I wanted to keep Asik and maybe experiment with Noah at pf. Can you imagine the trouble some teams would have had dealing with that line up especially for the second unit? I was disappointed to see him let go. Dont know enough about Mirotic to make a comment other than the fact that what I have read, he is for real, but then so was Asik.
Interesting take...I hadn't looked at it from that angle. Both Brand and Chandler are big men who have had lengthy and distinguished NBA careers. Brand is mostly thought of as an offensive player and Chandler a defensive player. Brand was at his best during his first 8 seasons and then dropped off some. Chandler started kind of slowly in his career, but is playing his best basketball right now. I suupose you could find a good argument in this, but anyone who thinks it's currently close between the two might as well concede the victory to Chandler since he clearly owns the future of this contest.
I got it right away. It's sorta like Deng is an all-star because all the guys who were all-stars ahead of him got old.
I think Chandler edges him out from a career perspective already. And barring injury, should easily surpass him going forward. NBA Champion, NBA Defensive Player of the year, All-Star, Gold Medalist. Chandler is also currently the NBA ALL-TIME leader in field goal percentage, effective field goal percentage and true shooting percentage. Brand has some nice numbers, was rookie of the year and a couple time all-star but his teams never did much. Krause had the guy correctly pegged after seeing him for a couple of years. Trading Brand for Chandler and not MAXing him out was actually a really good move. And that's one of the moves that Krause gets lambasted for.
Both guys became NBA players at 19. For 6 of his first 8 seasons, Brand was a 20/10 guy. To put that in perspective, only Dwight Howard will accomplish 20/10 this season. He was remarkably consistent until he suffered a shoulder injury in 2008 that required surgery. He was never the same after that, though showed flashes of his prior play. Chandler was pretty awful for his 5 seasons with the Bulls, though he had some clutch blocked shots late in games. His last season for us, he was a 5.3/9 guy. He's been sporadically good - unless you think a guy putting up 8/8 is good. If you look at career stats, you're taking a few of Brand's seasons after his injury. I guess that's fair enough, but it's also fair to compare the two through their first 8 seasons. Or first 10. Anyhow, career wise, Brand is a career 17.5/9.2 guy with a PER of 21.1. He played Deng-like minutes during those early seasons, and ended up at 35.5 so far. Chandler is a career 8.7/9.1 guy with a PER of 16.1. He's managed 28.5 minutes per game over his career. The awards are nice, but Brand never played alongside Dirk and had an owner like Cuban (until this season, I guess). I'd say Brand was a major league player from day 1. Chandler was a minor leaguer who took most of a decade to develop. And he became a better player once he moved on. Brand was a sure thing - 20/10 guys don't come along very often.
No doubt that Brand came into the league more productive than Chandler. Right out of HS vs 2 years @ Duke. Chandler had a couple of productive seasons with the Bulls. He was the highest PER guy and Win Share guy on the 04-05 Bulls who were the best Bulls team post Jordan pre Rose. A couple of his Bulls seasons were beset by injury, which hurt his numbers. Both Brand and Chandler have had very nice NBA careers. Sure, Brand has a higher PER, but you would expect a guy with Brand's type of game to have a higher PER. Brand also has a higher PER than Mutumbo. You could argue that the Bulls dumped Brand to not pay him. But, its not like they traded him for a stiff. And its not like the Clippers investment in him paid off in multiple playoff appearances / titles / etc. The awards are nice. Stiffs don't win the NBA Defensive Player of the Year, win NBA titles (#2 PER / win share guy on that team) and make all star teams, win gold medals and are ALL-TIME leaders in important statistical categories. Brand was very good, but he just hasn't accomplished as much as Chandler. He's put up some nice numbers, but they are on average to bad teams. He made the all-star team twice. He won rookie of the year. A nice career, no doubt. If I'm going to get upset about a move the Bulls made post-Jordan though, trading Brand for Chandler is going to be low on mine. You can see it as trading a current good player for a future maybe though. Its just this time the maybe was actually really good.
