Josh Giddey - Conundrum Killer

[League Circles]

Fun fact:

In his 4th year as a starter, Giddey is 15th in the league in assist % and 13th in the league in assists / 100 possessions.

Passing is BY FAR his greatest leveragable strength as a player, and he's basically average as far as starting points go in assists. Yet most of the guys better than him in this category are also better defenders, better shooters, and better scorers.

[League Circles]

Giddey feels like Vuc part 2. Ignore half of the game (defense), and get excited about his counting stats. "Double double machine". "Walking triple double threat", etc.

[sco]

Fun fact:

In his 4th year as a starter, Giddey is 15th in the league in assist % and 13th in the league in assists / 100 possessions.

Passing is BY FAR his greatest leveragable strength as a player, and he's basically average as far as starting points go in assists. Yet most of the guys better than him in this category are also better defenders, better shooters, and better scorers.

Who are the guys ranked higher? Would we actually prefer them? If so, could we actually get them?

[Jcool0]

If he keeps this up the rest of the year he is going to get closer to 30M then 20M. But as you alluded to we have seen this with Lauri so will be interesting how the season ends for up.

And we won't let him go because we want to be seen as winning that trade.

I think there are two questions on the table:

1) Will AK play the RFA process (IMO the right way) by letting Giddey go to market to test the market (with AK making the public statement that the Bulls will match)?

2) If Giddey gets an offer over $20M, will he match it?

Unless someone is maxing Giddey out the Bulls are matching.

[League Circles]

Fun fact:

In his 4th year as a starter, Giddey is 15th in the league in assist % and 13th in the league in assists / 100 possessions.

Passing is BY FAR his greatest leveragable strength as a player, and he's basically average as far as starting points go in assists. Yet most of the guys better than him in this category are also better defenders, better shooters, and better scorers.

Who are the guys ranked higher? Would we actually prefer them? If so, could we actually get them?

They are mostly better players. But I reject the premise - that we should just commit to the best guys we can right now. Maybe our point will be Lonzo Ball, maybe it will be one of our next 2 or 3 FRPs, maybe it will be somebody we trade for or sign as a FA.

Locking in below average starters on long term deals is something that bad teams shouldn't really entertain IMO.

[Jcool0]

Fun fact:

In his 4th year as a starter, Giddey is 15th in the league in assist % and 13th in the league in assists / 100 possessions.

Passing is BY FAR his greatest leveragable strength as a player, and he's basically average as far as starting points go in assists. Yet most of the guys better than him in this category are also better defenders, better shooters, and better scorers.

Who are the guys ranked higher? Would we actually prefer them? If so, could we actually get them?

They are mostly better players. But I reject the premise - that we should just commit to the best guys we can right now. Maybe our point will be Lonzo Ball, maybe it will be one of our next 2 or 3 FRPs, maybe it will be somebody we trade for or sign as a FA.

Locking in below average starters on long term deals is something that bad teams shouldn't really entertain IMO.

Locking in a 22 year old PG who is a 7/7 guy is what good organizations do. FWIW he will most likely be signing a 4 year deal and unless Flagg is on the Bulls next year that contract should line up nicely with a rebuild.

[PaKii94]

Giddey feels like Vuc part 2. Ignore half of the game (defense), and get excited about his counting stats. "Double double machine". "Walking triple double threat", etc.

Kinda but I disagree with the overall premise. Vuc is expected to get high # of boards as the only big out there which would inflate his numbers. On the other end of the floor The center position is a lot more valuable for defense which vuc is completely fully negative at at this point. Giddy on the other hand has physical limitations but he's been trying and the last few games I've seen he has been making some defensive plays. Due to the physical limitations he will have his lapses but his overall offense greatly make it up for the defense. The defensive from the point guard position is less valuable than from the center position

As for giddy's counting stats I would say they are very slightly inflated. Assist can be inflated (a la jerian grant) but I feel like giddy does have a good natural feel there for the game and a good basketball IQ. He's the best playmaker the bulls have had since I'm started watching them. Rondo was a better playmaker but he was too old at his bulls stint.

[Jcool0]

As for giddy's counting stats I would say they are very slightly inflated. Assist can be inflated (a la jerian grant) but I feel like giddy does have a good natural feel there for the game and a good basketball IQ. He's the best playmaker The bulls I've had since I'm started watching them. Rondo was a better playmaker but he was too old at his bulls stint.

