Quote:
Originally Posted by Cobra Mgr
I keep up w/the NBA. But watching a whole game just doesn't interest me anymore. I trace it back to when David Stern started fixing outcomes. My ability to watch refs manipulate outcomes has dropped year by year.
I do always enjoy watching the Dubs cause the potential to see Curry/Klay bomb 10-15 3's in a game is like anticipating a Nolan Ryan no-hitter.
Wish they had more Jason Kidd/Williams point guards. The flashy assist has virtually disappeared.
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Unfortunately, one of those guys has missed the last season and a half and might miss all of next season with a weird knee condition that won't go away. I'm speaking of Lonzo Ball and I remain convinced that if he was in the Bulls' lineup all season they'd be a top 4-5 seed in the Eastern Conference. He's very good but more to the point, the Bulls were a complete black hole at the 1 before they signed Pat Bev and even with what was left of him they started to absolutely chew through the league at the end of the season. I think the 5-man starting lineup they ran towards the end with Beverly-Lavine-Caruso-DeRozan-Vuc was like 2nd in the NBA in on/off. They were stealthily really, really good at some aspects of the game, they just absolutely crumbled in their half-court offense, especially when DeRozan and Lavine weren't playing lights out (and Beverly - again, who isn't even all that good - wound up being a guy who could push them to being lights-out a lot more often).
I really, really miss Lonzo on this team. The Bulls were the #1 seed in the East for a while last year and honestly it wasn't that much of a fluke. Sorry, but I'm going to make an aside for this team before they get knocked out of the playin tonight... I think their rep is that they're a bad defensive team who can't quite generate enough offense to get ahead, kind of like a worse version of the current Kings. In fact, it's sort of the opposite, and If you see the rotations they toss out I think you can see why:
Starters
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Beverly - still a good defender in spite of his age
Caruso - a lockdown defender
Lavine - by no means a great defender but I'd put him at average
DeRozan - a bad defender, just straight up, not because he doesn't try but he just doesn't have the quickness to guard wings and bigger 4s get into size mismatches with him
Vucevic - derided as a bad defender but honestly he's fine as a post defender. What he doesn't do is protect the rim but guess what? There are like 3 guys in the league who do that and it's just not as valuable an asset as it was 15 years ago
Rotation
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Williams - honestly he's a great defender already and just needs the reputation. If memory serves he led the entire NBA in iso stop percentage
Coby White - was... fine defensively. Honestly I think the fact that he wasn't horrific at the 1 where he was soooo bad 2 years ago was a bit of a revelation
Ayo - Completely out of place on offense, and I hate to say it a big part of why the team struggled this year, but he hustles and works hard on D
Derrick Jones Jr. - A fantastic defender who would be rated up with a guy like Mattisse Thybulle if he played for teams like the 76ers the past few years
Javonte Green - Also a fantastic defender. I mean, the guy basically does nothing but play defense and jump
Andre Drummond - Kind of the opposite of Vooch and useful when they need a big man who can bang around
Including the guys off the bench, that's 5 plus-plus defenders who got regular rotation minutes (Beverly, Caruso, Williams, Jones Jr., Green). That's also 4 guys - 5 if you want to count Beverly although things picked up when he joined - who could be offensive black holes. That kind of goes triple or quadruple for guys like Green and Jones who, when things are going well, generate what points they do generate in transition and with cuts and lobs - i.e. exactly the things you need a good point guard to see and pass to.
This team was also awwwwwwful at offensive rebounds, which is going to be harder to fix.