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After every loss we hear the same thing over and over. We hear, "We'll learn from this and get better", "We're a young team and we'll grow from this", "he's a young guy and has to get better" and so on.

My concern is that I don't see much individual growth (which is a major concern for me with Coby White) or much growth in the team as a whole (maybe defense and Lauri starting to heat up a little).

So I'm asking.......have we grown as a team so far this year? How so? Has any individual player shown growth as a player? How?

Boylen was brought in to change the culture and teach the young players the ways to success. Is this happening or am I just being impatient and need to wait longer? Where have we seen growth from Hoiberg? Honest question. I struggle to think of anything outside of our defense being better (which I largely attribute to schedule), but I could be way off or overlooking something/someone.

No one has in a meaningful way. Even Dunn was arguably better his first year here.

Believe it or not, I think the team is playing harder compared to Hoiberg's teams. It is obviously not reflected in the results but I think they play harder and Carlisle mentioned it too. That means, Boylen has their attention. He might be a bad tactics guy, bad soundbite guy etc...

The million dollar question is ...is it Boylen or is it the roster that is the cause of these losses? Fans have issues with every coach.

I think to get a fair evaluation of any coach, GarPax have to go first and then we can see if the coaches are a bigger problem than they really are.

A team playing hard is the most important thing in the NBA because that can win many games. Look at after Rose's injury Thibs teams. They had lesser talent than this and they were just getting by smart, hard plays. This team is not smart but plays hard and that's always the problem with young teams.

Yes and no.

Defensively we have grown. The stats dont make themselves up. And people notice it. But offensively its been as bad as its always been.

So if you are only basing it on offensive growth, then thats a solid NO.
Defensively, obviously Boylen gets credit for growth in that.

Until we get the offense fixed, we arent going anywhere though.

It's completely normal for Coby to show limited growth at this point in the season. Check back in late March and we'll talk then.

I think they have grown accustomed to mediocrity and have developed a more thick-skinned approach to criticism.

- WCJ has shown growth, even though he's getting further and further away from the Hortford comp.
- Dunn saved his NBA career.
- Valentine is showing he could be a good 8th/9th man, which wasn"t a given.
- Too early for White and Gafford, but I have hopes.

Other than that, no matter if you think they are worse than before, stagnated or slightly improved (I can see points for each of them), it is crystal clear that Lauri/Zach cannot be your best players if you want to contend, and barring a miracle, none of them will be a Top 20 player.
And in the end, it is all that rebuild was about.

Obviously, all the growth has been on defense. And the results are real, the Bulls hover from being the 5th to 7th best defense in the league with the same core that was one of the worst defenses in the league last year.

However, it's much harder to win games with a great defense and poor offense than vice versa.
Both the Spurs and Blazers have terrible defenses, but good offenses and both are competing for a playoff spot.

I do hope we all keep this in mind for the future, because the broken record last year was "we are losing because we don't play defense."

But overall the team is much better than the record indicates. Bulls are 8th in the EC in differential which is a better indicator of quality than W-L. Last season, the Bulls were 14th with a -8.5 differential, this season we are -1.4.

The Bulls should have a lot more wins than they do, certainly they are underperforming. Late game & 4th quarter execution are exceptionally bad. These kinds of problems sounds like a rookie HC, which is exactly what we hired. So we can't be surprised by the results.

Defensively, YES across the board. Boylen has Zach and Lauri playing the best defense they ever have their entire career, and that's no small task. This alone has allowed them to stay in every game and not get blown out regardless of the opponent, and that's just something that was not happening the past couple seasons where games would regularly end at halftime when it was already a blow out.

This young squad is playing the best defense since the 2014-15 season when Thibs took the more veteran Bulls team to 50 wins. Defense is all about effort, so the fact that they're playing so hard consistently on that end of the floor - even in 4th quarter - tells me that Boylen still has the team (regardless of speculations that the players ignore him).

