CBE 93: How many wins will the Bulls finish with?

[Kush77]

Re:CBE 93: How many wins will the Bulls finish wit

This team is so difficult to figure out (healthy or injured) I've decided to stop going up and down with every win or loss.

I have a guy at work that comes up to me after every game "The Bulls are hot" then the next day "put a fork in the Bulls."
Today I finally snapped on him and said, "dammit it's the Eastern Conference, 1 little 4-game win streak has you back in the 6th spot."
The Bulls are only 3 games out of the 5th spot. Milwaukee is going to slow down. They've had a good strecth but their schedule has been pretty easy. they did beat Bos and the Cavs without LBJ and Shaq.

I guess my point is no one at the bottom of the East is ever going to pull away. The Bulls could very easily lose the next 5 games. But at the same time they could make it all back up with a stretch of Philly, Houston, Miami, NJ an d Detroit at the end of the month.

1 hot streak gets you right back in there. The Bulls did it during their streak. Toronto was hot now they're 3-7 in their last 10. Charlotte was hot, then cold, now won 4 in a row. Miami has been pretty even all year.

I think the Bulls will still make the playoffs. The teams at the bottom of the East just aren't consistent. That's why they're at the bottom. Bottom of the playoff picture I should say.

I had the Bulls winning 45 games. I don't think they would have got it even with Noah healthy. With Noah they were inconsistent. They win 5 in a row on the road then come home and lose to the Clippers. That's the main sign to me that this team is just not there. If Noah played the last 2 games against Dallas and Utah, while they would have gave up less points, they still would have lost both games.

 

[Diddy1122]

Re:CBE 93: How many wins will the Bulls finish wit

Kush77 wrote:

This team is so difficult to figure out (healthy or injured) I've decided to stop going up and down with every win or loss.

I have a guy at work that comes up to me after every game "The Bulls are hot" then the next day "put a fork in the Bulls."
Today I finally snapped on him and said, "dammit it's the Eastern Conference, 1 little 4-game win streak has you back in the 6th spot."
The Bulls are only 3 games out of the 5th spot. Milwaukee is going to slow down. They've had a good strecth but their schedule has been pretty easy. they did beat Bos and the Cavs without LBJ and Shaq.

I guess my point is no one at the bottom of the East is ever going to pull away. The Bulls could very easily lose the next 5 games. But at the same time they could make it all back up with a stretch of Philly, Houston, Miami, NJ an d Detroit at the end of the month.

1 hot streak gets you right back in there. The Bulls did it during their streak. Toronto was hot now they're 3-7 in their last 10. Charlotte was hot, then cold, now won 4 in a row. Miami has been pretty even all year.

I think the Bulls will still make the playoffs. The teams at the bottom of the East just aren't consistent. That's why they're at the bottom. Bottom of the playoff picture I should say.

I had the Bulls winning 45 games. I don't think they would have got it even with Noah healthy. With Noah they were inconsistent. They win 5 in a row on the road then come home and lose to the Clippers. That's the main sign to me that this team is just not there. If Noah played the last 2 games against Dallas and Utah, while they would have gave up less points, they still would have lost both games.

Completely agree, Kush. I've been very tempered during this season, not getting too high or too low. After that Celtics series though, it seems more fans were expecting much more out of this team. My main focus this year has been player progression. A good season to me was Rose becoming an All-Star(Check), Noah becoming a double-double player(Check), & Deng returning to form(Check). Everything else was just icing to me since it's all about who we get in the offseason to go with that trio. The icing for me has been Taj Gibson. And if we make the playoffs it would be great but I don't think missing the playoffs will be the end of the world, or sway a Big FA to not sign here. This city, team, & fanbase just have too much to offer to let a little thing like that cloud one's decision.

And like you said Kush, this is the Weakstern Conference. No team in the bottom 5 of the playoff push is going to run away with it. Even fully healthy all these teams are woefully inconsistent. 39 wins got you in the playoffs last year. I see no reason why that would change this season. If we just weather the storm & hang around, there's a good chance we can make it back to the postseason for another 1st round loss.

