Nick Friedell @ESPNChiBulls Bulls have touched base with lots of free agent guards recently. Add Derek Fisher's name to the list. @ramonashelburne and I have link soon.
I think you could do worse than Fisher. He's a two or three steps more competent than Hinrich at this stage of their respective careers and I think you could conceivably get Fisher on a minimum deal.
Gotta throw the flag on that one. I'm sure you could do worse than Fisher, but Fisher's not two or three steps more competent than Hinrich. He's no steps more competent. He's not as competent. Here's a statistical comparison from last season: 2011-12 Comparison For both players, it was their worst season statistically in their respective careers. They both may continue to go downhill from here, but if there's a bounceback possible, I like Hinrich's (age 31) chances a lot better than Fisher's (age 37).
I agree Transplant! I would rather have Watsons exception picked up than either of those two, yet I read this morning that Kirk is a priority!
I realize that his would be very difficult for you. This adds one more reason why I hope that the Bulls just keep Watson for one more season which should be enough for Teague to establish himself as the #1 backup.
When Kirk had his best seasons, we weren't contenders. He's nowhere near as good as he once was, and we'll be playing him for lack of anyone else. It's really going to be a sucky team to watch.
As I recall, you weren't a big fan "back in the day" either. How many hours do you figure that you've devoted to watching Hinrich since he's left the Bulls? I know I haven't devoted many. Since I haven't watched him much in the past couple years, I'm pretty much devoid of true insight and can only look at the stats. In these cases, I can have an opinion, but not a strong or reliable one...hell, anyone can find basketball-reference and other stats sites. Still, while stats are a poor substitute for watching games (provided that you have an idea of what you're watching...not everyone does), when I look at Hinrich's stats, the basic ones haven't changed all that much. Since leaving the Bulls, his shooting % has gone up fairly significantly and his 3-pt% is about dead on his career stats. His usage % is significantly down (this started when he played SG alongside Rose here and continued when he played alongside Wall in Washington and J. Teague in Atlanta) and this is understandable. The most significant decrease has been his assist%, but since he's played mostly SG, this isn't surprising either. The fact that his rebounding rate has decreased isn't a good thing since SGs usually put up better rebounding #s than PGs. However, I remember that Bogans' rebounding #s with the Bulls sucked, and because I watched the games, I knew this was because he was almost always placed in the role of the "safety" for the defense so it didn't represent a problem. Overall, the stats tell me that he's gone from a featured (and above average) scoring PG with the pre-Rose Bulls to a reduced-minutes role-playing combo guard with the accent on his SG responsibilities. I never liked him much as a SG. According to 82games.com, with the Wizards in '10-'11, his PER at PG was 16.5 (vs 12.9 at SG). With Atlanta in '10-'11, it was 10.3 at PG vs 6.1 at SG. In 2011-12, Hinrich's worst statistical season, he got a little better statistically at the SG thing with a PER of 9.2 vs 8.4 at PG. Again, it was a pretty awful statistical season for Hinrich. To your point, PER-wise, regardless of position, the trend is not Hinrich's friend...it might be the early stages of a downward spiral. Still, I'll leave that to people who have properly scouted him. When you're looking at players at a pricetag of >$2mil/year, it's unlikely that you're going to see great numbers. Hinrich, particularly if you look at the most recent #s, certainly doesn't have them. Again, I'd prefer Watson for a year. This makes more basketball sense to me.
As I said, Watson had a fairly meh type of season, yet started at PG for many of the games or played a lot while Rose was playing hurt. And we had the best record in basketball. I did watch Hinrich on Washington and Atlanta. He outright sucked when he wasn't hurt. His WS/48 was 12th best on the Hawks. He was far outplayed by the 30 year old Willie Green and our old friend Jannero Pargo. I don't like PGs who waste the shot clock and aren't real threats to score every play. As a PG, his assist numbers were modest at best, and most of those came because when you give a guy the ball with :04 on the shot clock and he makes it, you're going to get an assist. On the other hand, holding the ball for :20 of the shot clock means :20 less seconds the opposition has to score. Makes the defense look better than it actually is.
To get get back to the purpose of the thread, I find their inquiries about Derrick Fisher disturbing. You only inquire about Derrick Fisher at the minimum if you have no intention of paying CJ Watson 3.2 million. You only balk at paying CJ Watson 3.2 million if you have no desire to pay the luxury tax. If we're balking at paying the luxury tax that means our team will be a pretty stripped down version of what it was last year, especially accounting for injuries. I somewhat understand the hesitancy over Asik, because that 15 million number is certainly going to mess with some of our maneuverability, and possibly be the difference between being able to make a run at a FA when Deng's contract runs out. But saying no to CJ for next year is a pretty clear sign we're pinching pennies.
