FriedRise wrote:MrSparkle wrote:Vuc seemed especially bad last night. Finger pointing on defensive breakdowns. I imagine he’s ready for a new team. This has been an awkward marriage since the beginning. Both sides should finally put each other out their misery. I believe he’s more of a 35% spot-up 3P shooter (28% is frustration), who’s tired of being “the man”, not confident in his role, and asked to play more defense than he wants to at this stage in his career. Having a worse record than Orlando can’t help his morale.
More than anything, it’ll be sad if AK declares Vuc is still his pillar for the Bulls after this summer. The league’s been done reading your bluff. Move him to a contender for some late first rounder, clear the salary for 2026 and move on already.
Yeah he stood out to me mostly because the guy he's matched up with kept getting offensive rebounds when he's got a couple inches on him. That's effort, and Holmes simply just wanted it more. He also left his man a few times when he didn't need to, trying to help on a Jared Butler drive (who?) and left his man completely open under the basket.
Why the hell do you feel like you need to be helping Caruso or Ayo and double Jared Butler? Dude got 13 easy assists because you kept leaving your assignment.
On offense, our guards routinely either ignored him when he had a mismatch sealed (like Kispert) or didn't know how to perform a simple entry pass to get him the ball - neither of which was a Vooch problem. But the few times he got the ball, he did some dumb passes that kept getting intercepted by the Wizards to the tune of 3 turnovers.
I really do think that he thought he'd be off this team by the deadline (he only said it so many times before the season started), but he obviously underestimated AK's stubbornness. He probably should've just gone through UFA instead of re-signing, but I'm sure it was difficult to turn down big guaranteed money.
Yeah, good points.
To amend what I said, he must be double frustrated being the lone defensive anchor (in the front-court; obviously it’s Caruso, otherwise), while NOT being the go-to/1st option. He gets evidently annoyed when not getting a lot of post/midrange looks. It’s just that his percents are so low.
Random stats: His best season (Orlando 18/19), he averaged 16.9 FGAs per game and 28% usage.
We’re 12-21 when he has 16 or less FGAs.
20-14 when he has 17 FGAs or more.
There’s a certain benefit to running through the post, even though it’s a low efficiency shot. Distracting the defense, I suppose.
Holmes is one of the worst defensive Cs in the game, and it’s mind-boggling to me that we were down 0-15 without Vuc or Demar scoring a bail-out bucket in the paint. This is where I wonder just how hand’s off Billy can be. Our guards’ inexperience also shows, as it shouldn’t be that difficult to generate an easy assist in the paint against a tank job.
All in all, everybody gets the blame. I love Demar, but if I needed a reason to move on from him, as good as he can be in the clutch, there’s mutually no benefit in paying a 35yo max/near-max money if he can’t prevent them from being blown out by a last place, short-handed team.