Nikola Vucevic ranked in the Top 10 in Defensive Rating Last Year

[HomoSapien]

Forget about what that stat says. The more important stat is our team defensive rankings. We're one of the best in the league. So regardless of what you think of Vuc, there's little evidence that he's harming us significantly on D.

[ImSlower]

Vucevic made plenty of lack of awareness or lack of effort misplayss last year which were really obvious due to easy baskets off him. I absolutely hated on the guy in many GDTs. Thing is, when Vucevic is doing his job right, there's nothing flashy happening. He's just effectively guarding the usual roller, or briefly ranging out to guard on the perimeter, or playing great weak-side defense. So even if casual morons like myself only squawk when he lets a quick guard blow by him, a whole lot of the time, Vucevic has used efficient footwork and positioning in the paint to cause a lot of problems for opposing scorers. He's quietly won me over while I've nearly fully soured on our objectively best player.

[Bandit King]

Give him some credit he is not perfect but he is a double double machine.

[dougthonus]

Forget about what that stat says. The more important stat is our team defensive rankings. We're one of the best in the league. So regardless of what you think of Vuc, there's little evidence that he's harming us significantly on D.

Our defense is a combination of smoke and mirrors, are dug into our defensive stats to describe it, but effectively, our defense is good because we deny transition/early offense and second chance points. We're below average relative to the league in defending every play type that exists, but we deny the most efficient play types.

How do we deny early offense and transition points?

We never attack the offensive glass and give up all of our own opportunities for second chance points, which also happens to be why our offense stinks despite having so many shot makers on it. We also pass the ball a lot less than most teams, so typically have fewer turnovers (but also fewer easy baskets from back cuts and other plays that require keeping everyone in motion and generating early offense).

The one thing about our defense that is somewhat legit is we defensive rebound the ball well and Vuc contributes very well there (as did Drummond off the bench).

That may all sound fine, but those tradeoffs aren't necessarily playing winning basketball. Our defense ability and offensive inability are simply tradeoffs. We would need those tradeoffs to benefit us more than our opponents, and generally speaking, it's not created meaningful leverage for us. It also isn't a thing that would project well into the playoffs as a dominant defense, because our half court defense was still very poor relative to the league's half court defense, we just forced half court defense much more frequently.

I'm not saying this philosophy is good or bad, it could be either depending on execution, but looking at defensive rating and saying "oh we have no defensive problems" isn't really true. If we had better defenders last year, we could have achieved the same defensive rating without having to give up so much offensive opportunity to do so. We'd have optionality in how we defend various players, and we'd be above league average in defending all the different play types instead of using a combination of smoke and mirrors.

The mid-three are all contributors to those problems above not just Vuc. Vuc limits your optionality the most in that he has to play drop coverage and can't contest shots / help, but as noted above, his defensive rebounding does provide a really crucial function there, and he does get a lot of contested boards and contribute to legitimate good team defensive rebounding.

[prolific passer]

Should have won dpoy.

[MikeDC]

Don't shoot the messenger but Vuc ranked in the Top 10 in the NBA in defensive rating last year:

https://www.statmuse.com/nba/ask/2023-nba-individual-defensive-rating-rankings

Now before the hot takes about that stat being meaningless, look at the guys up and down that list and take your Vuc bias away. That stat seems to me to be pretty accurate based on how good defensively the rest of the guys are surrounding him. I think the biggest reason Vuc gets so much hate on defense is because he doesn't block shots, but that is the most overrated defensive stat in the new age of 3's being launched all over the place.

Defensive rebounding is a much more important stat than blocks, because it ENDS a possession. Even blocks don't necessarily do that. Vuc is an ELITE defensive rebounder (top 5 last year), which is why he rates out as a much better defender than anyone gives him credit for. Bulls were Top 5 in defensive rating last year as well, so adding 2 tough 3&D guys should enable us to be at the top of the league defensively this year again.

A defensive rebound is better than nothing, but it's really an indication that the opponent has gotten a shot off. You haven't necessarily done anything good defensively at all. You just collect a missed shot, which any tall dude standing by the basket does at a 75-80% rate.

