye Taj Gibson?
The best part of this plan if it works, the Bulls will have two stretch fours filtering in-and-out of the rotation. Nikola Mirotic is a shoe-in for this role, but to add McDermott off the bench could give the Bulls the breathing room they always desired. The Bulls hope Bobby Portis could one day successfully enter in the rotation as another stretch four.
If the crazy plan works, Fred Hoiberg will be a genius. If he could put together a lineup that Noah or Taj could cover up McDermott’s defensive deficiency, he’ll give Derrick Rose a hell of a lot more room to operate the offense. McDermott camping out behind the arc with Butler and Dunleavy will give Derrick Rose all the freedom in the world to drive past his defender for the easy bucket. If the defense tries to collapse, Rose could give it up to one of his three great shooters. Don’t look now, but it seems as though the Bulls are truly following the blueprint of a championship team; which is using the entire roster to their maximum capacity,
