Josh Giddey - Conundrum Killer

[League Circles]

I disagree with this. He's making his terrible shot at decent percentages (ignoring the glaring lack of defensive attention). Reworking what feels natural to someone has a high chance of making it even worse short term.

I guarantee you if you put 2 hours a day into shooting 3s with a shooting coach for one summer, you could shoot 32% on 3 pointers where you are wide open. This isn't NBA athlete stuff, this is "any person with enough upper body strength and conditioning to practice 2 hours a day could achieve this" stuff.

It sounds like what you're saying is that you're positive that an enormous chunk of nba players are allowed to shoot threes despite not working on it at all and not even being better than an enormous chunk of random people off the street would be.

[Infinity2152]

Reworking your shot is not as simple and easy as you guys think . Do you guys play basketball ?

I went from Giddey like form that I had used for 8 years of somewhat regular play to good shooting form in a single summer working with a shooting coach for an hour a week for maybe 10 weeks and working on my own another couple hours a week, break even point on being a better shooter reworking my form was probably like 5 weeks.

I don't mean this in the sense of saying it is the same, but relative to your point of "do you play basketball", I have gone through the exact exercise at the rec level.

If Giddey was solid and reworking his form to get to really good, that'd be tough, but being poor and reworking your form to just get back to poor isn't that hard.

How long did it take Lebron to get his free throw shooting to good? One of the greatest players in history, has worked and reworked his shot for 20 years, and still has never shot 80% for the season. First 8 years in the league, he shot 35% or better from three exactly once. There are countless guys in the league reworking their shots constantly, some with slow results, some with faster results. You're talking about a player changing their shot after they've already entered the league. Meaning probably worse shooting for a while, while you're being paid to produce. It's not black and white. Brook Lopez was in the league 8 years, then jumped from 14% to 35-37% for basically the rest of his career.

I don't think people understand how hard it is to shoot the NBA three at 35% or better against NBA defense either, especially from the top. Most of the league probably has seasons below that, 15-20 years ago, that was probably extremely rare. You can be a below average NBA game shooter and still be a very good shooter, regardless of form. Giddey will outshoot anybody in here with his "poor" form.

[burlydee]

Reworking your shot is not as simple and easy as you guys think . Do you guys play basketball ?

I went from Giddey like form that I had used for 8 years of somewhat regular play to good shooting form in a single summer working with a shooting coach for an hour a week for maybe 10 weeks and working on my own another couple hours a week, break even point on being a better shooter reworking my form was probably like 5 weeks.

I don't mean this in the sense of saying it is the same, but relative to your point of "do you play basketball", I have gone through the exact exercise at the rec level.

If Giddey was solid and reworking his form to get to really good, that'd be tough, but being poor and reworking your form to just get back to poor isn't that hard.

Your transformation may not have been what you perceive.

If it was this easy you'd never see a Joakim Noah type.

Even if the short term risk isn't what we think it might be, surely that sentiment exists in the league to a substantial extent. Otherwise trainers and players wouldn't tolerate garbage form.

Josh Giddey is playing against world class athletes in the toughest basketball league in the world while receiving both international and club coaching. Doug is playing at the Y. Some of this stuff doesn't deserve response ...

[MikeDC]

It's kind of hilarious armchair GM's think they do better analysis and have a quarter of the info the teams have, lol. I keep seeing people talk about Vuc wouldn't get that on the free agent market, Pat wouldn't get that on the free agent market, now Giddey won't get paid on the free agent market. I'm ABSOLUTELY sure they put feelers around the league to get an idea of what these players would get offered, and absolutely sure they have more sources with other teams. Then fans put their personal feelings about the player in, and ignore very similar players on other teams get just as much or more. Call the Bulls cheap on one hand then saying they keep massively overpaying their free agents doesn't click. They made Zach go and find his own offer, rather than overpaying him.

They had a good idea of Vuc's market value, better than fans. Had a good idea of Pat's market value, better than fans. Fans are in here talking about the max they would give a 22-year-old with 4 years of experience already and is a walking triple double threat is $12-15 mill/yr. You're insane if you think that's even close to his market, then get disappointed when they sign him to more. Just say you don't want to pay him what he's worth, not that he's not worth what he gets.