 

[TheStig]

Re:CBE 93: How many wins will the Bulls finish wit

Btw, finally had a chance to listen to it and I can't believe the injury situation is even up for debate. Last years numbers:

Deng 49 games, missed the last two months of the season and entire playoffs
Kirk 51 games, missed the first two months of the season.
Drew Gooden missed the end of jan to the end of feb
Playoffs
BG hamstring for the second half of the series.
John Salmons had an injury through out the playoffs and last few games.

Frontcourt
Drew Gooden injured for a month, TT healthy and inconsistent as ever and Noah was out of shape for more than half the year. We only had Miller for the last 27 games and thats about when Noah started to step it up.

This year:
Deng out one game
Kirk out 7 games
TT out about 20 some odd games
Noah out 13 games

We have had the benefit of having salmons and miller both healthy and playing in twice as many games. Loul Deng has only missed one game. Noah has stepped up. Taj Gibson is a solid big. Deng has improved his D. Rose has become a top 15 player and allstar.

We have gained a lot and anyone who references injuries in the playoffs should note we didn't have deng and had an injured Salmons and BG during that series. This team has every advantage, don't underestimate noah being a very good defensive big, we have seen what its like without him the past few games. This years Rose and Noah are light and day from last years versions.

 

[pinkizdead]

Re:CBE 93: How many wins will the Bulls finish wit

TheStig wrote:

Btw, finally had a chance to listen to it and I can't believe the injury situation is even up for debate. Last years numbers:

Deng 49 games, missed the last two months of the season and entire playoffs
Kirk 51 games, missed the first two months of the season.
Drew Gooden missed the end of jan to the end of feb
Playoffs
BG hamstring for the second half of the series.
John Salmons had an injury through out the playoffs and last few games.

Frontcourt
Drew Gooden injured for a month, TT healthy and inconsistent as ever and Noah was out of shape for more than half the year. We only had Miller for the last 27 games and thats about when Noah started to step it up.

This year:
Deng out one game
Kirk out 7 games
TT out about 20 some odd games
Noah out 13 games

We have had the benefit of having salmons and miller both healthy and playing in twice as many games. Loul Deng has only missed one game. Noah has stepped up. Taj Gibson is a solid big. Deng has improved his D. Rose has become a top 15 player and allstar.

We have gained a lot and anyone who references injuries in the playoffs should note we didn't have deng and had an injured Salmons and BG during that series. This team has every advantage, don't underestimate noah being a very good defensive big, we have seen what its like without him the past few games. This years Rose and Noah are light and day from last years versions.

this year we have pargo as the third guard, if an injury happens to either rose or kirk.

last year we had either hughes or hinrich.

When deng went out we had either hughes or kirk, and salmons.
this year we have murry and johnson

our front court was significantly better this year, but you really ought not to play joakim and tyrus together. neither is an offensive player. it created some chemistry issues. drew "no"gooden was an offensive player. miller was a better offensive player.By starting two front court guys who dont score, you're asking your bench/perimeter to do a lot of it's scoring. sure our defense was better this year, but the offense sucked.

Miller was completely out of shape for most of the season.

he was almost aaron gray bad/slow.

salmons played out of position, and he had the stress of a new born.

this team really really neeeds rose, because ABSOLUTELY NO ONE ELSE can generate their own offense. vinny sucks at calling plays/making plays. really if d-rose was struggling, the entire team will be struggling. the first half of this year, we sucked, because rose was hurt.

in conclusion, no we haven't had as many injuries as last year, but the injuries have made a greater impact due to the SIGNIFICANT drop off of talent of the bench players.

 

[pinkizdead]

Re:CBE 93: How many wins will the Bulls finish wit

also, more players have been playing while injured:

deng, rose, noah, and taj have all played while suffering from significant injuries. it impacted their play and minutes.

do you guys remember when we saw hunter and pargo on the floor together? we got killed! absoutely killed when we put our bench out during the first half of the season.

 

[TheStig]

Re:CBE 93: How many wins will the Bulls finish wit

pinkizdead wrote:

this year we have pargo as the third guard, if an injury happens to either rose or kirk.


last year we had either hughes or hinrich.

But pargo isn't our 3rd guard. He is our 4th. Salmons/Flip/Kirk were all third guards during this year. Salmons, Kirk and Flip> Kirk/Hughes.

