Would You Support Rebuilding Around Josh Giddey?

[Am2626]

if they re-sign this guy I probably delete my account and actually make a point of not watching bulls games instead of occasionally having them on and being bored by them.

he's had a hot month though for sure. that's all it is, a hot month, whether I'm a hater or not. he's not suddenly a dynamic scorer. rondo had some hot stretches too, do you build around him?

You probably should already be doing this.

[Rose2Boozer]

AK should prioritize talent who complements Giddey's strengths and covers up his weaknesses. I wouldn't consider that building around Giddey, but AK can't go forward ignoring the positives and negatives.

[PJSteven22]

AK should prioritize talent who complements Giddey's strengths and covers up his weaknesses. I wouldn't consider that building around Giddey, but AK can't go forward ignoring the positives and negatives.

They just need to get young talent

[meekrab]

What else can we realistically do? Force Coby and Ayo into the ball handling offense initiator position? Hope Lonzo actually plays 70+ games for the first time ever? Run the offense through Vuc? Promote Tre Jones to starter?

The minimum passing grade for this offseason should be to resign Giddey, trade Vuc for a bad contract and whatever draft assets, sign a young athletic 7 foot rim runner to play spot minutes and then see what else is out there.

[dougthonus]

The "he's not a #1 on a contender" is such a ridiculous argument (and I understand your arguing against it). Well nobody on the team is a #1 on a championship team including Matas (and he never will be in the future). So just cut everyone and put Benny out there for 3 hours?

99% of the league isn't a #1 on a championship team, let's cut all their contracts and just have Joker & SGA play 1 on 1 for 82 games.

I think it's not "he's not #1 player on a championship team or get rid of him".

It's he's not good enough to be the primary ball handler on a good team, and he's a huge negative if he's not on the ball. That isn't the same statement about other players. Coby, Ayo, Matas, a lot of other guys can play multiple roles.

The key for Giddey is to be good enough off the ball to play multiple roles or good enough on the ball to be the man. There's really big concerns about him achieving either of those things.

There's also reason to think maybe he can get better towards both. It just depends how much you believe in his recent offensive efficiency up tick, and if you think he could maintain that in a secondary role. Visually watching him, I'm not really convinced, but the numbers have backed up that maybe it's possible.

[DASMACKDOWN]

The "he's not a #1 on a contender" is such a ridiculous argument (and I understand your arguing against it). Well nobody on the team is a #1 on a championship team including Matas (and he never will be in the future). So just cut everyone and put Benny out there for 3 hours?

99% of the league isn't a #1 on a championship team, let's cut all their contracts and just have Joker & SGA play 1 on 1 for 82 games.

There's also reason to think maybe he can get better towards both. It just depends how much you believe in his recent offensive efficiency up tick, and if you think he could maintain that in a secondary role. Visually watching him, I'm not really convinced, but the numbers have backed up that maybe it's possible.

I'm not even sure if that is accurate either.

Last I checked Giddey's usage rate this season is his lowest in his career. If that is the case, then he is essentially "playing off" or "with someone else". I guess someone needs to check what his usage rate is since Zach's been gone.

But I think people make it too linear. Its the same argument for Coby. Giddey is not running every single play on offense. Coby isnt just sitting in the corner waiting for catch and shoots. The offense is rather balanced.

[Jcool0]

The "he's not a #1 on a contender" is such a ridiculous argument (and I understand your arguing against it). Well nobody on the team is a #1 on a championship team including Matas (and he never will be in the future). So just cut everyone and put Benny out there for 3 hours?

99% of the league isn't a #1 on a championship team, let's cut all their contracts and just have Joker & SGA play 1 on 1 for 82 games.

There's also reason to think maybe he can get better towards both. It just depends how much you believe in his recent offensive efficiency up tick, and if you think he could maintain that in a secondary role. Visually watching him, I'm not really convinced, but the numbers have backed up that maybe it's possible.

I'm not even sure if that is accurate either.