For the most part, I agree that FOs know way more than fans. They have more insight to a bunch of things that fans can't. They also have to cope with human aspects of the game that fans often forget and can't see.

That said, while this general statement is true, there are still wide gaps between good and bad FOs. Our FO is one of the worst in the league. It pains me how little vision they have, how poor their overall strategy is, and how middling their execution is. They do not seem to understand how to read FA well, draft well, and seem to regularly lose trades when they make them. Even to the extent they have some execution wins, because their overall strategy is non-sensical and misguided, they don't amount to anything.

More information and analysis often leads to worse decision making.

[dougthonus]

Your transformation may not have been what you perceive.

If it was this easy you'd never see a Joakim Noah type.

Even if the short term risk isn't what we think it might be, surely that sentiment exists in the league to a substantial extent. Otherwise trainers and players wouldn't tolerate garbage form.

Lonzo Ball fully reworked his shot in a single summer and went from absolute crap shooter with god awful form, to very solid shooter with very good form in one offseason.

That's two steps beyond what I was saying Giddey could accomplish which was to just rework his form while still being an awful and unreliable shooter.

My personal example was only brought up because the classic "do you even play basketball" argument was made.

[Infinity2152]

It's kind of hilarious armchair GM's think they do better analysis and have a quarter of the info the teams have, lol. I keep seeing people talk about Vuc wouldn't get that on the free agent market, Pat wouldn't get that on the free agent market, now Giddey won't get paid on the free agent market. I'm ABSOLUTELY sure they put feelers around the league to get an idea of what these players would get offered, and absolutely sure they have more sources with other teams. Then fans put their personal feelings about the player in, and ignore very similar players on other teams get just as much or more. Call the Bulls cheap on one hand then saying they keep massively overpaying their free agents doesn't click. They made Zach go and find his own offer, rather than overpaying him.

They had a good idea of Vuc's market value, better than fans. Had a good idea of Pat's market value, better than fans. Fans are in here talking about the max they would give a 22-year-old with 4 years of experience already and is a walking triple double threat is $12-15 mill/yr. You're insane if you think that's even close to his market, then get disappointed when they sign him to more. Just say you don't want to pay him what he's worth, not that he's not worth what he gets.

For the most part, I agree that FOs know way more than fans. They have more insight to a bunch of things that fans can't. They also have to cope with human aspects of the game that fans often forget and can't see.

That said, while this general statement is true, there are still wide gaps between good and bad FOs. Our FO is one of the worst in the league. It pains me how little vision they have, how poor their overall strategy is, and how middling their execution is. They do not seem to understand how to read FA well, draft well, and seem to regularly lose trades when they make them. Even to the extent they have some execution wins, because their overall strategy is non-sensical and misguided, they don't amount to anything.

I'm specifically talking about market value here, though. One of the most important ways to figure out how other teams view a player's value is talking to the other teams. Not just asking them questions, but putting feelers out, talking to agents, personal relationships, inside information. So the odds are, while they may be slightly off in determining what a player might get in free agency, they probably have a fairly accurate idea. From what I see, most of these estimations of what these players are worth bear little relation to what similar players get. Almost every suggestion mentions the player's flaws, and not their strengths that got them into the NBA and looking for a new contract. So maybe Pat or Vuc get $2 mill/yr more from us than their maximum offer from another team, but it's not likely $6-10 mill/yr off. Ayo and Coby look like discounts.

They also have other considerations we don't know and a game plan we're guessing at. Player's value is more than just money, it's also relative to team need. The same $40 mill player won't have the same value to different teams in different places and with different needs. It'd make way more sense for the Spurs to take on Lavine's salary than Detroit, for instance. When the GM was given a win now directive, it made sense to them to sign Ball, Derozan and Vuc. When they re-signed Vuc, it was also with the knowledge that we still had two expensive vets on the team, Ball might come back and no way to replace Vuc. Not just Vuc is worth $20 mill, is he worth $20 mill to our team at that time.

