PG: Well at least we are getting healthy

[drosereturn]

Zach takes a lot of shots cuz zach has to take a lot of shots. Just like at times White has to take a lot of shots. This team has terrible offense, no initiators, or better shot creators. Complain when Zach starts passing the ball to Sato with 2 seconds on the shot clock 15 times per game. Zach very may be more selective with a better cast, until then slamming him for shooting too much is silly.

Thats just not true. Even when Markk and other players were healthy,still took a crap load of shots it marginalized everyone else.
Why are we handing the franchise to a single guy thats not even all-star caliber despite getting 30+ usage?
Trae Young made the starter playing for a worse team so dont even bring up bad team argument.
Because there are no playmakers but a bunch of complementary players in OPJ, WCJ, and Lauri, Valentine must start whether he is replacing Lavine or Sato.

[drosereturn]

Yeah I guess I’m on board with keeping Zach. Hes really really good you’re not gonna just find anyone better. I think he’ll keep improving. Question is, are the Bulls capable of providing him with the necessary tools to succeed?

No terrible idea. If he and Otto resigns at a reasonable deal, yes I would keep them since they are positive value but they will be demanding the max very soon if star FAs are all gone to few teams in 2021.
Maxing Lavine is worse than supermaxing Butler, Rose the team would rot for another decade.
Theres just no value in all-ining on a 30 usg player that has below average playmaking and defense.
If you want to build a good team, you need to plan ahead for 2021 and beyond instead of focusing short term.

Another dumb team named Pistons are giving Christian wood like a leash equivalent to Lavine and he will demand 4 yr/50+ in his upcoming contract. You never want to commit to them before signing to a reasonable deal like Shake Milton first.
Just need to bring back Sam Presti since he will know how to clear up this mess and draft superstars.

[Ctownbulls]

Time to trade zach?

For some people it always be time to trade Zach. Notice the handles that are not popping tonight since we lost. Compare it to Monday night...

One or two games shouldn't impact anyone's analysis. Zach isn't a #1 guy. If they aren't getting a #1 or #2 during his tenure then it might make sense to sell high.

Sent from my Pixel 3 XL using Tapatalk

[sco]

This board is always fun with the hot takes. Anyone judging this team with 3 starters coming back off of major (cardio limiting) injuries and missing our leading scorer isn't someone who has watched much NBA basketball closely.

On the Wolves, what they do great is take 3's behind good screens. I've seen a little of Zach doing that behind Felicio, who is the best screen setter on the team. WCJ seems reluctant to make contact on screens, and I can't tell if it is because he is trying to stay out of foul trouble or if he is being told to roll quickly. On that point, the team seemed hell-bent on getting WCJ shots rolling to the basket, but the results have been bad - now some of that was just terrible passes into traffic and some may be WCJ doesn't have the best hands.

While I was really happy that Coby had another nice night. I also liked his passing with no TO's! His defense is good for a rookie - he doesn't get a lot of steals but he does a nice job positionally to make his man take a tough shot and limits penetration.

What I have trouble considering is a line-up with Coby, Zach, Otto and Lauri. IMO, the problem is that Lauri needs guys getting him shots, that I think will be hard to find with Zach and Coby taking close to 20 a piece. I think Otto is happiest as a lower shot guy, and he can also get his own shot. I think that a better line-up would be starting Thad or Hutch, and having Lauri featured off the bench.

[MikeDC]

You guys are a bunch of idiots arguing over a guy who didn't even play in the game last night.

The important take aways from this game:
1. I see Lauri's quotes as complaints his role in line with Carter's quotes. It's very obvious that the Bulls offense does not put either of these guys in a position to succeed.

2. The Paxson-stated goal for the rest of the season was to get a chance to "know what we have" by having the no longer injured players play together. I'm just going to point out that's BS because they had the chance to play 4 of those 5 guys together and chose to bring Otto Porter off the bench. And... they had the chance to finish the game and they finished the game with Coby, Arci, Shaq, Young, and Sato.

[MikeDC]

What I have trouble considering is a line-up with Coby, Zach, Otto and Lauri. IMO, the problem is that Lauri needs guys getting him shots, that I think will be hard to find with Zach and Coby taking close to 20 a piece. I think Otto is happiest as a lower shot guy, and he can also get his own shot. I think that a better line-up would be starting Thad or Hutch, and having Lauri featured off the bench.

Would it really kill the Bulls (who are already bad in any case) to try the bizarre strategy of playing their best guys together?

Perhaps they even take the outlandish approach of telling Zach and Coby to look prioritize looking for these others guys, and telling the other guys it's ok to, for example, set up in the high post and flare out for a screen or a mid-range jumper if it's wide open, or for Lauri to try to drive past a guy from 15 feet instead of 25 feet?