When deng went out we had either hughes or kirk, and salmons.
this year we have murry and johnson

Deng has missed one game. I hardly consider suffering through one game a major gripe.

our front court was significantly better this year, but you really ought not to play joakim and tyrus together. neither is an offensive player. it created some chemistry issues. drew "no"gooden was an offensive player. miller was a better offensive player.By starting two front court guys who dont score, you're asking your bench/perimeter to do a lot of it's scoring. sure our defense was better this year, but the offense sucked.

Outside of the first month we have started Noah/Gibson or Miller/Gibson. TT really didn't play much of a role on this team outside of the first month.

Miller was completely out of shape for most of the season.

he was almost aaron gray bad/slow.

Noah was completly out of shape for about half the season. Miller is declining, it is somewhat natural.

salmons played out of position, and he had the stress of a new born.

Salmons primarly plays SG for the bucks so that isn't it.

this team really really neeeds rose, because ABSOLUTELY NO ONE ELSE can generate their own offense. vinny sucks at calling plays/making plays. really if d-rose was struggling, the entire team will be struggling. the first half of this year, we sucked, because rose was hurt.

in conclusion, no we haven't had as many injuries as last year, but the injuries have made a greater impact due to the SIGNIFICANT drop off of talent of the bench players.

I agree on the rose part. We really got almost nothing going on without him except for Deng occasionally doing something.

I disagree on the bench. Besides our recent injuries our bench is the same. Kirk and Miller were the main two guys and to begin the year we had the same kirk and miller on the bench and added gibson. Even so, the current Warrick, Flip and Miller bench (at full strength) is about equal and provides a nice scoring punch.

 

[Shakes]

Re:CBE 93: How many wins will the Bulls finish wit

Oh come on Stig, Rose wasn't a top 15 player in November and December, he was below average for a starter. He was worse than last year's version for the first couple of months of the season. Yet I guess because he was able to limp onto the court that doesn't count.

You look at the impact of injuries last year and when Kirk went down we had Thabo and Hughes to cover. This year when Kirk went down we had Pargo to cover. When Deng went down we had Salmons to cover. This year we have James Johnson. When Gooden went down we had Noc. When TT went down we had Taj Gibson as a raw rookie.

Basically the quantity of injuries may have been worse last year, but the dropoff between the guy who was injured and their replacement was a heck of a lot smaller. We've killed our depth because we're shedding contracts for 2010.

Besides, who wouldn't take Salmons 26 games from last year over his 51 this year? Or the same for Kirk and Miller? Having healthy players who stink is no good to anybody.

 

[pinkizdead]

Re:CBE 93: How many wins will the Bulls finish wit

TheStig wrote:

pinkizdead wrote:

this year we have pargo as the third guard, if an injury happens to either rose or kirk.


last year we had either hughes or hinrich.

But pargo isn't our 3rd guard. He is our 4th. Salmons/Flip/Kirk were all third guards during this year. Salmons, Kirk and Flip> Kirk/Hughes.

When deng went out we had either hughes or kirk, and salmons.
this year we have murry and johnson

Deng has missed one game. I hardly consider suffering through one game a major gripe.

our front court was significantly better this year, but you really ought not to play joakim and tyrus together. neither is an offensive player. it created some chemistry issues. drew "no"gooden was an offensive player. miller was a better offensive player.By starting two front court guys who dont score, you're asking your bench/perimeter to do a lot of it's scoring. sure our defense was better this year, but the offense sucked.

Outside of the first month we have started Noah/Gibson or Miller/Gibson. TT really didn't play much of a role on this team outside of the first month.

Miller was completely out of shape for most of the season.

he was almost aaron gray bad/slow.

Noah was completly out of shape for about half the season. Miller is declining, it is somewhat natural.

salmons played out of position, and he had the stress of a new born.

Salmons primarly plays SG for the bucks so that isn't it.

this team really really neeeds rose, because ABSOLUTELY NO ONE ELSE can generate their own offense. vinny sucks at calling plays/making plays. really if d-rose was struggling, the entire team will be struggling. the first half of this year, we sucked, because rose was hurt.

in conclusion, no we haven't had as many injuries as last year, but the injuries have made a greater impact due to the SIGNIFICANT drop off of talent of the bench players.

I agree on the rose part. We really got almost nothing going on without him except for Deng occasionally doing something.

