The problem is that Rose is a rookie. That's the problem with the Bulls backcourt. Rose simply isn't a great player yet. That is, he hasn't learned how to make the players around him better. Look at Lebron. He has truly found out how to make his teammates better, and now the Cavs are the best team in the league, despite having no one even close to as good as Gordon (outside Lebron that is). Once Rose learns how to make those around him better, like Lebron has, while playing at that superstar level, a player like Gordon is going to pay huge dividends.
How do you leave TO's out of a comparison of guards? BG turns it over almost twice as often per 36 as Hughes, that's a HUGE ADVANTAGE HUGHES btw. And floor time +/- is -21 and -33. So given Hughes superior defense, it's not that much of a tradeoff. Look at the O- and D-RTG. Like I said, there are certainly arguments not to switch the two. But to say overall BG is far better than Hughes overall is a joke; he's not. Btw, I think the Roland Rating suffers from the same biases and problems that the opponent PER stats do, so don't put much stock in it for a guy like BG who is playing out of position so much defensively.
The real problem is that Rose is the best player on the court for the bulls and he's having to learn everything the hard way. Rajon Rondo wouldn't be playing as well as he is if he didn't have Allen, Pierce and KG taking the pressure off of him. BG doesn't do that for Rose (and to be fair, neither does anybody else.) But we're talking about BG and just to reiterate, I'm just arguing that BG isn't special. If BG was a special player, he'd be making the game easier for Rose, and that's just not happening in any appreciable way.
Gordon is special. He is one of the best shooters in NBA History. We are going to need a shooter, whether we go with a Rose dominated offense, or eventually find a big man, and run a lot of our offense through the post.
Gordon handles the ball a lot, while Hodges didn't. Not in the same class of player in the least. The Rose/Gordon tandem at 10.0 APG is close to Boston's duo of Rondo/Allen at 10.2, tops Kobe/Fischer at 7.5, is 1 APG less than Harris/Carter at 11.0, .8 less than Atlanta Bibby/Johnson at 10.8, equals Parker/Ginobili at 10.0, .5 behind Nash/Richardson. I'm satisfied. The Rose/Gordon tandem at 8.3 FTA beats Boston at 6.9, is less than LA's 9.2, is half of New Jersey's 16.4, bests Atlanta's 6.2, roughly equals San Antonio at 8.6, bests Phoenix... The Rose/Gordon tandem at 5.3 TO (Gordon 2.6/Rose 2.7) is not very good. They're not beating other teams because the rest of the team basically sucks, especially with Deng hurt so much, Hinrich playing only 6 games so far, Hughes coming back from injury, Gooden now out, Deng nagged by misc. injuries, etc. And especially since we're playing dogs like Thomas and Noah and Thabo so much.
BG does do it for Rose. You keep making this kind of statement, which is simply not right. If he wasn't out there, teams would cheat off Thabo or Hinrich to put extra pressure on Rose.
Possibly, but the bulls might put Rose on the least offensive threat and let him rest on D instead of giving him the first or second hardest matchup from the 1-3 positions. He's playing 40 minutes a night on both ends way more often than BG. And after 5 years in the league, you wouldn't think they'd have to do that for BG instead of a rookie. Rose definitely looks overmatched at times and could benefit from an easier defensive assignment. Rose has the special ability to get by anybody and I wouldn't say that BG can score on anybody. Rose is the more transcendent talent and the bulls should be gameplanning around him both offensively and defensively.
None of those teams have their two best scorers in the backcourt with the exception of NJ, another .500 team. It's not a winning formula.
Derrick Rose is guarding the opposing teams point guard. Gordon typically guards the opposing shooting guard, sometimes the small forward. Rose only guards the best player if he happens to be the point guard. Do you want Gordon or Rose chasing around Chris Paul? Again, not that it really matters, because Rose is mailing it on the defensive end anyhow.
