I think we're quite offensively challenged still. If Rose and Boozer work the pick & roll to perfection and score 25 each, we get 50 points. Add 18 for Deng and we're at 68. Add 12 for Brewer and we're at 80. Looks like breaking 100 on a regular basis is not going to happen.
Re: Bulls about to acquire Watson Sources say Especially if we only play 4 guys! One quick way to look at it would be to look at folks points/minute, and then look at an average minute distribution. Like, if we have a lineup that averages something like 1- Rose 38, Watson 10 2- Brewer 30, Korver 16, Watson 2 3- Deng 30, Johnson 10, Korver 8 4- Boozer 26, Deng 6, Gibson 16 5- Noah 32, Gibson 8, Boozer 8 Then going on past per/36 minute numbers, we end up at 106 points of expected offense. Obviously that's only a rough estimate, but it doesn't look obviously offensively challenged either. You've got 81 points from your starters and 25 from your bench.
Re: Bulls acquire CJ Watson from Warriors If you use that methodology, then Miami should score 150 points a game. I may be overstating it by only a few points
Re: Bulls about to acquire Watson Sources say So you don't think Noah or the Bulls bench players will score at all? I think we will be able to get to a 100 points on a regular basis, if you take a look at everyone on the team who will contribute!
Re: Bulls acquire CJ Watson from Warriors Or it might not. If I calculate it out, I get about 120ppg for them. Which is obviously intimidating, but you also have to figure that this sort of model is less valid for them than it is for us. I'd rather have the Heat, obviously, but if you're using this as a predictive model, it works for the Bulls because you're not dramatically changing the number of shots you can expect anyone to take over a game. The number of shots Boozer took last year to get his 20p/36 is probably about the same as he can take this year. On the other hand, the Heat players are going to have to shoot a bit less, just like the Celtics did. They'll be more efficient because they're not playing with better players, but their per 36 minutes numbers will certainly come down. With the Celtics, we saw: Code: PreBos Bos Change Allen 23.6 17.5 -6.1 Pierce 24.3 19.7 -4.6 Garnett 20.5 20.7 0.2 So I'd guess you can knock off about ten of those points, and you're down to 110. So if we play our average game and they play their average game, they win by 5. That's how much better we have to defend them.
Re: Bulls about to acquire Watson Sources say Score less than 20, and I was being generous with Rose and Boozer's scoring. As MikeDC is getting to, but not on the mark yet, the makeup of the team on the court is going to determine how well they'll score. He's adjusting Miami's scoring down, due to some "fudge factor" but not ours (as he should). As for Noah, he's going to have to look for his shots to score this season. He's not going to have teammates putting up as many bricks, which turn into offensive boards and putbacks for him.
Why should I adjust the Bulls down? As I pointed out, there's not much to indicate the Bulls players will have to give up many shots. There's obvious reason to expect the Heat will.
Re: Bulls acquire CJ Watson from Warriors You guys both forgot injuries. There's probably some predictive model to be had here but it's much more complicated.
Re: Bulls acquire CJ Watson from Warriors Yea, with Wade having the "Crash Syndrome" and injury prone, hes bound to miss anywhere from 5-15 games.
Re: Bulls acquire CJ Watson from Warriors Just like last year and just about every year before that, how the bulls play defense is going to have a bigger impact on the success of their season than how they play offense. CJ Watson is a nice pickup. Anybody wondering why the bulls did a sign and trade for Boozer to get an extra second round pick, there's your answer.
Re: Bulls about to acquire Watson Sources say My defense against that team double teams Rose/denies him the ball, shadows Boozer, and basically lets everyone else shoot. Boozer played with a Utah team that had 8 of its top 9 guys shoot 46% from the field, and 5 guys who shot 34%+ from 3pt in volume. We may be Utah/East, but we only got one of those 3pt shooters (Korver). Watson played with 3 other guards who shot 46%, 44%, and 34% from 3pt. I wouldn't double team some player on their team at the expense of letting those guys shoot. And yeah, I'm thinking Watson may be our best SG. I think things are a little different for these guys when opponents don't have to guard everyone all the time, and as SST said, we lose Deng or Boozer (both injury prone) for a stretch and your minutes distribution is radically different.