I disagree on the bench. Besides our recent injuries our bench is the same. Kirk and Miller were the main two guys and to begin the year we had the same kirk and miller on the bench and added gibson. Even so, the current Warrick, Flip and Miller bench (at full strength) is about equal and provides a nice scoring punch.

when kirk was injured, pargo was the 3rd guard.

we didnt have flip back then, and salmons started. we also saw lindsey hunter out there. deng didn't miss many games, but he sure did play like crap.

miller playing like crap is excusable, BUT i brought it up to point out that the situation is similar to last years. Therefore, we shouldn't be too suprised that our record hasn't been as great as it could have been.

Salmons sucked in our offense? i dont what it was. maybe it was the kid, maybe it was the stress of playing in chicago? i dont know, but he was terrible. absolutely terrible for a better part of a month or so.

kirk and miller off the bench this year aren't the same as last year. age is catching up with miller. Kirk is expected to score more, and he hasn't delivered. last year kirk could defer more often, this year he doesnt have that option, so he takes bad shots. i get excited if kirk hinrich hits a 3/scores. REALLY EXCITED! i'd trade this years kirk for last years kirk.

i guess part of the argument is that the starters from last year created a different role for bench players, than they do this year.

 

[houheffna]

Re:CBE 93: How many wins will the Bulls finish wit

What this all comes down to is what was done before the season started. People putting unrealistic expectations on the Bulls to justify complaints about losing St. Ben of UConn. That is exactly what all of this "disappointment" is about. The 50 wins stuff was total crap. You all know what the big picture is...and that is 2010 free agency. If you are truly "disappointed" by watching a fringe playoff team with serious injury problems might now break even over the season, you need some very strong medication prescribed to you. I think you know better though, you just want to pretend that you don't. This season doesn't matter. The coach is gone no matter what and the right questions were answered, Rose and Noah improved. That is ALL that mattered. Those players improvement, and some cap relief were the prime objectives of this season. Mission accomplished.

 

[TheStig]

Re:CBE 93: How many wins will the Bulls finish wit

Shakes wrote:

Oh come on Stig, Rose wasn't a top 15 player in November and December, he was below average for a starter. He was worse than last year's version for the first couple of months of the season. Yet I guess because he was able to limp onto the court that doesn't count.

He was not a below average PG to start the year. He just wasn't anything special and Rose was only bad for most of Novemember not december. And he was never limping on the court, lets not exagerate too much here.

You look at the impact of injuries last year and when Kirk went down we had Thabo and Hughes to cover. This year when Kirk went down we had Pargo to cover. When Deng went down we had Salmons to cover. This year we have James Johnson. When Gooden went down we had Noc. When TT went down we had Taj Gibson as a raw rookie.

Basically the quantity of injuries may have been worse last year, but the dropoff between the guy who was injured and their replacement was a heck of a lot smaller. We've killed our depth because we're shedding contracts for 2010.

Yeah, 6 games of pargo and hunter versus two month of hughes and thabo. Seriously?
Besides, who wouldn't take Salmons 26 games from last year over his 51 this year? Or the same for Kirk and Miller? Having healthy players who stink is no good to anybody.[/quote]
Their roles framatically changed offensively, everyone got bumped up a notch, which they couldn't fill. Salmons and Kirk didn't magically get much worse, maybe it was part of a slump too but common.

 

[TheStig]

Re:CBE 93: How many wins will the Bulls finish wit

when kirk was injured, pargo was the 3rd guard.

we didnt have flip back then, and salmons started. we also saw lindsey hunter out there. deng didn't miss many games, but he sure did play like crap.

Kirk was injured for six games, for the other 57 games hunter and pargo weren't our third guard. Your taking a small sample size and trying to make it seem like thats how it was the whole year.

miller playing like crap is excusable, BUT i brought it up to point out that the situation is similar to last years. Therefore, we shouldn't be too suprised that our record hasn't been as great as it could have been.

Noah was comparitively worse last year, he was huffing and puffing after 5 min.

Salmons sucked in our offense? i dont what it was. maybe it was the kid, maybe it was the stress of playing in chicago? i dont know, but he was terrible. absolutely terrible for a better part of a month or so.