Where does Lonzo fit?

[League Circles]

Who are the guys ranked higher? Would we actually prefer them? If so, could we actually get them?

They are mostly better players. But I reject the premise - that we should just commit to the best guys we can right now. Maybe our point will be Lonzo Ball, maybe it will be one of our next 2 or 3 FRPs, maybe it will be somebody we trade for or sign as a FA.

Locking in below average starters on long term deals is something that bad teams shouldn't really entertain IMO.

Locking in a 22 year old PG who is a 7/7 guy is what good organizations do. FWIW he will most likely be signing a 4 year deal and unless Flagg is on the Bulls next year that contract should line up nicely with a rebuild.

What does 7/7 mean? Like 7 boards and 7 assists per game? Idk why any team would be so narrowly focused on per game counting stats that completely ignore our pace of play and the fact that 50% of the game is defense.

His contract would line up nicely with a rebuild to be a . 500 team within a few years. That's what we're trying to avoid doing again.

And, no offense, but anyone that insists in calling him a guard will always be reminded by me that he is in fact a point-forward, not a guard, which is fine. But the reason the distinction matters is that calling him a guard implies that we only need at most one player quicker than him in the starting lineup, which no one believes. Last time I paid attention to the starting lineup intros the Bulls were still calling him a forward. The idea is that by calling him a forward, it makes it clear that a starting lineup needs at least two players quicker than him and at least one bigger than him. That constrains us a bit.

Most people would say OKC is a good organization, and instead of locking him up they traded him for a one dimensional bench player. And it improved them as a team.

[PaKii94]

As for giddy's counting stats I would say they are very slightly inflated. Assist can be inflated (a la jerian grant) but I feel like giddy does have a good natural feel there for the game and a good basketball IQ. He's the best playmaker The bulls I've had since I'm started watching them. Rondo was a better playmaker but he was too old at his bulls stint.

Where does Lonzo fit?

Lonzo is a great glue guy but he's not a traditional ball in hand make plays for others type. He's great at connective passes and transition playmaking.

Giddey is like Lonzo but with better half court playmaking minus defense

[Infinity2152]

Our best bet is if Brooklyn signs one or two people first day of free agency. Nets and Pistons look like the only teams with cap space to make a 20+ offer, and Pistons have Cunningham. Unfortunately, it only takes one team like Brooklyn to knock us out. If they spend their cap, Giddey loses a lot of leverage. But he fits what they should be looking for, young talent in FA, more than just about any top FA.

Wildest turnaround ever: Nets sign Lebron and Kyrie, both free agents, and figure out a way to keep Cam Thomas. Lebron and Kyrie both know it's easier to win in the East and both just lost their running mates.

Kyrie, Cam Thomas, Lebron, Cam Johnson, Claxton. Lebron makes it to the conference Finals twice in his final two seasons. Nets clear $50 mill in cap again in 2027. Know it's not going to happen but that would a wild show! Sellout their arena for two years straight. Make a ton of money.

[jnrjr79]

Our best bet is if Brooklyn signs one or two people first day of free agency. Nets and Pistons look like the only teams with cap space to make a 20+ offer, and Pistons have Cunningham. Unfortunately, it only takes one team like Brooklyn to knock us out. If they spend their cap, Giddey loses a lot of leverage. But he fits what they should be looking for, young talent in FA, more than just about any top FA.

Honestly, the best scenario might be Brooklyn and Detroit not being interested, but some other team wanting to offer him a deal larger than the MLE and needing to engineer a S&T to do it.

[PJSteven22]

If the Thunder were a better team with him on the bench last year, why did they start him 80 games? Do you know something they didn't? Again, his minutes went UP the first series. They only dropped the second series. Facing Kyrie and Luka, maybe the two toughest guard covers in the league. And again, THEY LOST. So what if they benched him. They lost when they did it. To a team they were just 2-2 with. Great decision. They were probably using analytics to make that decision too.

By all means keep bringing up they benched him in the playoffs and dropped his minutes. I'll keep bringing up they lost both games and got bounced when they did that.