Last I checked Giddey's usage rate this season is his lowest in his career. If that is the case, then he is essentially "playing off" or "with someone else". I guess someone needs to check what his usage rate is since Zach's been gone.

But I think people make it too linear. Its the same argument for Coby. Giddey is not running every single play on offense. Coby isnt just sitting in the corner waiting for catch and shoots. The offense is rather balanced.

In 2022 whee he averaged 16/8/6 he had a usage % of 24.6. Last year he was at 23.1. In February of this year he was at 23.3 and this month at 24.6. Coby white was at 22.6% in February and currently 30%.

[dougthonus]

I'm not even sure if that is accurate either.

Last I checked Giddey's usage rate this season is his lowest in his career. If that is the case, then he is essentially "playing off" or "with someone else". I guess someone needs to check what his usage rate is since Zach's been gone.

But I think people make it too linear. Its the same argument for Coby. Giddey is not running every single play on offense. Coby isnt just sitting in the corner waiting for catch and shoots. The offense is rather balanced.

I don't think Giddey is playing as a heliocentric primary option or anything, and I agree he's doing a combo of on-ball and off-ball stuff. I guess in the end, its whether or not you think he is as effective as his counting stats, historically, there was a lot of reason to think no, the last few weeks, maybe yes.

[pipfan]

Win Lotto-add Flagg
Trade Coby to Orl for #11 (multiple possible options)
Vuc to Char for Nurkic, #37

Ball/Ayo
Giddy/Huerter
Matas/Phillips
Flagg/PWill
Collins/Smith
Deep bench of Carter, Terry, Nurkic, #11 pick and #37 pick-plus what we get back for Coby from Magic

We start a huge, defensive lineup and let's see what happens

[nitetrain8603]

No. Too many holes in his game. He's not a needle mover. He's a nice player but that's it.

Jeremy Lamb was a nice player. Alex Caruso is a nice player. He's replaceable talent.

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[jacoby1us]

This has to be a joke

My sentiments exactly, where is the damn green font already?

[Jcool0]

No. Too many holes in his game. He's not a needle mover. He's a nice player but that's it.

Jeremy Lamb was a nice player. Alex Caruso is a nice player. He's replaceable talent.

Sent from my SM-S928U using Tapatalk

When was Jeremy Lamb a nice player?

[Chi town]

To the OP…

Build with Josh not around.

I think he can be a winning player. Prob 3rd best as an efficient 18, 10, 9 player.

[MrSparkle]

Checking out usage numbers… last 5 games, Giddey is around 23%, while Coby is at 28%.

If you stretch to last 10, they were more even at ~23% each.

Interestingly, despite Coby’s huge 44p game, he still has a net-negative rating for the last 2 games. He had 30% usage for this stretch. Maybe he’ll take continue this higher usage trend. Overall the numbers are very mediocre, despite the occasional huge game.

Giddey’s wild small sample 60% TS atleast translates to very good advanced/efficiency stats, on low usage.

[League Circles]

I've seen a lot of posters casually equate Giddey's age with likelihood and degree of further future improvement. I think that's a mistake. IMO, these are the reasons you typically see guys improve as they age:

1. They grow mentally and through coaching, repitition and contemplation, they start playing smarter. This happens for a significant number of players - most I would say. Two types of guys that it doesn't happen extensively to are really dumb players (because they just can't ever learn very well), and really smart players who already have a great mental feel for the game. I think most everyone would agree that Giddey has that great mental feel for what to do on the court. Not unlike Ayo or a young Jimmy Butler was.

2. They get new opportunities in terms of role and/or reps. A lot of guys need a little room to flourish. This is often true of young players of course. And while it's not entirely absent from Giddey's situation (maybe he's feeling freer to try to attack without Lavine around), he has had very atypically extensive opportunities to do what he's always done for his age. This is his 4th year as a full time NBA starter, with the ball in his hands a lot of the time, and his 5th year playing professional basketball.