He got bumped up a notch on the food chart. He isn't a real second option and its not like deng could create on his own.

kirk and miller off the bench this year aren't the same as last year. age is catching up with miller. Kirk is expected to score more, and he hasn't delivered. last year kirk could defer more often, this year he doesnt have that option, so he takes bad shots. i get excited if kirk hinrich hits a 3/scores. REALLY EXCITED! i'd trade this years kirk for last years kirk.

Again, I think people don't realize how much attention BG took off of people. He got doubled and stretched the court.

i guess part of the argument is that the starters from last year created a different role for bench players, than they do this year.

Exactly, though I think if last years team had this Rose, Noah and Deng, they would win 50 easy. But they had poorer versions of those guys and only BG. We were terrible at the begining of the year because the whole offense was rose and bg.

 

[Shakes]

Re:CBE 93: How many wins will the Bulls finish wit

TheStig wrote:

He was not a below average PG to start the year. He just wasn't anything special and Rose was only bad for most of Novemember not december. And he was never limping on the court, lets not exagerate too much here.

I meant figuratively limped not literally. And although his points were up in December, he still wasn't playing with the efficiency of a top 15 player. His FG% was still down at 45%, since then he hasn't had a month where he's shot below 50.

Yeah, 6 games of pargo and hunter versus two month of hughes and thabo. Seriously?

Do you forget that when Kirk went out for a while there Larry actually played like he gave a crap, tried on defense and didn't chuck shots? He even shot 39% from 3 which is a figure he hasn't got remotely near at any other time in his career. So yes seriously, the drop of from Kirk to Hughes last year wasn't huge.

Last years team had about 2000 minutes played by players with a PER below 13. This year's team already has well over 4000, and there's still 19 games to go. Simply put, this year the injuries have forced us to play crap players way more than last years injuries did.

Their roles framatically changed offensively, everyone got bumped up a notch, which they couldn't fill. Salmons and Kirk didn't magically get much worse, maybe it was part of a slump too but common.

I'm going to go all Fred on you at this point and say that Hinrich has been the second or third leading scorer on the team in the past. Now you're telling me we shouldn't expect him to handle being the forth option after Rose/Deng/Salmons? Give me a break.

Ditto for Salmons, he was the second leading scorer on both the Kings and the Bulls last year. This year we asked him to be the third behind Rose & Deng. We put LESS responsibility on him and he failed to deliver. It's all on him, don't give me some cop out that we expected more of him than he was capable of.

 

[Fred]

Re:CBE 93: How many wins will the Bulls finish wit

Shakes wrote:

TheStig wrote:

How could our defense have fallen off, we have the 06-07 2nd team defensive, all world defender Kirk "feisty" Hinrich. Surely, his defense makes up for any deficiency on this team anywhere.

One Fred in the thread is enough without having people doing their best Fred impersonation.

Stig doesn't impersonate me, although I agree with 99% of what he writes. It's probably more true that I impersonate Stig. That said, The world would be a much better place with Fred Impersonators. If we hired a Fred Impersonator instead of Forman/Paxon during the summer of 08, we would have the following lineup:

Rose PG
Gordon SG
Ariza SF
D. Blair PF
Noah Center

With Salmons, Brad Miller, and Kyle Korver coming off the Bench. Hinrich would be sucking in Minnesota, (I traded him for expirings and a Happy Meal) and they would be a 4 win team now. Tom Izzo would be our coach. I'd offer Neil Funk a chance to work in the 300 level selling hot dogs and bring Swirsky to the TV side. I'd ban Benny the Bulls from putting his hand in the huddle before they enter the areana, and hire Craig Hodges as a shooting coach.

And we would be on pace for 60 wins.

In the offseason, I'd offer our a future #1 and Noah in a sign and trade for Bosh.

 

[TheStig]

Re:CBE 93: How many wins will the Bulls finish wit

Shakes wrote:

I meant figuratively limped not literally. And although his points were up in December, he still wasn't playing with the efficiency of a top 15 player. His FG% was still down at 45%, since then he hasn't had a month where he's shot below 50.

His efficency was down but the point was he was never a below average starter. He was average at worst. Outside of the top 5 or 6 guys, pg is a crapshoot. Paul, Nash, Williams, Rondo, Kidd, Evans, Brooks, Jennings and Westbrook were the only guys clearly better to start the year. Since then Curry has improved, Harris has come back from the dead, Jennings has dropped off and so has Evans a bit.