You brought up the fact that he was a “key contributor” for a number one seed. I just provided context to it. He was maybe the 5th best player on that team and that’s pushing it. They lost against Dallas because Dallas had two of the top three players and they had a better defense. Even though they lost it still doesn’t change the fact that he was hurting their team and the coach had to bench him. You’re welcome for the additional context. Playoff series are tough and it’s concerning how he will scale up on good teams. I personally just see him as a good stats mid team type of guy. His flaws are too limiting and he can’t really fix them.

You brought up context. Most of the time the Thunder play in the playoffs the other team will have 2 of the top three players. After SGA, there's Holgrem and Jalen Williams. They're not better than Lebron/AD, Jokic/Murray, etc. Mav's had possibly the two shiftiest most creative guards in the league in Kyrie and Luka. SGA is already a PG and he's not getting benched. Maybe it makes sense to start with a defender on one of them and keep your other PG to relieve Shai? Funny how all your logic fails when they started him the entire previous series and won 4-0. Or won 57 games in the regular season with Giddey playing 25 minutes, which is a lot of minutes.

The guy starts 8 out of 10 playoff games, and everybody wants to point to the 2 games as the norm instead of the 8, lmao! Like the Thunder had a revelation tied at 2-2 in the second round. After three years, plus a first playoff series, it just occurred to them to bench Giddey. Or MAYBE, as coaches do, they changed the lineup due to matchups. Happens frequently in the playoffs, usually without so much drama over 2 games. That they lost. It definitely changes the facts. Nobody's presenting any facts that they played better after benching him. If you're going to keep bringing up the benching, you need to prove they played better with him on the bench. Or it does not support the benching. It's a coaches decision, are coaches infallible? They always make the right substitutions and put the right player in? If that's the case, they made the infallible decision to start Giddey for 3 years, plus the first playoff series. You say they lost against Dallas because of players and better defense, but somehow they were 2-2.

They won 50% of four games against this "far superior team" with Giddey starting. They won 0% of 2 with him coming off the bench. That's a fact, apply all the context you want. Wins and losses are the only thing that matter. They lost at a higher rate against the same team with Giddey off the bench. It's the same players they went 2-2 against. Dallas wasn't even a better overall team, imo.

Games 6, they got eliminated. Shai had 36, Jalen Williams had 22. Luka had 29, Kyrie had 22. Holgrem scored 15, more than their third best player. So much for the best three players theory. Cason Wallace plays double Giddey minutes, or Giddey's usual minutes (25), goes 2-8 from the field, 1-7 from 3. At least the guy they started over Giddey, Isaiah Joe, put up astounding numbers right? Only 11 pts, 3 assist, 3 rebounds in 29 minutes, but good shooting!

Game 5: Luka 31, Kyrie 12. Shai 30, Jalen Wiliams 12. Of course, the Thunder benched Giddey (5-8 from the field) for the analytical darling Isiah Joe, who went 2-9, 2-8 from 3. A staggering 10 pts, 0 assists, 3 rebounds. They also played Cason Wallace double Giddey's minutes for 1-7 shooting. Absolutely brilliant. Giddey shot better, got the same amount of rebounds and more assists and points in 11 minutes as Joe did in 21.

Giddey ever puts up crappy numbers like the guys they replaced him with, he'd get crucified. But it's his fault they replaced him with players he's clearly better than. 10pt, 0 assists, 3 rebounds, 2-9 shooting in 25 minutes? That's not why they lost, cause they replaced Giddey with those guys, it's the Mavs super team. That they just beat 2 out of four. It's crazy their coach isn't ridiculed for benching a player who put up 12, 5, and 6 in 25 minutes at 34% 3 pt shooting for these bums and lost.

Is this enough context?

Nope you unfortunately missed the point. How dare I have higher expectations and standards for Josh Giddey? The bigger picture is that is not equipped to handle being a high usage on ball creator. You keep on brushing off his weaknesses as oh well he’s young and he’ll improve. This was said about numerous young players. This most certainly not a guarantee that he’ll improve in a sizable amount. Especially when he doesn’t really have the limited athleticism and natural scoring instincts to be that guy.

[Infinity2152]

Fun fact:

In his 4th year as a starter, Giddey is 15th in the league in assist % and 13th in the league in assists / 100 possessions.

Passing is BY FAR his greatest leveragable strength as a player, and he's basically average as far as starting points go in assists. Yet most of the guys better than him in this category are also better defenders, better shooters, and better scorers.

