How Many Wins?

[sco]

Revisited this thought today. The Bulls are not constructed to tank. Defense is far less of a priority than offense, nowadays. With Vuc and Lavine, you have 2 guys that will average around 45 when healthy, add around another 20 for White. Derozan's clutch factor aside, Giddey's playmaking should match that impact. Talentwise, think we're still a middle of the pack team, at least in the East. If Ball is averaging 20 mins by mid season and we have no major injuries to starters, we're in the playoffs, and MIGHT not even need the play in to make it. Should expect improvements from every single young player, and Carter had a horrible season last year, could bounce back. Offensive flow should be much better and faster with Giddey getting Derozan's minutes.

Nuggets start Jokic, Murray, and Porter Jr, three below average defenders, and won a championship, with Aaron Gordon playing the Pat Will spot. When the Bulls have Ayo, Williams, Smith on the floor, they will be good defensively. Adding Matas, Smith, Giddey and even Lofton Jr, plus (biggest of all) allegedly offering Derozan a contract, not a single move they've made this summer lends to tanking, or focusing on future assets. Does a tanking team trade Caruso for Giddey? They clearly need Lavine and Giddey to have great years, need Vuc to have one too if they want to move him. They're still trying to win as many games as possible.

Giddey's impact is underestimated. When people look at his last year stats, they miss the fact he only played 25 minutes a game, vs 31 the year before. He didn't fall off last year. Per 36,
year 2: 19 pts, 9 rbs, 7 assists, 48% from field, 33% from three, .9 steals, .5 blocks.
Last year: 18 pts, 9 rbs, 7 assists, 48% from the field, 34% from three, .9 steals, .8 blocks.

At 20 and 21. This kid has potential to be a real beast, like high level All-Star beast. 1A player beast.

Good points!

IMO, the thing that will hurt the Bulls most is that I see that there are fewer young, developing bad teams to pad wins. IMO you have the clearly better teams in the East of:
BOS
PHI
NY
IND
MIL
CLE
MIA
ORL

I see us in the mix with:
ATL
DET
TOR

And only ahead of:
WAS
CHA
BKN

It's going to be tough to be above .500.

I expect that our offensive efficiency will be up. On the one hand, losing our 2 best players and 2 of our best clutch players is going to make a bigger difference than people think. That said, I think that Zach will be the best version of himself that we've seen in a few years, which will partially offset that. I also think that Giddey will boost Vuc's efficiency numbers with his ability to draw defenders on the PNR and find his C in the paint, and the same may be true for Zach's efficiency with Zach likely being put in fewer ISO situations. Coby will likely regress significantly in terms of his shot attempts. He was up to 15.3 shots per game last season. Zach will get a similar number of shots as Demar had, but I think that Vuc, Giddey and Coby will all get around the same number of shots at around 12 per game (and Pat with around 8). The good news is that I think Coby is going to get more open catch-and-shoot 3's this season, and will not see much double-teaming.

As has been said repeatedly, I expect our defense will just be so much worse without Caruso. The trio of Giddey, Lavine and White, while all decent effort defenders, are all very bad on defensive rotations.

[Infinity2152]

Revisited this thought today. The Bulls are not constructed to tank. Defense is far less of a priority than offense, nowadays. With Vuc and Lavine, you have 2 guys that will average around 45 when healthy, add around another 20 for White. Derozan's clutch factor aside, Giddey's playmaking should match that impact. Talentwise, think we're still a middle of the pack team, at least in the East. If Ball is averaging 20 mins by mid season and we have no major injuries to starters, we're in the playoffs, and MIGHT not even need the play in to make it. Should expect improvements from every single young player, and Carter had a horrible season last year, could bounce back. Offensive flow should be much better and faster with Giddey getting Derozan's minutes.

Nuggets start Jokic, Murray, and Porter Jr, three below average defenders, and won a championship, with Aaron Gordon playing the Pat Will spot. When the Bulls have Ayo, Williams, Smith on the floor, they will be good defensively. Adding Matas, Smith, Giddey and even Lofton Jr, plus (biggest of all) allegedly offering Derozan a contract, not a single move they've made this summer lends to tanking, or focusing on future assets. Does a tanking team trade Caruso for Giddey? They clearly need Lavine and Giddey to have great years, need Vuc to have one too if they want to move him. They're still trying to win as many games as possible.

