GT #81: WIZ @Bulls 8pm 4/11/2025

[BearlyBallin]

A Jazz overtime win & a Wizards loss last night created a tie for last place with 2 games remaining.

The Bulls are in 9th place, half a game behind the Hawks and one game ahead of the Heat in the East. They need to win if they hope to move past the Hawks.

Wizards need a Bulls win!

[BearlyBallin]

Read on Twitter

[dobrojim]

Bulls are only a game behind ATL and a game ahead of MIA. One would expect them
to be strongly motivated to win. The Wiz are tied with UTA and the only consequence
of finishing ahead or behind UTA is the pick position if neither team is selected in the
top 4. They will have the same odds of being selected in the top 4.

[BearlyBallin]

Read on Twitter

[Despy]

JC going off

[AFM]

Is Justin Champagnie better than Deni Avdija.

[Frichuela]

Alex Sarr having one of **** games. Maddening…

[Frichuela]

Bub and Sarr 2/14 FGs…they better shoot 500 shots a day in the offseason.

[AFM]

This is the type of game you just don't watch.

[Frichuela]

Tonite I watch Sarr and all I see is soft soft soft and a ton of bricks…truly maddening.

[Despy]

dudes 19 if he's not soft he's dead

[Frichuela]

dudes 19 if he's not soft he's dead

What does age has to do with it? Sarr has all the tools but his aversion to contact is a big problem and extremely frustrating. I hope someone in the organization is in his ear about this.

[Zonkerbl]

Everyone knows Sarr needs to get stronger. I think that will help him choose to power through contact more often, and to take those feathery floaty shots moving towards the basket instead of away from it. He has a 19 year old's body, that's objective truth.

[payitforward]

Is Justin Champagnie better than Deni Avdija.

-- just the kind of question I love to answer. Plus, my answer will lead to an exchange of posts with my fave nate....

You could actually argue that, yes, JC is "better" than Deni. For example, every 36 minutes...

Justin grabs 9.5 boards. Deni only gets 8.7 boards. That's a way Justin is "better" than Deni.
Oh, & almost 70% more of them are on the offensive end. Statistically offensive boards have twice as much impact on results as defensive boards.

Justin also gets 40% more steals than Deni. & he turns the ball over less than half as often as Deni, & get 70% more blocks. Now, Deni gets way more assists, & he fouls a tiny bit less. But, on all the numbers mentioned so far -- overall, Justin is significantly superior.

Of course, that doesn't tell the whole story. It's meaningful, but it's not everything. We haven't even gotten to scoring, for example.

Deni makes up a lot of ground in the comparison, for example, from the fact that he scores 6 more points than Justin every 36 minutes.

Now, if they were both below average in TS%, of course, Deni's extra points would actually be in Justin's favor! But, both guys are extremely efficient scorers: their TS% figures are virtually identical. Deni is at 60.5% while Justin is neck & neck at 60.3%. That's fantastic for a couple of wings.

Because, they are both so far above average in efficiency, Deni's extra points give him a distinct advantage as a scorer.
Without taking away from Justin's excellence.

Then, there's defense! Now, Justin is a good defender. I don't think anyone would be likely to say otherwise. But, as we know, Deni is elite. That alone suffices to make one feel comfortable declaring Deni Avdija a better NBA player than Justin Champagnie. Despite the significance of the numbers we just went through.

Nor is it at all surprising that Deni should be better than Justin: he was the 9th pick in the draft, while Justin wasn't drafted at all!

OTOH, Deni's played a whole lot more NBA minutes than Justin & is a little older as well (@7 months), suggesting that maybe the differences reflect Deni's greater experience. You could use his first years as support for the idea that Justin has more future development left in him than Deni. But, that's just speculation.

Main thing to conclude from the above is that Justin Champagnie is actually one hell of a good young NBA prospect! He's already terrific, & there's plenty of reason to expect significant further growth from him. Nice!

[The Consiglieri]

Tonite I watch Sarr and all I see is soft soft soft and a ton of bricks…truly maddening.

With us two games from clinching a tie with utah at slot 1, it's perfect timing for a bottom of the barrel performance.

[dobrojim]

The other young man that needs reps and practice is
AJJ. In recent games he's been struggling to score.
One wonders how much better he would be if he had
gottten the minutes that our other young guys have
gotten. He seems pretty tentative out there. We've
seen he has physical gifts. He needs a better
understanding of how to use them more consistently.
I compared him to Edgecomb a while back. I wonder
how quickly VJ will adapt to the NBA. If we pick 4-6
it's an open question for me who would help us
the most. Maluach, Edgecomb, Johnson or Queen.
Or someone else?

[TGW]

Yuck. Thank goodness this disgrace of a season is over.

[queridiculo]

Yuck. Thank goodness this disgrace of a season is over.

Almost.

Almost over

[The Consiglieri]

I continue to be amazed people are upset with us having a horrible season, the right freaking year.

Like, this is literally the best thing that could have happened in '25. Lots of playing time for kiddos, and a highly effective tank, for now.

We are doing it again next year, and good. It's not horrible, it's perfect, for pre-lottery.

I would take the Redskins '23 season 20 times in a row if it meant a franchise QB without blinking instead of the horror that was 1993-2023.

This is hope, and many of you seem to view it as torture. I simply do not get it, at all. What was good about 25-40 wins a year and no chance whatsoever for 45 years? Seriously, yet you'd think that was preferred to actual hope. Crazy to me. Absolutely crazy.

[TGW]

I continue to be amazed people are upset with us having a horrible season, the right freaking year.

Like, this is literally the best thing that could have happened in '25. Lots of playing time for kiddos, and a highly effective tank, for now.

We are doing it again next year, and good. It's not horrible, it's perfect, for pre-lottery.

I would take the Redskins '23 season 20 times in a row if it meant a franchise QB without blinking instead of the horror that was 1993-2023.

This is hope, and many of you seem to view it as torture. I simply do not get it, at all. What was good about 25-40 wins a year and no chance whatsoever for 45 years? Seriously, yet you'd think that was preferred to actual hope. Crazy to me. Absolutely crazy.

"Lot's of playing time for the kiddos..." is that supposed to be a good thing? Did they actually learn how to play organized, professional basketball, or were the games glorified pickup games? From the games that I stomached thru, it wasn't much better than a rec game at your local gym. Just putrid basketball. So nothing gained from the playing time IMO. Especially considering that none of the playing time was actually earned.

Not only that, I don't see anyone on this roster as a cornerstone. That's my opinion, I know you homers don't like it, but no one impresses me. Your MVP this season was arguably Champangnie or Poole...that should tell you something about how **** this roster is.

And how do you know how effective the tank is? Until the tank turns into legitimate franchise players (which it hasn't), it's way too early to say this is an effective tank. The only thing we know is that they have a 14% chance of the number one pick in a draft where there's only 1 guaranteed star, and that ain't good odds buddy.