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How Many Wins this Year?

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How many wins?

1. 20-24
0
No votes
2. 25-29
6
6%
3. 30-34
30
28%
4. 35-39
31
28%
5. 40-44
32
29%
6. 45-49
7
6%
7. 50+
3
3%
 
Total votes: 109

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Re: How Many Wins this Year? 

Post#21 » by Peelboy » Wed Jul 17, 2019 5:41 pm

IMO the keys will be health (mainly Lauri/Carter), style (hopefully Feb Boyball - enhanced by addition of Sato and elimination of Sampsons, Harrison, etc), maintaining/increasing Lavine's efficiency (which improved through the year), and then D.

What gives me substantial optimism about the defense is that Zach has publicly talked about how he needs to improve on D and wants to do so. Given his tools, that degree of acknowledgement and his work ethic make me hopeful that he'll get better. Also the additions of Young and Sato and hopefully the return of Carter.

I think that starting off the base of last year, replacing 5 of the top 7 in minutes played (Arch, Lopez, Harrison, Dunn, Holiday) with vastly superior players (Sato, Young, Carter, White) yields something like 5-7 wins right there.

A full season and camp from Lauri and Carter and an actual offseason/camp for Boylen is another 3-5.

Not tanking down the stretch adds another 2-4.

Then minor efficiency improvements from Lavine and Lauri adds another couple.

So I figure something like 12-18 wins, which gets you in the mid-high 30s from last year's 22, into the range of 34-40, which keeps you in the scrum for the last couple playoff spots.
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Re: How Many Wins this Year? 

Post#22 » by Ugly Duckling » Wed Jul 17, 2019 6:49 pm

Depends on health. If we have a major injury, it could be in the low 30's and we miss the postseason again. If we are healthy for the first time in years (knock on wood), we could be a .500 team and first rd exit
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Re: How Many Wins this Year? 

Post#23 » by jacoby1us » Thu Jul 18, 2019 4:36 pm

If we have a healthy season we will win between 30-34 games, if not healthy, it will be another dismal season for Bulls fans and players.
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Re: How Many Wins this Year? 

Post#24 » by Drellberg » Thu Jul 18, 2019 9:54 pm

The win total has a significant element of choice down the stretch. I predict that Bulls by 1 February will be on pace for 38-42 wins. And if they stay healthy and on pace, then maybe maybe maybe they get the 8th seed. More likely they stumble a bit (perhaps not all that much) from injuries, inexperience or just bad luck. Then the team focuses less on wins and more on setting up for the future. Trades get made. A player gets shut down. Key vets get more rest. And the bulls end up in the 30-34 win category — but with considerable optimism looking forward.
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Re: How Many Wins this Year? 

Post#25 » by HearshotKDS » Fri Jul 19, 2019 1:17 am

34 wins, more if the Bulls get lucky with health.
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Re: How Many Wins this Year? 

Post#26 » by Grodoboldo » Fri Jul 19, 2019 2:26 am

I like the optimism around here! I can practically feel the 100 pages game threads coming back!!!

Oh, and 35 wins for me, around 11th in the lottery odds.
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Re: How Many Wins this Year? 

Post#27 » by nomorezorro » Fri Jul 19, 2019 3:30 am

i've always thought people should temper their expectations for how big a year-to-year leap it's realistic for us to take, but coldfish has laid out a pretty persuasive argument for why a significant increase in wins is more plausible than i initially thought

i still think you need noticeable steps forward from zach and lauri — which i'm not at all ready to count on — for us to get into the playoff mix. and developing white and carter will still probably come at the expense of team success. the wing depth is a nightmare; we need valentine to stay healthy and hutch to get better to even approach "mediocre" in that regard.

but i'm pretty confident in zach/lauri/opj/thad/sato as basketball players. i'm more confident in WCJ than i would be for basically any other second year player who's only played 40 games. i'm hopeful kornet will be a solid bench piece if he gets more minutes. archi is fine if he maintains the same level of play as last year. that's eight worthwhile players, which sadly is way way way better than we were last year

that should be enough to get us around ~35 wins barring major injury, with a pretty clear path to an even higher upside.
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Re: How Many Wins this Year? 

Post#28 » by nomorezorro » Fri Jul 19, 2019 3:35 am

beyond injury, i think boylen is the biggest downside risk. it seems like he ended the season in a good place with the players, and the organization has been saying the right things about shooting + playing with pace, but boyball and the mutiny happened way too recently for me to think coaching isn't still a major concern

if players are making mistakes early, will he trust them to play through it, or will he revert back to a slow post-heavy offense? if the team gets off to a rocky start for whatever reason, will the players continue to have confidence in him?
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Re: How Many Wins this Year? 

Post#29 » by bearadonisdna » Fri Jul 19, 2019 4:01 am

Was looking a divisional matchups and the bulls FC will be in trouble most nights.