[dougthonus]

I'm specifically talking about market value here, though. One of the most important ways to figure out how other teams view a player's value is talking to the other teams. Not just asking them questions, but putting feelers out, talking to agents, personal relationships, inside information. So the odds are, while they may be slightly off in determining what a player might get in free agency, they probably have a fairly accurate idea. From what I see, most of these estimations of what these players are worth bear little relation to what similar players get. So maybe Pat or Vuc get $2 mill/yr more from us than their maximum offer from another team, but it's not likely $6-10 mill off.

We'll never know. What I know is that in the same position, I would have been fine letting Vuc walk for nothing, and there was sure no reason to proactively bid top of the market and Pat was restricted, and we had no need to proactively bid top of the market there either.

Which gets back to poor process / execution by a poor GM that doesn't understand how to use any of the leverage they have.

They also have other considerations we don't know and a game plan we're guessing at. Player's value is more than just money, it's also relative to team need. The same $40 mill player won't have the same value to different teams in different places and with different needs. It'd make way more sense for the Spurs to take on Lavine's salary than Detroit, for instance. When the GM was given a win now directive, it made sense to them to sign Ball, Derozan and Vuc. When they re-signed Vuc, it was also with the knowledge that we still had two expensive vets on the team, Ball might come back and no way to replace Vuc. Not just Vuc is worth $20 mill, is he worth $20 mill to our team at that time.

Look up a list of teams in the worst position in the NBA on general google search, and the Bulls will almost always be on it, so relative to whatever you think our needs / goals are, the results is that they are abject failures.

[coldfish]

I'll say this about Giddey: He wants to be good. He wants to win.

There is value in that. I'm not sure I can say that about every NBA player as many seem to be just happy to be there.

Does he though?

He says a lot of the right things, but the outcomes of his work don't seem to back up that he's doing the right things. His shot form shows someone who absolutely does not give a F about improving it. Literally, in 3 months he could have reworked that shot to have a form that doesn't look like a 7 year old trying to heave a basketball to the basket from the 3 point line and yet, here we are, still one of the ugliest, slowest, worst shots in the NBA.

His defense is still awful even considering his physical limitations.

He doesn't seem like he's done much to improve his body or take advantage of the idea that if he became much stronger and more physical he could at least play more bully ball.

I've not chronicled him across his career, but I'm not impressed based on what he said in his exit interviews from OKC and what he has achieved in an off-season since then. I'd say basically zero progress towards all the things he himself identified as critical.

I'm not saying he is lazy / terrible / won't work relative to say someone like me eating pretzels on my couch, but compared to the top 300 or so basketball players in the world that he's competing against? I don't think his work ethic / desire is above the median player, probably less.

I obviously disagree. IMO, he is a bottom 10% athlete in the NBA. Some people are born tall, others aren't. Some people are born with quick twitch muscles, others aren't. Its somewhat surprising that he is even in the NBA given his lateral limitations.

A lot of Giddey's issues revolve around him just having terrible reaction time and limb quickness. I watched him play in the olympics and have watched him some as a Bull and he shows heart and effort.

IMO, rebounding is the most basic hustle stat. Its just all about wanting it and fighting for it. Giddey has a 13% rebounding rate. Patrick, as an example of the opposite end of the spectrum, is at 8.6%.

[dougthonus]

How long did it take Lebron to get his free throw shooting to good? One of the greatest players in history, has worked and reworked his shot for 20 years, and still has never shot 80% for the season. First 8 years in the league, he shot 35% or better from three exactly once.

Shooting 80% on FTs is WAY harder than shooting 32% on wide open 3 point shots. LeBron has never spent any amount of time sitting wide open at the three point line getting shots as open as Giddey.

[dougthonus]

I obviously disagree. IMO, he is a bottom 10% athlete in the NBA. Some people are born tall, others aren't. Some people are born with quick twitch muscles, others aren't. Its somewhat surprising that he is even in the NBA given his lateral limitations.

A lot of Giddey's issues revolve around him just having terrible reaction time and limb quickness. I watched him play in the olympics and have watched him some as a Bull and he shows heart and effort.

IMO, rebounding is the most basic hustle stat. Its just all about wanting it and fighting for it. Giddey has a 13% rebounding rate. Patrick, as an example of the opposite end of the spectrum, is at 8.6%.

Maybe we're talking apples and oranges. I don't think Giddey is lazy on the court. I think his work ethic is nothing special off of it.

