NY Times: Bulls Can See the Beauty in Hinrich

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Bulls Can See the Beauty in Hinrich

January 17, 2005
By IRA BERKOW

The first time he saw Kirk Hinrich in person, as a shaggy-haired,
limber-limbed, fresh-from-milking-the-cows rookie, Johnny Kerr
thought, "Hmm, not put together all that well."

Kerr, a former star player and coach in the N.B.A. and the longtime
Bulls television analyst, has seen guards come and go in Chicago. At
first blush, he was not all that impressed with Hinrich, who played
point and shooting guard with the Chicago Bulls last season.

"Here was the team's first-round draft pick, seventh over
all - and I wondered," he said. "You know, I saw a
bobblehead of him and I thought it looked like him, everything moved,
loosey-goosey."

Linton Johnson - a Bulls forward last season who is now
with San Antonio - said in an article in Dime Magazine, a basketball
publication, that his first impression of Hinrich was that he was
"soft" and "breakable."

"But that was before we played," Johnson said.

And when Hinrich, at 6 feet 3 inches and 190 pounds, had an early-season game with more points and more assists than Jamal Crawford, then the Bulls' starting point guard, Crawford was asked if he was being outplayed by Hinrich. Crawford laughed sarcastically. "You trying to be funny?" he said.

Crawford, who had moved to shooting guard with Hinrich starting at the point, was traded to the Knicks after last season. Hinrich, averaging 12 points and 6.8 assists a game, went on to make the all-rookie team, along with LeBron James, Carmelo Anthony, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh.

This season, Hinrich is up to 16 points and 7 assists a game.
He is the driving force behind a resurgent, improbable
Bulls team that, if the season ended today, would be in the playoffs
for the first time since the spring of 1998, when Michael Jordan
played the position Hinrich now occupies.

This is a Bulls franchise that, as the team's second-year coach Scott
Skiles said, went "from one of the best teams> to one of the worst in
a matter of months" after the departure of Jordan, Scottie Pippen and
Coach Phil Jackson. (The Bulls went from 62 victories in 82 games, to
13 victories in 50 games the next season, to 17, 15, 21, 30 and, last
season, 23.)

On Saturday afternoon, the Bulls beat the Knicks at the United Center, 86-84, with Hinrich scoring 15 points, getting 7 rebounds and adding 11 assists. It was the Bulls' sixth straight victory and 12th in 15 games, and they are 16-18 over all. This after an 0-9 start.

Last Wednesday, the Bulls walloped Allen Iverson and the Philadelphia
76ers, 110-78. "Coming into the game," Iverson said, "you don't expect those guys to beat you by 30 points." But there it was, like turning a corner and walking into a wall, with Hinrich scoring 16 points and adding 9 assists, playing his routinely tough defense. The Bulls lead the N.B.A. in lowest shooting percentage by opponents, at 41 percent, and Hinrich has controlled the team with a mastery that has been compared to Steve Nash, John Stockton and Jerry Sloan.

The Knicks have an opportunity to test Hinrich and the Bulls again this afternoon when they meet at Madison Square Garden.
"He's fearless, and he's smart," Kerr said. "He's quick to penetrate
into the paint and in traffic and looks around, and if he sees nothing
there, he'll dribble out of traffic without taking a crazy shot."

On Wednesday night, Hinrich made two remarkable shots
around the basket over big frontcourt players, and he hit
his teammates - like the rookie guard Ben Gordon, who
scored 31 points, and center Eddy Curry, who had 24 - with in-rhythm passes that were, as Kerr said, "right on the money."

As for being "breakable," Skiles said of Hinrich: "He can take
contact. He's played through everything - hands cut, ankle sprain, big
thigh bruises, charley horses. The only time he sits down is when I
tell him to."

As for soft, Hinrich read Johnson's remarks, and what
Johnson added: "Once we started playing, he was a master of that
pick-and-roll, man. I had respect for him after that. He's a white guy
on the court, so people go after him. He's got a lot of guts, a lot of
heart."

Hinrich smiled after a recent Bulls practice as he recalled Johnson's
remarks. "As a point guard, I've been going through that all my life,"
he said. He was an all-star high school player in Sioux City, Iowa,
leading his team to the state championship with his father, Jim, as
the coach. He was a star at the University of Kansas, leading the
Jayhawks in his senior year to the N.C.A.A. tournament final, where
they lost to Syracuse.

"When I played A.A.U. ball," Hinrich said, "and every other team had
maybe one white guy, and so I'd hear: 'He's a shooter! Take him, take
him!' It's a stereotype.

"And I always got extra physical pressure, to see if I
could take it. It was true in the N.B.A., as well, but
then, I think it happens to all rookies."

Roy Williams, the coach at North Carolina, was Hinrich's coach for
four years at Kansas. "He's one of my all-time favorite people,"
Williams said. "He's one of the most self-disciplined players I've
ever coached."

Williams added: "I was an assistant coach at North Carolina when
Jordan played there. I think Kirk is in the same ballpark with Michael
as far as competitiveness is concerned. He's also a better athlete
than people might initially think. He's fast, and he can dunk with two
hands."

Jim O'Brien, coach of the 76ers, said that Hinrich "is very similar to
Steve Nash in his ability to be aware of all his teammates while
attacking the basket."

"And he can hurt you with 3's," O'Brien said.

Sloan, coach of the Utah Jazz, said Hinrich reminded him of Stockton.
"He's not muscular, as John wasn't, but he plays hard-nosed, and when something goes wrong, he keeps playing," Sloan said. "He doesn't have to stop to figure out what's going on. Very intelligent court sense."

As for those who say Hinrich is reminiscent of the player Sloan, who
was a Bulls guard in the 1960's and 70's and known for his in-your-mug defense, Sloan said: "Hinrich's a much better player than I was. He's a much better offensive player."

The current success of the Bulls is done, inevitably, in
the shadow of Jordan. "We have players who know about the past but weren't here to be affected by it," Hinrich said. "I think we've done a good job of putting it behind us."

With regard to the team's turnaround after last season and its
melancholy beginning this season, Hinrich said: "It's night and day
compared to last season. We just feel more like a team."

Curry is playing the best basketball of his mercurial four-year
career. Two rookies from Duke, forward Luol Deng and the backup point guard Chris Duhon, are having good years. So are Gordon and Andres Nocioni, a first-year player from Argentina, as well as the fourth-year forward Tyson Chandler and the veterans Antonio Davis and Othella Harrington.

"We can't get carried away," Hinrich said. "It's a long season, but I know we're headed in the right direction."