Do the vast majority of Bulls fans not understand basketball?

http://www.chicagotribune.com/sports/chi-12-ask-kc-bulls-chicagodec12,0,6453808.story

I don't get this, "Rose should have the ball in his hands at all time". That'll work about as good as when Kirk Hinrich used to have the ball in his hands at all time. I don't see the point in castrating our team's offensive ability, as Gordon is still more efficient at scoring than Rose, despite not having his three point shot drop this season (Larry Hughes is #1 out of our healthy guys!!!).

I just don't get this irrational Gordon is a ballhog thing going on. He has the lowest shot rate of his career. He has the lowest usage% of his career. Yet he's at his career best passing wise, averaging 4 assists per a game, and that's with no legit inside scoring threats.

Maybe I'm just crazy, but Gordon's playing pretty unselfish ball, sharing the ball with teammates. Perhaps that is why John Paxson, a guy who knows the game of basketball, called out Gordon as the one guy who has really learned to play with Rose.

Do Bulls fans just have some unrealistic expectation that no other player ever dribbles the ball except Rose? All players should be shooting immediately upon a pass from Rose?

Gordon is partly to blame for his ugly dribbling. The guy doesn't really turn over the ball that much, it's at something like 2.3 a game. It's just that when Gordon gets turnovers, they are these ugly, very ugly dribbling errors, dribbling it off his foot or something of that nature, os they stick out in people's minds, but in reality, they are far less common then people think.

And you can't go to Rose at the end of games everytime. We have two players with ice water in their veins (and apparently three with the newfound Larry Hughes), so we have to take advantage of that. If you're giving it to Ben in the clutch though, you have to tell him not to drive, and to shoot the midrange jumpshot. I think that is where Ben has been getting in trouble with his last shots in recent years.

 

I think the BG's biggest problem is that while he is a good offensive player, he isn't good enough to carry the team, especially against the good teams in the league. Given space, he can score at will and it's a beautiful thing to watch him drain threes, but he can't do that with any regularity against a good defender. He dominates the Washington's of the league and tonight in the first quarter against OJ Mayo, but then Memphis switched it up and shut BG down for the rest of the game. He scored 18 of 26 points in the first six minutes, which is the opposite of what he usually does, but highlights the point that he has about 5 good minutes a game and the rest aren't particularly special.

And while his usage is down slightly, his assist rate is woeful for a guy who plays as many minutes and has as high a usage. And his TO's are up again slightly. You can blame the bigs he plays with, but wouldn't Hinrich have looked better passing to Stoudemire instead of Ben Wallace? And BG isn't as good as Hinrich at dribbling or dishing. Plus, BG has a bad knack for turning it over at crucial times that is undeniably and excruciatingly frustrating.

To top it off, BG is usually an indifferent defender at best. Tonight he was taken to the hole 2 of the first 3 plays of the game and the Grizzles didn't play anybody BG could guard, and the bulls couldn't hide BG on a SF because Memphis three best players play pg, sg and sf. He got in foul trouble and couldn't stay on the court to make a difference offensively. Couple this with turning down lucrative contract offers the last two years, and you can see why people don't like him. BG is the leading scorer on a sub .500 team; he isn't a starting sg on a championship caliber team and he wants to get paid like one. A lot of people would have a hard time liking or appreciating that guy.

 

The first part isn't really true. Games which BG scored 25+ this season: CLE, CLE, DAL, DEN, and now MEM. Gordon's been deferring to Rose a lot, and I think that is part of the reason why he is playing more consistent, but having less blow up games as of late.

This is the Bulls problem. They know Rose/Gordon is a mighty fine backcourt, but if they want to be a contender, they probably need a really good big man. If we could get an Amare, who would post up and score, he would draw double teams, getting Gordon wide open for three more often, not allowing other team to adjust to Gordon. But the problem lies in that if we can't move Hinrich or Nocioni, we will have to let Gordon walk if we want to get that big man through 2010 free agency.

I think letting Gordon walk to get that big man doesn't work. The way I see it, is that we need at least a 3 guard stack. Rose/Gordon/Amare would be fine, with Gordon as that third star. I see the league moving into a set of multiple star stacks. Having that third star will hopefully give us a good edge, as a two star stack might not be enough.

