SB Nation User Blog: Scotter

The Evolution of the WNBA

Scotter — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 05:46:38 -0000

The WNBA crossed an important milestone this season: it was the first time the league averaged more than 1 point per possession.

After being fairly flat for several years, the WNBA had it's most efficient offensive season. Below is chart showing league averages for Points/100 Possessions (A measure of how efficiently teams score), Pace (The number of possessions per team each game), and Pts/G (Which is the result of efficiency multiplied by opportunity: pts/possXposs/g). As you can see the league scoring dramatically increased in 2006, but that increase came almost entirely from the increased possessions per game due to the change to the 24 second shot clock with only a slight uptick in offensive efficiency. This season saw a significant uptick in league efficiency as well as a uptick in pace.

Was this increase in offensive efficiency the product of having everyone in training camp before the season? Was it the result of the shorter rosters this season? Or was it the result of an increase in offensive talent? I'm hoping for the latter, but what I'm really hoping for is that this was more than a one year spike.

There's also no question that the Phoenix Mercury have had a significant effect in both boosting league efficiency and pace, and thankfully no one can say that you can't win championships playing that way in the WNBA.

Four Factors

In order to take a look at how the league has change in other ways, I charted the Four factors for the WNBA over the years.

The Four Factors split the game of basketball into it's statistical components: shooting measured by effective FG% ((FGM + 0.5*3PA)/FGA), rebounding measured by what percentage of FGA are offensive rebounded, turnover rate measured by turnovers divided by possessions, and the free throw line measured by FTM/FGA (This includes how often teams get to the FT line and how well teams make their FTA). I decided to include the assist rate, assists/FGM, in additions to the Four Factors because it's a defining trend in the league's evolution.

Compared to the NBA over the same period, the WNBA has been fairly stable.

Offensive rebounds and turnovers are gradually trending down, and assist rate has also trended down to the point where it's fairly close to that of the NBA. WNBA players are getting better and better at creating their own shot, and that increase in shot creation hasn't hurt the league's offensive efficiency at all.

It's clear that the WNBA has been moving away from a college basketball type game towards a NBA style game, and I think that's good for the league. It may no longer be the game that the fans who fled men's basketball in favor of women's basketball years ago love, but it is a game that NBA fans and basketball fans in general can embrace.

As someone who's watched the WNBA since it's inception, it's been exciting to see so many NBA fans realize that they enjoy the current WNBA, whether it's Q McCall or Phoenix Stan or Bethlem Shoals or my favorite NBA writer and fellow Bulls fan Kelly Dwyer or any other recent convert. That combined with the level of interaction between NBA and WNBA players seen in social media like Twitter has made me a believer that the future of the WNBA heavily rests with converting NBA fans. It will never be a replicate of the NBA, but it's reached a point where it's similar enough with the 24 second shot clock and increased offensive efficiency that it's easier for NBA fans to simply appreciate the differences.

And if you're interested in how the NBA has changed over the last three decades look here.

The Evolution of the NBA

Scotter — Sat, 03 Oct 2009 08:29:58 -0000

I watched a lot of NBATV this summer. I watched Jerry West and Elgin Baylor trying to carry their team against the Celtics. I watched Chamberlain and Russell play each other. I watched the championship Knicks squads. I watched Moses and Julius. I watched the 80s Lakers and Celtics. And thanks to Jordan, Stockton, and Robinson entering the Hall of Fame, I watched a ton of their games. While watching all of those games, I was reminded that the period covering the late 80s and early 90s was by far the best period in NBA history in terms of the quality of play. I'm going to talk about why, but also thought I would share some graphs showing the evolution of the NBA. Here's a graph of league average offensive efficiency (pts/100 possessions) and league average pace (possessions/48 min) from the first season after the NBA/ABA merger through last season.

As you can see pace dropped like a rock beginning with the merger and accelerating when the league moved the 3-point line closer in 94/95 before finally bottoming out during the lockout shortened season of 98/99. Offensive efficiency was rising even before the 3-point shot was introduced in the 79/80 season and leveled off at around 108 pts/100poss. The league finally reached that level again just last season. To get an idea of why league efficiency and pace changed over the last 30 seasons since the introduction of the 3-point line here's a graph of the league averages of the four factors, and I included the league average 3PA/FGA because the 3-point shot has had the greatest impact on changing the game over the last 30 years.

As you can see them most notable change is the increase in 3PA/FGA over the last 30 seasons, growing from just over 2% of shots taken in the early 80s to just over 22% of shots taken last season and accompanying growth in 3-point accuracy. It would probably be a smooth curve if not for the 3 seasons of the shortened 3-point line. This curve makes sense. In the early years of the 3-point line players weren't equipped for shooting the 3. You had a league full of veterans that had never played with it in HS or college. Even the scorers at guard had skill sets primarily built around getting close to the basket for shots because that was how you won. The ABA did have the 3-point line, but there weren't a lot of 3s taken, only 4% of FGA in the last season of the ABA for example, because the players didn't grow up with the 3-point line. In the 1st season of the line 3.1% of shots were 3s. Apparently a bunch of guys realized they couldn't make it It wasn't until 84/85 that at least 3% of FGA were 3-pointers again. Over the 80s some players adapted. Even someone like Magic was knocking down 3s by the end of the 80s.

