Minnesota Sports Forum

If the Bulls don't challenge for the playoffs in a terrible conference, who gives a shit what numbers they put up? That's the definition of empty stats. That conference is garbage. If you can't make it now you truly are not good.

Q12543 wrote:

khans2k5 wrote:Scoring is the most replaceable stat in the league. The Jazz lost their 2 leading scorers going into last year and ended up being fine. Guys step up when scoring holes need to be filled. The biggest hit we'll take with Jimmy gone is the defense. He was pretty much the glue making that unit respectable. That's why I don't think we are a playoff team without him. Slow iso ball is ideal when you can't defend to limit total possessions of the game, but it's not gonna be enough.

It's a little ironic you cite the Jazz since you were the one that thought they would be worthless offensively last season!

Yes, it's not hard for others to take more shots and score more points. But do we really want the likes of Wiggins and Rose to be taking shots that otherwise would have been taken by Butler? Efficiency matters. Let's hope those extra shots go to the likes of KAT and Teague, especially KAT.

To put things in perspective, pre-Jimmy Wiggins was within 1% true shooting percentage as Donovan Mitchell was last year replacing Hayward as the top scorer in Utah. Efficiency doesn't matter as much as you suggest. It's a numbers game. Guys are gonna score when given the opportunity. Utah being able to score last year should be a great example of Jimmy being gone not meaning much offensively for us. If anything it cleans up our hierarchy issues because we had too many cooks in the kitchen last year and now we don't.

longstrangetrip wrote:

Q12543 wrote:

lipoli390 wrote:Butler's stat line for Wolves preseason opener? Nothing. DNP sitting out until traded

Bulls' preseason opener:
LaVine's: 21 pts (8-13 FG, 5-5 FT), 4 boards, 3 assists, 2 steals, 1 block
Dunn: 12 pts (5-7 FG), 8 boards, 3 assists, 2 blocks
Markkenan: DNP (elbow injury)

Yeah, I'm sure we'll all be keeping tabs on these guys. I'd argue that LaVine was better than Wiggins offensively two seasons ago, but his defense was worse and then he got hurt. He has the potential to be a very dynamic scorer with that jump shot.

Dunn is a "do shit" player that has struggled to quarterback a team due to some weak handles and balky outside shot. I still think at worst he can be Marcus Smart 2.0. Heck, Okogie reminds me a little of Dunn in terms of his doggedness and defense. Let's just hope he doesn't have the same injury and attitude issues.

Those three guys will have plenty of opportunity to score on this team that they led to a whopping 27 wins last year. I'm more interested in how Zach plays defense and how they measure up in other stats. I note that in this game Zach and Dunn had 6 assists and 6 turnovers between them, and no made threes...not a winning formula for a NBA starting backcourt.

LaVine missed half of last season recovering from his knee surgery. It's silly to judge LaVine, Dunn and Markkenan by the number of wins the Bulls had last season given LaVine missing half the season coming back from ACL surgery and the fact that Dunn and Markkenan were in their 2nd and 1st seasons respectively not to mention the lack of talent around them.

As for their performance last night, we know Zach is a terrific 3-point shooter, so highlighting the lack of threes last night isn't very telling. The turnovers were a negative, but were overshadowed completely by the 12 rebounds, 6 assists, 2 steals and 3 blocks between them. Getting 12 boards and 3 blocks from your two guards is more than impressive. I watched the game and saw some excellent defense from Dunn and improved defense from LaVine, understanding that improved defense from LaVine is faint praise. :)

khans2k5 wrote:If the Bulls don't challenge for the playoffs in a terrible conference, who gives a shit what numbers they put up? That's the definition of empty stats. That conference is garbage. If you can't make it now you truly are not good.

Boston, Toronto and the Sixers are terrific teams that would be playoff teams in the West. There's a huge drop-off after than. I'd put Indiana and Miami in the second tier challenging for the 4th and 5th spots - although I think Miami needs to trade for Jimmy Butler to finish ahead of Indiana. :) After that, it's pretty wide open for the final 3 spots. On talent and experience, I'd rate Charlotte ahead of others as a lock for one of the final 3 spots, possibly even challenging Miami for the 5th spot -- unless Miami trades for Butler. :). Then you'll have some truly bad teams competing for the final 2 spots.

khans2k5 wrote:

Q12543 wrote:

khans2k5 wrote:Scoring is the most replaceable stat in the league. The Jazz lost their 2 leading scorers going into last year and ended up being fine. Guys step up when scoring holes need to be filled. The biggest hit we'll take with Jimmy gone is the defense. He was pretty much the glue making that unit respectable. That's why I don't think we are a playoff team without him. Slow iso ball is ideal when you can't defend to limit total possessions of the game, but it's not gonna be enough.