Do you forget that when Kirk went out for a while there Larry actually played like he gave a crap, tried on defense and didn't chuck shots? He even shot 39% from 3 which is a figure he hasn't got remotely near at any other time in his career. So yes seriously, the drop of from Kirk to Hughes last year wasn't huge.

Last years team had about 2000 minutes played by players with a PER below 13. This year's team already has well over 4000, and there's still 19 games to go. Simply put, this year the injuries have forced us to play crap players way more than last years injuries did.

Seriously, your gonna cite a Larry Hughes hot streak as a measure of quality depth? He can't even get pt in NY.

And the reason our per is so low is because guys like Salmons, Pargo and Kirk (guys who account for over 4000 min themselves) were kept ahead of someone who has a over 13 per this year on a bad leg. Remember, we were told with those three that BG wouldn't have gotten any playing time here and with a bad leg and a career worst year by far, he still beat all of them in per. Also with him opening up the court for guys last year, all the major guys had higher pers last year.

I'm going to go all Fred on you at this point and say that Hinrich has been the second or third leading scorer on the team in the past. Now you're telling me we shouldn't expect him to handle being the forth option after Rose/Deng/Salmons? Give me a break.

Ditto for Salmons, he was the second leading scorer on both the Kings and the Bulls last year. This year we asked him to be the third behind Rose & Deng. We put LESS responsibility on him and he failed to deliver. It's all on him, don't give me some cop out that we expected more of him than he was capable of.

I fully expect Kirk to produce but hes not and its not injury related. Steve Blake used to be a poor mans Kirk now Kirk is a poor mans steve blake. If hes so bad as you are pointing out, why haven't we dumped him for an expiring.

He was the third option here. Rose and BG were ahead of him. Deng really isn't a creater so he was really the second option here on offense and got a lot of iso plays given to him. Regardless, guys haven't preformed offensively and I attribute a lot of to not having a second guy who can create his own shot. You can only swing the ball around so much and Rose can't play 48mpg.

 

[TheStig]

Re:CBE 93: How many wins will the Bulls finish wit

Fred wrote:

Shakes wrote:

TheStig wrote:

How could our defense have fallen off, we have the 06-07 2nd team defensive, all world defender Kirk "feisty" Hinrich. Surely, his defense makes up for any deficiency on this team anywhere.

One Fred in the thread is enough without having people doing their best Fred impersonation.

Stig doesn't impersonate me, although I agree with 99% of what he writes. It's probably more true that I impersonate Stig. That said, The world would be a much better place with Fred Impersonators. If we hired a Fred Impersonator instead of Forman/Paxon during the summer of 08, we would have the following lineup:

Rose PG
Gordon SG
Ariza SF
D. Blair PF
Noah Center

With Salmons, Brad Miller, and Kyle Korver coming off the Bench. Hinrich would be sucking in Minnesota, (I traded him for expirings and a Happy Meal) and they would be a 4 win team now. Tom Izzo would be our coach. I'd offer Neil Funk a chance to work in the 300 level selling hot dogs and bring Swirsky to the TV side. I'd ban Benny the Bulls from putting his hand in the huddle before they enter the areana, and hire Craig Hodges as a shooting coach.

And we would be on pace for 60 wins.

In the offseason, I'd offer our a future #1 and Noah in a sign and trade for Bosh.

I don't really think anyone impersonates anyone, I just think Fred, P03 and I share a similar idea of how things should look. Guys have their own ideals, expcept Mark, hes all over the board. Like you (shakes) and Hou don't really think BG vs Kirk is a big difference maker and is done and are just looking forward to 2010.

Fred, you can't just kidnap Deng and put him in your basement lol.

My team would look like this.

Rose/Jason Williams
BG/Salmons
Deng/Salmons
Boozer/Blair
Noah/Miller

It would be in the tax a few mill but would have still had max cap space after the bucks deal. But we wouldn't have had our scoring drought to start the year with BG and Boozer here. We wouldn't be so bad defensively and would control the boards. But this team easily wins 50 wins and is a 3-4 seed in the east.

 

[Shakes]

Re:CBE 93: How many wins will the Bulls finish wit

TheStig wrote:

I don't really think anyone impersonates anyone, I just think Fred, P03 and I share a similar idea of how things should look.