But, colleges also played a big role in the evolution of the 3 in the NBA. Beginning with the Southern conference in 1980, individual conferences began adding various 3-point lines. Now rookies began entering the league with experience shooting 3s in college and that only grew as the standard NCAA 3-point line was adopted in 1986. And now for the last twenty years every player has grown up with the 3-point line as a part of youth basketball, and it's become a constantly increasing feature of basketball at the lower levels.

The rise in the frequency of the 3-point attempt has resulted in the steady decline of pace with the league bottoming out at basically the limit of what the 24 second shot clock would allow. There was a huge incentive to score on the fast break before the 3-point shot, but the possibility of launching a 3 at the end of shot clock has largely erased that incentive. While the pace of the game has rebounded some, it's hard to envision the league average traveling north when of 95 again. The rise of the 3-point shot also coincided with a steady decline in offensive rebounds. There's more offensive rebounds in fastbreak situations and on shots close to the basket, the 3-pointer both devalued the marginal fastbreak opportunity and the marginal shot close to the basket.

As I said, I believe the late 80s and early 90s was by the best period of NBA basketball. By then the 3-point shot had created the floor spacing that didn't exist in prior years. It was always 6 or 7 players within a 15 foot radius of the hoop. The Lakers won two championships and went to three finals in the 1st four seasons of the 3-point era, despite never having more than 100 3PA in the regular season. The 76ers won the 83 championship with only Andrew Toney attempting more than 8 3s in the regular season, and they shot 1 for 10 on 3PA in the playoffs. Then in 83/84 the Lakers suddenly took 226 3PA as Michael Cooper began taking over a 100 3PA. By 86/87 5% of FGA were 3PA and most teams, especially the good teams, had at least a couple of solid 3-point shooters on the roster spacing the floor. But, fewer than 10% of FGA were 3PA as late as 91-92. Denver led the league with a 1005 3PA that season, only the Thunder failed to break 1000 3PA that season. The Bulls had 454 3PA as a team in 91-92 and Ben Gordon had 422 3PA just last season.

The late 80s and early 90s was this period where the league reached it's historical peak of offensive efficiency. Yes, the NBA reached that same peak efficiency last season. And I am pleased by the recent trends in the NBA, but the present offensive efficiency reached on the back of 3-pointers and and unchecked dribble penetration by guards doesn't match the late 80s and early 90s qualitatively in my book. In the late 80s players had adapted to the 3-point shot and the resulting increase in floor spacing had boosted offenses, but not taken over offenses. Pace was declining during this period, but was still above 96 poss/g through 92/93. Turnovers were down and offensive rebounding still hadn't declined very much. Players leaving college before their junior year of college hadn't really hit the NBA yet. And most of all the NBA had this blend of players with the post up and mid-range skills necessary to play in an era without the 3-point shot and players with the ability to make the 3 and space the floor that resulted in the highest quality of play the league has ever seen. And then there was also the intersection of so many of the greatest players in NBA history. It just was the best period of basketball in my opinion, and unfortunately it can never be that way again.

If you want to look at the numbers behind the graphs here's the spreadsheet.

A Few WNBA Finals Thoughts

Scotter — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 04:58:29 -0000

The Mercury are averaging roughly the same amount of points in the regular season and the playoffs (92.8 vs. 93.5) I looked at the Mercury regular season performance and realized that the Mercury's scoring improvement from 2008 to 2009 was coming from an increased pace, rather than increased offensive efficiency. The playoffs have been the opposite of that. The Mercury have averaged 9 fewer offensive possessions in the playoffs, but have been scoring the same amount of points because the team's offensive efficiency has been unreal in the playoffs, jumping from a league leading 1.06 points a per possession to an incredible 1.19 points per possession. However, the Mercury did give up a very high 1.11 points per poss on defense, up from 1.03 in the regular season.
There's no other way to frame this other than offense vs. defense on the team level. While the Mercury are scoring 1.19 points per poss and giving up 1.11 in the playoffs, the Fever are close to their regular season averages. The Fever are only scoring 0.96 points per poss, but they're also only giving up 0.94 points per poss as compared to scoring 0.97 and giving up 0.92 in the regular season. Both teams have actually played a similar pace in the playoffs with the Mercury averaging less than 2 more poss/g minutes than the Fever.
The two teams in the WNBA Finals were both out rebounded in the playoffs and the regular season. Both have been much more active on the offensive glass in the playoffs than the regular season, Who controls the boards in this matchup?
In the matchup of the league's best defensive and offensive players, Catchings and Taurasi have been equally important to their team in the playoffs. The best player for their team both offensive and defensively by a wide margin. Each has scored a quarter of their team's points and handed out a quarter fo their team's assists in the playoffs, and also led their team in rebounding. What's unique about this matchup is that where each player's team needs them the most is not on the side of the ball where they are the best in the league. Catchings has been THE key offensive player for the Fever in the playoffs, the only really efficient scorer. Catchings's offensive efficiency has been 1.15 points per poss in the playoffs, none of the other 6 players that have played more than 35 minutes in the playoffs has done better than January's 1.02 points per poss. Catchings has finished her 2 point FGA, shooting 58% after only 41% in the regular season, reached the FT line at an incredible rate of 2 FT/ 3FGA, led the team in assists, and crashed the offensive boards. This is an enormous improvement over her regular season performance, and without it the Fever would have been out of the playoffs by now. Taurasi's offensive performance has also been up across the board by a significant margin in the playoffs, but Taurasi's offensive efficiency doesn't stand out on the Mercury the way Tamika's does. Taylor, Bonner, Smith, and Willingham have all produced at least 1.23 points per poss. Where Diana Taurasi is truly indenpensable to the Mercury is on defense. She's the team's best weakside help defender (The most blocks by a player shorter than 6'4" this season), their most physical and most versatile defender, and a key defensive rebounder on a team without great rebounding posts.