Re: Bulls acquire CJ Watson from Warriors Who's guy are you going to leave open to double off of Rose? Brewer is going to make the right cut to the basket and get a layup or a pass to Noah or Boozer. Deng is going to be able to knock down 20 footers all night. And unlike other bulls guards, Rose actually has the ability to dribble out of a double team, so chances are the bulls are going to get a layup attempt out of any double team of Rose. The smarter thing to do is to pack the middle and let Rose shoot long jumpers all night. He doesn't get anybody else going and he doesn't get to the rim and get anybody in foul trouble.
Re: Bulls acquire CJ Watson from Warriors If the defense is shadowing Boozer, there's a big in the lane loosely guarding Noah. I'd let Noah shoot anywhere further than 5' from the basket. Rose is going to be extremely busy doing nothing but dribbling out of double teams, and nobody else on the team is all that good at handling the ball or getting assists. Boozer ain't bad, but he turns the ball over more than Gordon ever did.
Re: Bulls acquire CJ Watson from Warriors Actually Boozer is about the same as BG in terms of usage and TO's. And Noah is a pretty good passer, although the stats don't reflect that.
OK, I hope folks don't mind too much, but I wanted to create a little more obvious title for this strand of the CJ Watson thread, since I thought it was a good conversation that I wanted to draw attention to (so I moved the relevant posts to a new thread).
Re: Bulls about to acquire Watson Sources say That really doesn't directly address my response. I was asking for an explanation of how our players will lose shots/efficiency vs. their prior averages, and I don't see how this gets there. WRT Rose, he's obviously got better teammates than last year, so I don't see much reason to expect his past numbers to be inflated vs. this year's current numbers. While teams will try to deny and double him, they did that last year as well. When he played with worse players. So if anything, he's likely to have an easier go of things this year, and have improved numbers. WRT Boozer, I agree he'll have a somewhat tougher time of things because teams will be more inclined to leave Noah than they were to leave Okur/AK-47/Milsap. Still, I think this is going to be pretty marginal. Noah is going to be capable of hitting an open shot, and he's certainly capable of getting a pass, dribbling the ball in an open lane, and dunking it. They will have to design plays to scare teams away from this, but everyone that'll be on the floor is a capable enough passer to get him the ball on the move in a place he can score from. Brewer can also be an effective guy to use in these situations. He's got enough handle to bring the ball up the court, and while he's not a PG in terms of passing, he's a really outstanding athlete even by NBA standards. If a team is doubling Rose, he's going to have a lot of room to take the ball and drive to the basket. Likewise, if you use Boozer as a decoy to draw the opposing bigs out of the lane, and you get Brewer the ball, the result ought to be a dunk or a kick out to an open Deng. Anyway, I don't see that Boozer is going to suffer some massive loss of productivity either. So I think the Bulls numbers hold up.
The bulls season hinges on three things. First how Rose develops as a point guard in running the team and distributing the ball. Learning a new and more complex system may take some time for him given how simple the previous system was. The bulls will only be as good as Rose makes them. The second thing is how well Thibodeau can get the defense to play and get the players to mesh and understand and excel in their roles. The last thing is injuries. Rose's development is by far the most important thing. If Rose continues to develop and they don't have big injuries, the bulls are easily a 50+ win team. If Rose falls in love with his jump shot or they have a bunch of injuries, they end up around 45 wins.
Re: Bulls about to acquire Watson Sources say Brewer two seasons ago (taking one of his best, vs. last year his worst) took 42% of his shots "outside" and had a .318 eFG% from there (http://www.82games.com/0809/08UTA5.HTM). I'd let him shoot the outside shot. Where's he going to drive? Into the guy shading Boozer. That guy shading Boozer also turns a pick and roll into a double team. At the very least I'd play zone and watch Rose, Brewer, and Deng try to shoot over it to force me into man coverage. The point being, keep at least one extra guy in the lane to deal with guys trying to take it to the rim and force the Bulls to shoot. Go ahead and bring in Korver and he'll get schooled at the other end (~17 PER against). I'm thinking Deng was a pretty good SF for us when we had 3 guards taking mostly outside shots - he didn't run into the guys guarding Gordon, Hinrich, or Duhon much. Ironic that the Bulls once lived by the jump shot and died by it. Now they