I was actually talking about the sarcastic comments about Kirk being a Fred impersonation, not the actual meat of what you are saying.

Guys have their own ideals, expcept Mark, hes all over the board. Like you (shakes) and Hou don't really think BG vs Kirk is a big difference maker and is done and are just looking forward to 2010.

Please don't group me with Hou.

No seriously, I didn't say the difference between BG and Kirk isn't big. I believe I even said it's about 9 wins with the way Kirk has played this year vs Ben last year.

If there's a difference between myself and you/Fred/the guy with characters I can't type (I read it as POS, which I assume is not his intention!) it's that I think if we'd resigned Ben Gordon it would be to flip in a trade at a later date, where as you guys assume we'd keep him for the duration of his contract. Under the assumption you're making, I would have signed BG and traded Kirk too.

I believe Garr/Paxson would have too, because they're not stupid and know Ben is a better player. The fact they didn't to me says they were thinking along the same lines I am and were purely looking at trade assets. They made a gamble Kirk's value would be on the up this year, where as Gordon after just signing a big contract wouldn't. They got the Kirk part wrong, but it's not like reasonable people weren't thinking he'd play well ("all over the shop" Mark and his 6th man prediction anyone?)

 

[RC_Skinny22]

Re:CBE 93: How many wins will the Bulls finish wit

Fred wrote:

I'd ban Benny the Bulls from putting his hand in the huddle before they enter the areana

What do you have against Benny? :huh:

 

[Shakes]

Re:CBE 93: How many wins will the Bulls finish wit

TheStig wrote:

His efficency was down but the point was he was never a below average starter. He was average at worst. Outside of the top 5 or 6 guys, pg is a crapshoot. Paul, Nash, Williams, Rondo, Kidd, Evans, Brooks, Jennings and Westbrook were the only guys clearly better to start the year. Since then Curry has improved, Harris has come back from the dead, Jennings has dropped off and so has Evans a bit.

Fine, he was below average for the first month and a bit, and picked up in December, but still wasn't anywhere near a top 15 player until the new year. Either way his injury clearly affected our record through the first couple of months.

Seriously, your gonna cite a Larry Hughes hot streak as a measure of quality depth? He can't even get pt in NY.

Look, I hate Larry Hughes as much as the next NBA fan. But the way he played with us last year, yes. He had his career best shooting with us. It was probably only a fluke for a small run, but he was actually a productive NBA player for maybe the second time in his career (the first being his contract year of course).

I fully expect Kirk to produce but hes not and its not injury related. Steve Blake used to be a poor mans Kirk now Kirk is a poor mans steve blake. If hes so bad as you are pointing out, why haven't we dumped him for an expiring.

Because we can't dump him for an expiring he's been that bad!

He was the third option here. Rose and BG were ahead of him. Deng really isn't a creater so he was really the second option here on offense and got a lot of iso plays given to him. Regardless, guys haven't preformed offensively and I attribute a lot of to not having a second guy who can create his own shot. You can only swing the ball around so much and Rose can't play 48mpg.

Salmons scored more at better efficiency than Rose last year. He was the second option after Gordon any way you care to look at it. But whatever, even if you call him the third option, we were only asking him to do the same this year and he didn't even come close.

I think you put far too much stock in Gordon opening up the floor as the reason why these guys were bad. It's as big as myth as Kirk Hirich's helping the team through being feisty. You look at players playing with or without other three point threats and there's really nothing to say that there is that kind of effect. For example, when the Sonics traded Ray Allen (as good a comparison to Ben Gordon leaving as I can think of), Rashard Lewis shot slightly better the next year.

As far as Salmons & Hinrich goes, I saw them clanking open shots at the start of the year that they were hitting last year. Unless you want to argue that the confidence of having Gordon beside them made them shoot better on wide open looks, I really don't think it's much of an excuse. They have to take the blame for that, and that's part of the reason why we're not as good as we were last year: we didn't get the same production from our returning players.

BTW, I find it funny how supposedly it's the anti-BG guys who make excuses for Kirk, yet here's a BG fan making excuses that Kirk and Salmons can't shoot without BG.

 

[TheStig]

Re:CBE 93: How many wins will the Bulls finish wit

Shakes wrote:

Fine, he was below average for the first month and a bit, and picked up in December, but still wasn't anywhere near a top 15 player until the new year. Either way his injury clearly affected our record through the first couple of months.