Unfortunately though, the offense has taken several steps back especially considering the upgrade in personnel and the teams we've played so far. A big part of that is the inconsistencies from our scorers as Zach and Lauri very rarely have a good game together; it's usually one of them scoring 30+ while the other barely has 10. We also routinely get very little scoring production from the 1, 3, and 5 positions, which is why it often feels that we need a miracle game from Zach or Coby to win.

We also don't have any scoring off the bench. We've been putting all of that on Coby and he's been shooting so poorly because defenses can just hone in on him. But they've started to tighten the rotation a little bit (I think 9 players at most is the sweet spot), so maybe that means we'd always have one of Zach or Lauri on the floor at all times.

Developed:
- Dunn is having his best year. He was always a net negative. Him learning to be a role player and make better decisions on defense has markedly improved his impact.
- Lavine has improved his decision making. I believe this is his first year where he isn't a big net negative player. Better effort on defense.

Not developed:
- Lauri is having his worst year. His skills look like they have deteriorated. Even his good games are him just being a spot up shooter and doing little else.
- Wendell doesn't look like he has added anything. His offense might actually be worse than his rookie year.

Overall, the big issue with the *team* is that Otto is out, Hutch sucks and is out and Thad just doesn't want to be here. The hole at the 3/4 spot is massive. I strongly suspect that with a healthy Otto and Hutch, the Bulls would have turned a few losses into wins and be hovering around the 0.500 that many here expected.

coldfish wrote:Developed:
- Dunn is having his best year. He was always a net negative. Him learning to be a role player and make better decisions on defense has markedly improved his impact.
- Lavine has improved his decision making. I believe this is his first year where he isn't a big net negative player. Better effort on defense.

Not developed:
- Lauri is having his worst year. His skills look like they have deteriorated. Even his good games are him just being a spot up shooter and doing little else.
- Wendell doesn't look like he has added anything. His offense might actually be worse than his rookie year.

Overall, the big issue with the *team* is that Otto is out, Hutch sucks and is out and Thad just doesn't want to be here. The hole at the 3/4 spot is massive. I strongly suspect that with a healthy Otto and Hutch, the Bulls would have turned a few losses into wins and be hovering around the 0.500 that many here expected.

Fish, you're much more of a historian than I am, but was this offseason one of the worst offseasons in Bulls history? Sato is completely average, Kornet is awful, Thad isn't working out and we extended Boylen. Has it been worse

Ferulci wrote:- WCJ has shown growth, even though he's getting further and further away from the Hortford comp.

He's taken a step backwards in scoring, assists, and blocking shots while still getting in almost the same amount of foul trouble. He's stronger on the glass and making a higher percentage of shots, but some of this surely has to do with him simply no longer being a rookie. I don't think he's made enough progress to say he's really taken a step forward.

- Dunn saved his NBA career.

There's definitely a certain amount of credit that goes to Boylen for getting Dunn to happily buy into this role, but I still maintain that Dunn was better his first year here.

- Valentine is showing he could be a good 8th/9th man, which wasn"t a given.

It seems as if he's mostly fallen out of the rotation again, despite looking good. He also more or less showed that ability before the injury.

And in the end, it is all that rebuild was about.

Fully agree with you here. A more true thing hasn't been said.

BigUps wrote:

coldfish wrote:Developed:
- Dunn is having his best year. He was always a net negative. Him learning to be a role player and make better decisions on defense has markedly improved his impact.
- Lavine has improved his decision making. I believe this is his first year where he isn't a big net negative player. Better effort on defense.

Not developed:
- Lauri is having his worst year. His skills look like they have deteriorated. Even his good games are him just being a spot up shooter and doing little else.
- Wendell doesn't look like he has added anything. His offense might actually be worse than his rookie year.

Overall, the big issue with the *team* is that Otto is out, Hutch sucks and is out and Thad just doesn't want to be here. The hole at the 3/4 spot is massive. I strongly suspect that with a healthy Otto and Hutch, the Bulls would have turned a few losses into wins and be hovering around the 0.500 that many here expected.