Giddey's impact is underestimated. When people look at his last year stats, they miss the fact he only played 25 minutes a game, vs 31 the year before. He didn't fall off last year. Per 36,
year 2: 19 pts, 9 rbs, 7 assists, 48% from field, 33% from three, .9 steals, .5 blocks.
Last year: 18 pts, 9 rbs, 7 assists, 48% from the field, 34% from three, .9 steals, .8 blocks.

At 20 and 21. This kid has potential to be a real beast, like high level All-Star beast. 1A player beast.

Good points!

IMO, the thing that will hurt the Bulls most is that I see that there are fewer young, developing bad teams to pad wins. IMO you have the clearly better teams in the East of:
BOS
PHI
NY
IND
MIL
CLE
MIA
ORL

I see us in the mix with:
ATL
DET
TOR

And only ahead of:
WAS
CHA
BKN

It's going to be tough to be above .500.

I expect that our offensive efficiency will be up. On the one hand, losing our 2 best players and 2 of our best clutch players is going to make a bigger difference than people think. That said, I think that Zach will be the best version of himself that we've seen in a few years, which will partially offset that. I also think that Giddey will boost Vuc's efficiency numbers with his ability to draw defenders on the PNR and find his C in the paint, and the same may be true for Zach's efficiency with Zach likely being put in fewer ISO situations. Coby will likely regress significantly in terms of his shot attempts. He was up to 15.3 shots per game last season. Zach will get a similar number of shots as Demar had, but I think that Vuc, Giddey and Coby will all get around the same number of shots at around 12 per game (and Pat with around 8). The good news is that I think Coby is going to get more open catch-and-shoot 3's this season, and will not see much double-teaming.

As has been said repeatedly, I expect our defense will just be so much worse without Caruso. The trio of Giddey, Lavine and White, while all decent effort defenders, are all very bad on defensive rotations.

Agree with pretty much all this. Not so sure teams like ORL, MIA, CLE, IND will be better for the season. They're all pretty much one injury away from being pretty bad. I think our depth is better, nobody on the Bulls except maybe Vuc not easily replaced by somebody else on the roster. Injury to Butler or Bam, goodbye Miami. Injury to Banchero or Wagner, see you ORL. Any of Mitchell, Garland or Mobley out, big hit for Cavs. Pacers better not lose Haliburton or it's over. For us, Zach and Coby, arguably our best players, are interchangeable and shouldn't be on the court at the same time anyway. Giddey out, we have a ton of PG's. Williams out, up Matas and Phillip's minutes, won't be a huge drop off. Add in Ball, huge X factor. Lot depends on if Billy starts Coby or Ayo, Ayo starts, defense looks way different.

Bucks, Celtics, Philly still better with an injury to one of their top 3, the others not nearly as sure.

[kodo]

How many teams in the East do y'all think are worse than the Bulls?

These teams had worse record than Chicago last year:
Atlanta, Brooklyn, Toronto, Charlotte, Washington, Detroit

Atlanta, Detroit and Charlotte will be better than Chicago this year, we have no business TRYING to win over 15 games. I want Cooper Flagg like a fat kid wants to eat all of his halloween candy on HALLOWEEN!

I don't see Charlotte and Detroit being better than Chicago, they won 21 and 14 games respectively last season and neither team added big pieces to push them further.

When both Lamelo & Bridges played 75+ games, Charlotte won 43 games. I think Lamelo is probably not going to play much again, but if he really is healthy they should get 30 something wins at least. Healthy Melo was getting close to 30 points triple doubles last season. And Brandon Miller was a nice add and should improve greatly. I think they're a wildcard just based on melo's health.

Yeah not sure about Detroit, we've never seen them win in the high 30s. It's weird because it was obviously built as a defensive team with all the defensive high picks, but their defense was awful last season gave up 120 ppg. They can't switch gears and be a team that wins on offense, Duren & Ausar & Holland aren't going to turn into 3P snipers over the summer.

