It's time to shut down players.

[Davell]

Phoenix is sitting Warren, Johnson, Oubre, and Holmes tonight. If we lose this one, we're within 1 and they've got the much easier schedule going forward.

[Mbrahv0528]

LOL, yes.
I want this team to have the worse damn record in the league honestly, I don't understand why we are currently playing our best players at this point when this season was essentially built on rebuilding and preparing for the draft. Lauri is obviously fatigued at this point, no need to expose Lavine to an unnecessary injury and we already know what we have in Dunn at this point in the season. So let the G-League guys compete and show if they are worthy of a spot next October.

I want Zion or Ja Morant, if neither of them honestly I don't want the pick.

worse record doesn't matter with the odds now.. u really just wanna be in the top 3-4

even then, those picks could fall back to 5-6-7

There is a big drop off in talent from picks 3 and 4. The Bulls need a top 3 pick in this draft.

That's not the point. The point is the %increase is negligible spots 3-4. It's been pointed out numerous times in this thread.

Sent from my SM-G965U using Tapatalk

[TheStig]

Zach's not really injury prone. He had an ACL tear. Other than that, he's played the vast majority of games he's been available for.

Thats fine, but that ACL tear isn't something you can take lightly as we learned the hard way. It can happen again, so why risk it during meaningless games? Listen, I also understand that argument well it can happen game 1 of the 2019-20 season... but lets avoid the possibility of it happening this season is all I'm saying.

There is nothing to be gained from playing out the rest of the season. The Bulls aren't going to get in the playoffs and nothing that they do during games 73-82 are going to impact next season unless Dunn finishes the season averaging 20 and 10... and I'm all for Dunn and Lauri playing the season out.

He's actually not likely to reinjure his ACL. Not sure where you're getting risk in that.

And this is silly logic. By your point of view, almost half the league has nothing to play for and should shut it down.

While the Bulls won't make the playoffs, they have 3 key guys who have hardly played together. It would be great to get some chemistry for next year.

[Michael Jackson]

If we don't finish bottom three we need to trade this pick.

Assuming you mean land a top 3 pick (cuz that's different than bottom 3), right?

LOL, yes.
I want this team to have the worse damn record in the league honestly, I don't understand why we are currently playing our best players at this point when this season was essentially built on rebuilding and preparing for the draft. Lauri is obviously fatigued at this point, no need to expose Lavine to an unnecessary injury and we already know what we have in Dunn at this point in the season. So let the G-League guys compete and show if they are worthy of a spot next October.

I want Zion or Ja Morant, if neither of them honestly I don't want the pick.

Trade for who? If the draft is that bad and teams who have professional scouting teams agree it is what would you get in return?

[dougthonus]

How the Bulls play from here on out will have no impact on next year. If Zach blows out his knee that has a major impact on this franchise moving forward. He shouldn’t be playing anymore this year. Maybe an 11 game losing streak will force GarPax to get a real coach next year. I’ll take any better odds of getting a chance at Zion or a top 3 pick no matter how small it is.

You have almost no shot at moving up. Resting Porter, Lauri, and LaVine probably still results in at least one more win, and even one more win almost assuredly means that you won't move up even into a tie for 3rd. It might be the case that the Bulls could lose out and not move up. However, they play NY twice and Phoenix once. You aren't going 0-3 in those games regardless of who plays.

Also, the Bulls hand is far more likely to be forced by losing while playing their guys rather than intentionally losing. A huge losing streak where they intentionally lost wouldn't force anyone's hand. It would allow them to continue thinking things were better than they are because they were trying to lose.

Playing our guys helps show us what we really have here and that is important information. Zach could blow out his knee, or he could rest a whole season like Derrick Rose and blow out his knee anyway and then have people argue that he allowed himself to become too deconditioned. If you are too scared to let the guy play games, then that's a bigger long term concern. If you want to mitigate this risk, it probably makes sense just to put 30 minute caps on everyone so no one is playing at extreme fatigue where injuries are most likely to occur.

[MeloRoseNoah]

I'm not in favor of resting any bums on this team.

This is the time to find out info about who are the keepers or bums on this team.

[Am2626]

How the Bulls play from here on out will have no impact on next year. If Zach blows out his knee that has a major impact on this franchise moving forward. He shouldn’t be playing anymore this year. Maybe an 11 game losing streak will force GarPax to get a real coach next year. I’ll take any better odds of getting a chance at Zion or a top 3 pick no matter how small it is.