3. They work on and develop better physical skills through focused training and reps. Giddey has improved his shot mechanics somewhat this year, but despite that, he's probably still in the bottom 10% of nba players on jumpshot mechanics which is a terrible sign for a 4th year guy IMO. He's gotta be one of the worst in mechanics for a non center in the league. I never even played varsity HS basketball and my shot mechanics have been better than his since I was like 10 years old. The only Bulls I can think of that reminded me of his mechanics were strikingly DPOY caliber guys Noah, Rodman, and Ben Wallace.

4. They get better in terms of physical capabilities with growth, strength, or speed. Almost all nba players are done growing except the 19-20 years olds I think, so that's almost certainly out for Josh. He could get stronger, which would make him a bit faster, but I'm not aware of any evidence that he's done this or values doing it in the future. Maybe he is lifting and sprinting and eating right and all that, but I haven't read it being reported and I've seen no signs of it. So he does have potential to improve in this area, but if it's likely, why hasn't it happened in the past 4-5 years? My guess is that he doesn't believe it's critical and no one has had the initiative to impress it upon him. It's one thing to have his body coming into the league for a year or two, cause nobody is really in a position to truly train correctly until they play pro ball. But this is his 5th year doing that. A guy with his physical deficiencies should have a really good body by now, and he plainly doesn't. I mean it's good that he's not fat or anything, but this guy is hardly training like the greats do, DESPITE having obvious reason to do so for 5 years.

I'm still concerned that he might just be a talented guy who loves basketball and wrongly thinks that that's enough.

[nitetrain8603]

No. Too many holes in his game. He's not a needle mover. He's a nice player but that's it.

Jeremy Lamb was a nice player. Alex Caruso is a nice player. He's replaceable talent.

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When was Jeremy Lamb a nice player?

CHA/IND before he had a bad surgery that messed up his knee.

As I stated before, however, they are not needle movers.

[Jcool0]

No. Too many holes in his game. He's not a needle mover. He's a nice player but that's it.

Jeremy Lamb was a nice player. Alex Caruso is a nice player. He's replaceable talent.

Sent from my SM-S928U using Tapatalk

When was Jeremy Lamb a nice player?

CHA/IND before he had a bad surgery that messed up his knee.

As I stated before, however, they are not needle movers.

Those years are called mediocre not nice.

[drosestruts]

It's a lot of semantics in here.

Should we build around Giddey and treat him like a franchise centerprice? no

Should we look to re-sign Giddey? yes

If we re-sign Giddey should be look to add complimentary talent? also yes

Is that "building around Giddey"? I'd argue no, it's just doing the best we can with what we have


Is Giddey destined to be the next in line after Butler and LaVine where we never actually built a team that is complimentary to itself?

I sure hope not

Again I wouldn't call this "building around Giddey", if some players we draft starts to exceed Giddey in value or a trade becomes available that requires trading Giddey and gets us a star it's "bye bye Giddey" in my mind. Or at least a deprioritization of Giddey.

So I wouldn't advocate for building around him. I would advocate for making conscious decisions that take into account the talent and players we do have (aka I wouldn't trade for DeRozan when we have LaVine sort of that or sign Wade in free agency when we have Butler).

[DropStep]

I think if Giddey is going to get a commitment from us, and I hope he will at something under 30m, you have to take that into account in assembling complementary players around him, even if you don't see him as a first or even second scoring option. Which, depending on the definition, could be seen as "rebuilding around" a guy who isn't necessarily your flagship guy. But Giddey has such an unusual combination of strengths and weaknesses - so much so that this board almost always devolves into semantics as soon as we try to describe his position on the floor - and will have the ball in his hands enough, that I think it would be silly not to try to build a cohesive whole out of your team by picking players who compensate for his weaknesses, and don't do the same things and distribute the ball in the same way he does. That means it's not just blind BPA any more - Giddey-friendly players get a bonus on their 2K score once his signature is on the extension. Because he's so unusual, there will be guys who are more useful to us than to the average team, and some who will be less valuable here. Ironically, I would say a poor rebounding but good shooting and good defending SF/PF-type would thrive here more with Giddey than on your average team. If only we had a good one of those for about 5/90...