dougthonus wrote:MikeDC wrote:It doesn't really matter that a guy is "bad" in the abstract sense if the other options you actually have to work with are actually worse.
The other guys aren't worse. As noted, every other player on the team had a higher ORtg...
Factually inaccurate according to NBA.com
In that case, he doesn't make your offense "worse", he makes it better. Because
1. the players that are superficially more efficient cannot replicate that efficiency with higher usage.
It's a false alternative. You don't need to give one player all of Vuc's shots or even take away all of Vuc's shots. You could trivially spread them around. Most of his shots were just open jumpers.
It's a general truth. Whether you give 1 player a lot more possessions or 3 players a few more possessions doesn't change the fact that the players using more possessions will, other things being equal, see their efficiency fall. Suggesting you replace 1 big tradeoff with 3 small tradeoffs doesn't change the bottom line one bit.
2. the offensive scheme required to maximize our best players (Zach and DeMar) requires this (as an aside, what this means is that if you replace Vuc with a non-shooter, a) you lose some of the spacing they like because that guy has to be close to the basket and b) someone else, like Pat, most likely, has to become more of a catch-and-shoot option.
This assumes people honored Vuc as a shooter. This was not true by the end of the year though may have been true more towards the beginning. Pat showed that he was a much better catch and shoot option than Vuc so far.
1. It doesn't assume people honored Vuc as a shooter. Part of it just requires that the center isn't standing in the way. It's based on the accurate assumption that our players who drive to the basket want space... to drive to the basket.
2. I like Pat, but again, Pat didn't "show he was a much better catch and shoot option". Pat showed improvement, but he showed that he's an unwilling 3 point shooter with a slow release. His playoff performance was 2 points higher than Vuc (33.3% vs. 31%) but he was scared to take them. And he should be scared, because he's not good at it.
This is the point I keep hammering home. You are pointing out the stats that show Pat was marginally better but working really hard to avoid putting that into the context of what we actually saw. What we actually saw is that Vuc took more shots because the other guys were, literally, unwilling to shoot.
If you took Vuc off the team, maybe you force Pat to shoot some of those shots that he was unwilling to take. But at that point, you need to understand that if a guy is so lacking confidence in his shot that he doesn't want to take it, then forcing him to do so probably isn't a good thing. It's strong evidence that if you force him to shoot more, his shooting percentage would have fallen even further.
Basically, Vuc's statistical "result" suffered because he did what he was supposed to do, which is take the open shot. Pat (and Ayo, Coby in the playoffs, etc... all those guys who were passing up open shots they should have took), well, their percentages improved because they were only taking the shots they were comfortable taking. If you put them in the equivalent situation though, and force them to take a bunch of shots, even "open" ones, that they don't think they can take, they're not going to make them at the same rate. This is just something that's clear when you watch or play basketball.
Of these players Randle, Porzingis, and Turner are on god awful teams, so who cares.
Lopez shoots an acceptable percentage, is efficient overall, and shoots far fewer shots. If Vuc played Lopez's role he would be better.
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I'm saying his shot load should be reduced and he shouldn't be viewed as a guy capable of stretching the floor consistently. Of the guys you named, none are featured the way Vuc is in their offenses.
I think you're just conflating results with strategy. In a way that reminds me of the Boylen Bulls. Where they just said, "well hey, 'analytics' tells us we should do X, Y, and Z and therefore we'll win. So, like, we should get 35 assists a game, and we'll be win. We won't take any mid range shots, and we'll be great!"
But that turned out to be predictably backwards. Good statistical results come out of good strategy. But just policing yourself so you get "good" statistical results is not actually a strategy.
Anyway, I'm going to return to the Lopez example for context. There's no way besides looking at a very limited sample, where you can say Lopez is better. His role is, and has been basically identical to Vuc's. If anything, his shooting has generally been worse!
Yes, he's shot slightly fewer shots. But that has nothing to do with him, it has to do with his teammates being better.
Like, Vuc would have taken fewer shots against the Bucks if Coby/Pat/Ayo weren't **** their pants.
Obviously, that's a bad outcome for the Bulls, but at a basic level, you need to understand that the flaw isn't with Vucevic being objectively bad, but Coby/Pat/Ayo being objectively bad.
Point is. The teammates are the difference. Not the two players, who have almost identical roles. Put Lopez on the Bulls, and he'd the be scapegoat. Put Vuc on the Bucks, and he'd suddenly look "acceptable".
The Bulls, if they trade for Gobert, for example, are not going to have success with Pat being the "designated catch and shoot guy". It'll be a waste of him, and it won't be successful for the Bulls.
I think just replacing Vuc with Gobert would improve the team, but there are lots of challenges with that (4/160 for a defense only center in this NBA is also a really bad idea and will limit other things you can do).
Basically, these problems are interrelated. A true 3+D power forward should be the priority though, because that guy would be a requirement if you get a Gobert type, but would also let the Bulls better live with Vuc and minimize the problems he causes.
If the Bulls treat Vuc like Brook Lopez, they'll be better. I agree the problems are all interrelated, the start of the problem is that in the end DDR and Zach aren't good enough to carry role players anywhere. We have solid role players (and I actually would view Vuc as a solid role player), but our star power is lacking. That's no knock on those guys as it isn't their fault they're cast as #1/#2, but it gets back to the difficulty of trying to win now when you were as far away as the Bulls were.
Fundamentally, management went all in on a team that had no meaningful path out of the 1st round except for guys to radically outperform what they have done in the past. We actually saw exactly that up until Feb when Zach's knee went bad.
I think I agree with this in the big picture, but I would say they basically have treated Vuc like Brook Lopez and that in addition to our stars being worse than the Bucks, our role players are worse too. To draw the parallel though, they've got two problems
1. As you say, Zach and DDR are nowhere close to Giannis and Holiday (depending on how you want to break it up one could imagine missing Middleton and Ball being, at the best, a push for the Bulls).
2. Portis/Allen/Matthews turned out to be a lot more effective than Pat/Coby/Ayo.
This isn't to say that Pat/Coby/Ayo suck forever, but their potential as young, theoretically good players is just very much at odds with the reality of them as actual players you'd want to win a game with. Like, would I trade Pat for Bobby Portis? Of course not. But if I had to pick one to win games with, it would absolutely be Portis.
The Bulls need to understand that, and line up their expectations accordingly.