He was never a below average pg this year and even with the injury he had he still wasn't that much better than he was at the begining of his rookie year. Seriously, there were not 15 to 18 pgs better than rose in november.

Look, I hate Larry Hughes as much as the next NBA fan. But the way he played with us last year, yes. He had his career best shooting with us. It was probably only a fluke for a small run, but he was actually a productive NBA player for maybe the second time in his career (the first being his contract year of course).

He had a good month. If he was so productive throughout, he wouldn't have gotten traded. You exagerating the postives too, he shot 39% from three but a meager 41% fg overall. His fg% was right on par for his career, he was just making threes at a higher rate. He was still inefficient as ever.

Because we can't dump him for an expiring he's been that bad!

Common now, if what you say is true, they would have jumped at the boozer deal since both were clearly on their way out then and boozer was an expiring allstar pf. Good value for a guy who you didn't want to resign and a pg that your looking for value for.

Salmons scored more at better efficiency than Rose last year. He was the second option after Gordon any way you care to look at it. But whatever, even if you call him the third option, we were only asking him to do the same this year and he didn't even come close.

Salmons didn't get much iso when he was here with BG. He'd get the ball with a defender off balance, pump fake and drive to the rim. At the begining at the year Salmons would get a lot of iso that he wasn't capable with, especially with rose slowed.

I think you put far too much stock in Gordon opening up the floor as the reason why these guys were bad. It's as big as myth as Kirk Hirich's helping the team through being feisty. You look at players playing with or without other three point threats and there's really nothing to say that there is that kind of effect. For example, when the Sonics traded Ray Allen (as good a comparison to Ben Gordon leaving as I can think of), Rashard Lewis shot slightly better the next year.

I could very well be wrong, I think losing our leading scorer and a good iso option really hurt us. But your Ray Allen example is off. Shard went to the Orlando after his last season with allen and shot .5% worse.

As far as Salmons & Hinrich goes, I saw them clanking open shots at the start of the year that they were hitting last year. Unless you want to argue that the confidence of having Gordon beside them made them shoot better on wide open looks, I really don't think it's much of an excuse. They have to take the blame for that, and that's part of the reason why we're not as good as we were last year: we didn't get the same production from our returning players.

Your only concentrating on the first month. Even when their shooting picked up, the offense wasn't as good as last year and that with a better rose and noah.

BTW, I find it funny how supposedly it's the anti-BG guys who make excuses for Kirk, yet here's a BG fan making excuses that Kirk and Salmons can't shoot without BG.

Not making excuses, he dropped off but if your employer fired your best coworker and replaced him with a minimum wage guy who can't read, your will struggle to pick up the slack. And thats what happened when we let bg go and brought in pargo.

 

[TheStig]

Re:CBE 93: How many wins will the Bulls finish wit

Shakes wrote:

TheStig wrote:

I don't really think anyone impersonates anyone, I just think Fred, P03 and I share a similar idea of how things should look.

I was actually talking about the sarcastic comments about Kirk being a Fred impersonation, not the actual meat of what you are saying.

Guys have their own ideals, expcept Mark, hes all over the board. Like you (shakes) and Hou don't really think BG vs Kirk is a big difference maker and is done and are just looking forward to 2010.

Please don't group me with Hou.

No seriously, I didn't say the difference between BG and Kirk isn't big. I believe I even said it's about 9 wins with the way Kirk has played this year vs Ben last year.

If there's a difference between myself and you/Fred/the guy with characters I can't type (I read it as POS, which I assume is not his intention!) it's that I think if we'd resigned Ben Gordon it would be to flip in a trade at a later date, where as you guys assume we'd keep him for the duration of his contract. Under the assumption you're making, I would have signed BG and traded Kirk too.

I believe Garr/Paxson would have too, because they're not stupid and know Ben is a better player. The fact they didn't to me says they were thinking along the same lines I am and were purely looking at trade assets. They made a gamble Kirk's value would be on the up this year, where as Gordon after just signing a big contract wouldn't. They got the Kirk part wrong, but it's not like reasonable people weren't thinking he'd play well ("all over the shop" Mark and his 6th man prediction anyone?)

Sorry for lumping you with Hou, still don't get the rest of it.