Fish, you're much more of a historian than I am, but was this offseason one of the worst offseasons in Bulls history? Sato is completely average, Kornet is awful, Thad isn't working out and we extended Boylen. Has it been worse

I think the offseason was OK, there wasn't any major money committed to net losers (like the Knicks did) but the self scouting internally was a massive swing and a miss.

Clearly the Bulls felt that between Lavine, White and Lauri they had enough scoring and playmaking. Turned out Lavine is still a guy that can get his efficiently but not create consistently for others. Lauri is still basically just a spot up shooter and occasional straight line driver. He can't create or create for himself really. And White is just wildly inconsistent and not ready for anything but a 9th man role irrational confidence guy.

They brought in solid role players thinking they had some stars. So the plan might have worked if Lauri and Lavine developed. I think overall GarPax just don't properly value scorers and guys that can go iso.

coldfish wrote:Developed:
- Dunn is having his best year. He was always a net negative. Him learning to be a role player and make better decisions on defense has markedly improved his impact.
- Lavine has improved his decision making. I believe this is his first year where he isn't a big net negative player. Better effort on defense.

Not developed:
- Lauri is having his worst year. His skills look like they have deteriorated. Even his good games are him just being a spot up shooter and doing little else.
- Wendell doesn't look like he has added anything. His offense might actually be worse than his rookie year.

Overall, the big issue with the *team* is that Otto is out, Hutch sucks and is out and Thad just doesn't want to be here. The hole at the 3/4 spot is massive. I strongly suspect that with a healthy Otto and Hutch, the Bulls would have turned a few losses into wins and be hovering around the 0.500 that many here expected.

Dude, you're unbelivable. I usually don't like to accuse people of straight up trolling, but we're at the point where it's getting ridiculous.

Criticize Markkanen all you want when he deserves it, but he's been averaging 18pts for over a month now while shooting 41% from the perimeter on high volume, with a TS% north of 60. He already has more dunks than he did all last season AND has become an ok NBA defender. And his usage is STILL career-low.

I dunno man... I guess you'll see what you want to see. Lauri was bad in November but you're giving that stretch a lot more weight than what we've seen since.

BigUps wrote:

coldfish wrote:Developed:
- Dunn is having his best year. He was always a net negative. Him learning to be a role player and make better decisions on defense has markedly improved his impact.
- Lavine has improved his decision making. I believe this is his first year where he isn't a big net negative player. Better effort on defense.

Not developed:
- Lauri is having his worst year. His skills look like they have deteriorated. Even his good games are him just being a spot up shooter and doing little else.
- Wendell doesn't look like he has added anything. His offense might actually be worse than his rookie year.

Overall, the big issue with the *team* is that Otto is out, Hutch sucks and is out and Thad just doesn't want to be here. The hole at the 3/4 spot is massive. I strongly suspect that with a healthy Otto and Hutch, the Bulls would have turned a few losses into wins and be hovering around the 0.500 that many here expected.

Fish, you're much more of a historian than I am, but was this offseason one of the worst offseasons in Bulls history? Sato is completely average, Kornet is awful, Thad isn't working out and we extended Boylen. Has it been worse

Good question. The absolute worst offseason was the Ron Mercer / Erob year. That was horrific. Terrible players on long contracts.

What saves this year from being truly terrible was that all of the deals given out are short. I believe Boylen has a cheap buyout for the team. Sato, Thad and Kornet are two year deals with buyouts on the third.

This offseason didn't help the team but it didn't really lock them into problem long term contracts either. It was the GM equivalent of kicking the can down the road.

Disclosure: I thought it was a pretty good offseason at the time. I was pretty far off. Only Sato is worth a dam. I really wonder about Coby at this point.

ZOMG wrote:

coldfish wrote:Developed:
- Dunn is having his best year. He was always a net negative. Him learning to be a role player and make better decisions on defense has markedly improved his impact.
- Lavine has improved his decision making. I believe this is his first year where he isn't a big net negative player. Better effort on defense.

Not developed:
- Lauri is having his worst year. His skills look like they have deteriorated. Even his good games are him just being a spot up shooter and doing little else.
- Wendell doesn't look like he has added anything. His offense might actually be worse than his rookie year.

