Since the Hughes trade: 5 pts in 25 minutes 25 pts in 37 minutes 15 pts in 28 minutes 6 pts in 26 minutes 11 pts in 28 minutes 16 pts in 30 minutes 23 pts in 33 minutes 20 pts in 32 minutes 27 pts in 28 minutes 19 pts in 32 minutes 12 pts in 13 minutes 31 pts in 33 minutes 17 pts in 30 minutes 12 pts in 39 minutes 21 pts in 28 minutes 16 pts in 22 minutes 12 pts in 31 minutes 18 pts in 28 minutes 11 pts in 19 minutes 9 pts in 15 minutes 24 pts in 29 minutes 18 pts in 26 minutes 16 pts in 26 minutes 13 pts in 28 minutes 16 pts in 21 minutes 3 pts in 18 minutes This is utterly ridiculous, this is going to get the team in a lot of trouble. The way it looks to me, Boylan knew he had a snowballs chance in hell to do a successful job of coaching, so he turned to a sabotage method, to try to say something to Paxson like, "I got you a higher draft pick, and put a massive dent in Gordon's value for you...now return the favor". This is ridiculous...looking at the best players on other teams, you have..... Kevin Garnett - 33 minutes Chris Bosh- 36 minutes Andre Iguodala- 39 minutes Richard Jefferson - 38 minutes Jamal Crawford - 40 minutes Chauncey Billups - 32 minutes Lebron James - 40 minutes Danny Granger - 35 minutes Michael Redd - 37 minutes Dwight Howard - 38 minutes Antawn Jamison - 38 minutes Joe Johnson - 41 minutes Gerald Wallace - 38 minutes Dwyane Wade - 38 minutes Chris Paul - 37 minutes Tracy McGrady - 37 minutes Tim Duncan - 34 minutes Dirk Nowitzki - 35 minutes Rudy Gay - 37 minutes Deron Williams - 37 minutes Allen Iverson - 42 minutes Brandon Roy- 37 minutes Al Jefferson - 35 minutes Kevin Durant - 34 minutes Kobe Bryant - 39 minutes Steve Nash - 34 minutes Baron Davis - 39 minutes Kevin Martin - 36 minutes Chris Kaman - 37 minutes That is an average of 37 minutes. Gordon has only played that amount once in a game since the Hughes trade. Gordon has averaged 24 points when getting this starter amount...why not play him that amount then all the time? This is going to come back to nip us in the butt imo.
I was just about to say, if Ben Gordon is your best player, you should be losing a lot of games. cpaw beat me to it.
Gordon is 2nd from the bottom in minutes played per game among the 30 teams' leading scorers. Only Ginobili averages fewer minutes/game. Only 6 of the 30 get less than 5 more minutes/game than Gordon does (e.g. 23 of them average 5+ more minutes/game than Gordon).
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (agoo101284 @ Apr 13 2008, 11:01 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}></div><div class='quotemain'>I was just about to say, if Ben Gordon is your best player, you should be losing a lot of games. cpaw beat me to it.</div> That's beside the point... the question is whether we'd be doing better or worse by playing him more. What I wrote here.
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (MikeDC @ Apr 16 2008, 10:04 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}></div><div class='quotemain'><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (agoo101284 @ Apr 13 2008, 11:01 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}></div><div class='quotemain'>I was just about to say, if Ben Gordon is your best player, you should be losing a lot of games. cpaw beat me to it.</div> That's beside the point... the question is whether we'd be doing better or worse by playing him more. What I wrote here.</div> There is a big difference between players that can get a team to a championship and players that just put up pretty stats. Ben is like Vince Carter without the dunking.
But sometimes a player can just not have the players around him, or the right coach to get it done. (Kevin Garnett)
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (cpawfan @ Apr 16 2008, 10:13 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}></div><div class='quotemain'><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (MikeDC @ Apr 16 2008, 10:04 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}></div><div class='quotemain'><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (agoo101284 @ Apr 13 2008, 11:01 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}></div><div class='quotemain'>I was just about to say, if Ben Gordon is your best player, you should be losing a lot of games. cpaw beat me to it.</div> That's beside the point... the question is whether we'd be doing better or worse by playing him more. What I wrote here.</div> There is a big difference between players that can get a team to a championship and players that just put up pretty stats. Ben is like Vince Carter without the dunking. </div> Again, this seems irrelevant to the question of whether the Bulls would win more or less by playing Gordon more or less.