BOS: Allen/Pierce/Garnett
SAS: Parker/Ginobili/Duncan
MIA: Wade/Beasley/2010 free agent/2009 free agent or 2nd 2010 free agent?
CLE: Lebron/2010 free agent
NYK: 2010 free agent/2010 free agent?
LAL: Kobe/Gasol/Bynum/Odom
POR: Roy/Aldridge/Oden

If we get desperate, we can probably pawn Deng off for an expiring, and that might be the route we have to go.

 

The bulls lost 4 of those five and were down big to Dallas. BG's big scoring comes when the other team loses focus, like when they get double digit leads. Milwaukee was another example, and another game the bulls lost. The bulls just don't win when they are forced to rely on BG to carry them. However, they can win when BG plays within the offense and shoots 4-15, which really calls into question the value of his scoring. He scored under 20 on poor shooting in wins against NY, GS, UTH, IND and Memphis the first time and the bulls won.

Don't get me wrong, if the bulls could sign BG to a reasonable $8-9 mil/year deal and have him come off of the bench, I think he'd be the most popular guy in Chicago because he'd be unstoppable. But at 40+ minutes a night, he's just an average SG.

Rose is passing BG as the best player and even scorer on the team. Their PER's are about the same now and Rose is clearly the better finisher, better ballhandler and distributor. While Rose doesn't have much of a track record I'd say his midrange jumper is just as good at this point, too.

Rose is the one with the exceptional talent that translates against even the best teams in the league. The bulls need to surround Rose with players that fit his style and make the game easier for him. BG doesn't make the game easier for Rose; Rose makes the game easier for BG by getting him open looks and drawing defenders away. And BG forces Rose into tougher defensive matchups.

 

Someone said this on another board that perfectly described the Bulls

10-12 with Rose, Gordon, and Hughes being the only players to play good all season long, and Hinrich alright (but not as good of defense as Hughes) when he was here, with the worst front court in the league.

Bulls are ranked 5th in point guard (that's okay, Rose is a rookie, and Paul, Billups, Devin freakin Harris, Nash are all good). Bulls are 4th in shooting guard, which is good with Dwyane Wade and Kobe Bryant out there.

Bulls are 17th in small forward, 30th in power forward, and 30th in center.

No matter how you want to slice it, we are getting the job done on both sides of the court at both guard positions.

In a league where it's said that bigs win championships. As Bulls fans who've been saying we just need that one post option, that pau gasol, etc...there is no reason to expect that we would be doing any better when we're the worst team in the league at both big positions.

 

Also, I don't think there is any use with statements like, "Ben Gordon would be nice for $8-9 million". That just isn't realistic. After Boozer re-signs with the Jazz for the max or near-max, Ben Gordon is the top free agent on the market. Miami can offer Ben something like $12 million a year, and Oklahoma City the max. If the Bulls don't want to ante up, their loss. The one thing the Bulls have going for them is they can offer more than Miami (unless Miami swings a trade) and Oklahoma City (but we'd entering near-max territory here)...also that Ben Gordon looks good next to Derrick Rose, and he grew up a Bulls fan, and OKC doesn't seem like his type of city.

I hope Ben re-signs with the Bulls, but I think he would be crazy to not sign with the Heat. He'd get to play with Dwyane Wade. He'd have a solid post player in Michael Beasley, and he would know for sure that he had some type of big men help coming as a result of 2010 free agency. Although, Kirk Hinrich/Andres Nocioni may be moved by then, at which point Ben will know the Bulls are a 2010 player.

 

I agree with this too. I think Gordon has been very good with Rose. Obviously it's going to take some time and he freelances more than I'd like, but if you use the rest of the team as comparison he's light years ahead. Which actually means something since Gordon probably has the most reason to do his own thing.

Another thing I like about Gordon is that, as the season has gone along, he's acknowledged on several occasions where he made a bad play or didn't shoot well. To me that's more indication that he gets it. So in short, I have no complaints about him.

Complaints that "he's not good enough to carry the team" are misplaced in my opinion. Hell, even KG wasn't good enough to carry a really shitty team. They should be complaints about the fact that the rest of the team has been generally shitty.

