There’s no pretense with Andres Nocioni, no mimicked mania or faked frenzy.
His true-blue intensity is one reason he has resonated with fans, teammates and coaches. What you see is what you get, and more often than not, that’s an honest night’s work.
That’s why his admission after practice Thursday sounded so startling.
“I’m not the same player from two months ago,” Nocioni said.
The good news is Nocioni says he has experienced no pain in the two games he has played since missing 28 of 29 with plantar fasciitis in his right foot.
The bad news is, even as the Bulls intend to increase his minutes limit to roughly 20 against the Bobcats in Friday’s regular-season home finale, pain isn’t the problem. Performance is.
“I could play 20 minutes,” Nocioni said. “I could play 30 or 40 or even 48. The problem is I can do it, but not at the high level of two months ago. This is true. Right now, I can play at a high level for 10 or 15 minutes. Then I get a little tired and a little slow and a little different.”
Coach Scott Skiles said Nocioni has “looked good” in both games and, surely, eight- and 13-minute stints are tough to judge.
But Nocioni knows the ease with which he scored at a 14.6 points-per-game clip is gone for now. And he knows with just three regular-season games remaining, he doesn’t have much time to achieve game conditioning for the frenetic postseason.
“This is the reason I said I need to help this team in different ways,” Nocioni said. “Right now, the team is playing really well without me. I don’t need to try to make a lot of points because the team doesn’t need that right now. I need to play good defense and get the rebounds and give space to the rookies.”
Nocioni saying he will cede to Tyrus Thomas and Thabo Sefolosha in crunch time is like Eric Clapton announcing his roadie will take his next live guitar solo. This is, after all, the player whose scoring averages have risen from 8.4 in the regular season to 12.8 in the postseason in 2004-05 and from 13 to 22.3 in ’05-06.
The crazy thing is, Nocioni’s recovering foot isn’t hampering his ability to provide spacing on the offensive end with his three-point prowess.
“My legs are tired,” Nocioni said. “It’s like training camp. You’re sore. Your body is tired. Your muscles are tired. Right now, I feel like this. This is the truth. But I do feel better than I thought. I thought I would feel really bad. But my lungs are recovering quickly. Shots, I need to get the power. It’s more my legs than the foot.”
Ah, yes, the foot. Nocioni admits that, mentally, he isn’t 100 percent over the injury despite being pain-free.
“Sometimes I think about it,” he said. “It’s difficult. You have to think about it. But that’s normal. I think I’ll be right [mentally] in a week because I feel 100 percent. I don’t have any pain. I hope the whole playoffs, no pain.”
Indeed, the Bulls know a healthy and hyper Nocioni is needed for the playoffs.
“We just have to get him enough quality minutes where he can have a comfort level when he comes into a playoff game,” Skiles said.
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kcjohnson@tribune.com