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (MikeDC @ Apr 16 2008, 11:16 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}></div><div class='quotemain'><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (cpawfan @ Apr 16 2008, 10:13 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}></div><div class='quotemain'><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (MikeDC @ Apr 16 2008, 10:04 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}></div><div class='quotemain'><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (agoo101284 @ Apr 13 2008, 11:01 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}></div><div class='quotemain'>I was just about to say, if Ben Gordon is your best player, you should be losing a lot of games. cpaw beat me to it.</div> That's beside the point... the question is whether we'd be doing better or worse by playing him more. What I wrote here.</div> There is a big difference between players that can get a team to a championship and players that just put up pretty stats. Ben is like Vince Carter without the dunking. </div> Again, this seems irrelevant to the question of whether the Bulls would win more or less by playing Gordon more or less. </div> Granted, since the bottom of the East is so putrid, another 5 or 6 wins would make a difference for a team as bad as the Bulls, but that really loses track of the big picture. The Bulls are no where close to being a team where it is worthwhile to dissect the minutia of playing time. The Bulls have to start from scratch and say, which players do we want as our core. Unfortunately for Bulls fans, you still have the same incompetent FO that got you into this mess in the first place.
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (cpawfan @ Apr 16 2008, 11:26 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}></div><div class='quotemain'><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (MikeDC @ Apr 16 2008, 11:16 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}></div><div class='quotemain'><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (cpawfan @ Apr 16 2008, 10:13 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}></div><div class='quotemain'><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (MikeDC @ Apr 16 2008, 10:04 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}></div><div class='quotemain'><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (agoo101284 @ Apr 13 2008, 11:01 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}></div><div class='quotemain'>I was just about to say, if Ben Gordon is your best player, you should be losing a lot of games. cpaw beat me to it.</div> That's beside the point... the question is whether we'd be doing better or worse by playing him more. What I wrote here.</div> There is a big difference between players that can get a team to a championship and players that just put up pretty stats. Ben is like Vince Carter without the dunking. </div> Again, this seems irrelevant to the question of whether the Bulls would win more or less by playing Gordon more or less. </div> Granted, since the bottom of the East is so putrid, another 5 or 6 wins would make a difference for a team as bad as the Bulls, but that really loses track of the big picture. The Bulls are no where close to being a team where it is worthwhile to dissect the minutia of playing time. The Bulls have to start from scratch and say, which players do we want as our core. Unfortunately for Bulls fans, you still have the same incompetent FO that got you into this mess in the first place. </div> I suppose not for fans of other team, but given that the concern amongst Bulls fans is winning more and making the best with what we've got, it's certainly worth considering. The alternative is not particularly condusive to message board traffic at least. If there's no point in talking about anything, why bother?
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (MikeDC @ Apr 16 2008, 02:05 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}></div><div class='quotemain'>I suppose not for fans of other team, but given that the concern amongst Bulls fans is winning more and making the best with what we've got, it's certainly worth considering. The alternative is not particularly conducive to message board traffic at least. If there's no point in talking about anything, why bother?</div> I didn't say there was nothing to talk about. The biggest question facing the Bulls is who should be the core of the team going forward. It is the end of a painful season for Bulls fans, and rehashing items that could add at most 5 or 6 wins can be entertaining, but is also rather negative. Yes, my perspective is as a Nets and Nuggets fan. However, I've been calling for the Nets to implode and start over for well over a year and am completely frustrate by a front office that insists on attempting to put band-aids on open cavity wounds.
Fortunately, the Bulls aren't anywhere near the kind of team the Nets have been. Instead of 2 aging stars and a superb 3rd guy, the Bulls have a deep roster of guys on the young side. Hughes is probably the oldest on the team, and he's still under 30. The Bulls are just a year removed from a 49 win season, and have improved with the additions of Noah and Gooden and Hughes and the removal of Wallace. Skiles may have been an OK tactician (agree with you, MikeDC), but hardly was the sole reason for the team's success. Gordon and Deng suffered injuries that cut their seasons quite short, and Hinrich had an abysmal season. The question for the retched FO is whether this core can be a 49 win team again, and if so, how to convert some of its abundance of talent into a major superstar type player who can make them a playoff force. For DC - My gripe with Skiles was that he never adjusted his offensive schemes once the players learned to run them well. The team was sucky when the offense wasn't working. He also had a couple of very bad plays that he insisted on calling/running when it was pretty obvious they should have been shitcanned and something else put in their place. As well, Skiles' biggest problem is that his act wore thin with the players - he has a ways to go before you'd expect him to coach a team for more than 4 years.