Here we go with incomplete stats. Is that 15th in the league of all point guards or 15th in the league of the 450 players in the league? There's a big difference, you have guys like Jokic, Luka, and Lebron leading their team in assists. And none of them are great defenders.

If he's 15th of the 450 players in the league, that's not average. That's extraordinary. Post your list so we can see the context.

Here's one: most assists per 100 possessions for players that get at least 25 minutes in 2024-2025 minimum 30 games played. That pretty much covers it all right?

https://www.statmuse.com/nba/ask?q=most+assists+per+game+per+100+possessions+2024-2025+player+gets+minimum+25+minutes+per+game+min+30+games+played

Giddey is #19 of all players who have played at least 25 minutes and 30 games, so basically all healthy starters and a lot of bench players. Guys in front of him include Draymond Green (PF), Andrew Nembhard (SG), Dejaunte Murray (SG), Jimmy Butler (SF), Hartenstein (center), Aaron Gordon (PF), Ayo Dosunmu (SG), and Divencenzo (SG).

Guys in front of him at PG include Chris Paul, Mike Conley, Ja Morant, Tyrese Haliburton, Fred Van Fleet, Russell Westbrook, D'Angelo Russell. All elite at some point, some right now. Most of them got max contracts. Only two near average PGs left, Davion Mitchell and Tyus Jones, and they're both above average imo. All are 26 or older except Haliburton, a passing phenom. at 24. Giddey's 22.

[Guru]

Fun fact:

In his 4th year as a starter, Giddey is 15th in the league in assist % and 13th in the league in assists / 100 possessions.

Passing is BY FAR his greatest leveragable strength as a player, and he's basically average as far as starting points go in assists. Yet most of the guys better than him in this category are also better defenders, better shooters, and better scorers.

What are they paid?

[dougthonus]

Fun fact:

In his 4th year as a starter, Giddey is 15th in the league in assist % and 13th in the league in assists / 100 possessions.

Passing is BY FAR his greatest leveragable strength as a player, and he's basically average as far as starting points go in assists. Yet most of the guys better than him in this category are also better defenders, better shooters, and better scorers.

What are they paid?

What is the highest salaried player in the league that is earned his contract while these things were true:
a terrible shooter
a worst in class defender
an overall poor efficient offensive player

Not sure there is a guy in the league that you could say those three things about and then they got more than the MLE.

That is the thing about Giddey and why it is called the "Giddey Conundrum", if focus on his strengths and say all the passers get paid like this, then yeah, he probably deserves more money. If you look at his weaknesses, there is not a single guy in the league with his weaknesses that got paid (I'm sure some that are in that state now due to decline / injuries / etc).

There are simply no comparable data points for Giddey. The best was probably someone like Ricky Rubio, but Rubio was a good defender.

[Infinity2152]

Fun fact:

In his 4th year as a starter, Giddey is 15th in the league in assist % and 13th in the league in assists / 100 possessions.

Passing is BY FAR his greatest leveragable strength as a player, and he's basically average as far as starting points go in assists. Yet most of the guys better than him in this category are also better defenders, better shooters, and better scorers.

What are they paid?

Posted a list just above. Check the list of players who've played at least 30 games and 25 minutes and see who's in front of Giddey, lol! (Hint, it includes Chris Paul, Mike Conley, Fred Van Fleet, and Tyrese Haliburton.

He's still holding on to that terrible shooter nonsense, when his shooting has improved every year and is at 36.1% on the season from three.

Holding onto that worst in class defender even though Giddey looks noticeably better now that he's a little familiar with a brand new system.

Think Giddey could shoot 40% for the entire year and still get called a terrible shooter.

Still saying he can't score. When he got 27 pts, 16 rebounds and 4 assists the other night, the other team must not have gotten the e-mail. Maybe it went to their spam folder.

[HomoSapien]

I feel like his defense has gotten better of late. He still doesn't have the footspeed to be a + defender, but he is getting a lot of deflections, steals, and blocks. He also does a good job of challenging shots. In 16 games in January he shot 37% from downtown and through 8 games this month he's shooting 49%.

One thing that I've noticed about our fan base is that we're either way too hard on our young players or we're full of excuses for them (and there's rarely anything in the middle). Giddey is really playing well of late. If we had drafted him, the board would be hyping him up right now. Most of us felt like Caruso should have brought in a better trade package/were down on Giddey because of his personal drama. If you can put all that aside, we at least have a player who is worth keeping tabs on and could actually become intriguing if he can become average at least on one of his weaknesses.