Joe Johnson and Mike Bibby are the team's two best scorers. Atlanta is 19-10. Seems like the winning formula is playing guys like Horford and Smith rather than guys like Thomas and Noah. And the Bulls could have Rose guard any of the 5 players on the opposing team that they choose. As it is, Hughes plays more than half the minutes Rose does so he could be guarding the best back court player.
This is what I don't get. Take what you're saying at face value, which I don't. Well, why is that a recipe for failure? Generally speaking it means your three guys up front aren't very good. All the yearning to solve this problem by subtracting Gordon seems precisely the opposite of what we need to do. We must beat down those who do well, so we obtain "the winning formula" of having a frontcourt scorer and a backcourt scorer? You have trouble staying balanced because you lost a leg? He're, I can fix that. <cuts off the remaining leg> See, now you're perfectly level! If we get rid of enough guys, Aaron Gray will be our second leading scorer behind Rose. We'll fit "the winning formula". And we'll suck even worse My prescription is to maintain the two quality players we have in the backcourt and improve the frontcourt. Add a couple solid players. Hope Deng recovers and VDN figures out he's not too useful standing in the corner.
I'm not saying dump BG. I'm saying figure out a way to make sure the other teams best guard doesn't go for a season high in points like has happened two of the last three games. Starting a more defensive 2 and bringing BG off of the bench for 30-35 minutes a game accomplishes that and doesn't diminish BG's output, as inconsistent as it is.
I guess I just look at it differently. Gordon's had his two worst defensive outings of the year, by a pretty large margin. Yes, he was playing against two really top flight SGs... guys we wouldn't argue are definitely better than him, but he can (routinely has) done better than he has the last few games. But ok, in both of those games, we were competitive in spite of it. With better teammates, would it have cost us the game? Maybe... but maybe not. Gordon was smoking at the other end and it certainly seemed like there were obvious issues elsewhere. And perhaps more importantly, the Bulls did go to Thabo and Hughes on the hot guy in these games, and they got lit up just as badly. Maybe a mathematical example based on your assumptions. Your premise, as I take it, is that Gordon will produce the same offensively no matter when he plays, but that we'll do better defensively if we move him around so we get Thabo against an elite defender like Johnson? OK, I think these are fair assumptions: * If Ben Predominately plays Johnson, Johnson will score more than his average. This has been the case when the Hawks played the Bulls, and we see that Johnson has averaged 29 a game against the Bulls, significantly more than his per game average of 23.3. * Let's assume that Thabo, by virtue of his superior defense, could hold Johnson to his per game average. * Now lets convert this into per game rates. Johnson points per minute is 0.583 (21 per 36 minutes). Johnson points per minute vs the Bulls is 0.674 (24.3 per 36 minutes) This means that every minute we play Thabo against Johnson, we reduce his scoring by 0.091 points per minute (3.3 per 36 minutes). So if we do something like starting Thabo and playing him 12 minutes on Johnson to maximize our defensive efficiency, we can expect Johnson to score approximately 1.1 fewer points. However, Thabo scores at a significantly lower rate than Gordon does. offensively Thabo scores at 10.1 per 36 minutes and Gordon scores at 20.8 points per 36 minutes. So that means that over those 12 minutes we've defeated JJ by sicking Thabo on him, the Bulls have scored approximately 3.6 fewer points themselves. So there's actually a net loss of 2.5 points! In the average game against the Hawks, the Bulls are likely to be behind after those 12 minutes in either case, but they're likely to be further behind if they start Thabo. Code: Johnson Bulls Min Pts/Min Pts Pts Min Pts 24 0.6744 16.2 0.5753 13.8 Gordon 12 0.5834 7.0 0.2779 3.3 Thabo 36 23.2 17.1 (6.04) Code: Johnson Bulls Min Pts/Min Pts Pts/Min Pts 36 0.6744 24.3 0.5753 20.7 Gordon 0 0.5834 - 0.2779 - Thabo 36 24.3 20.7 (3.57)
DC: http://sports.yahoo.com/nba/news;_y...8-nba-chi&prov=sportsxchange&type=team_report G Ben Gordon is locked in from long range. In the last three games, all on the road, he’s buried 14 of 22 shots from three-point range. He scored a team-high 24 points against the Nets on Monday after hitting for 33 at Atlanta two days earlier. F Thabo Sefolosha’s second start in place of the injured Luol Deng didn’t go so well. He went scoreless with one rebound and no assists in 20 minutes against New Jersey on Monday. He missed all four of his shots.