I'm with you on this one, K4E. It wasn't a bad trade, in a vacuum. It was a bad set of moves, in total (Curry, Floyd, Jalen...). Krause bailed on a team with Artest, Brand and Miller. It wasn't their fault he brought in Floyd to coach them. And though there's nothing I enjoy more than chewing over bitter memories from 10 years ago...I'm ready to forgive Krause and the Bulls, and just look forward to seeing the new ways they'll dupe me into paying attention to a meaningless game
Very mature point of view. Though there have been no recent titles for the Bulls and this year has tested our collective patience, the Bulls have been a winning franchise for the past 9 seasons (actually .500 or better in 8 of the past 9 seasons and .566 over the last 9). When I first started posting on Bulls' message boards, the franchise was in the midst of an extended period when they failed to win 30% of their games. While I'd love to see my favorite NBA team regain its dynasty form, I'm realistic enough to know that this is extremely unlikely and can enjoy having a team that is consistently in the playoffs and in the mix for the title.
The team has made it out of the 1st round twice this century and even longer than that if you go back to the 1990s. I guess regular season wins are one metric. Maybe enough to pad the Chairman's wallet via ticket sales. Both times we made it out of the 1st round, management coughed up a $15M type salary for a free agent. The second time, we made it with a crazy good player on a rookie deal.
Thank goodness the Bulls lucked out and hit the lottery when it was extremely improbable. Otherwise, the Bulls would have been stuck in the same "Basketball Hell" the Bulls were in pre-Rose and are in this year without him. Make the playoffs as a lower seed, get bounced by the real teams and have no draft pick to acquire franchise altering talent. Other than blind luck, that's been Bulls management strategy. They've been gifted a huge asset. Let's see if they can make anything of it. So far, a MVP has been dropped into their laps and we've made the Eastern Conference Finals once and decided to pair him with Kirk Hinrich and Rip Hamilton, to the tune of a combined 9 million dollars a year, while letting difference makers like Omer Asik walk out the door for nothing. Let's start being competent gang!
I agree with your overall assessment, but given the timing of their careers, the Bulls still lost that trade. Chandler's a case study of the type of guy that needs a long time to find his niche in the league. Brand the exact opposite. So given the timeframe each would've had with the Bulls I still think they would've been better off keeping Brand. I agree though, these days it's inconsequential.
When it comes to the Bulls' offseason moves in the Rose era I'm pretty sanguine about all of them except for losing Asik. Swapping out your 7-10 players for cheaper, better-fit ones is fine. After all, there is a new CBA that makes it more punishing to have bad contracts. Rip didn't work out as planned, but at the time it was a good gamble. It's a lot easier to win a championship with Rip Hamilton as your shooting guard than Keith Bogans. I even see the logic in signing Kirk. He would've turned out okay if he wasn't always injured. But I do worry that Asik may turn out to be the one that got away. Space eating double-double 7 footers don't grow on trees and are the types of players teams spend years trying to find. And we could've had TWO of them on the same team......giving us an advantage no other team would have.
The current management was in complete control of the Chandler timeframe though. They opted to pay Ben Wallace double what Chandler would have made and dumped Chandler for nothing. He got Asiked. And we missed out on one of the best defensive centers of this generation of players. Bad decision.
Yah, I don't initially get really upset with signings like that either. Although, it was pretty clear we were paying too much for Hinrich based on what he had been doing in the league the last few seasons. Its only a couple years down the road when the logic behind dumping a guy like Asik is "we can't afford it because we're close to paying the luxury tax." Well, one of the reasons you are close to that tax line is that you are paying Rip Hamilton to not play and Kirk Hinrich to suck. That's 9 million dollars. If you are operating in a constrained environment, like GarPax are, you can't afford such blunders. Because then you can't sign Omer Asik.
They paid PJ Brown big bucks ($9M) for a season. We got to root for him! I swear I googled for a picture of him in a Bulls uniform with his feet off the ground and could not find one. To make that salary dump equally a head scratcher is that along with PJ Brown, we got this guy: http://www.basketball-reference.com/players/s/smithjr01.html And we never even let him put on a practice uniform.
