Jabari Parker plays both forward spots in Bulls' opening scrimmage
Bulls newcomer Jabari Parker may not be married to the small forward position just yet.
When the Bulls signed Parker as a free agent this summer, the feeling was he'd be playing small forward, mostly because the Bulls had Lauri Markkanen and Bobby Portis at power forward already.
According to coach Fred Hoiberg, Parker didn't stick to one position when the team held a formal scrimmage on Thursday at the Advocate Center.
"We played Jabari at both forward spots in the scrimmage," Hoiberg said. "And it's just continuing to build the habits with a position that he hasn't got a lot of time with early in his career, as far as getting out, running the wings and doing it consistently.
"Then when he plays the four, he did some really good things there as well. So when you come to a new system and have to learn multiple positions, it's going to take some time. We're making progress with it."
Parker played mostly power forward during his four seasons in Milwaukee, which were interrupted by two ACL tears. Teammate Justin Holiday has a good view of Parker's progress during the first week of training camp.
"I think he's doing fine with it," Holiday said. "You can see him every day trying to continually, consciously think about things we want to do. But that's without taking away what he (already) does."
First scrimmage in books:
Coach Fred Hoiberg gave a mostly positive review of the Bulls' scrimmage on Thursday, which included G-League referees.
"The scrimmage was good, we had a lot of positives," Hoiberg said. "Obviously there's a lot to clean up right now when you have your first intrasquad scrimmage like we did, but there's a lot of things that we liked. I thought our pace was really good.
"We're still turning the ball over too much, which usually happens this time of year, but there's a lot of things that we can build on. We'll keep at it."
Added Justin Holiday, "I think we're going to have to slow down. I think everybody was just excited to play and we were going 100 miles an hour. But everybody played hard, everybody tried to win."
Holiday holding steady:
Justin Holiday is expected to continue his role as one of the Bulls' veteran leaders. But they also brought in a couple of guys who play his position, Jabari Parker and rookie Chandler Hutchison, so his playing time will likely drop.
"Just come in and do my job, compete and do what I've got to do," he said. "That's all I'm going to try to do. Come in, play hard and try to win games.
"I am vocal at times, but mostly I tried to lead by example - how I conduct myself on the floor, off the floor, being here on time, putting the work in. But if I see something that can help somebody in any way, I'll tell them because obviously I've been around for a little bit."