I appreciate your continued rational discussion on this topic and I'm really happy that this hasn't degraded into name calling. I think BG's pts/min go up if he scores the same in fewer minutes and I think Thabo's increases as well with consistent minutes. There's also the impact of bringing a fresh BG into the game against a tired player. Unfortunately, the bulls need to get to a higher level of consistency before any strategy will prove successful. At this point, I'm not sure that switching BG's role has any short term gains. They are going to struggle to get to .500 for the rest of the season.
Well, this thread is part of where the matchups is overrated comment comes from (other sources are hearing VDN talk about it so much, and just watching a lot of NBA ball. The talent level is close enough so that matchups in the way you're talking about then are typically double-edged swords. In the end, it boils down to simply who's better 9 times out of 10. I simply advocate playing the best 5 guys (with due consideration for skill replication, experience, and willingness to work with the rest of the team) together as much as possible. With respect to your particular comments: Ben's points per minutes is a rate of production. In fewer minutes, he has fewer scoring opportunities, so his total output will decline. His rate will probably be more or less the same. If a difference comes, it might come from the intangible effects of playing with worse teammates. Put Ben on the floor with scrubs and he gets more attention, making it harder for him to score. Likewise with the other starters if you replace Ben with, say, Thabo. Other teams will ignore Thabo and put more attention on Deng, and Rose. That's the sort of effect matchups have. At this point, after another month of seeing Thabo, do you still think he's going to become more of a scorer given more minutes? Again, rates and totals are different. Thabo (and Ben’s) total output would be expanded (or limited) if he shot less, but productivity is his rate of production. It won't much change, except perhaps a little based on the teammate affect. If he’s out there with better players, Ben might shoot less but he will still command attention from the defense, making it easier for other guys to score. Or, if those other players are good and can move the ball, Ben stands to get better looks in his fewer attempts, and thus will score at the same or higher rate. Or both. Likewise, if you put Thabo out there for big minutes, he's going to take more shots, especially because defenses will pay little attention to him and more to everyone else until he demonstrates he can make them pay for this. Life for those other guys will become harder.
As I believe you might have pointed out yourself, Bullshooter, what have guys like Nash or Kidd actually won playing next to mediocre guys like Raja Bell or Kerry Kittles? “Hey, we’ve got a great point guard! Now let’s find some complete suck-ass journeyman to play next to him!” I’m always amazed at how folks mystify what is really a very simple game. There’s a very simple rule to winning. Take your five best guys and play them. * The better your five best guys, and the more you play them, the more you will win. Playing with a better player next to you makes you a better player because on net, it gives you more options and forces the opponent to focus more attention against the other guy and less against you. * The exceptions are pretty straight forward. 1. If too many of your 5 best players can’t play together because they’re so similar (eg, the Bulls, where you’ve got three combo guards). 2. If some of your 5 best players are so young they don’t know how to play. 3. If some of your 5 best players are complete dopes who won’t play organized basketball (eg Larry Hughes) 4. If together none of your 5 best players satisfy the basic requirements of the game, which are: A. Big men must be able to defend the basket and rebound B. Everyone else must be able to pass and shoot. Assuming you don’t have big problems there, you play your best five guys. If you can get a better one, you’ll be a better team. Kidd would be better, not worse, next to a better player than Kerry Kittles Nash would be better next to Joe Johnson than Raja Bell Paul would wet himself with glee if he suddenly got to play next to Ray Allen instead of Morris Peterson.
