Mike McGraw writes: <div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'>But when Gordon's offense took off, the rest of the Bulls disappeared. On his way to 33 points, Gordon scored 21 of the Bulls' 41 second-half points in the loss to the Kings. "I think that's the danger of having a guy like Ben, who can come in and really take over a game offensively, is you tend to stand around and let him do that," coach Jim Boylan said. "You certainly want to try to go to him when he's hot like that. But at the same time, you can't forget about your own offensive output."</div> What kind of admission is that from the coach. We have to bench our best player because everyone else is too stupid and sucky to play with him! What the deuce?! What I most wonder about is whether that's a back-handed compliment to Gordon because he's not getting other guys involved, or whether it's really a true indictment of the other guys who stand around with their thumbs up their asses when he has the ball. My general inclination is to say they really do stand around with their thumbs up their asses. That jells with the majority of my viewing experiences, and Kirk has been pretty straightforward in saying he's bee very passive this year. Maybe it's a little of both, but I'd say more of the latter.
Actually, I think the problem in the Sacramento game was guys stopped standing around. Gordon was dominating the Kings, but then Hinirch and Nocioni tried to take over, and Gordon didn't touch the ball for like a 4 minute stretch, and we didn't score a damn point with those two knuckleheads trying to play offense.
BG is currently playing no different from last year. We would be winning those games if our defense was better. It's a dumb theory and partly I think he's trying to justify BG's bench role. If the Bulls lose when Gordon takes most of the shots (no matter how efficiently) imagine how bad it would be if he was starting and taking even more possessions! I do think Gordon is better off the bench, but not for that particular reason.
What reason do you think Ben is better off the bench? I've yet to see anything that makes me think he is. Looking at his splits from last year, I don't see a lot of difference between how he played starting and coming off the bench. I see more difference in how he played, for instance, on different days of the week than how he played as a starter or coming off the bench. And it'd be silly to say "jeez, we should only play Ben on Mondays, Thursdays and every other Saturday, but never on "Tuesday" or something like that. If you're seeing that sort of variation on a day-to-day basis, I just don't see how the Bulls could continue to attribute his improved play as due to him coming off the bench. Looking two years back, he was significantly better statistically when starting than coming off the bench. And in 05-06, the variation between bench/start was quite a bit bigger than between days of the week.
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (MikeDC @ Feb 6 2008, 10:52 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}></div><div class='quotemain'>What reason do you think Ben is better off the bench? I've yet to see anything that makes me think he is. Looking at his splits from last year, I don't see a lot of difference between how he played starting and coming off the bench. I see more difference in how he played, for instance, on different days of the week than how he played as a starter or coming off the bench. And it'd be silly to say "jeez, we should only play Ben on Mondays, Thursdays and every other Saturday, but never on "Tuesday" or something like that. If you're seeing that sort of variation on a day-to-day basis, I just don't see how the Bulls could continue to attribute his improved play as due to him coming off the bench. Looking two years back, he was significantly better statistically when starting than coming off the bench. And in 05-06, the variation between bench/start was quite a bit bigger than between days of the week.</div> I don't have any thorough statistical analysis to back it up, but I think he's far more consistent when coming off the bench. I'm a fan, so I tend to focus on him every game, and I wasn't too satisfied with his the play during the second half of last year. During the 06-07 season, he had a stretch of 24 games coming off the bench during which he had only 1 bad game - Nov. 28 to Jan. 11. He was a consistent, very efficient 24 points a night. http://sports.yahoo.com/nba/players/3820/g...kvLYF?year=2006 . After Jan.11 he became a starter. There was not an immediate drop-off, but he had an awful western road trip and his performance seemed far more variable - he had 6 point games and 48 point games. His PER had gone from 14 to 19.x during January, but it stagnated and dropped to 18.X after becoming a starter.
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'>GmSc Game Score; the formula is PTS + 0.4 * FG - 0.7 * FGA - 0.4*(FTA - FT) + 0.7 * ORB + 0.3 * (DRB + STL + 0.7 * AST + 0.7 * BLK - 0.4 * PF - TOV. Game Score was created by John Hollinger to give a rough measure of a player's productivity for a single game. The scale is similar to that of points scored, i.e., 40 is an outstanding performance, 10 is an average performance, etc.</div> http://www.basketball-reference.com/fc/pgl...1&year=2007 Nov. 28 - Jan 11 GmSc average: 15.05 GmSc stdev: 7.17 Jan. 11 - April 18 GmSc average: 13.29 GmSc stdev: 8.64 Harder schedule during the second half of the season played a role, I suppose, but it somewhat confirms how I feel.