No one wants to overpay him, but we have so little to enjoy or being optimistic about these days. Might as well enjoy the Giddey show.

[League Circles]

Fun fact:

In his 4th year as a starter, Giddey is 15th in the league in assist % and 13th in the league in assists / 100 possessions.

Passing is BY FAR his greatest leveragable strength as a player, and he's basically average as far as starting points go in assists. Yet most of the guys better than him in this category are also better defenders, better shooters, and better scorers.

Here we go with incomplete stats. Is that 15th in the league of all point guards or 15th in the league of the 450 players in the league? There's a big difference, you have guys like Jokic, Luka, and Lebron leading their team in assists. And none of them are great defenders.

If he's 15th of the 450 players in the league, that's not average. That's extraordinary. Post your list so we can see the context.

Here's one: most assists per 100 possessions for players that get at least 25 minutes in 2024-2025 minimum 30 games played. That pretty much covers it all right?

https://www.statmuse.com/nba/ask?q=most+assists+per+game+per+100+possessions+2024-2025+player+gets+minimum+25+minutes+per+game+min+30+games+played

Giddey is #19 of all players who have played at least 25 minutes and 30 games, so basically all healthy starters and a lot of bench players. Guys in front of him include Draymond Green (PF), Andrew Nembhard (SG), Dejaunte Murray (SG), Jimmy Butler (SF), Hartenstein (center), Aaron Gordon (PF), Ayo Dosunmu (SG), and Divencenzo (SG).

Guys in front of him at PG include Chris Paul, Mike Conley, Ja Morant, Tyrese Haliburton, Fred Van Fleet, Russell Westbrook, D'Angelo Russell. All elite at some point, some right now. Most of them got max contracts. Only two near average PGs left, Davion Mitchell and Tyus Jones, and they're both above average imo.

I said average for a starting point. I don't use the term "point guard" because it has never mattered in the NBA which position a team's "point" plays. Jokic plays it from the 5. Lebron has been playing it from the 4 for a decade or whatever.

It's irrelevant to only compare him to "point guards" because the only reason he's even remotely being considered as a long term starter / building block is because of his passing creation. And he absolutely, positively should be compared to guys like Lebron, Luka, Jokic, etc. they are no less of "points" than he is.

In order for a flawed player whose primary contribution is creating buckets with his passing to be considered as a long term piece for a bad team, he should already be in the top 5-10 in the league at that skill, which he is not. If he was, then at least we could tell ourselves that his poor defense and scoring efficiency are OK, because they're balanced out by truly elite shot creation for others. He's definitely good at creating shots for others, but IMO, not good enough to offset his flaws to justify being a lead ball handler. If we magically already had 4 really good defenders who all drew a lot of attention with their shooting, Giddey could work. Because we don't have that and shouldn't want to limit ourselves to that, we should pay him MLE type money, work out a sign and trade, or let him walk IMO.

[League Circles]

Fun fact:

In his 4th year as a starter, Giddey is 15th in the league in assist % and 13th in the league in assists / 100 possessions.

Passing is BY FAR his greatest leveragable strength as a player, and he's basically average as far as starting points go in assists. Yet most of the guys better than him in this category are also better defenders, better shooters, and better scorers.

What are they paid?

Posted a list just above. Check the list of players who've played at least 30 games and 25 minutes and see who's in front of Giddey, lol! (Hint, it includes Chris Paul, Mike Conley, Fred Van Fleet, and Tyrese Haliburton.

He's still holding on to that terrible shooter nonsense, when his shooting has improved every year and is at 36.1% on the season from three.

Holding onto that worst in class defender even though Giddey looks noticeably better now that he's a little familiar with a brand new system.

Think Giddey could shoot 40% for the entire year and still get called a terrible shooter.

Still saying he can't score. When he got 27 pts, 16 rebounds and 4 assists the other night, the other team must not have gotten the e-mail. Maybe it went to their spam folder.

Shooting involves a lot more than a player's percentage on WIDE OPEN 3 pointers.

Giddey has been below league average in shooting efficiency every year or his career.

He can score, he's just not a very good scorer. Not bad, but definitely not good.