It's a little ironic you cite the Jazz since you were the one that thought they would be worthless offensively last season!

Yes, it's not hard for others to take more shots and score more points. But do we really want the likes of Wiggins and Rose to be taking shots that otherwise would have been taken by Butler? Efficiency matters. Let's hope those extra shots go to the likes of KAT and Teague, especially KAT.

To put things in perspective, pre-Jimmy Wiggins was within 1% true shooting percentage as Donovan Mitchell was last year replacing Hayward as the top scorer in Utah. Efficiency doesn't matter as much as you suggest. It's a numbers game. Guys are gonna score when given the opportunity. Utah being able to score last year should be a great example of Jimmy being gone not meaning much offensively for us. If anything it cleans up our hierarchy issues because we had too many cooks in the kitchen last year and now we don't.

Efficiency absolutely matters a lot. And small differences make a big impact when it's over thousands of possessions and minutes in an 82-game season. Someone has to take Butler's shots and it matters a ton who that is.

Hell, if offense is such an easily acquired commodity, why is there a 10+ point difference in Offensive Rating between the best and worst team last year in that category while on defense it's only an 8 point difference?

Q12543 wrote:

khans2k5 wrote:

Q12543 wrote:

khans2k5 wrote:Scoring is the most replaceable stat in the league. The Jazz lost their 2 leading scorers going into last year and ended up being fine. Guys step up when scoring holes need to be filled. The biggest hit we'll take with Jimmy gone is the defense. He was pretty much the glue making that unit respectable. That's why I don't think we are a playoff team without him. Slow iso ball is ideal when you can't defend to limit total possessions of the game, but it's not gonna be enough.

It's a little ironic you cite the Jazz since you were the one that thought they would be worthless offensively last season!

Yes, it's not hard for others to take more shots and score more points. But do we really want the likes of Wiggins and Rose to be taking shots that otherwise would have been taken by Butler? Efficiency matters. Let's hope those extra shots go to the likes of KAT and Teague, especially KAT.

To put things in perspective, pre-Jimmy Wiggins was within 1% true shooting percentage as Donovan Mitchell was last year replacing Hayward as the top scorer in Utah. Efficiency doesn't matter as much as you suggest. It's a numbers game. Guys are gonna score when given the opportunity. Utah being able to score last year should be a great example of Jimmy being gone not meaning much offensively for us. If anything it cleans up our hierarchy issues because we had too many cooks in the kitchen last year and now we don't.

Efficiency absolutely matters a lot. And small differences make a big impact when it's over thousands of possessions and minutes in an 82-game season. Someone has to take Butler's shots and it matters a ton who that is.

Hell, if offense is such an easily acquired commodity, why is there a 10+ point difference in Offensive Rating between the best and worst team last year in that category while on defense it's only an 8 point difference?

Because there are no more elite defenses. There wasn't a single defense in the league with a sub 100 rating in the last 2 years. Everyone is getting beat defensively. The last time we had teams under 100 the gap was 12.7 between best and worst. When the best get worse the gap shrinks because the worst aren't much worse than they have been.

Everyone hated our offense last year, we were only 9th in TS% and yet still we were 4th overall in offensive rating. How did we manage to do that when we weren't top 5 in shooting efficiency?

We were 4th in FT attempts, and 2nd in FT percentage. That helps your offensive efficiency quite a bit (as old school as it is).

leado01 wrote:We were 4th in FT attempts, and 2nd in FT percentage. That helps your offensive efficiency quite a bit (as old school as it is).

Yep. And that was attributable to KAT and Butler. Half of our efficiency based on free throws will no longer be with the team. In other words, we're going to take a big hit on the offensive side of the ball, not just defense, this season without Butler. That means the folly of Thibodeau's minimal ball-movement iso offense in today's NBA will be very apparent this season unless we somehow get an efficient 20 point per game scorer in a Butler trade.

Note that officials have been instructed to crack down on defensive holding. That should help KAT, who was held constantly last season. But overall, it further accentuates the increasing importance of offense in the NBA. And it also underscores the fact that defending effectively in the NBA has changed significantly from the approaches that worked when Thibodeau was coaching the Bulls or, before that, working as an assistant for the Celtics. I'll remind everyone of that chart last season showing that Thibodeau's defense emphasized defending the mid-range shot. That's just one small part of how Thibodeau's as out of touch defensively as he is offensively.

lipoli390 wrote:

leado01 wrote:We were 4th in FT attempts, and 2nd in FT percentage. That helps your offensive efficiency quite a bit (as old school as it is).

