Is Vuc owed some apologies?

[TokeBulls]

Vuc has been the whipping boy of the team this year. He was getting absolutely shredded by social media for a good stretch. He's definitely stepped his game up lately. We all know how great his numbers have been recently. Even when he was struggling, he's basically the only player with good size (ignoring Bradley because he sucks). It's got to be physically tiring when you're asked to battle every tall player on the opposing team for rebounds. I believe this is one of the reasons that his efficiency was not great for a large stretch of games. Without Vuc, this team is simply screwed. He's been a huge piece of it and I think he is owed some apologies.

Edit: in 7 February games, Vuc is averaging 23.5 ppg, 13 reb, 4.3 ast on a 64.6 TS%. Beasting.

[MrSparkle]

Not really. He owes the Bulls an apology for his first 2 months of play.

Without Demar and Ayo this team would also be screwed. We could’ve atleast had about 5 more wins this season if Vuc had less clunkers the first few months.

[GoBlue72391]

An apology for what? No player is immune from criticism, so why should he be? When you play bad you're gonna hear about it. End of story.

[HoopsterJones]

Yeah I don’t feel the need to apologize. He was playing well below of his capabilities for a long stretch. He has been much better of late and settling into his role on this team. I never advocated that the Bulls bench/trade him. Just that he elevated his level of play to where he was at the previous 2 seasons.

[Wingy]

Not really. He owes the Bulls an apology for his first 2 months of play.

Without Demar and Ayo this team would also be screwed. We could’ve atleast had about 5 more wins this season if Vuc had less clunkers the first few months.

Sure he feels the same. While I also don’t feel the need to apologize, the general mob has been overly harsh.

A lot of context, and real factors were summarily, and easily dismissed w/o a second thought.

He’s past it now. He has adjusted, and I’m not worried about Vuc moving forward. Outside of his perimeter defense, but we always knew that was going to be an uncorrectable weakness.

[sco]

The question will be whether he reverts back when he doesn't have Ayo feeding him as much.

[LateNight]

It’s worth pointing out that Vuc is suited to the current half-court offense. With the full roster, we ran a fast-paced transition offense - which Lonzo is great at. Playing with Ayo has helped Vuc because both of those players are used to that system (ayo is still used to running an offense built with kofi at center).

Going into this season, I heard a lot of people wondering whether Vuc would be able to play at the pace it looked like this team was built to play.

[Dominator83]

Let's see what the numbers are in April and May

[MrSparkle]

Not really. He owes the Bulls an apology for his first 2 months of play.

Without Demar and Ayo this team would also be screwed. We could’ve atleast had about 5 more wins this season if Vuc had less clunkers the first few months.

Sure he feels the same. While I also don’t feel the need to apologize, the general mob has been overly harsh.

A lot of context, and real factors were summarily, and easily dismissed w/o a second thought.

He’s past it now. He has adjusted, and I’m not worried about Vuc moving forward. Outside of his perimeter defense, but we always knew that was going to be an uncorrectable weakness.

Well I thought the mob was too harsh on the trade. The trade was and is fine. We traded a struggling mediocre WCJ and protected picks.

But come on- the guy was around 60th in PER amongst all centers in the NBA until about 3 weeks ago. He was playing incredibly poorly. The last Orlando game on 1/23 was also brutal. And he did get manhandled by the Suns and Sixers - more accepting of those, since both teams have elite size and players.

Pau was getting pitchforked by the Bulls mob while making 2 ASGs as a freaking MLE FA. Now that was overly harsh.

[coldfish]

IMO, its a mistake to give a player too much credit for a short period of good play and vice versa, people will have bad stretches and fans shouldn't overreact (lol, like that's going to stop).

For the season, Vuc is at 17.7p 11.6r 3.7a 0.9s 1.2b 53.5%ts 19.2PER

That's actually good for his pay, not great for what the Bulls traded for him. I would call it a big "meh".

I don't want to make this too much of a whataboutism, but for context, the Cavs functionally gave up a 1st round pick and paid Lauri 17m per year for 13.6p 5.3r 1.5a 55.7%ts 14.2PER. The people who want to gouge their eyes out over Vuc need to step back a little.

[Wingy]

Not really. He owes the Bulls an apology for his first 2 months of play.

Without Demar and Ayo this team would also be screwed. We could’ve atleast had about 5 more wins this season if Vuc had less clunkers the first few months.

Sure he feels the same. While I also don’t feel the need to apologize, the general mob has been overly harsh.

A lot of context, and real factors were summarily, and easily dismissed w/o a second thought.

He’s past it now. He has adjusted, and I’m not worried about Vuc moving forward. Outside of his perimeter defense, but we always knew that was going to be an uncorrectable weakness.

Well I thought the mob was too harsh on the trade. The trade was and is fine. We traded a struggling mediocre WCJ and protected picks.

But come on- the guy was around 60th in PER amongst all centers in the NBA until about 3 weeks ago. He was playing incredibly poorly. The last Orlando game on 1/23 was also brutal. And he did get manhandled by the Suns and Sixers - more accepting of those, since both teams have elite size and players.

Pau was getting pitchforked by the Bulls mob while making 2 ASGs as a freaking MLE FA. Now that was overly harsh.

He had a lot going on, and the most to adjust to out of everyone. When you’re not comfortable out there, and thinking a lot, sometimes even open shots become harder than they should be.

