Marco Belinelli is earning 21.3 minutes per game with the 15-3 San Antonio Spurs. In those 21.3 minutes, he's shooting .516 from the field, .563 from 3pt, 2.8 rebounds and 2.1 assists. He's scoring 9.4 points per game for them. He has a nice 17.1 PER, too. He's really old - 27. His replacement is pretty good though, even if he's 34 years old. Dunleavy is playing 25.9 minutes, shooting .429, .453 from 3pt (which is extremely good, don't get me wrong), 3.5 rebounds, and 1.8 assists. He's scoring 8.8 points per game and has a 11.7 PER. It's early in the season and their relative numbers may swap in the end. Three point shooting is really important, right? Would have been nice to have both. Who is our starting SG anyway? Is turf toe a reason to sit out the season?
While I'm at it. Nate Robinson is playing 18.2 minutes for Denver. He's shooting a miserable .408 from the field, but .436 from 3pt range. He's grabbing 1.9 rebounds (for a guy who's barely 5' tall) and 2.8 assists. He contributes 10 PPG to his team's bottom line. The guy is a scorer (and shooter). He has a 17.9 PER. I'll play these. Teague.
Both of those guys would help a great deal on this Rose-less team. Didn't like going to war in the playoffs with Rose as our only shot creator and now the team is pretty much hosed this year partly due to the lack of this crucial skill set.
Seems like a team wanting to contend for the championship saw value in Marco. And they're playing him a lot.
I miss both. Nate for what he is, a spark plug, but Bellinelli especially because he is a SG. We need a SG with his skills.
Well hell, if Belinelli had shot .516 and .563 for the Bulls last season instead of .395 and .357 they mighta kept him instead of going after Dunleavy.
I don't miss Belineli. Snell's has been just about the only polish on this turd of a season. I think Nate had real value though. You don't refuse to pay 2M to a player who puts up 16.3p, 4.4a and 2.7r on decent shooting. There's a place for that guy on your team.
The Bulls didn't so much "refuse to pay" Nate the $2mil as they were limited by salary cap and luxury tax rules on what they could do for Nate. They had 2 alternatives to offer Robinson: 1) up to $3.18mil using the "taxpayer's mid-level exception" or 2) $1.47mil (120% of the vet minimum) using the non-Bird exception. As you know, the team elected to use the $3.2mil on Dunleavy. Probably just as important to Robinson was role/minutes. In Denver, he's been the the undisputed backup PG (to Ty Lawson) from the jump and is getting about 19mpg. At the beginning of the season, the Bulls wouldn't have offered this sort of situation.
To clarify my previous comment. I actually like Gar Foreman as our GM. He's made astute draft picks, signed Noah to a fair contract, got us 2 MAX contract room to go after LeBron and we got Boozer (who I like), and took a crowbar to the Chairman's wallet to break it open enough to get us into the LT where contenders tend to be. The roster is his responsibility, though, and we're in the situation we're in (one Hinrich injury away from starting teague). Sure, you can spin it as he went all in on Rose being healthy for 82 games and Hinrich being able to play 70 and teague not hurting us enough the rest of the time. But I think a GM really should play the worst case scenario game: 1) What if Deng is out - we have Jimmy and Dunleavy and Snell. We're fine. 2) What if Noah is out - Nazr isn't suited to be a full time starting C at his advanced age, and Boozer/Taj aren't really full-time starting C types either. So maybe signing the FA Aaron Gray (at least) might help. 3) What if Boozer is out - Taj can certainly fill in. We have Murphy if worst come to pass, to be his backup, or maybe we play Nazr and Noah together, or Gray and Noah. 4) What if Rose is out - we just lost our alpha goto guy. Nate would be ideal to step in, and also ideal as alpha goto guy off the bench. Hinrich is no substitute. 5) What if we lose Jimmy. Dunleavy is capable of playing SG, but not very good. At least we have somebody.