A block is an indication that you forced a miss. That's an indicator of defensive effect. Not a perfect one either, but a block tells you your defense forced a miss. A defensive rebound just tells you your opponent missed. But he could have missed a totally open shot. Doesn't tell you much about the quality of your defense.

This is pretty much common sense.

[DuckIII]

Forget about what that stat says. The more important stat is our team defensive rankings. We're one of the best in the league. So regardless of what you think of Vuc, there's little evidence that he's harming us significantly on D.

Our defensive ranking is grossly inflated over the quality of our actual half court defense. BD has gimmicked it to cover for having 3 inferior defenders in the starting lineup by bailing out offensively as soon as a shot goes up so that our crappy defenders can get back and set up. I believe coldfish or doug has broken this all down statistically and it paints a very clear picture of just how it is we end up with that ranking.

What would be interesting to see is how our defense ranks on walk up half court sets. My guess is if you contextual it our defense ranking is at best average, and especially so when all of The 3 are on the floor at the same time.

That said with our free agent additions and further growth from Pat, Terry, Coby and Ayo (if he stays) our defense should be even better this year and hopefully in a real rather than somewhat manipulated way.

P.S. The Eye Test isn’t perfect but it matters.

EDIT: Oops. Doug already broke it down again in this very thread.

[DropStep]

As I said in the Vuc extension thread, Vuc is 9th, which is great. But this stat heavily favors bigs like Vuc - the top 11 are all C or PF (if we can call Tatum a PF). And the 2000 minute plateau filters tons of people out - if you played 30.0 minutes a game for 66 games, you'd still miss the minimum for this list. (If you looked for DPOY candidate Jaren Jackson Jr. on this list, which I did, or Anthony Davis, that's why you can't find them.)

Our man Supermax Zach is also on this list at 50th, who we generally consider an average-at-best defender. (Or, more like a minus defender. Maybe this discussion should be partly about him.) DDR is 33rd, Luka is 32nd, both ahead of Dillon Brooks.

Is Vuc the ninth best defender? Nope. Is Zach a top 50 defender in the league? No. Is it a good list to be on? Yes, for sure, it's just hard to know how good, given the above and Doug's analysis.

[jump]

Watching the Bulls the last couple of seasons, the thing that jumped out at me was how many open shots (mostly 3s) we had and missed. Or didn't even take. The offense was working, we just couldn't make shots. When those shots were falling, we seemed to destroy the opposition. On defense, there were so many games when the opponents just drained three after three. We just couldn't stop them and lost.

Someone quoted a stat that last season we lost 17 games by five points or less and eight of those by one point. One or two more three point makes a game could make a huge difference with this team. Carver and Craig could be significant corrections this year.

[TheSuzerain]

Forget about what that stat says. The more important stat is our team defensive rankings. We're one of the best in the league. So regardless of what you think of Vuc, there's little evidence that he's harming us significantly on D.

Our defense is a combination of smoke and mirrors, are dug into our defensive stats to describe it, but effectively, our defense is good because we deny transition/early offense and second chance points. We're below average relative to the league in defending every play type that exists, but we deny the most efficient play types.

How do we deny early offense and transition points?

We never attack the offensive glass and give up all of our own opportunities for second chance points, which also happens to be why our offense stinks despite having so many shot makers on it. We also pass the ball a lot less than most teams, so typically have fewer turnovers (but also fewer easy baskets from back cuts and other plays that require keeping everyone in motion and generating early offense).

The one thing about our defense that is somewhat legit is we defensive rebound the ball well and Vuc contributes very well there (as did Drummond off the bench).

That may all sound fine, but those tradeoffs aren't necessarily playing winning basketball. Our defense ability and offensive inability are simply tradeoffs. We would need those tradeoffs to benefit us more than our opponents, and generally speaking, it's not created meaningful leverage for us. It also isn't a thing that would project well into the playoffs as a dominant defense, because our half court defense was still very poor relative to the league's half court defense, we just forced half court defense much more frequently.