[chitowndish]

I actually enjoyed it I thought a lot of guys played well and it was at least fun to watch. What I'm happy about is Coby seems like he's making much better decisions out there and he was really frustrating me earlier in the year dribbling into coverage and shooting contested jumpers, he's moving well finding open shots and making the right read. He made some really nice and quick decisions on fast breaks and he just has a unconventional herky jerky way of moving on the court that scrambles D. Kind of reminds me of how RIP didn't move the quickest but he knew how to put a lot of pressure on the D with his movement and making people react to him (Coby can move quick but he has a really nice change of pace and uses it well). If Coby can continue to grow at these things, put pressure on the D with dribble penetration and knock down shots or hit the open man he's going to be dangerous.

I was also pretty impressed with how Valentine was looking he was attacking on D and just looked really fluid with the ball. Lauri was mixing it up in the paint and got some nice midrange jumpers. It was just nice to see a lot of these guys playing together with Porter back it's just good to see. I like how Sato's playing too he's fun to watch and has good energy. I do have to say Carter and Gafford just seem to be taking whining at the refs to pretty painful levels and they just let it get to them so much. I get it refs make bad calls but that just compounds the problem when you act like a tool to them. The worst is if you look at a ref like they're some insignificant bug there's not much in this world that will get someone to mess with you faster than that and they both put off this vibe sometimes. I think Rose had a problem with this too when he came into the league and it's why he struggled with calls so much and I don't think refs forget.

Overall I'm not trying to overthink the games too much it was pretty fun IMO and I thought both teams were executing pretty well. I liked how the Bulls were moving the ball and I think we are starting to look really good on fast breaks, I thought we made a lot of bone headed decisions on these at the beginning of the year but they are making the right read and I like how they are hitting the big man when he hustles Thad had a couple nice shots and I think Coby was doing a good job getting him the ball.

[MikeDC]

The Bulls have the 26th ranked offense in the league.

I think the biggest single reason for that is that the Bulls perceive offense as taking turns, and this perception trickles down to fans. Oh no, there won't be enough shots for everyone!

When you step back and look at the big picture though, everyone getting their allotment of shots isn't winning them anything.

What needs to be understood is that GOOD SHOTS ARE OPEN SHOTS. A good offense is more than the sum of its parts, and more than sharing and taking turns, because the more gravity each player takes, the more likely it is that every player gets open shots.

Zach and Coby create gravity. But by themselves, they don't create enough gravity to consistently power an offense when they're on court with guys who are afraid, unable, or told not to shoot.

Put them together, and put the guys who are being told not to shoot in positions where they can shoot, and you are going to have better offense. It's really not a complicated concept.

[Red8911]

I’m guessing Boylen knows he won’t be back next season so why doesn’t he try to win games for himself ? Why follow the front office wishes at this point? He’s a loyal puppet or he thinks he will be back next season but the truth is the first thing the new GM does is replace him.

[Fl_Flash]

The Bulls have the 26th ranked offense in the league.

I think the biggest single reason for that is that the Bulls perceive offense as taking turns, and this perception trickles down to fans. Oh no, there won't be enough shots for everyone!

When you step back and look at the big picture though, everyone getting their allotment of shots isn't winning them anything.

What needs to be understood is that GOOD SHOTS ARE OPEN SHOTS. A good offense is more than the sum of its parts, and more than sharing and taking turns, because the more gravity each player takes, the more likely it is that every player gets open shots.

Zach and Coby create gravity. But by themselves, they don't create enough gravity to consistently power an offense when they're on court with guys who are afraid, unable, or told not to shoot.

Put them together, and put the guys who are being told not to shoot in positions where they can shoot, and you are going to have better offense. It's really not a complicated concept.

Well said.

The other thing would be it's ok to break a play when there is an obvious mismatch on the floor.
There were at least five times that I counted where the bulls involved a guard and lauri in a two man game. The Bulls got the switch. Lauri had that midget (Maclaughlin?) on him. So what does Lauri do? He backs up behind the three point line and stands there. He doesn't immediately go into the post and demand the ball. Also, nobody else on the Bulls sees the obvious mismatch and directs Lauri into the post. They just run whatever play has been set. Thad, on the other hand, was demanding the ball in the post when he had a mismatch. The results were generally positive.

I don't know if it's Lauri, the coaching staff or what is going on. When you have a guy who is 7 feet tall and he's being guarded by a guy 5' 10" - you get the 7-footer the ball and make the defense have to adjust. Instead, they actually reward the switching by not exposing the mismatch. It's frustrating to watch.

[Red8911]

You guys are a bunch of idiots arguing over a guy who didn't even play in the game last night.

The important take aways from this game:
1. I see Lauri's quotes as complaints his role in line with Carter's quotes. It's very obvious that the Bulls offense does not put either of these guys in a position to succeed.