Replacing Renee Montgomery: UConn's offense this season

Scotter — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 20:31:38 -0000

There has been a lot of discussion about UConn losing Renee Montgomery and what that means for this season.

A debate about replacing Renee's intangibles could go on forever, but I thought I'd focus on the nuts and bolts of replacing Renee in the offense.

No one of this season's roster can pick the pocket of an opposing guard at halfcourt like Renee, but I haven't seen anyone worried about replacing Renee on defense. This also isn't about the individual merits of Tiffany Hayes, Lorin Dixon, or Caroline Doty starting at point guard. Replacing a star player that was responsible for 25% of the team's possessions when she was on the floor is never a simple 1 for 1 substitution and it's a two guard system that doesn't put a lot pressure on the point guard's ball handling ability, this is the broader view of how the team as a whole replaces Renee.

To begin with, the Possession Distribution chart below is roughly how possessions were divided by UConn's starting lineup. (I used stats from the 10 games after Caroline Doty's ACL injury where Geno used a rotation of 8 or less players to simplify things).

Possessions in basketball statistics are defined by acts that lead to the other team getting the ball, turnovers and the the FTAs and FGAs that result in a change of possession.

Tiffany Hayes and Kalana Greene's 15% slice of the pie is indicative of the size of the offensive role for every player outside the big three of Renee, Maya, and Tina. Caroline Doty, Lorin Dixon, and Kaili McLaren were all in that 15% area. Meghan Gardler -- who played limited minutes in the 8 player rotation after Doty was injured -- was at 10% in her minutes and didn't generate the necessary shot attempts to get to 15%.

Going into next season it's probably unfair to expect anyone except Maya Moore, Tina Charles, Kalana Greene, and Tiffany Hayes to increase the size of their pie slice from last season. The size of a player's offensive role, or their slice of pie, usually doesn't change very much season to season, rarely more than +/-2%. How efficient a player is with the possessions they use may change as the player improves, but their share of the pie doesn't.

The exception to this are players that are highly skilled at creating their own shot. They have the ability to expand their size of the pie when there is a gap left by a departing star, but even shot creators don't fluctuate as much season to season as you would think because usually the shot creators are taking the first bite of the pie before the role players get to the pie, in addition to the leftovers when the shot clock is running down.

In Renee's case she was definitely familiar with the first bite, taking a very significant chunk of her shots very early in the shot clock before the ball got to her teammates. So it's not that hard to imagine that the ball would have found similarly capable hands a little further into many of Renee's possessions.

The players that play the majority of Renee's minutes this season are likely going to be limited to around that 15% sized slice of pie. That means 10% of the team's possessions, which amounts to 6 or 7 possessions per game, are going to end up in the hands of the four previous mentioned players. That's a significant chuck, but not a particularly large one.

Maya Moore and Tina Charles are capable of simply taking on that 10% by themselves without much of a drop off in efficiency, but I suspect a slightly more modest rise in their share of the pie. Still they should combine to make up at least 50% of the pie next season, which puts half of that 10% in very good hands.

The key player here may actually be Kalana Greene. Kalana had a small slice of the pie last season, but as a sophomore in 06/07 before Maya's arrival and Kalana's ACL injury dramatically altered the food chain, Kalana had a 21% slice of the pie, while maintaining the same level of offensive efficiency as Renee had last season.

There have been a lot of predictions made that Tiffany Hayes will greatly expand her offensive role next season and that may very well happen to some degree, but it doesn't have to have happen in order for the team to fill in for Renee.

To this point I have been discussing quantity and not quality, and it's the quality of the UConn offense without Renee that most people are really interested.