You have almost no shot at moving up. Resting Porter, Lauri, and LaVine probably still results in at least one more win, and even one more win almost assuredly means that you won't move up even into a tie for 3rd. It might be the case that the Bulls could lose out and not move up. However, they play NY twice and Phoenix once. You aren't going 0-3 in those games regardless of who plays.

Also, the Bulls hand is far more likely to be forced by losing while playing their guys rather than intentionally losing. A huge losing streak where they intentionally lost wouldn't force anyone's hand. It would allow them to continue thinking things were better than they are because they were trying to lose.

Playing our guys helps show us what we really have here and that is important information. Zach could blow out his knee, or he could rest a whole season like Derrick Rose and blow out his knee anyway and then have people argue that he allowed himself to become too deconditioned. If you are too scared to let the guy play games, then that's a bigger long term concern. If you want to mitigate this risk, it probably makes sense just to put 30 minute caps on everyone so no one is playing at extreme fatigue where injuries are most likely to occur.

There is no reason to put more wear and tear on LaVine’s body. It’s best to shut him down for the year. He’s already dealing with knee soreness and isn’t completely healthy. A lot of teams shut players down . The year leading up to when Miami drafted Beasley I remember them shutting Wade down for the year when their season was lost. Boston did the same with Paul Pierce one year. We want Zach to have a long and healthy career. He already came into the league after one year of college so he already has a lot of miles on his body for his age. Minutes add up for players (Ex: TMac, Jermaine O’Neal). Preserving the long term health of core players is more important than winning a few extra games this year.

[Davell]

How the Bulls play from here on out will have no impact on next year. If Zach blows out his knee that has a major impact on this franchise moving forward. He shouldn’t be playing anymore this year. Maybe an 11 game losing streak will force GarPax to get a real coach next year. I’ll take any better odds of getting a chance at Zion or a top 3 pick no matter how small it is.

You have almost no shot at moving up. Resting Porter, Lauri, and LaVine probably still results in at least one more win, and even one more win almost assuredly means that you won't move up even into a tie for 3rd. It might be the case that the Bulls could lose out and not move up. However, they play NY twice and Phoenix once. You aren't going 0-3 in those games regardless of who plays.

Also, the Bulls hand is far more likely to be forced by losing while playing their guys rather than intentionally losing. A huge losing streak where they intentionally lost wouldn't force anyone's hand. It would allow them to continue thinking things were better than they are because they were trying to lose.

Playing our guys helps show us what we really have here and that is important information. Zach could blow out his knee, or he could rest a whole season like Derrick Rose and blow out his knee anyway and then have people argue that he allowed himself to become too deconditioned. If you are too scared to let the guy play games, then that's a bigger long term concern. If you want to mitigate this risk, it probably makes sense just to put 30 minute caps on everyone so no one is playing at extreme fatigue where injuries are most likely to occur.

We lose to Phoenix tonight and its just one game. And Phoenix' schedule going forward is quite a bit easier than the Bulls is. There's DEFINITELY a chance, even a good one, to move to 3rd. Just need the L tonight.

[dice]

How the Bulls play from here on out will have no impact on next year. If Zach blows out his knee that has a major impact on this franchise moving forward. He shouldn’t be playing anymore this year. Maybe an 11 game losing streak will force GarPax to get a real coach next year. I’ll take any better odds of getting a chance at Zion or a top 3 pick no matter how small it is.

You have almost no shot at moving up. Resting Porter, Lauri, and LaVine probably still results in at least one more win, and even one more win almost assuredly means that you won't move up even into a tie for 3rd. It might be the case that the Bulls could lose out and not move up. However, they play NY twice and Phoenix once. You aren't going 0-3 in those games regardless of who plays.

Also, the Bulls hand is far more likely to be forced by losing while playing their guys rather than intentionally losing. A huge losing streak where they intentionally lost wouldn't force anyone's hand. It would allow them to continue thinking things were better than they are because they were trying to lose.

Playing our guys helps show us what we really have here and that is important information. Zach could blow out his knee, or he could rest a whole season like Derrick Rose and blow out his knee anyway and then have people argue that he allowed himself to become too deconditioned. If you are too scared to let the guy play games, then that's a bigger long term concern. If you want to mitigate this risk, it probably makes sense just to put 30 minute caps on everyone so no one is playing at extreme fatigue where injuries are most likely to occur.