2. The Paxson-stated goal for the rest of the season was to get a chance to "know what we have" by having the no longer injured players play together. I'm just going to point out that's BS because they had the chance to play 4 of those 5 guys together and chose to bring Otto Porter off the bench. And... they had the chance to finish the game and they finished the game with Coby, Arci, Shaq, Young, and Sato.

Paxsons goal is to just lose at this point, that’s the only thing he knows how to do .I don’t think they care to “see what they have”. They already know what they have. The new GM could very well change most of the team anyway.

[MikeDC]

You guys are a bunch of idiots arguing over a guy who didn't even play in the game last night.

The important take aways from this game:
1. I see Lauri's quotes as complaints his role in line with Carter's quotes. It's very obvious that the Bulls offense does not put either of these guys in a position to succeed.

2. The Paxson-stated goal for the rest of the season was to get a chance to "know what we have" by having the no longer injured players play together. I'm just going to point out that's BS because they had the chance to play 4 of those 5 guys together and chose to bring Otto Porter off the bench. And... they had the chance to finish the game and they finished the game with Coby, Arci, Shaq, Young, and Sato.

Paxsons goal is to just lose at this point, that’s the only thing he knows how to do .I don’t think they care to “see what they have”. They already know what they have. The new GM could very well change most of the team anyway.

You're not wrong, but:
1. They're going to lose most of these games anyway.

2. A new GM coming in makes it more important, not less, to get as much record of these guys playing together as possible. Yes, there will be changes. Those changes should be based on as much evidence as possible, not watching these guys play a pickup team offense.

[ATRAIN53]

How do we go from Adam Mokoka holding his own aginst Luka Doncic 2 nights ago to

INACTIVE

We're 20 games under 500

11th in the East

We're gong nowhere

That kid showed something the other night and earned more minutes.
Insted he earns and INACTIVE????

[samwana]

How do we go from Adam Mokoka holding his own aginst Luka Doncic 2 nights ago to

INACTIVE

We're 20 games under 500

11th in the East

We're gong nowhere

That kid showed something the other night and earned more minutes.
Insted he earns and INACTIVE????

He's only got 9 days left in the NBA on his 2way contract. They probably thought they would win this game without him being on the team.

Sent from my POT-LX1 using RealGM mobile app

[The Senator]

How do we go from Adam Mokoka holding his own aginst Luka Doncic 2 nights ago to

INACTIVE

We're 20 games under 500

11th in the East

We're gong nowhere

That kid showed something the other night and earned more minutes.
Insted he earns and INACTIVE????

Two way contract, he only has a limited number of games he can play with the Bulls in the NBA this year.

[The Explorer]

The Bulls have the 26th ranked offense in the league.

I think the biggest single reason for that is that the Bulls perceive offense as taking turns, and this perception trickles down to fans. Oh no, there won't be enough shots for everyone!

When you step back and look at the big picture though, everyone getting their allotment of shots isn't winning them anything.

What needs to be understood is that GOOD SHOTS ARE OPEN SHOTS. A good offense is more than the sum of its parts, and more than sharing and taking turns, because the more gravity each player takes, the more likely it is that every player gets open shots.

Zach and Coby create gravity. But by themselves, they don't create enough gravity to consistently power an offense when they're on court with guys who are afraid, unable, or told not to shoot.

Put them together, and put the guys who are being told not to shoot in positions where they can shoot, and you are going to have better offense. It's really not a complicated concept.

This is all the coach, which is why so many on the forum rightfully put a large or majority of the blame on Boylen. He's not putting his players in position to succeed.

[wolffy]

The Bulls have the 26th ranked offense in the league.

I think the biggest single reason for that is that the Bulls perceive offense as taking turns, and this perception trickles down to fans. Oh no, there won't be enough shots for everyone!

When you step back and look at the big picture though, everyone getting their allotment of shots isn't winning them anything.

What needs to be understood is that GOOD SHOTS ARE OPEN SHOTS. A good offense is more than the sum of its parts, and more than sharing and taking turns, because the more gravity each player takes, the more likely it is that every player gets open shots.

Zach and Coby create gravity. But by themselves, they don't create enough gravity to consistently power an offense when they're on court with guys who are afraid, unable, or told not to shoot.

Put them together, and put the guys who are being told not to shoot in positions where they can shoot, and you are going to have better offense. It's really not a complicated concept.

When you watch the offense, you see so little off ball movement. What you do see often is on ball screens, and not terribly good ones at that.

So you frequently have no off ball movement, a bad screen up top, a screener that isnt a threat to roll or pop, and a ball handler that isnt a natural distributor. Guess what ur gonna get out of that offense more often than not... shots from the ball handler.

As far as the screener goes, Gafford is the one guy that they seem to have an idea of what they want to do and uts usually just lob it to him.

This is on the staff to fix. And we need a facilitator, be it a point forward or pg.

