I give us a B-, maybe a B. The Heat are the only team that get an A, and they set the curve for everyone else. We had the second best offseason. Boozer was probably the best option among the 2nd tier FA's, and we were one of the only teams that didn't overpay for ours. I would have preferred to use our remaining capspace on a chance to get another headline player. The Bulls chose a different strategy, but executed it very well. All the guys we signed are quality depth, and none of them have contracts which will burden the teams finances. From what I can tell, we should be in a decent position to resign Joakim and DRose, and possibly use our expiring contracts in two years to acquire one more player, if the new CBA permits it. We're not true title contenders though
After the Heat, we had the best offseason out there. We are not the favorites but if Rose and Noah take things up a notch and we get lucky including health, we will compete. Easily the best team we have had some the 2nd 3-peat. So I will give us an A-. To the naysayers, besides the Heat, who did better than we did this summer?
If the Knicks win 45 games, that's an increase of 16 wins. Maybe that would qualify them as most improved? Orlando added Duhon and QRich without losing anyone of any significance. Boston added Jermaine O'Neil, who is definitely better than anyone else they had upfront last season. When Perkins is healthy, they'll have the beef to bang with the Lakers if they both make the finals. When you consider the Bulls' offseason, shouldn't we consider all the guys we let loose to end up here? Gordon, Hinrich, Salmons, Miller, Gooden, etc.
Sure, all of that should be considered. But adding 10 wins @ .500 is as hard as adding 15 wins @ .400. And it's Jason Williams and Barnes vs. Duhon and Q-Rich And it's Rasheed Wallace vs. JO and the rest of the old Boston core a year older. That sounds lateral to me compared to Hinrich/Salmons/Thomas/Miller for Boozer/Brewer/Korver/Watson which is clearly an improvement.
At this point (and last year, too), O'Neil is a ton better than Sheed. Your lateral move isn't including Gordon and Gooden (guys traded for cap space) Adding 10 wins to a 25 win team is easy, sure. But it's the knicks
I agree 100% with everything Rosenthall said. He summed up my feelings pretty much completely. Does good execution of a bad strategy get a good grade?
I'd give the bulls a B+ since they still haven't sufficiently filled in the starting SG spot, although if Brewer can be as efficient as he once was off the ball, then I think it's an A-. And unless Brewer developed some game in the summer he's only going to have improved numbers if Rose continues to improve. But the bulls definitely had the second best offseason of anybody given that they now have a roster full of attractive contracts and talents. There's absolutely no dead weight on the team anywhere. The Knicks played .350 ball last year, which is even worse because they knew going in they didn't have a draft pick. So if they improve by 15 games they are 42-40. I'd be disappointed as a knick fan if they don't improve by 20 games, but I'd be shocked if they do. I don't think JO will be that important unless KG goes down. He's going from being the second option to being the fourth option and his numbers are going to take a hit. But if KG goes down and JO steps in, then there is a much smaller dropoff. But either one of those guys could miss 20-30 games.
O'Neil had a 2.5 PER in the playoffs this past year. That is Dicky Simkins territory. I'll still take this year's lineup. Your lineup stinks in terms of low post scoring and it's not clear the guard rotation is significantly better.
This is based upon the hypothetical that other teams wanted to give away good shit for free, but couldn't be bother to call other teams, and the Bulls and all the other teams with cap space or big TPEs failed to inquire, right?
Miami wasn't a talented team, outside of Wade last season. Udonis Haslem had a 5 PER in the playoffs. Nobody but Wade had a PER over ~11. I thought that Gooden was actually pretty good as a post player for us. 14/9 with a 17.4 PER. The thing is, we traded virtually all our 3pt shooting/scoring ability to get a better post player.
That's because a legitimate post presence is a lot harder to get than 3pt shooting and scoring. And the bulls kept their best scorer, Rose...
A legitimate post presence like Pau Gasol was pretty easy to get, and Reinsdorf refused to pull the trigger because he was both unwilling to pay to put better players around Gasol and he was AFRAID of making some sort of mistake. A mistake like paying Hinrich $10M a season maybe.
MikeDC posted an interview with Reinsdorf saying exactly the things I posted. You're right, he's plain dumb when it comes to running a competitive basketball team.
http://bullsbythehorns.com/?p=982 Signing Ben Wallace back in 2006 was a oopsie:“But the only way you can avoid making a mistake is not to make a decision. Even Jerry West has made mistakes, and he’s probably the best in the business. Even [Red] Auerbach made mistakes. Was Ben Wallace a mistake? Probably. Because what we didn’t think about is Ben needs to play alongside somebody who can score a lot of points. But I don’t think it’s about Ben Wallace that makes us be careful. It’s the thought that when you make a mistake, you own that mistake. So we’ve got to be careful.” The Bulls did not want Pau Gasol:“Gasol, we didn’t move slowly, we said, ‘No.’ We were prepared to give [Memphis] players. What they wanted to do was to basically dump stuff on us and we’d be immobilized; we wouldn’t have been able to improve our team. Gasol made sense for the Lakers because he is their third-best player, probably. He would have been, at that time, our best player. It would have been a wrong role for him. John and Gar decided they didn’t want Gasol under those circumstances, where he would have been the last piece and we would have been immobilized because of the [salary] cap.”
Exactly Denny, they didn't want all of the other shit contracts that came with Gasol. It's no good having Gasol and bunch of stiffs because then you'd be exactly where Memphis was after giving up good assets.
The team won 49 games that year. The deal reportedly was Gasol and Warrick for Gordon, Deng, and PJ Brown. It was trade deadline 2007 (January). The Bulls would have had Duhon and Hinrich at guards, Nocioni, Ben Wallace, and Gasol up front. The bench would have been Tyrus, Thabo, Warrick, Viktor, and Adrian Griffin. What other shit contracts are you talking about?
D'oh http://sports.yahoo.com/nba/rumors/post/Bulls-T-Wolves-discuss-Garnett-trade?urn=nba-17300 The Chicago Bulls and Minnesota Timberwolves have had preliminary talks about a trade involving forward Kevin Garnett, who has no problem with the speculation. Garnett grew up in South Carolina, but spent his senior year in high school in Chicago. The trade could include Luol Deng, Tyrus Thomas and possibly a first-round pick going to Minnesota.
That wasn't the deal. Do a little more digging because that deal wouldn't have worked under the cap. They wanted the bulls to take back Cardinal's awful deal at least one other.