UConn is going to average around 70 possessions per game this season, and someone is going to end each of those possessions. However, it is important to understand that 40% of what Renee was responsible for offensively will end up going to Maya, Tina, Kalana, or Tiffany and the other 60% will rest with the players directly playing her minutes. Where those possessions ultimately end up plays a huge role in determining the quality of the offense

The chart above covers the 17 games last season where UConn used an eight player rotation or less. I'm using that filter so that we're only looking at what players did in the competitive games. The chart shows each player's poss% (Usage%) which the estimate of each player's slice of pie when they're on the court. Pts/100 possessions is a measure of each player's total offensive efficiency (All shooting areas, turnovers, and offensive rebounding). This stat describes the quality of a player's offense. To give you an idea of where a player's pts/100 poss came from I provided each player true shooting% (This is a player's overall shooting efficiency combining 2P FGA, 3P FGA, and FTA) and their TO% (The % of a player's possessions that end in a turnover instead of a shot attempt).

Maya Moore, Tina Charles, Kalana Greene, Tiffany Hayes, and Caroline Doty were all at least as efficient as Renee last season. That Renee acheived the same efficiency as Doty, Hayes, and Greene with a significantly larger share of the pie is impressive, but UConn is in a good position to absorb that loss.

When Diana Taurasi graduated, for example, she not only was responsible for the biggest share of the pie, she was also the team's most efficient player. And unlike this year's team the established rotation players didn't have the shot creation abilities to increase their offensive roles and compensate for the loss of Taurasi. So the freshmen, especially Charde Houston ended up filling that hole.

Charde had the shot creation abilities to eat up a huge chuck of the pie (30% of the pie when she was on the floor as a freshman), but couldn't produce anything close to Taurasi's offensive effiiciency (Only 99 pts/100 poss). As we've discussed, this year's UConn team has four players with the shot creation ability to absorb that 10% difference between a role player and a star player without a loss of offensive efficiency. So the team is likely to do as well as or better with that 40% of Renee's possessions.

What's happens with the other 60% is conjecture at this point. The key here is how Caroline Doty returns from her ACL injury. Doty isn't capable of taking on 25% of the offense like Renee, but she is capable of doing just as well with her 15% of the offense as Renee would with the same size slice of pie. If Caroline can at least play 20 to 25 minutes in competitive games and Tiffany Hayes can pick up another 5 minutes or so then the team will be able to replace about 85% of what Renee did with similar levels of production and more if Doty proves capable of more than 25 minutes per game by the time postseason play rolls around.

Last season, UConn was able to replace Caroline Doty's production after her injury without an offensive drop off by simply increasing the minutes of both Kalana Greene and Tiffany Hayes who were capable of same level of quality offense. That's what can happen following Renee's departure, a redistribution of resources that effectively substitutes for the loss. But, Renee Montgomery's graduation does mean the team couldn't absorb an injury to the five players discussed so far without a significant offensive drop off.

Lorin Dixon is the player whose minutes will fill in the cracks unless incoming freshman Kelly Faris plays well enough to pass the junior Dixon in the rotation. The magnitude of the offensive dropoff without Renee will unfortunately be defined by the number of minutes that Dixon plays above the 12 minutes she averaged in competitive games last season.

As you can see from her red line on the chart, Dixon is significantly behind every other player in offensive efficiency. The difference between Montgomery and Dixon even if Montgomery used Dixon's small slice of the pie is 3 points over 40 minutes (0.8*10 poss vs. 1.1*10 poss). It may not seem huge, but over only 10 possessions that's a huge difference.

I know many fans are hopeful for big improvement from DIxon this season, but a giant improvement would at best cut down those 3 points to 1.5 points. That's still a large drop off over 10 possessions. When you have the front court that UConn has, that's preferable to a marginally better offensive point guard that's taking shots before the ball has a chance to find the front court players.

One of the interesting things about basketball is that there are players that bad teams can't afford to have on the court, but these same players can be very effective for really good teams that have the offensive stars to carry them. And the players that can carry the scoring load for a bad team, can also hold a good team back offensively.

Still, if DIxon is playing starters minutes that's probably a total four or five point loss per game because a non-scoring threat also negatively impacts the other players on the court in addition to the 1.5 to 3 points that comes directly from the individual difference between Montgomery and Dixon.

UConn obviously doesn't have the same margin for error without Renee Montgomery, but if things break right they realistically have a chance to be just as good. Considering they were as good as any WCBB team has ever been on that side of the ball last season, that would be quite an achievement.

If things don't break quite right this is still likely to be the best offensive team in college basketball, largely because no team can match the combination of ofensive quantity and defensive quality of TIna Charles and Maya Moore. The only team that has a chance to challenge that offensive title is Stanford if Nneka Ogwumike breaks out in a big way to give Stanford two 1st team All-Americans.

Atheltic testing results finally released

Scotter — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 20:35:14 -0000

Atheltic testing results finally released

It's finally out.