Overall, the big issue with the *team* is that Otto is out, Hutch sucks and is out and Thad just doesn't want to be here. The hole at the 3/4 spot is massive. I strongly suspect that with a healthy Otto and Hutch, the Bulls would have turned a few losses into wins and be hovering around the 0.500 that many here expected.

Dude, you're unbelivable. I usually don't like to accuse people of straight up trolling, but we're at the point where it's getting ridiculous.

Criticize Markkanen all you want when he deserves it, but he's been averaging 18pts for over a month now while shooting 41% from the perimeter on high volume, with a TS% north of 60. He already has more dunks than he did all last season AND has become an ok NBA defender. And his usage is STILL career-low.

I dunno man... I guess you'll see what you want to see. Lauri was bad in November but you're giving that stretch a lot more weight than what we've seen since.

Markannen by year:
PER On/off:
17/18 - 15.6 -3.6
18/19 - 17.1 +4.8
19/20 - 15.2 +0.2

Don't get personal Zomg. You are the one who is "seeing what you want to see" and giving certain stretches more weight that is statistically valid. By production, Lauri's year this year is the worst. By on/off, its definitely worse than last year.

That's just the stats. When you watch the game, Boylen changed the offense to give Lauri more off ball screens and catch and shoot opportunities. He isn't driving or posting up or much else. IMHO, he used to be a more dynamic player. Stylistically, he looks worse than he ever has.

coldfish wrote:

ZOMG wrote:

coldfish wrote:Developed:
- Dunn is having his best year. He was always a net negative. Him learning to be a role player and make better decisions on defense has markedly improved his impact.
- Lavine has improved his decision making. I believe this is his first year where he isn't a big net negative player. Better effort on defense.

Not developed:
- Lauri is having his worst year. His skills look like they have deteriorated. Even his good games are him just being a spot up shooter and doing little else.
- Wendell doesn't look like he has added anything. His offense might actually be worse than his rookie year.

Overall, the big issue with the *team* is that Otto is out, Hutch sucks and is out and Thad just doesn't want to be here. The hole at the 3/4 spot is massive. I strongly suspect that with a healthy Otto and Hutch, the Bulls would have turned a few losses into wins and be hovering around the 0.500 that many here expected.

Dude, you're unbelivable. I usually don't like to accuse people of straight up trolling, but we're at the point where it's getting ridiculous.

Criticize Markkanen all you want when he deserves it, but he's been averaging 18pts for over a month now while shooting 41% from the perimeter on high volume, with a TS% north of 60. He already has more dunks than he did all last season AND has become an ok NBA defender. And his usage is STILL career-low.

I dunno man... I guess you'll see what you want to see. Lauri was bad in November but you're giving that stretch a lot more weight than what we've seen since.

Markannen by year:
PER On/off:
17/18 - 15.6 -3.6
18/19 - 17.1 +4.8
19/20 - 15.2 +0.2

Don't get personal Zomg. You are the one who is "seeing what you want to see" and giving certain stretches more weight that is statistically valid. By production, Lauri's year this year is the worst. By on/off, its definitely worse than last year.

That's just the stats. When you watch the game, Boylen changed the offense to give Lauri more off ball screens and catch and shoot opportunities. He isn't driving or posting up or much else. IMHO, he used to be a more dynamic player. Stylistically, he looks worse than he ever has.

looking at season numbers is "statistically" valid but not contextually valid. Lauri doesn't play at his season numbers. It's either bad lauri or good Lauri. Good lauri is much better than the season numbers and bad Lauri is much worse than the season numbers. Which averages out to "meh" numbers. Your take would be valid if Lauri was playing up and down game to game but there was a definitely change in his game in December.

Lavine's numbers two years ago coming off the ACL tear were statistically valid as piss poor but we don't use that as "hey Lavine can't score a bucket and he's extremely inefficient" we instead say "hmm he's coming off an injury, maybe there are injury effects". The following seasons/games proved he can provide a lot more scoring.

