Stratmaster wrote:SalmonsSuperfan wrote:drosestruts wrote:Our 22-year-old point guard just posted a triple double
Our 24-year-old combo guard 2nd-round pick is scoring at the rim with equivalent efficiency of Ja Morant and Donovan Mitchell
Our 20-year-old rookie just notched his first 20-point game
Our 24-year-old center is averaging 19 & 13 per 36 with paint protection (2.5 stocks/36) while shooting 36.5% from 3
Our all-star shooting guard has returned from injury and picked right back up to playing at an All-star level as one of 3 players in the entire NBA scoring more than 20 points, dishing out more than 4 assists, while having a TS% above 60% (Jokic, Curry, Zach - that's the list)
Our 27 year old glue-guy extrodanairre has returned from what looked like a career-ending injury to fit right back in as the guy who makes everything click.
Even our washed up over the hill center is posting career best offensive numbers.
So no - this is far from the low point of being a Bulls fans. Get some perspective.
you know guys average a triple double over the course of an entire season now, right? that half the league averages 20 ppg? that 19/13 per 36 aren't even good numbers? has Jalen even played 36 minutes all season? that the 'all-star' shooting guard is making $45mil a year, 30% of the cap, and hasn't been an all-star in going on three years? I wasn't even going to respond to the Lonzo remark, but I'm editing my post just to write "I wasn't even going to respond to the Lonzo remark".
these cherry-picked stats are pretty funny and I reckon you're making the opposite point of the one you think you're making. I admire the optimism at least, but these 'highs' are only 'high' if you're 'high'.
That all-star Guard is having the best season of his career by all objective and subjective measures other than PPG. You are choosing to use a season where he barely played, and when he was playing was playing hurt. Who is cherry picking?
How many players average triple doubles for a season and who are they? Is that your standard for assessing Josh Giddey?
well, that's not really cherry-picking, you just didn't like the rebuttal. that's fine, you can disagree, it's just not the correct terminology. cherry-picking is 76ers fans talking about how "Jared McCain as a rookie averages as many ppg as a starter as Michael Jordan did" when he's only started like 5 games and MJ started 82. Saying "Zach hasn't been an all-star since 2022" is just kind of a statement. The kind you can read in an encyclopedia, you don't even need to cite it!
I digress, I'm mostly just confused as to why you think this is Zach's best season. You were pretty emphatic, talkin some "objectively" and "subjectively". I'm not sure what subjectively good is, maybe that's like how I think I could warm the bench reasonably well. I'd give out some good hi-fives, always have a cup of water ready, I'd say things like, "hey man, good look, keep takin' em". I'd have to watch some Deangelo Russell and Cam Payne tape to improve my courtside dance moves though. I think in my heart that I'm better at basketball than Lavine, I'm subjectively better, who are you to discount my lived experience???
Objectively? I'd be curious about the metrics. Maybe it's the 'eye test', to which I have no answer, because I haven't been watching. Zach is definitely an 'eye test' kind of player, he has historically made so many boneheaded plays that do not show up in the stat sheet. Maybe he stopped making them. Kinda doubt it though, dry your eye test, mate. Otherwise statistically, it's a pretty pedestrian season for him. It's below his career average PER. His TS% is the highest in his career, that's true, but it's a rounding error away from when he took 4 more shots a game and scored 8 more points. I'm taking the guy scoring 27 PPG on .634 TS over the guy scoring 21 ppg on .639. That 27 ppg guy is also averaging a rebound and assist more a game. Zach this year is also below his career average PER. He's definitely a more efficient three point shooter 1/4 of the way through the season, but as far as I can tell, that's it. Maybe he finally developed a brain though.
And no, my standard for "assessing" Josh Giddey is not that he average a triple double. It's called hyperbole, it's a rhetorical strategy sometimes used in a jocular manner. I thought it would be pretty easy to pick up on, but maybe English isn't your first language. I thought it was hysterical that anyone would say "well, he got one triple double this year, that's awesome, right", which is why I mentioned it, when every NBA fan with two brain cells knows the triple double is not nearly as meaningful as it was 20 years ago. It's a pretty arbitrary assessment, a pointless one really, and that guy's entire post reads like it was written by someone in the Bulls marketing department. Particularly when that's basically Giddey's skillset, to fill up the box score. I'm not exactly impressed he got one triple double, are you? I'd be actually impressed if he was putting up MVP Westbrook numbers. Come to think of it, he needs to put up 3 more triple doubles this season to maintain (slightly improve upon) his career average of 3.6666667.
Following this logic, if Giddey puts up 4 triple doubles this season, he simply hasn't regressed. that's nice that he isn't getting worse, I guess, but I'm hardly calling that a point of optimism for the Chicago Bulls....you know we'd need to re-sign him next year, right? Can you imagine Josh Giddey and Patrick Williams eating, like, 45% of the cap on top of Zach's 30%? 75% of the cap space locked into three guys who aren't good enough for a .500 record. Astounding. There's no reason to be optimistic, we need to start thinking about a public protest. This is pretty much a public health emergency, they keep feeding us this terrible product and now we're sick from it. It's a soul sickness and the treatment is to find a new general manager. There is no cure.