[Infinity2152]

I'm specifically talking about market value here, though. One of the most important ways to figure out how other teams view a player's value is talking to the other teams. Not just asking them questions, but putting feelers out, talking to agents, personal relationships, inside information. So the odds are, while they may be slightly off in determining what a player might get in free agency, they probably have a fairly accurate idea. From what I see, most of these estimations of what these players are worth bear little relation to what similar players get. So maybe Pat or Vuc get $2 mill/yr more from us than their maximum offer from another team, but it's not likely $6-10 mill off.

We'll never know. What I know is that in the same position, I would have been fine letting Vuc walk for nothing, and there was sure no reason to proactively bid top of the market and Pat was restricted, and we had no need to proactively bid top of the market there either.

Which gets back to poor process / execution by a poor GM that doesn't understand how to use any of the leverage they have.

They also have other considerations we don't know and a game plan we're guessing at. Player's value is more than just money, it's also relative to team need. The same $40 mill player won't have the same value to different teams in different places and with different needs. It'd make way more sense for the Spurs to take on Lavine's salary than Detroit, for instance. When the GM was given a win now directive, it made sense to them to sign Ball, Derozan and Vuc. When they re-signed Vuc, it was also with the knowledge that we still had two expensive vets on the team, Ball might come back and no way to replace Vuc. Not just Vuc is worth $20 mill, is he worth $20 mill to our team at that time.

Look up a list of teams in the worst position in the NBA on general google search, and the Bulls will almost always be on it, so relative to whatever you think our needs / goals are, the results is that they are abject failures.

Does this have anything to do with how much the players are making though? If you're saying these players shouldn't be on the team, that's one thing. Don't know how the Bulls would be at the bottom of every list, when they keep making the play-in with 2-3 injured starters every year. That should put them in the middle at worst. They have 1 player over 30 that get minutes. 1 player making over $20 mill, and he's under 30, putting up over 20/gm. This team has been like 1-2 players from being a regular playoff team every year. Not even one star player, swap Vuc with Myles Turner and Ball plays and see where we are. Jevon Carter is probably the only player on the team with negative value right now. Zach and Pat have the only contracts past two years.

Biggest failure is not getting that number 1 guy, it's hard to be successful without no matter how much you shuffle lower-level pieces. How many teams are contending without a player better than Lavine, even without the crazy number of injuries we've had? Derozan was the closest they could get, and he's a bad fit next to Zach.

[dougthonus]

Does this have anything to do with how much the players are making though? If you're saying these players shouldn't be on the team, that's one thing.

Yes, the poor process of bidding top of market prior to the market opening even when you have matching rights, then when all is said and done, you look back at the market and go "yeah we paid too much" is part of why those guys are paid that much.

Don't know how the Bulls would be at the bottom of every list, when they keep making the play-in with 2-3 injured starters every year. That should put them in the middle at worst.

Sorry, maybe we are saying slightly different things, if you made a list of teams in the bottom say 8 positions in the NBA to ever compete over the next 5 years, the Bulls would be on every list. They aren't good enough to compete now, and have less future assets than all the teams much worse than them.

I'm not saying they would be #1 on every list (though I have seen them ranked as #1).

Biggest failure is not getting that number 1 guy, it's hard to be successful without no matter how much you shuffle lower-level pieces. How many teams are contending without a player better than Lavine, even without the crazy number of injuries we've had? Derozan was the closest they could get, and he's a bad fit next to Zach.

Biggest failure is trading three 1st round picks to attempt to win right away and make the playoffs once in four years and win a total of one playoff game. Agreed it is super hard to win it all without a number one guy, but it's not that hard to be a 1st round exit team especially when you give up lots of future assets to try to win right away.

If you aren't going to win, you should be increasing your asset base rather than dwindling it.

Thought this was a good representation of what I mean:

Read on Twitter

[League Circles]

Does this have anything to do with how much the players are making though? If you're saying these players shouldn't be on the team, that's one thing.

Yes, the poor process of bidding top of market prior to the market opening even when you have matching rights, then when all is said and done, you look back at the market and go "yeah we paid too much" is part of why those guys are paid that much.

Don't know how the Bulls would be at the bottom of every list, when they keep making the play-in with 2-3 injured starters every year. That should put them in the middle at worst.

