I'm sorry, but I felt compelled to start a thread for this. He just finished breaking Andre Miller's ankle on NBATV. WOW. I guess we can treat this like a game thread. Bulls down 3 at the half to the 76ers.
Anyone have a good link to tonight's game? I'm just using one of the justin.tv NBA TV links, and it's not that great of quality.
No leaguepass broadband tonight. The idiots at the NBA haven't realized that they don't have to black out NBA TV games.
Nice win. Bulls finish November 8-9. That's pretty damn good given our past November history, and the fact that Rose/Gordon were the only ones who had good months, and Drew Gooden had a pretty good 2nd half of the month. John Paxson should be taking notes. This is what having two guys, in Rose/Gordon, that can both take over a game will get you, 8-9 against the toughest schedule in the league. If someone good becomes available for Gooden or Hughes this year, the Bulls might have to say screw it to 2010, since it looks with Rose/Gordon's great play, a good big man (Chris Kaman maybe, or Emeka Okafor?) could shore up the team into something good, and then just use our MLE this summer to try to get someone like Marion or Artest, while other teams are too afraid to spend money because of 2010. Rose/Gordon = Studly combo.
Rose is doing what everyone hoped JWill was going to do (but didn't). That is, impact player as a rookie, if not the team's best player already.
You're underrating Gooden's month. He had basically the same PER as a starter as BG. And I wouldn't sacrifice 2010 for Okafor, or probably even Kaman. Adding Amare or Bosh would make this bulls team pretty formidable.
You might be right. His injury might have just been holding him back. He's had a solid month stat wise, and came on really strong in the last 5 games. Gooden is officially the Bulls 3rd option. Not good considering we paid a guy $80 million this summer to be our first option.
At this point, my "2010 plan" would be to 1. Offer a reasonable extension to Gooden. If he makes $7.5M in 2010, that'll work. He can make more up front or in back. 2. Offer a slightly larger contract to Gordon than he accepted (and we then pulled) last year. Give him a contract that will pay him $10.5M in 2010. 3. Jettison Hinrich and Nocioni. 4. Keep our draft picks. 5. Do nothing else to pick up more salary past 2010. * This will, by my count, get us the $18M or so that we need to sign a max free agent. * Additionally, it will put a team around Rose that's competitive, and, if another star player comes in 2010, could make us a champ. * If it'll get us a second star, consider, at that point, sign-and-trades or dumps to free up cap room with Deng, Gordon, Gooden. But basically, we head into that year with 1- Rose 2- Gordon 3- Deng 4- Gooden 5- Noah Bench- 09, 10 first rounders Cap Space- Enough for a max player. * If we want a major rearrangement before then... like getting Kaman or Okafor, then Deng probably needs to be traded in the process, since those guys would cost more than Gooden or Gordon (IE, if we traded away Gordon @ $10.5M or Gooden @ $7.5M and took back Okafor at $11.5M it'll screw up our cap space. However, we could probably trade away Deng @ $11.4M and still squeak by). I'm not saying we need to do that for sure, but on the other hand, if Deng continues to look very average, he'll be much more replaceable than a guy like Okafor, just on the general principle that Solid 6'10" PF/Cs are much more scarce than solid 6'8" SFs.
WTF happened to Deng? He's still a young guy and was considered (arguably) our best player for the past few seasons. Right now, he's arguably not as good as Hughes as our starting SF. Meanwhile, Tyrus has his FG% up to 33%. Yay!
Deng's strength was always being able to hit the deep jumper when the ball was swung around around to him. He was never scoring a lot of points by creating for himself. Deng keeps talking about being more aggressive, which I think is code for not passing as much. When he's on the court with Hughes especially, the ball doesn't exactly get worked around a lot. I think Hughes quick shots have hurt Deng more than anyone. It's funny too, because Deng's game is the most tailor made to mesh with Rose. Deng loves to just stand 18-20 feet from the basket and step into jumpers. As things settle more, I think Deng will benefit and his numbers will improve. Improve to an 11.7 mil level, I'm not sure... Tyrus is looking better, too. And it even looked like someone told Noc to quit whining. Rose walked up to him and told him to quit it. We'll see what happens when the team isn't up double digits, though.
I always saw Deng as a guy who did put the ball on the floor and finish well at the rim. At least under Skiles he did it a lot. Yeah, he had that automatic jumper for a stretch of games a few seasons back, but it hasn't been that automatic for quite a while. 82games.com says... 65% of his shots jumpers, 30% close, only 4% dunks and 1% tips. Compared to last season 57%, 38%, 3% and 3%. And the season before 67%, 23%, 6%, 4%. From 10% dunks/tips to 5%.
I'm reserving judgement on Deng. For one, he seems like a guy that doesn't play as well if he's coming off an injury. I dunno why that is... some guys seem to do it just fine. Maybe it's because he's not that athletic to start with, so if he's not at peak condition he really looks bad. Maybe it's in his head. Maybe it's just a string of bad luck. Then again, maybe it's not. The bigger question, if he's going to be a guy who doesn't play well hurt, is how often he's going to be hurt.
This year and last Deng, just like BG, has tried to show he has an all-around game. Like BG, he does one thing well, and the rest not so well. When he was taking 67% jumpshots and hitting them, guys had to run at him, and consequently he was able to get to the rim at whole lot easier. Last year, it was down to 58% and 38% close, because he was trying to put the ball on the floor and create for himself, and he struggled at it. It's just like Tyrus. If Tyrus ever figures out how to hit his first elbow jumper or two, guys will step out towards him and he will blow by them. But until he does, he will brick jumpers, and not have the room to drive to the basket because guys are playing 4 feet off of him daring him to take another jumper. The difference is Deng can hit that shot, and he needs to get reps so that guys start stepping out at him.
<object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/fHhIMo_6WSY&hl=en&fs=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/fHhIMo_6WSY&hl=en&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object> Check out Deng's "wide open" jumper in this clip against the Sixers. There's no elevation. He just doesn't have his legs yet. Deng will come around, like he always does. I thought his play at the beginning of the season was fine, it was the system that was killing him. As Rose learns how to use him his production will return -- it's going to be a process. Which brings me to Noc: I actually think he's worthwhile, even with his contract. There are mediocre players who you pay too much, kill your cap space, when you could have signed another journeyman for less. . . the type players you win with, not win because of. [Hinrich.] I think Noc is better than that. The thing about him, he's always good. In a system, without a system. And not only is he always good, he produces in pressure situations. I understand your reluctance. We've watched our franchise continually overvalue intangibles at the expense of talent. But I think Noc may be one of the few glue players who contributes more than it seems.
Noc seems to have lost a couple of steps and turned into a 3pt shooter. Not sure he can guard SFs anymore, and VDN doesn't seem interested in playing him at PF. We're already undersized on the front line. He ultimately might be a decent SG but we have a nice logjam at the G spots already. Speaking of Brother Abe, the guy's listed at 6'10" 245. Is that really too small to play C? I am pleased with his play since we traded for him.