Yep. And that was attributable to KAT and Butler. Half of our efficiency based on free throws will no longer be with the team. In other words, we're going to take a big hit on the offensive side of the ball, not just defense, this season without Butler. That means the folly of Thibodeau's minimal ball-movement iso offense in today's NBA will be very apparent this season unless we somehow get an efficient 20 point per game scorer in a Butler trade.

Note that officials have been instructed to crack down on defensive holding. That should help KAT, who was held constantly last season. But overall, it further accentuates the increasing importance of offense in the NBA. And it also underscores the fact that defending effectively in the NBA has changed significantly from the approaches that worked when Thibodeau was coaching the Bulls or, before that, working as an assistant for the Celtics. I'll remind everyone of that chart last season showing that Thibodeau's defense emphasized defending the mid-range shot. That's just one small part of how Thibodeau's as out of touch defensively as he is offensively.

I do believe we will see an increase in bench FT's in spite of losing Crawford. We have multiple players that are active and aggressive on the offensive end (Okogie, Bates-Diop, Deng and we used to get that from Tyus).

Thibs or whomever is going to have to figure out that Wiggins can get offense (and collect ft's) in transition or in first 3 seconds (option 1), and then adjust to shitty slow down offense.

I also see high/ low being available in the shitty slow down where KAT takes low/bleeds out and week side makes strong cut. That was open on Sunday early on twice, the cut and cutting angles sucked, but when KAT starts in paint and bleeds out, a smart cutting week side will be there for easy buckets.

I'm not nearly as down on Wiggins as most of this board is. If Wolves can't figure out sets that get him dunks then there is a genuine and deep lack of creativity on bench.

khans2k5 wrote:

Q12543 wrote:

khans2k5 wrote:

Q12543 wrote:

khans2k5 wrote:Scoring is the most replaceable stat in the league. The Jazz lost their 2 leading scorers going into last year and ended up being fine. Guys step up when scoring holes need to be filled. The biggest hit we'll take with Jimmy gone is the defense. He was pretty much the glue making that unit respectable. That's why I don't think we are a playoff team without him. Slow iso ball is ideal when you can't defend to limit total possessions of the game, but it's not gonna be enough.

It's a little ironic you cite the Jazz since you were the one that thought they would be worthless offensively last season!

Yes, it's not hard for others to take more shots and score more points. But do we really want the likes of Wiggins and Rose to be taking shots that otherwise would have been taken by Butler? Efficiency matters. Let's hope those extra shots go to the likes of KAT and Teague, especially KAT.

To put things in perspective, pre-Jimmy Wiggins was within 1% true shooting percentage as Donovan Mitchell was last year replacing Hayward as the top scorer in Utah. Efficiency doesn't matter as much as you suggest. It's a numbers game. Guys are gonna score when given the opportunity. Utah being able to score last year should be a great example of Jimmy being gone not meaning much offensively for us. If anything it cleans up our hierarchy issues because we had too many cooks in the kitchen last year and now we don't.

Efficiency absolutely matters a lot. And small differences make a big impact when it's over thousands of possessions and minutes in an 82-game season. Someone has to take Butler's shots and it matters a ton who that is.

Hell, if offense is such an easily acquired commodity, why is there a 10+ point difference in Offensive Rating between the best and worst team last year in that category while on defense it's only an 8 point difference?

Because there are no more elite defenses. There wasn't a single defense in the league with a sub 100 rating in the last 2 years. Everyone is getting beat defensively. The last time we had teams under 100 the gap was 12.7 between best and worst. When the best get worse the gap shrinks because the worst aren't much worse than they have been.

Everyone hated our offense last year, we were only 9th in TS% and yet still we were 4th overall in offensive rating. How did we manage to do that when we weren't top 5 in shooting efficiency?

....by relying on the officials to call fouls on our drives to the hoop and crashing the offensive glass. Heck, you yourself have talked about the problems of relying on FTAs for offense, as the officials are less likely to call a lot of those fouls in the playoffs.

I don't even know what we're arguing about anymore. All I know is that an offense that makes a higher percentage of their shots is the preferable route to offensive success, not forcing the ball into the crowded paint and crashing the offensive glass, which then leaves you vulnerable on transition defense.

Offensive eFG% and defensive eFG% are the two most important team metrics in my opinion. Making shots and preventing made shots. Golden State was top 5 in both these stats while being pretty mediocre in the rebounding, free throw, and possession-based stats.