Mario Austin to play for the Bulls' summer league team

Scotter — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 20:11:08 -0000

Mario Austin to play for the Bulls' summer league team

Apparently Mario Austin is back on the Bulls radar. He was drafted in 03' and has been decent in Europe. The Bulls still own his rights so he's a minor asset that could be included in trades or used to fill in the bench after a big trade. Maybe he just wants out of Europe or maybe the Bulls are actually interested in getting some value out of their long lost 2nd round pick.

Salmons: One season fluke?

Scotter — Sat, 23 May 2009 03:13:58 -0000

Was John's season a fluke?

I've seen this the question asked quite a few times. A player suddenly shooting the ball better at age 29 does raise serious questions, but I think there's a decent chance it's not a fluke. Lets take a look his shooting the last few years in Sacramento and with the Bulls courtesy of 82games.

		Jumpers			Close
	Att.	eFG%	Ast'd	Att.	eFG%	Ast'd	Foul%
Bulls	73%	50%	51%	27%	66%	50%	13%
Sac 09	68%	47%	40%	32%	63%	36%	13%
2007/08	58%	42%	39%	42%	63%	35%	14%
2006/07	66%	43%	43%	34%	63%	45%	14%

The numbers that should jump out right away is his FG% on close shots. 63% for three straight seasons. That's impressive efficiency around the basket. And he's getting to the basket for a good % of his shots. Gordon had an 80/20 split on his FGA for comparison. So at the very least John will finish around the basket as well as any Bull.

It is true that he's only put up one really strong 3-point shooting season, but he was consistent all season long with his shooting. He never shot worse than 37% in any full month this season, and shot at least 43% from 3 in his other 5 full months. And he shot the ball pretty well from nearly every spot on the floor. Prior to this season, Prior to this season John was a break even 3-point shooter at 33%, rather than a horrible 3-point shooter. Visually it looks like he's developed a consistent, but unorthodox, trigger mechanism for his shot, but he obviously doesn't have a Ben Gordon like track record. .

The focus has been on John's improved shooting, but nearly as important was a career best turnover rate. And the shooting and drop in turnover rate are likely connected. This season in Sacramento 24% of his FGA were 3PA, and he was assited on 62% of his 3PM. In 07/08 14% of his FGA were 3PA and 89% of John's 3PM were assisted. That at least suggests that the pull up three he took often this season either never almost never went in or simply wasn't a part of his game prior to this season

In 07/08 and 08/09 in Sacramento, Salmons took the same % of 2P jump shots, had the same FG% on those shots, and the same assist% on those shots.

		3P FGA			2P Jumpers			Inside Shots
	Att.	FG%	AST%	Att.	FG%	AST%	Att.	FG%	AST%
2008/09	24	0.418	62	43%	0.388	26	31	0.63	36
2007/08	14	0.331	89	43%	0.387	4	41	0.625	35

And he had the same FG% on side shots with the same AST%, but a quarter of his forays to the basket ilkely became those pull up 3-point attempts. If he's shooting 40% on 3PA that's a reasonable tradeoff because it was that reduction in drives to the basket that likely led to a signifcant decline in turnovers. In Chicago he took even more 3PA and his turnovers dropped even more.

Something that caught my eye almost immediately is how much Salmons was assisted in Chicago compared to Sacramento. It's a fairly large jump, and I wouldn't have thought that Salmons was assisted on half of his shots in Chicago. For comparison Gordon was assisted on 47% of jumpers and 38% of close shots. At least part of the reason for the jump is Salmons getting a lot more assisted transition baskets with the Bulls, and the other part is more assisted 3s because he wasn't a primary ball handler in Chicago.

Much of John's game has been very consistent from year. Improving his shooting allowed him to cut his turnovers, and turned him into a starting caliber player for the 1st time in his career. So why did he shoot 41% o 3PA this season? The stats suggest either he made changes mechanically that allowed him to make jumpers with consistency, or that with Artest gone and Kevin Martin out injured he was able to play big minutes as a #1 scoring option for the 1st time. Which would have meant getting to take those 1 on 1 pull up 3s on a consistent basis instead of being put in catch and shoot situations as a reserve role player. Salmons shot 41% on 3PA this year, but he still didn't appear to be an effective catch and shoot player. It's probably a little of both. He's an odd player, but I don't expect his shooting to be a fluke if he's allowed to do his thing. If he's asked to conform to a system or asked to play a limited role off the bench where he can't get his 1 on 1 opportunities in the flow of the game there's a much greater chance that he reverts to the 33% 3P shooter and mediocre player. You can live with John's style of play when it comes within the rythm of the game, but it's not what you really want from a guy coming off the bench.

Can the Bulls survive with Salmons at SG?

I've seen questions about his ability to play SG, and I believe there were reports out of Sacramento at the time of the trade that he played better at SF. But at least according to 82games Salmons has at the very least not played any worse at SG.