I’m talking things like going from a low post player to a hub. Being the man knowing you’re getting all the shots, to wondering if or when DeMar or Zach are ever going to pass out of their latest iso. Loser to a winner. Little market to big.

His bad games get called out, but do we cite his good ones too? Just last night, completely neutralizing their best player and all star’s performance by matching him in every category. It draws a simple “good Vuc,” and little more. For me, I just listed him with four other Bulls, and gave no further credit til right now. The game vs Cleveland vs their huge, athletic frontline where he surprised me by going at them, and outplaying them iirc.

I think it’s a 2K-like mentality where players are just supposed to do what they do in a vacuum. Where their role, team dynamics and other factors don’t exist. It took him longer than we all wanted to overcome those things, but luckily we’re there now.

[dougthonus]

The Bulls need to do something very significant with Vuc that they wouldn't have done without Vuc this your or next or this trade will continue to go down as a train wreck. The Bulls record has masked how bad this trade has been to date.

That said, the Bulls are in position for Vuc to prove that this trade was a great trade in these playoffs this year and will likely have a similar opportunity next year. His improved play over the past two months is encouraging that maybe he can do that.

But you've seen enough of WCJ and Wagner this year to know that in 2 years they're both better than Vuc, and WCJ will be on a really reasonable contract as well for four years and Wagner for 3 more.

[HomoSapien]

Apology? I’d say no. He was playing pretty poorly on offense and even then a large amount of posters were able to see past that and focus on the rest of his contributions. That said, I’ve also brought up this notion that him essentially being the only big man on the roster was likely contributing to his poor play to an extent.

[Muzbar]

Nah, no apology needed, he sucked and was called out for it.

Now he's playing well and is being recognised for that too, so if he goes back to sucking do we have to give him praise for his good play in February?

Vooch just needs to keep up his current play and his games of the past will all be forgotten, heck Vooch could have folded like Simmons and pouted but he's kept at it and its paying off.

[FriedRise]

I think we tend to focus on the numbers and take everything else he does for granted.

He routinely sets great screens, setting us our guys free and putting opponents in tough situations any time we run a pick and roll. Dude also has great hands for a center, which is one of those things that you never talk about until you have a center who has trouble catching/handling the ball especially in traffic. You never have to be super accurate with your passing with Vooch; as long as it's going in his general vicinity, he'll catch it, and he'll do something productive with it.

His shooting numbers have gone up/down - which is the one part that we like to criticize him on - but these other intangibles have stayed consistent all year.

[HomoSapien]

The Bulls need to do something very significant with Vuc that they wouldn't have done without Vuc this your or next or this trade will continue to go down as a train wreck. The Bulls record has masked how bad this trade has been to date.

I know what you’re saying and agree, but I sort of feel like we’re already doing things we “wouldn’t have done without Vuc.” There’s a decent chance we don’t get DeRozan without Vuc — we’ve heard first hand from DDR how instrumental Vuc was in his coming here. If we hadn’t traded for Vuc, I also imagine that there’s a good chance that we wouldn’t have pursued DDR in the off-season at all and would have instead focused on getting Ball and finding someone else to play this “hub” center role in BD’s offense.

Carter’s playing better in Orlando than he did here. Would he have made these same strides here? Maybe, but sometimes young players need that change of scenery. WIth us he was getting abused by other centers and Orlando currently has the 2nd worst record in the league so it’s not like Carter’s play has translated into anything yet.

[sco]

The Bulls need to do something very significant with Vuc that they wouldn't have done without Vuc this your or next or this trade will continue to go down as a train wreck. The Bulls record has masked how bad this trade has been to date.

I know what you’re saying and agree, but I sort of feel like we’re already doing things we “wouldn’t have done without Vuc.” There’s a decent chance we don’t get DeRozan without Vuc — we’ve heard first hand from DDR how instrumental Vuc was in his coming here. If we hadn’t traded for Vuc, I also imagine that there’s a good chance that we wouldn’t have pursued DDR in the off-season at all and would have instead focused on getting Ball and finding someone else to play this “hub” center role in BD’s offense.

Carter’s playing better in Orlando than he did here. Would he have made these same strides here? Maybe, but sometimes young players need that change of scenery. WIth us he was getting abused by other centers and Orlando currently has the 2nd worst record in the league so it’s not like Carter’s play has translated into anything yet.

I really like Vuc, but forget about Carter, Wagner is a stud. Could you imagine if we ended up with both Wagner and Ayo in that draft?

[jacoby1us]

Apologize for him playing like a bag of sh*t for the beginning of the season? I will not.
I am extremely happy that he is playing better, my only hope is that the Bulls can actually figure out his help in the frontcourt as the lack of length and athleticism will not be sustainable in the postseason this year.

[TokeBulls]

You can't just say the Bulls would have drafted Wagner. There's no guarantee they draft him.

[coldfish]

You can't just say the Bulls would have drafted Wagner. There's no guarantee they draft him.

+1. The Bulls very well could have taken Zaire Williams, Boughknight or Davion Mitchell. Kudos to the Magic for picking the right guy.

The Bulls traded Butler for several things plus the 7 pick which they used on Markkanen. Had they taken Mitchell or Bam, we might thing very differently of the trade but that would be a false choice. The #7 pick is the #7 pick. What you do with it is a function of your drafting ability.