We lose to Phoenix tonight and its just one game. And Phoenix' schedule going forward is quite a bit easier than the Bulls is. There's DEFINITELY a chance, even a good one, to move to 3rd. Just need the L tonight.

it's a 28% chance assuming that the teams involved are both trying to win games the rest of the way, which is not the case. if the teams involved are trying equally hard to LOSE, it probably lowers that %. might even cut it in half. but even a 14% chance is significant

[jnrjr79]

The Bulls have a great chance of getting into that coveted bottom 3 in the record which gives them a better shot at the top pick in the draft. In order to accomplish this goal, they will need to sit players.

Even if you are anti tanking, I see 0 benefit in continuing to risk a potential injury to guys who we will need to be 100 healthy next season. Zach Lavine comes to mind. The guy already had some knee soreness and he came back and played 39 minutes.... There is no reason to keep playing him or Otto Porter for that matter.... Even Lopez to be honest.

Time to let Dunn play 35 minutes and see if we should even keep him on the team.

The goal should be to get in position to draft Zion or Morant. Anything less, is a complete and utter failure.

The amount the Bulls can juice the odds from this point forward is meaningless.

You are better off with guys trying to learn how to play well, developing some chemistry, showing they can actually beat teams and seeing what you have. Even if you were to move to 3 from 4, you have a total of a 1 in 25 shot more than you did previously by doing so.

I think playing guys meaningful minutes and letting them develop chemistry and improve is far more valuable than that shot, especially since even if you start sitting guys and doing whatever, you're still almost certainly not going to improve your odds anyway.

How the Bulls play from here on out will have no impact on next year. If Zach blows out his knee that has a major impact on this franchise moving forward. He shouldn’t be playing anymore this year. Maybe an 11 game losing streak will force GarPax to get a real coach next year. I’ll take any better odds of getting a chance at Zion or a top 3 pick no matter how small it is.

If you want Boylen fired, you should be against resting players. If they shut down Zach and Lauri, Boylen losing out wouldn't matter, because everyone will understand losing was the desired outcome.

[jnrjr79]

worse record doesn't matter with the odds now.. u really just wanna be in the top 3-4

even then, those picks could fall back to 5-6-7

There is a big drop off in talent from picks 3 and 4. The Bulls need a top 3 pick in this draft.

That's not the point. The point is the %increase is negligible spots 3-4. It's been pointed out numerous times in this thread.

Sent from my SM-G965U using Tapatalk

What's important to remember is while the chance of getting to #1 is what is most important and what everyone seems to be focused on, the chance of sliding back to a late pick differs meaningfully from slot to slot. The Bulls have a decent chance of sliding back to 7 or 8 from the #4 position.

http://www.tankathon.com/pick_odds

[Davell]

I'm not in favor of resting any bums on this team.

This is the time to find out info about who are the keepers or bums on this team.

How is THIS the time? How many complete rosters are you even going to face? There's just not much of anything that's getting solved over these last 11 games. What possibly CAN be solved?

We already know we've got Lauri, LaVine, and Otto penciled in. We know Wendell is too and we know he's not playing anymore this year. We know we NEED a PG. And we know we need a bench.

Outside of risking injury to one of the 3 actual important players, there's nothing else to be gained. These wins are meaningless. Its not like winning 24 instead of 21 is going to affect this team positively in the future.

[dougthonus]

There is no reason to put more wear and tear on LaVine’s body. It’s best to shut him down for the year. He’s already dealing with knee soreness and isn’t completely healthy. A lot of teams shut players down . The year leading up to when Miami drafted Beasley I remember them shutting Wade down for the year when their season was lost. Boston did the same with Paul Pierce one year. We want Zach to have a long and healthy career. He already came into the league after one year of college so he already has a lot of miles on his body for his age. Minutes add up for players (Ex: TMac, Jermaine O’Neal). Preserving the long term health of core players is more important than winning a few extra games this year.

Those guys were already towards the end of their prime. Zach just turned 24. He's under contract for 3 more years. If he's going to wear out in the next 3 years, then he has no value anyway.

[Davell]

There is no reason to put more wear and tear on LaVine’s body. It’s best to shut him down for the year. He’s already dealing with knee soreness and isn’t completely healthy. A lot of teams shut players down . The year leading up to when Miami drafted Beasley I remember them shutting Wade down for the year when their season was lost. Boston did the same with Paul Pierce one year. We want Zach to have a long and healthy career. He already came into the league after one year of college so he already has a lot of miles on his body for his age. Minutes add up for players (Ex: TMac, Jermaine O’Neal). Preserving the long term health of core players is more important than winning a few extra games this year.