I'm not saying this philosophy is good or bad, it could be either depending on execution, but looking at defensive rating and saying "oh we have no defensive problems" isn't really true. If we had better defenders last year, we could have achieved the same defensive rating without having to give up so much offensive opportunity to do so. We'd have optionality in how we defend various players, and we'd be above league average in defending all the different play types instead of using a combination of smoke and mirrors.

The mid-three are all contributors to those problems above not just Vuc. Vuc limits your optionality the most in that he has to play drop coverage and can't contest shots / help, but as noted above, his defensive rebounding does provide a really crucial function there, and he does get a lot of contested boards and contribute to legitimate good team defensive rebounding.

I think this is harsh.

I think we've stumbled upon some very potent defensive value in that we don't foul and give up free throws. And we do give up a bunch of 3's. Both of these factors improve our defense significantly.

I think NBA defense really needs a re-evaluation, and if anything we're ahead of the curve in some ways at the moment (at least we were last year).

[DuckIII]

We also pass the ball a lot less than most teams,

Whaaaa???????

I'm not saying this philosophy is good or bad, it could be either depending on execution, but looking at defensive rating and saying "oh we have no defensive problems" isn't really true.

This is an excellent point to note. Just because it’s gimmicked doesn’t make it bad. You gotta mitigate against obvious weaknesses and that is what this is.

The problem is the roster construction that compels the strategy. Because the strategy has far too many trade offs that legitimate playoff teams don’t have to make.

[DuckIII]

Forget about what that stat says. The more important stat is our team defensive rankings. We're one of the best in the league. So regardless of what you think of Vuc, there's little evidence that he's harming us significantly on D.

Our defense is a combination of smoke and mirrors, are dug into our defensive stats to describe it, but effectively, our defense is good because we deny transition/early offense and second chance points. We're below average relative to the league in defending every play type that exists, but we deny the most efficient play types.

How do we deny early offense and transition points?

We never attack the offensive glass and give up all of our own opportunities for second chance points, which also happens to be why our offense stinks despite having so many shot makers on it. We also pass the ball a lot less than most teams, so typically have fewer turnovers (but also fewer easy baskets from back cuts and other plays that require keeping everyone in motion and generating early offense).

The one thing about our defense that is somewhat legit is we defensive rebound the ball well and Vuc contributes very well there (as did Drummond off the bench).

That may all sound fine, but those tradeoffs aren't necessarily playing winning basketball. Our defense ability and offensive inability are simply tradeoffs. We would need those tradeoffs to benefit us more than our opponents, and generally speaking, it's not created meaningful leverage for us. It also isn't a thing that would project well into the playoffs as a dominant defense, because our half court defense was still very poor relative to the league's half court defense, we just forced half court defense much more frequently.

I'm not saying this philosophy is good or bad, it could be either depending on execution, but looking at defensive rating and saying "oh we have no defensive problems" isn't really true. If we had better defenders last year, we could have achieved the same defensive rating without having to give up so much offensive opportunity to do so. We'd have optionality in how we defend various players, and we'd be above league average in defending all the different play types instead of using a combination of smoke and mirrors.

The mid-three are all contributors to those problems above not just Vuc. Vuc limits your optionality the most in that he has to play drop coverage and can't contest shots / help, but as noted above, his defensive rebounding does provide a really crucial function there, and he does get a lot of contested boards and contribute to legitimate good team defensive rebounding.

I think this is harsh.

I think we've stumbled upon some very potent defensive value in that we don't foul and give up free throws. And we do give up a bunch of 3's. Both of these factors improve our defense significantly.

I think NBA defense really needs a re-evaluation, and if anything we're ahead of the curve in some ways at the moment (at least we were last year).

We aren’t ahead of the curve, we just happen to be one of the teams who needs to do it. The shift away from “gang” offensive rebounding in the NBA to get back on D started gaining traction over a decade ago.

Quality NBA teams with properly balanced rosters don’t have to completely bail on second chance offense in order to defend.

[R3AL1TY]

Vuc has been the least of the Bulls problem IMO. The main bad thing involving him is the Bulls should have negotiated harder to make their 2023 pick Orlando got lotto protected.

