He was playing better for us before the trade than the year before when he made the all star team. 19 PPG, 6.9 RPG, 3.7 APG (wow!). His 17 PER was higher than the rest except Noah. He "was" better.
Exactamundo. I've seen the Deng/Gasol comparison be boiled down to "we're not getting that Gasol", while Deng is referred to as "two-time All-Star". Well, we didn't give up that Deng, either. Deng was supposed to be the veteran that helped a young Cavs team make the playoffs. Instead, he gave them: 33.8 min, 14.3 pts, 5.1 reb, 2.5 ast, and a .503 ts%. Sadly, Deng's per36 stats with CLE weren't much better than what washed-up, useless old Kirk Hinrich gave the Bulls last season: 15.2 pts, 5.2 reb, 2.6 ast, 1.0 stl, 0.1 blk, 1.5 to, .503 ts% 11.3 pts, 3.3 reb, 4.9 ast, 1.4 stl, 0.4 blk, 2.0 to, .494 ts% And he wound up with one 1st-Team and two 2nd-Team All-Defense votes. That "worthless bum" Kirk Hinrich got two 1st-Team and three 2nd-Team All-Defense votes. Ouch. I feel kind of stupid now, actually- when people would say Deng wasn't a "real All-Star", I was the first one jumping to his defense. I was certain that there was no way the Bulls would trade Deng, and that they probably had a handshake deal worked out that would see Deng re-signing last summer. But after his CLE debacle, Lu has some 'splaining to do this season to rebuild his reputation. I've always been a huge Deng fan, I hope that playing with Wade and Bosh allows him to resume playing at a near All-Star level (except for when Butler shuts him down completely, of course). It certainly didn't help Deng that while he was putting up very good individual numbers for the Bulls last season, the team was losing- and they were a top-3 in the league team after he was traded away.
He didn't like Cleveland and mailed it in. The stats there are meaningless. If it helps you rationalize the salary dump as a basketball move, you're fooling yourself. The Bulls made him a $10M offer, so they must have thought him to be a pretty good player. Spin away.
Here's the thing though: You can't put together a team with enough shooting without putting a rookie in the starting lineup. If you really think the Bulls are contenders this year, maybe that answers the question?
Thibs can win regular season games with a roster of girls. This time in the playoffs, he'll look to his bench and see Taj, Mirotic, and McBuckets instead of Taj and Snell and Nazr. I hope he can figure out how to get more than 69 points from the team with Rose, too, in a playoff game we need to win. The Wizards killed us with their athleticism. I hope our shooting beats their athletes.
I'm not sure, but there would still be 20 minutes of action for Dougie if you wanted to draft him. That would allow him to develop with less pressure and still give you scoring punch lineups when needed. If you are looking to "win now" you usually do it with all-star caliber players in their prime. Bringing along lotto picks and handing them development minutes is usually a "win later" type thing. We know that Luol Deng with the Bulls under Thibs is an all-star caliber player. With Rose-Deng-Noah you have 3 all-star level guys in their primes. We'll be lucky if McBuckets is a multi time all star and if he is its likely years away. We'd have a glut of 3s instead of a glut of bigs though, which may affect the drafting of McBuckets. Once again, if you want to "win now," McBuckets shouldn't really be in the core, unless he's an all-star caliber player the next two seasons. We'll see. If you look at who you usually get with the #11 pick, there are some hits and misses. It usually takes years for the good ones to be real impact players though. http://www.draftexpress.com/nba-draft-history/?eyear=2014&syear=1957&spick=11 But, who knows, maybe Gasol is great this season and McBuckets and Mirotic are way ahead of schedule. Could happen. Its not a bird in the hand like Deng, but we'll see.
Does the addition of Rose matter and if so, how? As I see it, anyone who puts forward an opinion on how they think the 2014-15 Bulls will do has to first declare what sort of DRose they expect to see. I expect to see Rose return as a superstar. This would make the whole Wizards comparison irrelevant since if Rose returns full tilt, the Wiz don't figure to be a factor in the East.
Rose at 1 position, not at the other 4. The guys with blue dots saw their PER drop significantly in the playoffs.
I've already been declining one engagement for the last week or two, so adding another decline should be rather easy. It's just sad, because I enjoy a good conversation with opposing views from folks who are actually interested in intelligent conversation. But when there are just blatant, repetetive agendas getting in the way, it does take all of the enjoyment out of it.
You have to remember, I have not one, not two, but three ex-wives, so obviously I'm a slow learner...