Those guys were already towards the end of their prime. Zach just turned 24. He's under contract for 3 more years. If he's going to wear out in the next 3 years, then he has no value anyway.

Ok. But seriously, what do you think you're gaining? 11 meaningless games against mostly incomplete rosters. Why does it matter if we let guys miss a few games? What harm does it do?

[dougthonus]

We lose to Phoenix tonight and its just one game. And Phoenix' schedule going forward is quite a bit easier than the Bulls is. There's DEFINITELY a chance, even a good one, to move to 3rd. Just need the L tonight.

Bulls play the Knicks twice. The Suns have more games against somewhat bad teams, but we play the absolute worst team in the league twice.

Either way, tonight will determine whether there is a chance or not. I'd say with a loss there's obviously a chance, though I still think a poor one. A win tonight and its over and we can stop discussing it.

Looks like the Bulls are giving it the old college try with Porter out tonight.

[cjbulls]

If we don't finish bottom three we need to trade this pick.

Now that is an interesting proposition. Do you think the Bulls could get significantly more value for their pick by trading it pre-lottery?

Or trading it where it conveys only if the pick is #1.

In other words, take advantage of teams overreacting to the odds of actually getting Zion. It would certainly be an interesting experiment.

[Davell]

We lose to Phoenix tonight and its just one game. And Phoenix' schedule going forward is quite a bit easier than the Bulls is. There's DEFINITELY a chance, even a good one, to move to 3rd. Just need the L tonight.

Bulls play the Knicks twice. The Suns have more games against somewhat bad teams, but we play the absolute worst team in the league twice.

Either way, tonight will determine whether there is a chance or not. I'd say with a loss there's obviously a chance, though I still think a poor one. A win tonight and its over and we can stop discussing it.

Looks like the Bulls are giving it the old college try with Porter out tonight.

The Knicks have the bottom locked up. They don't even need to rest guys. And one of those 2 is the first part of a back to back, where it'd conceivably make at least a bit of sense to sit one of the 3. Phoenix can easily wind up with an extra win than us, IF they beat us tonight.

[Red Larrivee]

There's nothing any team in the bottom 4 can realistically do to better position themselves for Zion. A 1.5% difference is too small to bench healthy young players who are developing. There's a 58% chance that a team in the Bottom 3 won't get Zion. The odds are more spread out than ever and will create so much parity in winners going forward. It's just not worth the mental exercise of thinking each point or win is keeping you from Zion.

Sent from my SM-N950U using Tapatalk

[dougthonus]

Ok. But seriously, what do you think you're gaining? 11 meaningless games against mostly incomplete rosters. Why does it matter if we let guys miss a few games? What harm does it do?

Have you ever run an organization and had to manage culture? I think you are gaining something by having guys want to win and teaching them to quit and to lose and to think that losing doesn't matter.

I'd be right there with you if I thought the Bulls could reasonably get to the bottom 3 and were say tied with Phoenix instead of 2 wins ahead of them.

However, I wouldn't tank my team's culture and development of its players in order to have at best a 1 in 5 chance of moving to a better position which then has a only a 1.5% increased chance of drafting the only player in the draft that matters. Add up those things, and we're talking about tanking culture for a .3% chance of getting that franchise player.

Bulls are beating the Suns pretty badly now, so it looks like the conversation will be moot tomorrow unless there's a big change in the next 16 minutes of game action.

[Davell]

Ok. But seriously, what do you think you're gaining? 11 meaningless games against mostly incomplete rosters. Why does it matter if we let guys miss a few games? What harm does it do?

Have you ever run an organization and had to manage culture? I think you are gaining something by having guys want to win and teaching them to quit and to lose and to think that losing doesn't matter.

I'd be right there with you if I thought the Bulls could reasonably get to the bottom 3 and were say tied with Phoenix instead of 2 wins ahead of them.

However, I wouldn't tank my team's culture and development of its players in order to have at best a 1 in 5 chance of moving to a better position which then has a only a 1.5% increased chance of drafting the only player in the draft that matters. Add up those things, and we're talking about tanking culture for a .3% chance of getting that franchise player.

Bulls are beating the Suns pretty badly now, so it looks like the conversation will be moot tomorrow unless there's a big change in the next 16 minutes of game action.

In the end, this didn't matter. But, I don't think for one second that sitting each of the main 3 once or twice over the final 10 games would damage anything at all. The difference between winning 21 versus 24 is basically nothing and the supposed culture you're talking about changes immediately with the addition of what's very likely to be half of a team. Especially when quite a few of them are vets.