[drosestruts]

I do like that our free agent signings so far work well in the defensive system we play, and should help us increase of offensive efficiency as willing and capable shot makers.

[chitownsports4ever]

The majority of nba teams offensive strategies is based around layups and three pointers

The Bulls defensive strategy has decided to try and take away the most efficient aspect which is layup's

Take away layups
dont foul
contests threes
rebound

There are a only a handful of contested three point shot makers in the league and we have one the rest simply will kill you if they are left open and uncontested.

The Bulls strategy was to cut off the lane not send anyone to foul line and contests shots . The not fouling part is why Drummond didnt play much . Thats not a gimmick or hiding anyone its basically betting that on most nights nba players will miss a higher percentage of contested three than uncontested ones .

Once you factor in the above into Billy's desire to not chase offensive rebounds and give up potentially easy transition buckets its the formula for a top 10 defense. It should be even better this season .

[dougthonus]

Vuc has been the least of the Bulls problem IMO. The main bad thing involving him is the Bulls should have negotiated harder to make their 2023 pick Orlando got lotto protected.

In an alternate world, where the Bulls got top 8, declining protection on both picks (similar to DeMar protection), we would have drafted Wagner at #7, then given them the pick that was Terry, drafted #11 this year, and given them whatever pick we early this upcoming season instead (likely worse than #11).

The Bulls future would look a heck of a lot better then.

You could also say if we had good success the first year and gave up pick #20 then cratered in year 2 and kept a quality pick, then had a good year in year 3 to give them a lousy pick again too.

I think the Bulls will make the playoffs this year (probably around 6-7 seed) and if so, we will have made twice and missed twice and had the very unfortunate outcome of giving away all the good picks and keeping the bad ones.

[MrSparkle]

Vuc has been the least of the Bulls problem IMO. The main bad thing involving him is the Bulls should have negotiated harder to make their 2023 pick Orlando got lotto protected.

In an alternate world, where the Bulls got top 8, declining protection on both picks (similar to DeMar protection), we would have drafted Wagner at #7, then given them the pick that was Terry, drafted #11 this year, and given them whatever pick we early this upcoming season instead (likely worse than #11).

The Bulls future would look a heck of a lot better then.

You could also say if we had good success the first year and gave up pick #20 then cratered in year 2 and kept a quality pick, then had a good year in year 3 to give them a lousy pick again too.

I think the Bulls will make the playoffs this year (probably around 6-7 seed) and if so, we will have made twice and missed twice and had the very unfortunate outcome of giving away all the good picks and keeping the bad ones.

But what if we landed Kuminga?

[FriedRise]

On defense, there were so many games when the opponents just drained three after three. We just couldn't stop them and lost.

We lost a lot of games earlier in the season where some guys just couldn't stop draining 3s, even when they were tightly contested with a hand in face. Just completely unlucky.

Of course we couldn't answer it on the other end, so we'd go down double digits before halftime. We did usually claw back and make it a game but only to lose it by a few points in the end.

[GoBlue72391]

Remember when we had overly inflated defensive ratings under Egghead? It was something like top 7 or so? In actuality our defense was dogsht and our rankings were overinflated due to us selling out to cause turnovers leaving us scrambling to get back into position whenever we failed to cause a TO.

I view our current defense in a somewhat similar light. Our defensive rankings might be good, but we're fundamentally not a good defensive team. Our defense is worse than the rankings suggest and our entire team would be better off on both sides of the floor if we replaced Vuc with an athletic, defensive-minded rim protector/rim runner at C.

[madvillian]

Overall the Bulls were a solid defensive team last year, there's various team stats that all point to being above average. As Doug pointed out, we've sacrificed some things in order to get a solid PPP defensively that perhaps hurt the offense too much in the process.

Vuc being a slowish, lumbering half court big is what it is, and Donovan is smart to try and play to his strengths. He's not a rim runner so why even bother trying to get into a track meet with teams. I feel like the Bulls want to play like Miami, which as we've seen works when you have a boatload more shooters. We def aren't trying to play like Sactown or GS, for better and worse.