Sorry, maybe we are saying slightly different things, if you made a list of teams in the bottom say 8 positions in the NBA to ever compete over the next 5 years, the Bulls would be on every list. They aren't good enough to compete now, and have less future assets than all the teams much worse than them.

I'm not saying they would be #1 on every list (though I have seen them ranked as #1).

Biggest failure is not getting that number 1 guy, it's hard to be successful without no matter how much you shuffle lower-level pieces. How many teams are contending without a player better than Lavine, even without the crazy number of injuries we've had? Derozan was the closest they could get, and he's a bad fit next to Zach.

Biggest failure is trading three 1st round picks to attempt to win right away and make the playoffs once in four years and win a total of one playoff game. Agreed it is super hard to win it all without a number one guy, but it's not that hard to be a 1st round exit team especially when you give up lots of future assets to try to win right away.

If you aren't going to win, you should be increasing your asset base rather than dwindling it.

Thought this was a good representation of what I mean:

Read on Twitter

That Gottleib tweet is utter cringe in how arbitrary and baseless it is. For example, why "top 5" picks to get a guy who can lead you to playoff wins? Why not top 3, top 2, or top 10?

[League Circles]

He's literally saying that "something needs to change" for 17/30 nba teams every year.

[Chi town]

Reworking your shot is not as simple and easy as you guys think . Do you guys play basketball ?

It’s took Lonzo some serious time. You have to commit to the new stroke and get in thousand if reps before its natural.

NO WAY someone changes their shot in season in a contract year. It will def get worse before better and then the mental side enters into the equation as well.

I knew Giddey wouldn’t improve his shot considering his whole summer was Olympics and injury and he wasn’t even in Chicago.

Bulls have an opportunity here. If they can sign Giddey before the 3 ball improvement and shot change it could be a big gain.

I do expect Giddey to improve his shot but I am skeptical it will be a plus as Doug has said why hasn’t he yet? Surely he knows and coaches have told him his setup, arc, and rotation sucks.

Patton could make Giddey a good shooter. We won’t really know till next season if Giddey committs to new form like Lonzo.

[dougthonus]

That Gottleib tweet is utter cringe in how arbitrary and baseless it is. For example, why "top 5" picks to get a guy who can lead you to playoff wins? Why not top 3, top 2, or top 10?

Let's use a range of numbers:

Over that time period, the Bulls had 4 top 10 picks:
Patrick Williams (4)
Coby White (7)
WCJ (7)
Lauri(7)

So using top 7 picks gives the Bulls the most optimal number. If you rerun at the Bulls optimal number, the bottom looks like:

Pistons: 5
Hornets: 6
Kings: 6
Bulls: 7
Magic: 7
(everyone else still higher)

What is perhaps more concerning is if you just run this during the AK era, the Bulls number is 1 (1 playoff win, no top 10 picks).

Other bottom teams in terms of playoff success:
CHI: (1) - 1 win / Picks none
CHO: (2) - 0 wins / Picks at #2, #6
TOR: (3) - 2 wins / Pick #4
NOP: (4) - 2 wins / Picks #8, #10
WAS: (4) - 1 win / Picks at #2, #8, #10
DET: (4) - 0 wins / Picks at #1, #5, #5, #5
HOU: (4) - 0 wins / Picks at #2, #3, #3, #4
SAS: (4) - 0 wins / Picks at #1, #4, #8, #9
POR: (5) - 2 wins / Picks #3, #7, #7

[Infinity2152]

I don't see how the Bulls are considered to be in such a horrible position, at least if we look forward to this summer. Basically the entire team except two players should be easily movable. The two players that we're having difficulty moving, we still predict positive assets greater than just cap space. The entire team is young. Ball's contract is coming off. Outside this pick we're juggling with the Spurs, we own all our other first round picks. Portland's pick if they're not in the lottery any year before 2028. Promising rookie in Matas. Great value contracts in Ayo and White. Potentially great player in Giddey. If they don't re-sign Giddey, we have a lot of cap. Trade Vuc, same thing.