		SG			SF
	MIN%	PER	opp PER	MIN%	PER	opp PER
Bulls				22	17.2	17.2
2008/09	18	17.4	21.6	30	18	17.1
2007/08	39	16.7	15.5	22	14.6	16.8
2006/07	26	14.5	15.3	23	12.8	17.6

His opponents PER this season in Sacramento wasn't good at SG, but it looks like a fluke compared to the rest of his career. Salmons appears to be a player that gives up about the amount that he produces. (In looking at the opp PER numbers, you should keep in mind that Salmons likely played most of his minutes at SG with Artest on the floor in 06/07 and 07/08, and played SF with defensive liability Kevin Martin on the floor)

The other question at least in my mind is can you afford to play Salmons at SF if you dump Deng. There were obviously long stretches where the Bulls were very effective offensively letting Gordon and Salmons take turns. The team scored an impressive 113.8 pts per 100 possessions in Salmons minutes in Chicago. But, playing Rose, Gordon, and Salmons is an unsustainable defensive disaster for a good team. The Bulls also gave up 112.7 points per 100 poss with Salmons on the floor. It's obviously not just the fault of Salmons. When Rose and/or Gordon was on the floor the team also gave up at least 110 pts per 100 poss. Salmons played about 75% of his minutes with Gordon and the team scored 105 points and gave up 104 points per 48 minutes in their minutes together. Rose, Gordon, and Salmons on the floor together is too poor defensively to be sustainable over the course of a season. Unfortunately Salmons just doesn't rebound well enough or contribute enough to the team defense to be starting at SF along with Gordon and Rose. If it was a different starting SG and PG than Rose and Gordon then starting Salmons at SF would be more feasible.

Going forward the Bulls can survive next season with Salmons at starting at SG. Defensively it's a good place to place him, especially in the East with all the big starting SGs. It's easier defensively for him to start at SG and then slide over during the game to backup the SF because most teams go smaller and quicker off the bench in the backcourt. That aren't a ton of starting SGs whose biggest threat is dribble oenetration. There are also less help responsibilities defensively at SG, especially if he's assigned to stay with a shooter. And offensively playing SG or SF hasn't really made any difference to Salmons based on his past history. Salmons can't replace Gordon's offense by himself, but he can at least fill the void enough that the Bulls can make up the difference in other areas, particularly on defense.

I see a lot proposed lineups with everyone back or at least Gordon and Deng starting, and Salmons coming off the bench. That's not something that's likely to work well for Salmons. There's a reason Sacramento has always been worse defensively with him on the floor, and that he was also an offense killer until this season. Bringing his offensive style into an already established game flow is a recipe for offensive distruption, and he has to score well enough to justify that distrubtion. And normally bringing a mediocre player off the bench isn't a big deal, but Salmons is the type of player that actively hurts his team with his mediocre play because of his ball dominance and turnover issues. I find myself in the strange position of being relatively content with Salmons starting at SG, but wanting no part of him as a starting SF or bench player.

Getting Back on Board with Gordon

Scotter — Tue, 05 May 2009 21:18:34 -0000

For awhile now I've been resigned to Gordon leaving because resigning him looked like it would create more long term problems than it solved from my perspective. Especially because I wanted the Bulls to have the best possible chance of at least making a run at Wade in 2010. Today, I changed my mind on Gordon because of discussion on this site.

The salary cap was 58.7 million dollars this season, and to be safe let's assume it remains the same. I'm not the salary cap expert that other posters are, but the cream of the 2010 free agent crop would make a little over 17 million in 2010-11 if they didn't exercise their opt out clauses. The Bulls getting Wade would likely ultimately be a result of a sign and trade so that Wade can get his full salary, but the Bulls still have to be a threat to sign Wade out right in order to force Miami's hand. Bosh might be willing to come out right, but he'd probably prefer getting his max contract through a sign and trade as well. So I'll assume the Bulls need to be close to 18 million under the cap to offer a max contract to free agent. Which means they can't be much higher than 40 million dollars in committed salary.

The Bulls right now have four players in Rose, Deng, Hinrich, and Noah under contract for 2010-11 at just over 29 million combined. That's four solid pieces to add a star player to. If the Bulls use 2 of their next 3 1st round picks that will add something around 3 million in salary. So that puts the Bulls at roughly 32 million dollars in committed salary. Leaving around 9 million dollars of room to play with.

So that leaves the Bulls will three players to make decisions on: Tyrus Thomas, Ben Gordon, and John Salmons. I still believe in Tyrus, and in an ideal world I'd rather have Thomas than Gordon long term. But, I know there's almost no way that the Bulls get a long term contract done with Thomas this summer after the way the playoffs went and that agreeing to a contract with him quickly in the summer of 2010 is just as unlikely. If Tyrus doesn't sign this summer as expected, the Bulls should probably keep him until the summer of 2010 because the ability to renounce his rights creates flexibility.