Similarly with lauri, if he continues december performance for the rest of the season you'll quote his season numbers (which will be brought down by his piss poor start) but they again won't be contextually valid since his piss poor start is more likely an outlier and his performance for the rest of the months is closer to real Lauri.

-

As far as "Stylistically, he looks worse than he ever has." Are points given on style? We've gone over this. There is a different system in place where he has a different role compared to years and his usage is GREATLY down compared to years past. Are you gonna make a similar argument for Jimmy butler considering his shooting/scoring usage is down compared to years past? Is he a "disappointment" this year compared to other years? No. That's because you have to use context for that specific team. Jimmy is now playing a different role, that doesn't mean he has randomly lost is ability as a scorer.

Your argument would be valid if Lauri was getting the same opportunity or more from previous years but just falling on his face. Albeit he WAS falling on his face early in the season and your point was valid then but we have had enough games of "good" Lauri to consider that maybe that start was an outlier.

-

As far as improvements go, Lauri has improved so far this season. Obviously not to the extent people wanted/expected but there HAS been improvement. You just have to look a little deeper and put some context to it:

- His 3 point shooting has improved. Since December started, he's shooting (p36) 41% on 8.8 3papg. Last year, "healthy" lauri was at 39% on 6.7 3papg. Also last year he was relatively up and down with his shot game to game (shooting arm elbow injury) vs so far since december this year he's been much more consistent. He's now attempting and making a few deep and/or contested 3s per game. Last year for the most part he needed to be open to knock down his shot.

- His assist rate this season has actually improved in general. Recently he's being used more as a scorer/finisher vs playmaker but in his putrid start, he was passing the ball a decent amount more before his usage plummeted. But even in his current role his assist rate is above last seasons.

- His steal rate has gone up (the defensive system probably has something to do with it) while block rate is the same (still not a rim protector)

- His turnover rate has gone up which is pushed up by his putrid start bumbling around with the ball. Those possessions have been minimized (but a disappointment in that regards)

- The other dissapointment is the defensive boards. I do want to see him get more boards. But if you look at the combined numbers between Rolo+ Lauri last season and WCJ+Lauri this season they are about the same. Lauri isn't getting the freebie rebounds from Rolo boxouts this season.

- His FTAs (due to his USAGE) are down but his free throw rate is up. That's an improvement

- His foul rate is down from last year. Improvement

- His ORTG has gone up & DRTG down on a seasonal basis which is an improvement. Same thing with BPM/VORP/WS. It's a much greater improvement if you consider "healthy" Lauri from last year vs this year:
Last year: -2.7 +/-, 113 ORTG, 112 DRTG, +1 NRTG
This year: +2.5 +/-, 120 ORTG, 108 DRTG, +12 NRTG

DRTG is iffy because last year's tanking team's defense was ass but it's good to see Lauri isn't dragging the team's defense down.

- You make it seem like he's being spoonfed buckets now but his 2FGM assisted percentage is still a healthy 55% which is still lower than most typical big men. In fact, his 2FG% has increased this season (which is something I wanted to see) even when you factor in the putrid start.

- His TS% is also higher overall which was surprising to me considering his first half of games he was at 48%. It's much higher if you compare "healthy" lauri from last year vs this year: 58.6% vs 64.1% this year. TS% also doesn't highlight the extent of improvement on shotmaking since he's shooting less FTs this year. This is the difference in efg%: 53.8% last year vs 61.7% this year

Lauri's game hasn't evolved as much as some wanted. I wanted to see a bit more progress in that regards too but that's pretty high expectations for a 22 year old very few players do that and those are the generational types. However, Lauri HAS refined his game a bit this season.

I know the putrid start left a bad taste in the mouth but remember it was only 19 games or less than a quarter of the season. The second quarter is now almost complete and Lauri has done a 180 in between those quarters.