No one's saying that Robinson (or someone like him) wouldn't have looked good on the roster even with a healthy Rose. Same for Belinelli. In fact, same for lots of guys. Looking forward towards this season, Forman probably felt PG was clearly 2-deep with a development player (Teague) as deep bench at the position. At SG you had Butler and an unproven mid-first-round rookie. At SF, you had Deng, and with Butler now starting at SG, another backup was needed. As you say, PF looked very strong 2-deep with Murphy as deep bench at the position. At center you had Noah who would be primarily backed up by the 2 PFs. You needed another backup at the position, but not one who would be likely to play much. If you have disagreements with the above assessment, I'd be interested in hearing them. Anyway, keeping the above in mind and knowing you only have $3.18mil (taxpayer's exception) and minimum salaries to fill these needs, do you offer the $3.18 mil to Belinelli, Robinson, Aaron Gray (he had a $2.7mil player option for this season) or Dunleavy? Forman chose Dunleavy and my "spin" is that he made the right decision.
PG was questionable because nobody saw Rose play in a year in regular season games. Plus you may want to limit his minutes (as they did). Hinrich missed 12 games last season, 18 the year before, etc. it is a huge gamble to expect him to be healthy for the whole season. Teague may have promise, but Thibs doesn't want to play him. Snell looks like a SF to me. And SF is handled with Deng 42/Jimmy 6 or Deng 36/Jimmy 12. When Jimmy is at SF, the backup SG would be in, fine. Noah has been brittle all along. He missed 16 games last season, 18 three seasons ago, 34 the season before that, and 18 the year before that. He played in pain a lot last season, plantar fasciitis. He missed preseason and was a doubtful starter for the opener. It is outright foolish to pencil him in for 42 a night and 82 games. I would much rather play Aaron Gray as our starting C. He was on all the free agent lists this summer. If not Gray, Fesenko would suffice. We could have offered Nate 125% of his previous salary. I bet he'd have signed for that. He wouldn't because we insulted him on the way out. Same 125% for Marco, which is close to what he got with the Spurs. We'd still have the mmle. We discussed the starters, but not the bench. We have no offense on our bench.
Transplant, I was surprised that the Bulls went into the season with Rose/Hinrich/Teague trio at point guard because you couldn't count on any of those players. I think there was a good deal of speculation around these parts before the season about Teague making strong developmental strides -- myself included -- because otherwise, it would have been reckless for a point guard centered team to enter the season with three question marks. And at some point, I think you have to look beyond position. The Bulls needed athleticism, ball handling, and a chaos/confidence player in the playoffs. Lil' Nate fits the bill perfectly. Moreover, the fact that other teams didn't know they could find a productive role for Robinson meant that you could get him at a discount as compared to his team value. You don't let a player who was that important in the playoffs walk so that you can sign Dunleavy.
Nate was unsigned for 6 weeks? Marco for 5? It's not like there was some bidding war we couldn't compete. It's possible both players held out for more than the 125% we could offer, but that's a risk they'd be taking with our take it or leave it offers on the table.
Gosh, I disagree with lots of stuff here: - I sure as hell was counting on Rose. I mean if you don't count on your lone superstar, might as well move all your chips to hockey. - IMO, the Bulls are only a PG-centered team when a scoring PG is on the floor. They're not very PG-centered when Hinrich or James are playing PG. - The biggest issue about retaining Robinson was where he was going to get his minutes. This is seldom the case for a player who "fits the bill perfectly." - IMO, you overstate the importance of Robinson's playoff performance. I mean, it didn't seem to overly impress GMs around the league. And of course we disagree on the most fundamental point. As I already said, I absolutely risk losing Robinson to sign Dunleavy. Vive la difference!
Count on Rose? He missed a whole season and half the season prior. His track record screams "don't trust Rose." I don't think SST and I are disagreeing with you in the sense that the Bulls' fortunes are certainly hitched to Rose's success. On the other hand, and he can speak for himself, we didn't have to go all in - if Rose is LeBron caliber, we have a shot, if he's not we suck. If Robinson were on the team, he should be getting at least the 21 per game he's getting with Denver. I mean, let his play speak for itself, and I do think he'd be better on the court for 20 than Hinrich for 40. That is, play them 20/20 each.
Au contraire, I think you did have to go all in if you actually wanted to win the thing. The Bulls pretty much had a solitary asset, the $3.18mil exception, with which to add a piece. Shooting/scoring was needed. Robinson figured to get maybe 10 minutes/game. Dunleavy figured to get around 20 minutes/game. Hinrich was only supposed to get 20-25 minutes/game.