So that leaves 9 million that can potentially be spent on Ben Gordon. If the Bulls can get Gordon to sign a contract that pays out 9 million or less in 2010-11. They can sign Gordon without it negatively impacting the opportunity to sign a max free agent in 2010 because the Bulls could renounce the rights to Tyrus. And it would increase the options for the Bulls. Because the threat exists for Wade to go to Chicago out right, the Bulls can likely force a sign and trade with Miami. Ben Gordon could be used in a sign and trade for Wade, which gets Wade to Chicago while still giving him his max contract. Thomas could be signed and shipped to Miami or traded somewhere else. The Bulls could just relinquish their rights to Thomas. Or potentially depending on the numbers they might not have to give up the rights to Thomas in order to complete a sign and trade for a player like Wade. Allowing the Bulls time to work out a contract with Thomas. If the Bulls go after Bosh instead then the Bulls have the flexibility to keep Gordon and maybe send other players in a sign and trade. The key is having the cap space to sign a Bosh or Wade out right in order to force sign and trades from either Miami or Toronto.

Salmons was aquired as Ben Gordon insurance. Salmons can play the 2010-11 season for 5.8 million or he can opt out in the summer of 2010. Opinion seems to be split about which option he takes, but it probably doesn't matter in the big scheme of things. If Gordon doesn't resign then Salmons is good insurance and his contract in 2010-11 isn't big enough to impact free agency even if he doesn't opt out. If Gordon does resign then Salmons should be able to be moved during the 09-10 season for players with contracts that will definitely be expiring. San Antonio, for example, was reportedly interested in Salmons last season, and they'll have plenty of expiring deals next season.

The elephant in the room with all of this is of course the luxury tax. Signing Gordon from my perspective only makes sense if the Bulls don't have to dump Hinrich or Deng for essentially nothing in order to get under the luxury tax. While signing Gordon pushes the Bulls over the tax, perhaps they can minimize the tax by buying out Tim Thomas and/or moving Jerome James to a team with salary cap space. Thomas already mentioned a buyout to the press. I forget how the insurance issue ultimately works out if James is traded. But, there's some potential to minimize the tax costs.

This is the way I can get fully behind a Gordon resigning. If his contract doesn't cost more than 9 million or so in the 1st couple of years, and it doesn't require dumping Hinrich or Deng to do it. Of course it also requires Bulls management having a plan. And it would sure help if Vinny isn't the coach by the summer of 2010 if the Bulls aren't willing to fire him this summer. Now go ahead and point out the flaws in my logic and/or math. Start another Hinrich/Gordon war. Show off how tough you are by calling Deng soft. And if you get bored call LaMarcus Aldridge a ninny.

March BOP

Scotter — Sun, 05 Apr 2009 02:53:48 -0000

[Note by your friendly BullsBlogger, 04/05/09 5:00 PM CDT: From the fanposts. -ed. ]

Here's Basketball on Paper stats for March. I included Feburary as well for easy comparison.

Feburary	USG%	TO%	eFG%	TS%	ORtg	DRtg	Poss	OR%	DR%	FTr	AS%	MIN
TEAM	20.0	14.6	49.9	55.2	112.5	111.7	1115.3	30.3	68.3	28.0	56.3	2905
OPP	19.9	14.8	49.0	54.0	111.7	112.5	1110.8	31.7	69.7	23.0	52.9	2905
Rose	24.2	14.3	49.4	51.7	107.2	115.8	189.2	6.2	7.0	12.9	31.7	407
Gordon	25.8	12.9	52.2	58.6	115.0	114.3	209.4	3.5	9.9	29.6	13.5	422
Deng	19.2	13.1	42.5	48.6	100.2	112.0	145.5	3.8	13.9	28.4	9.8	394
Thomas	22.0	17.0	49.6	56.2	109.1	106.5	164.9	9.7	19.1	39.1	7.0	391
Noah	13.6	17.1	58.5	62.6	125.0	109.6	99.2	13.4	20.5	43.1	9.2	379
Hinrich	18.3	19.0	53.3	58.1	108.8	113.2	105.5	0.4	7.6	23.1	22.4	301
Brad Miller	18.5	14.6	47.0	56.8	117.6	106.0	41.2	6.9	28.4	42.4	18.3	116
Tim Thomas	19.5	11.8	51.9	54.2	106.9	113.0	25.5	1.7	14.5	19.2	6.9	68
Salmons	17.3	11.7	61.1	68.0	133.6	114.6	51.3	3.7	12.8	44.4	13.3	154
Nocioni	18.0	7.9	59.8	62.7	125.2	111.3	37.9	4.2	14.0	22.0	3.0	110
Sefolosa	11.9	10.6	19.4	23.3	72.7	115.8	18.8	5.6	6.7	11.1	11.4	82
Gray	16.4	22.0	29.4	34.1	75.0	109.4	22.7	9.6	18.3	23.5	3.9	72