For example:

Pacers)
Turner> Wcj
Lauri>Sabonis
Warren>Otto

Detroit)
Drummond>Wcj
Griffin>Lauri
Otto>Doyoumba

Milwaukee)
Wcj>Bro-los
Giannis>Lauri
Middleton >Otto

Cleveland)
Giving the bulls the edge here just off the top of my head.Already I know the Cavs don't have comparable talent other than love.

Adding Zach to the FC could balance things out if you don't count for depreciation playing the bigger position. This will leave the bulls kind of naked in the backcourt talentwise.

An alternative would also be for lauri and Otto to be interchangeable forwards because then Otto can match up against lesser Pfs so lauri can help manufacture an advantage at sf.
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Re: How Many Wins this Year? 

Post#30 » by bearadonisdna » Fri Jul 19, 2019 6:10 am

Also key, observation.
Lauri may have to play the 5 to negate some of those disadvantages.
Don't like it because lauri found himself in early foul trouble, but can be utilized to beat out 5 matchups like Drummond or Turner. Meaning wcj should and could become multipositional if he wants to stick on the floor.
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Re: How Many Wins this Year? 

Post#31 » by donaldtrump_00 » Fri Jul 19, 2019 8:37 am

AirLaVine8 wrote:On the assumption we can stay relatively healthy, I see 40-44 wins



We keep Dunn and players get injured again we still get 8th or 9th seed. Better bench equal more players shinning because I think all the backups can get the job done. Which is why keeping Dunn is big. He truly can carry a injury team without Lauri LaVine Carter. He actually is the best player to do that we have if he's not injured himself
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Re: How Many Wins this Year? 

Post#32 » by bulls_4_life » Fri Jul 19, 2019 9:00 am

I'm going with 42. That may be too many, but this team has talent. The only problem is on the defensive side.
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Re: How Many Wins this Year? 

Post#33 » by chefo » Fri Jul 19, 2019 3:12 pm

40-45 IMO, if two things happen:

1.) Good health
2.) Lavine does not exclusively play ISO hero ball the last 5 minutes of tight games. Last year, he straight up lost the Bulls like 10 games almost single-handidly in the last 2-5 minutes of play because his decision-making fell off a cliff in these situations. Maybe he learned, maybe he had nobody to take the pressure off--regardless, there's a lot of talent that can share that load now.

Anyhow, last year's team was designed to lose 'bigly' and did so. There's no NBA team, even the Dubs, that can trot out 4-5 G-leaguers at the same time and hope not to lose a ton of games. Injuries, whatever--the Bulls bench, apart from Bobby, probably would not even win the G-league. Given that the Bulls project to have at least 8 playable NBA talents, if they have good health, I can see teams struggling with their athleticism and shooting. If Lauri takes the next step and is a 23/10 player like he showed he could be last year, they may win even more than 45. I can easily see a Bucks-like spike in winning.

I think people are sleeping on how much legit NBA talent the Bulls actually have on the roster now. Sato, Thad and Otto (and even Archi) are advanced metrics darlings and Lauri and Zach fill up the stat sheet, with good to great efficiency. WCJ figures to be a fairly decent net positive as well, unless he regresses.

So, I'm sticking to 40-45, and exciting enough to give somebody a scare in the first round of the playoffs.
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Re: How Many Wins this Year? 

Post#34 » by PaKii94 » Fri Jul 19, 2019 5:08 pm

My 5 biggest concerns midway through the last season:

- Basketball IQ
The team was full of low IQ players: Blakeney,Lavine, Dunn, Portis, Parker. All these guys were breaking the offensive flow and then hemorrhaging points on the defensive end. This year we have upgraded IQ by removing all those players from the rotation (besides Lavine who improved his IQ towards the end of the season) and then adding in VERY HIGH IQ players in OPJ/Sato/Thad (and resigning Archi)

So, this concern is quelled.

- A Big wing to guard the upswing of point forwards (Giannis, Simmons, Lebron, KD, etc etc)

Going into the season we had.... Parker, Justin Holiday, Hutch.

Parker was absolute trash. Holiday is more of a 2/3 than a legit wing. Hutch was a weak rook (flashed some potential). Once injuries and trades happened we were playing Shaq and blakeney at the 3 :puke:
This year we upgraded majorly with OPJ/Thad/ bulked up hutch. Both of the first two players are legit defenders.

Thus, this concern is quelled.

- PG play

I was never really convinced with Dunn as a PG even during his "good" play. His game is pretty much inefficient midrange and then easy simple assists. I never saw true flashes from him. In fact he regressed hard enough last year that he hindered Lauri & Lavine's development by being selfish.

We all saw how smoothly the team functioned with Archi (a 3rd string PG) and the starting unit. Archi was one of the league leaders in AST/TO ratio. Bulls made an excellent move and signed an UPGRADED Archi who has even better AST/TO ratio, can shoot it a bit better, and is a bigger body for hopefully a bit better defense. "Everyone eats" was the mantra for Sato in Washington and finally Lauri can have a big meal.