We really just need one top young talent. If they want to re-shuffle and go with three Zach level players like Derozan and Vuc, they could do that do too. Multiple directions the Bulls could go now and be a top 15 team next year. Basically, the Bulls have had one top 5 pick in a ton of years, and that hasn't panned out. then there's the lottery. 2018, higher pick gets us Doncic, Trae Young or Jaren jackson. 2019, we ended up 7 and got White instead of 1 or 2 and getting Zion or Ja Morant. 2020 draft, picks 1-3 would have gotten us Ant Edwards or Lamelo Ball. We got pick 4. Lot of luck involved in the get bad to get better method.

Regardless of the results, that team with Ball, Lavine, Derozan, Williams, Vuc, Coby, Ayo, Drummond, DJJ, Caruso etc. was not one of the bottom teams in terms of overall player talent by a long shot.

[League Circles]

That Gottleib tweet is utter cringe in how arbitrary and baseless it is. For example, why "top 5" picks to get a guy who can lead you to playoff wins? Why not top 3, top 2, or top 10?

Let's use a range of numbers:

Over that time period, the Bulls had 4 top 10 picks:
Patrick Williams (4)
Coby White (7)
WCJ (7)
Lauri(7)

So using top 7 picks gives the Bulls the most optimal number. If you rerun at the Bulls optimal number, the bottom looks like:

Pistons: 5
Hornets: 6
Kings: 6
Bulls: 7
Magic: 7
(everyone else still higher)

I wasn't complaining that it was arbitrarily biased against the Bulls specifically. I'm saying that it's obviously a ridiculously arbitrary measure of success, period. It's just another way to regurgitate the incredibly oversimplified and tired notion that essentially most teams should be tanking most of the time. Which is absurd on its face obviously.

[dougthonus]

I wasn't complaining that it was arbitrarily biased against the Bulls specifically. I'm saying that it's obviously a ridiculously arbitrary measure of success, period. It's just another way to regurgitate the incredibly oversimplified and tired notion that essentially most teams should be tanking most of the time. Which is absurd on its face obviously.

It isn't arbitrary though. It is measuring are you presently successful, and if not, are you collecting high upside assets. If you have a less arbitrary way to measure "collecting high upside assets", I'm all game to hear it.

BTW, edited, but here's the results for just the AK piece of this era:

CHI: (1) - 1 win / Picks none
CHO: (2) - 0 wins / Picks at #2, #6
TOR: (3) - 2 wins / Pick #4
NOP: (4) - 2 wins / Picks #8, #10
WAS: (4) - 1 win / Picks at #2, #8, #10
DET: (4) - 0 wins / Picks at #1, #5, #5, #5
HOU: (4) - 0 wins / Picks at #2, #3, #3, #4
SAS: (4) - 0 wins / Picks at #1, #4, #8, #9
POR: (5) - 2 wins / Picks #3, #7, #7

But hey, if you want to ignore whether picks are valuable, then only 4 teams in the league have had less playoff success in the AK era than AK with one team tied with them. 25 teams have had more playoff success over the AK era.

[sco]

IMO, going into the season, the conundrum was that Giddey would be looking for around $30M/yr on his next deal, coupled with his play not supporting that value. We're almost half way through the season and his play, while trending up a little, still doesn't support a $30M contract. If I had to ascribe a current value to his play, it would be around $12M to $16M.

Now he's young, which some ascribe additional value to because there's "upside"; however he's been playing for a long time in the NBA, working against that premise. Also, he's an RFA, which also depresses his market value.

I am currently at a similar spot that I was at with Pat last season. He may have upside, but it's going from 3rd quartile starting PG (or whatever you call him) to a 2nd quartile starting PG. The part that I struggle with here is that there are very few players, after 4 seasons as a starter in the NBA, that make big leaps in the weaknesses of their game...maybe they score more when going from low usage to high usage, but rarely do they become good at something they were bad at. That said, I think a fair deal is something around what Pat got. If we keep him, it should be with the recognition that he isn't ever going to be an above average 3pt shooter or defender, and that's ok, he can likely get to average, and that may be good enough.

The key is that this team won't ever contend with players like Pat, Coby or Giddey starting, if they don't find a true #1 option. I also don't think that trading them will likely bring you back a young undiscovered #1 or a pick with a decent shot at that. So if you keep him (them), you need to probably get lucky in FA as your "strategy".