March	USG%	TO%	eFG%	TS%	ORtg	DRtg	Poss	OR%	DR%	FTr	AS%	MIN
TEAM	20.0	14.6	51.1	56.0	112.0	110.9	1519.3	27.4	71.0	24.9	51.5	3915
OPP	19.8	13.8	50.3	54.2	110.9	112.0	1500.7	29.0	72.6	19.6	50.5	3915
Noah	14.3	13.4	53.2	59.3	124.8	107.7	127.1	12.9	22.9	37.2	7.8	459
Thomas	18.8	15.8	46.3	51.8	101.9	105.8	183.1	7.2	20.5	26.9	4.2	502
Salmons	19.8	13.3	56.7	62.3	117.5	112.8	233.0	1.6	11.3	29.5	6.1	606
Gordon	22.9	13.8	52.1	56.8	110.0	113.4	275.6	2.1	7.2	22.8	14.6	621
Rose	22.5	14.2	47.1	51.3	104.8	114.5	253.4	3.5	11.4	17.7	24.4	581
Miller	21.8	16.9	51.1	59.7	118.2	110.5	200.7	12.0	17.7	48.9	16.3	475
Tim Thomas	18.1	12.2	49.0	48.9	99.8	113.5	49.1	5.2	14.4	4.0	8.6	140
Hinrich	18.8	16.6	54.4	55.9	106.3	109.6	162.3	1.1	11.1	10.7	19.4	444

I don't have many comments. Derrick finally posted a decent defensive rebounding month. Noah was consistent once again. Honestly, just looking at how thoroughly average this team was in a month when they should have been improving makes me lose interest.

How I've been thinking about the future.

Scotter — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 02:37:31 -0000

I started out skeptical of the 2010 plans because of the roster and salary structure of the Bulls, but the coup Paxson pulled off at the trade deadline has made 2010 an almost undeniable fact. As I've been thinking about future possibilities. This plan is what I keep coming back to.

This summer I draft a low ceiling/high floor SG/SF and PF/C with the two 1st rounds picks. I'm not looking for future starters, just guys that could come in and play a productive 10-15 minutes off the bench. I let Gordon walk, and I make a hard push to get Tyrus to sign this summer so I don't have to deal with his cap hold in the summer of 2010. I really want Tyrus on this team long term. Moving him for Stoudemire or Bosh wouldn't be an easy decision for me because I continue to think he's going to be very good, and the type of player that consistently makes game changing plays. I would hope showing some faith in Tyrus combined with the uncertainity of the economy would get him to sign, but I know it's a long shot. I'd be willing to give him the 9-10 million per year that's been the going rate for athletic big men.

If I can get Thomas signed, I forget about blockbuster summer deals or trade deadline deals unless it's too good to pass up. I ride out the season with Rose, Salmons, Deng, Thomas, and Noah starting with Hinrich, Miller, Tim Thomas, two rookies, and some cheap veterans off the bench. Since Paxson seems set on giving Vinny another year that's not enough players to screw up with. If Salmons puts up another strong season, maybe he opts out to get his last contract.

Then in the summer of 2010, I go after Dwyane Wade hard. I didn't think Wade would leave Miami and worried about his injuries, but I've been changing my mind during the course of the season. He's clearly healthy again, and I think has learned to slightly alter his style. I think the new rule changes protect him more as well. Outside of LeBron, Wade is clearly the best player on the market that summer. He's more dominant than Bosh or Stoudemire, and brings championship experience.

Chicago is the one place Wade could make up the money he'd lose in by not signing in Miami because of the marketing opportunities. He has established enough of his own celebrity and accomplishment, and enough time has passed that the Jordan legacy would be an asset, rather than a burden. In addition there is the opportunity to market the All Chicago backcourt of Wade and Rose.

On the court Chicago would offer Derrick Rose, a player Wade openly lobbied for prior to the draft. However, they would have more than Derrick Rose. Rose, Wade, Deng, Thomas, and Noah with Hinrich, perhaps a resigned Brad Miller, some young players including potentially Asik, and cheap veterans would be a contending team capable of playing championship level defense with unmatched athleticism. I don't think Miami can match that as a talent base for Wade to pursue championships with. Even if Miami they could get Bosh to pair with Wade, I don't think Bosh and Beasley match what the Bulls would have. I'm finally willing to entertain Wade as a possibility.

I think this path gets the team further than any other possibility. Giving up Tyrus and expirings for Bosh or Stoudemire is a huge boost, but I don't think it's enough to get the team where it needs to go. It would still require some huge development by Rose. The more I think about it, the more I bet big on Wade. This summer will determine, whether this is going to be feasible. If it's clear Tyrus is going to be difficult to resign then the Bulls can go to plan B. Not much would have to change to go to Plan B. The same draft picks work. I still let Gordon walk, and readdress the SG position in 2010 free agency. And of course injuries during the course of next season could change things, but if I'm Paxson I keep Wade in mind as plan A. I have the patience to wait another year and a half for a shot at Wade, but I don't know if other Bulls fans do.