[PaKii94]

It seems like most of the Lavine "defenders" agree he's not a #1, but then make excuses for why he is trying to be the #1. He shouldn't be controlling the ball most possessions if he's not a #1. He should not be resorting to Zach hero ball if he's not a #1. He should be a part of the team but not THE TEAM if he's not #1.

The ball movement with Lavine doesn't stop because of bad players around him. It stops BECAUSE of him. We see more movement without him because HE is the one stopping it. Doesn't mean it's overall better with inferior talent players BUT they are playing the right way. I want Lavine to play the right way too. If he plays the right way, he COULD be a #1 and a good one at that.

It's like reaching the same production in different ways. Zach playing his usual iso ball is a 4.5/10 offense. Zachless Bulls playing the motion offense is like a 4/10. Bulls playing the motion offense WITH Zach could be 7-8/10? Who knows? But we do know Zach playing iso ball isn't the way to winning and a Zachless team doesn't have too much hope in winning either. So we NEED Zach but we NEED him to play the right way.

For people saying Coby is doing the same thing, yes. He is a scorer. However, he is bringing much more of the other stuff that goes into winning basketball. Most of his shots are timely nowadays vs stopping the ball breaking mid range isos. Last night he had 6 assists and zero turnovers. When has Zach had assists without turnovers? Bulls twitterverse showed multiple clips of good Coby defense, will we ever see that from Zach?

This game wasn't lost on offense. We still scored above our average (which includes 60 games of Zach). It was the defense. When you let the other team shoot 44% from 3 on over half the possessions, that's really hard to beat. That's equivalent of 66% shooting overall.

[PaKii94]

Time to trade zach?

For some people it always be time to trade Zach. Notice the handles that are not popping tonight since we lost. Compare it to Monday night...

One or two games shouldn't impact anyone's analysis. Zach isn't a #1 guy. If they aren't getting a #1 or #2 during his tenure then it might make sense to sell high.

Sent from my Pixel 3 XL using Tapatalk

That's the problem. I think Zach can be good in a #2 role, but he needs someone higher on the totem pole to keep him in check. Unfortunately, I don't see where this #1 comes from. It definitely can't be a draft pick. Then if that's the case, we are going in circles. If Coby can replicate Zach's scoring like he has these past few games, then Zach's best value might as a trade piece to restructure the team (since he would be the highest valued player)

[ZOMG]

The Bulls have the 26th ranked offense in the league.

I think the biggest single reason for that is that the Bulls perceive offense as taking turns, and this perception trickles down to fans. Oh no, there won't be enough shots for everyone!

When you step back and look at the big picture though, everyone getting their allotment of shots isn't winning them anything.

What needs to be understood is that GOOD SHOTS ARE OPEN SHOTS. A good offense is more than the sum of its parts, and more than sharing and taking turns, because the more gravity each player takes, the more likely it is that every player gets open shots.

Zach and Coby create gravity. But by themselves, they don't create enough gravity to consistently power an offense when they're on court with guys who are afraid, unable, or told not to shoot.

Put them together, and put the guys who are being told not to shoot in positions where they can shoot, and you are going to have better offense. It's really not a complicated concept.

Well said.

The other thing would be it's ok to break a play when there is an obvious mismatch on the floor.
There were at least five times that I counted where the bulls involved a guard and lauri in a two man game. The Bulls got the switch. Lauri had that midget (Maclaughlin?) on him. So what does Lauri do? He backs up behind the three point line and stands there. He doesn't immediately go into the post and demand the ball. Also, nobody else on the Bulls sees the obvious mismatch and directs Lauri into the post. They just run whatever play has been set. Thad, on the other hand, was demanding the ball in the post when he had a mismatch. The results were generally positive.

I don't know if it's Lauri, the coaching staff or what is going on. When you have a guy who is 7 feet tall and he's being guarded by a guy 5' 10" - you get the 7-footer the ball and make the defense have to adjust. Instead, they actually reward the switching by not exposing the mismatch. It's frustrating to watch.

Here we go again.

1) Nobody's claiming Lauri has good low post instincts. Let's just get that out of the way.

2) Now... regarding the bolded part. That's been happening a lot over the last few years, it's true. However, when you get a small-on-big mismatch like that, the whole team needs to recognize it - and most importantly, any other big who's occupying the low post needs to get the HELL out of the way, fast. Preferably to the weakside corner, where he he can space the floor for the mismatch 1-on-1.

Unfortunately, now that Kornet's out, we don't have any other bigs who can space the floor for Lauri. It's always the other way around. Gafford's a 2nd round pick and a rookie, I'm not gonna be too hard on him. But the fact that Wendell still can't do this very basic thing at all is damning. I just don't know why he continues to get a free pass for preventing the Bulls from playing modern NBA basketball.

Never draft non-shooters. NEVER. Particularly in the lottery. Are we clear?