 

We'll see. I'm not sure I'd pay any more to Gordon than we're paying for Deng, but not because I think Deng's any better.

But beyond that, if I were the Jazz right now, is there anything that Milsap doesn't offer that Boozer does? At half the price? If I were them, I'd consider trading Boozer during the season and getting something useful, then resigning Milsap.

 

What list? Who's rankings?

"We tried changing defenses," Del Negro said. "We couldn't handle their penetration. They were breaking us down."

The bulls frontcourt woes start in the backcourt. The bulls big's are constantly having to step up to defend the rim and that why Warrick and Milicic had big nights last night. It's a more perimeter oriented game now and if you can't guard guys on the perimeter, it doesn't matter who your bigs are. BG is the weak link on the perimeter and you can quote all the offensive statistics you want, but if you can't hide him on defense, he is going to be exploited like he was against Memphis last night. Memphis just highlighted the problem.

 

Gonna disagree there. In fact, it's the opposite. Even good defensive backcourts routinely get beat in the NBA. A good interior defense largely mitigates this. That's why the Bulls, with AD and Chandler, and the year they had PJ and Wallace, were a good defensive squad. A good interior defense makes an average defensive backcourt good.

A good defensive backcourt, on the other hand, still gives up points routinely. And if you've got a shitty frontcourt, the backcourt defense won't matter.

As a thought experiment, what would make the bigger difference to the Bulls. Take the same team and replace Ben Gordon with the backcourt defender of your choice. Say a younger Raja Bell. We'd still suck and teams would still routinely get by him and feast on our non-existent defense.

On the other hand, replace Gooden/Gray/Noah/Tyrus with two really good defensive big men. Say a younger PJ Brown and Chandler. Suddenly we'd look like one of the league's better defensive teams.

 

Sure, I agree, dominant defensive big men make everybody look good. But part of the reason that Noah looked good last year and crappy this year is that at the end of the season he was playing with Thabo, who is a far superior perimeter defender, and consequently Noah wasn't getting exposed to penetration nearly as much. As far as interior defense goes, I think the bulls big's played a part in the Grizzles missing so many layups, and they missed a whole lot. So it isn't like BG is getting beat and his man is going straight in for a dunk or layup. But once the bulls big step up to defend the rim, they lose position and you see the scrums for rebounds and average teams start looking like great. Milicic had 6 offensive rebounds and Warrick had 3.

This is one of the big reasons BG has been shuffled back and forth from the starting lineup throughout his whole career. Couple it with nobody but Gooden getting consistent offensive touches and you can see why the bulls bigs get demoralized. It's the reason Thabo started the season starting until BG started complaining. Barring a trade, BG will be headed back to the bench because teams will game plan for it more and more.

 

I don't think Thabo's presence or lack thereof has anything to do with how Noah has looked. Noah looked decent last year because
1. He was very active and not getting ***ged after 30 seconds on the court.
2. The primary basis for comparison was Ben Wallace.
3. He posted decent numbers individually.

By comparison, I think it's worth noting that the Bulls defense actually didn't improve much after the trade last year and Noah took the court. It's just that, as a rookie, I think most folks didn't necessarily expect Noah to go out and be great from day one, and his upside was a massive improvement from Wallace's maladroit malignancy.

 

The box score doesn't tell the whole story. Mayo and Lowry and Conley were missing layups, not jumpers, because Gooden and Noah and the rest of the bigs were challenging them. That's the reason they got their points. I don't think Milicic posted up more than twice. And while Warrick did score some late from the post, he was getting easy buckets off of penetration and rebounds. If you heard the chicago broadcast, Funk and King were going on and on about how many layups the Grizzles missed.

BG's assists and rebound numbers are based on the fact that he plays 40+ minutes. His per 40 numbers are pretty mediocre. I don't see how you can say he isn't a one dimensional player. Those last nine games have been against some of the weaker competition in the league. And no, Milicic and Warrick are not considerably better than our bigs. If they were, Memphis wouldn't be 8-15. If you want to say that, then OJ Mayo is every bit as good as BG.

 

I think I just puked blood.

 

And somehow he's still pretty mediocre according to my rating system (he fouls, turns the ball over, and doesn't rebound a lot). Actually according to things like PER too.