I am not the biggest fan of Coby as a PG but even in Summer league he showed more advanced playmaking compared to Dunn. He should be fine coming off the bench.

Thus, this concern is quelled.

- G-league bench... as our bench.

People just don't realize how bad our bench was for the majority of the season. Usually a bad bench is when your bench consists of G-league starters..... our bench was G-league bench players......The G-league starters were OUR starters. That's how pathetic our lineup was. It was definitely a tanking maneuver. Now we have massively upgraded our lineup with legit NBA caliber players. The g-league players are finally in their right place as 3rd stringers.

Thus, this concern is quelled.

- Injuries

Finally, the age old Bulls excuse of injuries.... and we can continue it with this past season. Major injury to Lauri held up his development into a legit star. WCJ /Hutch missed valuable development minutes. This is the only concern that hasn't been quelled yet. We just need to get a healthy roster.

----

With all that said, I think the Bulls have done a very good job in rebuilding this team. It's up to the players now to show up and perform and hopefully the basketball Gods are kind with minimal injuries. Even if the players from last year continue to play at the same level as last year, I think our new baseline is ~35 wins. Now add in improvement due to player development and true team chemistry and I wouldn't be shocked with 40-45 wins.
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Re: How Many Wins this Year? 

Post#35 » by ImSlower » Fri Jul 19, 2019 5:44 pm

I'm pretty impressed with the general optimism of voters. Only one person picked under 30 wins. I would put the over/under at 33.5, with plenty of moving parts that could work well together and shoot the number higher, or one or two that could fail and really mess up the whole plan.
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Re: How Many Wins this Year? 

Post#36 » by sco » Sat Jul 20, 2019 12:58 am

I think folks are sleeping on the upgrade that Sato and Thad will bring to this team.
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Re: How Many Wins this Year? 

Post#37 » by BigRedDog » Mon Jul 22, 2019 4:21 am

I voted for 40 wins... this team has really done a complete 540 degree turn. Honestly i made a ton of fun of them for signing jabari but that was a genius move...they knew he sucked they through the team option in year 2 so they could trade him for a salary dump... didnt see that coming i thought they were just stupid...

Adding OPJ to WCJ now they just need OPP and PBJ to get so silly with acronyms.... a core of Marky Markennen and the Funky Bunch... with thad young theyve got a REALLY deep frontcourt with a lot of size, shooting, and most importantly no more cristiano felicio sightings. THat guy is the worst defender ive ever seen he looks like he plays on ice skates on a putting green...

Avril Lavine took some baby steps last year and Even Noah's Arcade showed some heart and provided steady play at the PG position.

But the most unheralded offseason move in the entire league was Tomas dey Train... just wait until you see the way Dey Train impacts your offense. The guy has the Euro flair, the ball movement, the shooting, really every thing you want out of a Euro prospect except for the Dolph Lundgren haircut. I also think there is something cool about putting a guy named "Train" in Chicago where everyone takes the Train. I remember the first time i went there. I was visiting a chick in northwestern and i was wearing tee shirt and shorts waiting for a train in February. Not good times. But these will be.


Chitown is on the way back to relevance. And that's not something anyone thought was possible a mere 12 months ago.
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Re: How Many Wins this Year? 

Post#38 » by Jeffster81 » Mon Jul 22, 2019 4:43 am

More than 1 and less than 50.

Silliness aside, I got them at 35.
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Re: How Many Wins this Year? 

Post#39 » by TeamMan » Mon Jul 22, 2019 6:21 pm

Some points:

1) The Bulls are finished with the tanking and have loaded the bench with NBA players.

2) IMO our players have learned from the injuries and will stay relatively healthy.

3) Coby will become an impact player, possibly from training camp. His combination of speed, passing and 3P shooting is exactly what the Bulls were missing last year. (Not to forget that he is also an 80% FT shooter.)

4) The Bulls are a taller and quicker team than they have been for many years. Their defense should be much improved.

5) This will be the 1st full season for the Zach, Lauri, OPJ combination. I expect them to gel into a cohesive unit and have a breakout season.

Therefore I chose 40-44 (baring a major injury).
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Re: How Many Wins this Year? 

Post#40 » by weneeda2guard » Mon Jul 22, 2019 9:18 pm

35 wins

The bulls got a little better

The east got a lot better. Which is the problem. It's not that we haven't improved. It's the fact the east has gotten so much more competitive and the bulls are a team most of these improving teams will be penciling in as a win. If it was the east from yesteryear then we could take advantage of the many teams that will want to tank and play the lottery. New lottery odds is killing that method plus making the playoffs with some cap space gets you further in recruiting free agents then being horrible.

Add in the inevitable injuries because we can never be healthy , and 35 wins is where I think we tap out at, and another 7th pick.

Yea this sucks
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