The only thing left to improve is USAGE (which I keep harping on). Last year healthy Lauri was at poessessions wise (p36) 6.7 3pa/9.8 2pa/4.4 fta 25%USG
in february: 6.5 3pa/10.7 2pa/6.7 fta 26.4%USG

This year: 8.8 3pa/6.3 2pa/2.4 fta 22USG%

Can you acknowledge that difference from last year? He's at ~60% of the 2pa he got last year. He didn't deserve higher usage during his putrid start but we are past that now.

#FEEDLAURI

As far as team improvement goes, there has DEFINITELY been improvement so far this season. It's just not enough when your highest usage player is prone to judgement lapses and erratic shot selection and he's surrounded by lesser players (your third highest usage player is a rookie gunner off the bench with a sub 50TS%)

Zach has definitely improved from the beginning of the season. He was full hero mode the first month or so of the season. Again corresponding to empty stats and an overall negative on the court. As soon as he started chucking in the 4th quarter, we knew the game was lost.

People will downplay it but the "benching" in the miami game did click something with Zach (even if the reasoning behind the benching might have been stupid). He started playing off ball and became a positive on the court. His flaws do continue to rear their heads in the 4th when he decides to be the on ball hero but it's been greatly reduced. People seem to have forgotten that Zach was a turnover MACHINE when it came to on ball decisions during close game/crunch time but it was a pretty traumatic experience. He has improved in that regards. Bulls worst WORST quarter at that point in the season was by far the 4th when their gameplay plummeted drastically. Now it's the third quarter where teams are making adjustments.

The defense was also a problem at the beginning of the season as the players adjusted to the scheme. Before they were a half second too late on rotation decisions which resulted in multiple open shots for the opponents. That's been greatly improved since the beginning of the season.

-Sato I think is generally playing better

-WCJ's improvements imo aren't "improvements" in the out of the blue sense. He just has been getting more gametime/experience. This was expected from him.


At this point the reason we aren't winning games isn't because of the players on the court but due to the lack of certain aspects:
We are back to square one from last year. Last year I identified two key needs for the Bulls 1) a competent PG. 2) a big wing who can defend. We saw the improvements when we got that in February last year

I thought we had sato and OPJ to cover those basis but unfortunately that hasn't been the case. Sato, while solid, hasn't been the floor general I was hoping for. I knew that coming in though. I thought he was he could play as a bigger Archi (as we did in Feb)... which is what he is doing, but unfortunately we don't have the other difference maker in OPJ as the glue guy.

OPJ is obviously out for injury. His impact has been severely underrated. OPJ has always been an advanced metrics darling BECAUSE he's a glue guy who helps bring stability and efficient production. He's been replaced by undersized Coby as the third highest usage player where A) Coby's defense is bad B) Coby's scoring is bad C) Coby is a ROOK so his impact is "mediocre" at best and BAD BAD at his worst.

Replace Coby's/Dunn's usage with OPJ's and that's a HUGE swing in the differential. OPJ for his top years with the wizards was at +13 NRTG. Coby is at -15 NRTG and Dunn is at -1 NRTG this year. That's a HUGE swing.

Bulls for the past month or so have been playing at like a 0.480 team. That's pretty impressive considering the missing OPJ impact. They now just need to finish games. The onus is on Lavine to do better though since his usage increases as the game gets closer to the end.

Another way to characterize the improvement is to imagine transplanting this past month's team to the beginning of the season. If the Bulls played like that from the beginning without OPJ, I feel like there would have been a lot more optimism at this point in time and Bulls would be at least at 0.500 in the standings considering the charmin soft schedule they let get away.

The same way people are down on Lauri due to his putrid start, people are down on this team for it's putrid start, but that doesn't take away from the improvements the team/and Lauri have made in the past few weeks. At the beginning of the season, the Bulls were the ones LOSING the game to crappy teams. Now the bulls aren't for the most part shooting themselves in the foot, it's more so the competition has turned up so the opponents are WINNING against the bulls

This also doesn't mean the Bulls are anywhere near good or high seed playoff worthy though but they are FINALLY playing to expectations. Beating crap teams, winning against lower end playoff talented teams (or higher end teams without key players) and playing competitively against top teams.