[kodo]

I expect that our offensive efficiency will be up. On the one hand, losing our 2 best players and 2 of our best clutch players is going to make a bigger difference than people think. That said, I think that Zach will be the best version of himself that we've seen in a few years, which will partially offset that. I also think that Giddey will boost Vuc's efficiency numbers with his ability to draw defenders on the PNR and find his C in the paint, and the same may be true for Zach's efficiency with Zach likely being put in fewer ISO situations. Coby will likely regress significantly in terms of his shot attempts. He was up to 15.3 shots per game last season. Zach will get a similar number of shots as Demar had, but I think that Vuc, Giddey and Coby will all get around the same number of shots at around 12 per game (and Pat with around 8). The good news is that I think Coby is going to get more open catch-and-shoot 3's this season, and will not see much double-teaming.

As has been said repeatedly, I expect our defense will just be so much worse without Caruso. The trio of Giddey, Lavine and White, while all decent effort defenders, are all very bad on defensive rotations.

I don't think it will be too difficult to match our clutch play on offense. I think there's a misconception that the Bulls were an unusually elite clutch shooting team, we really weren't.

Our clutch offense was 60% TS. That's the same as at least half the teams, Utah was 59%, Charlotte 60%. Turns out in clutch situations, everyone gives the ball to their best players and their offense goes up a bit. Only DAL/OKC/DEN really played unusually well on offense (63%-65%), probably because Luka/Shai/Joker handled every possession.

But we had the best defense in the league in clutch, and normally our D is 21st. Potentially we have a lot of very good on ball defenders to stop hero ball, and I would include Lavine in that next season. Also since we're 28th in pace, that slow methodical close game play is our normal.

Although the intangible factor is if the team knows they're not built to win next year, they may just not care as much. We did win a lot mid season by playing like it was the playoffs already, and ran out of gas after a couple of months. We were hustling like game 7 in early December.

[sco]

I expect that our offensive efficiency will be up. On the one hand, losing our 2 best players and 2 of our best clutch players is going to make a bigger difference than people think. That said, I think that Zach will be the best version of himself that we've seen in a few years, which will partially offset that. I also think that Giddey will boost Vuc's efficiency numbers with his ability to draw defenders on the PNR and find his C in the paint, and the same may be true for Zach's efficiency with Zach likely being put in fewer ISO situations. Coby will likely regress significantly in terms of his shot attempts. He was up to 15.3 shots per game last season. Zach will get a similar number of shots as Demar had, but I think that Vuc, Giddey and Coby will all get around the same number of shots at around 12 per game (and Pat with around 8). The good news is that I think Coby is going to get more open catch-and-shoot 3's this season, and will not see much double-teaming.

As has been said repeatedly, I expect our defense will just be so much worse without Caruso. The trio of Giddey, Lavine and White, while all decent effort defenders, are all very bad on defensive rotations.

I don't think it will be too difficult to match our clutch play on offense. I think there's a misconception that the Bulls were an unusually elite clutch shooting team, we really weren't.

Our clutch offense was 60% TS. That's the same as at least half the teams, Utah was 59%, Charlotte 60%. Turns out in clutch situations, everyone gives the ball to their best players and their offense goes up a bit. Only DAL/OKC/DEN really played unusually well on offense (63%-65%), probably because Luka/Shai/Joker handled every possession.

But we had the best defense in the league in clutch, and normally our D is 21st. Potentially we have a lot of very good on ball defenders to stop hero ball, and I would include Lavine in that next season. Also since we're 28th in pace, that slow methodical close game play is our normal.

Although the intangible factor is if the team knows they're not built to win next year, they may just not care as much. We did win a lot mid season by playing like it was the playoffs already, and ran out of gas after a couple of months. We were hustling like game 7 in early December.

Yeah. I think the whole clutch performance thing is more important to bad teams than good ones. Good teams are often in the lead by a decent amount at the end, so no clutch needed. I agree that we have to play every game like a game 7 to eek out wins.

[jnrjr79]

I expect that our offensive efficiency will be up. On the one hand, losing our 2 best players and 2 of our best clutch players is going to make a bigger difference than people think. That said, I think that Zach will be the best version of himself that we've seen in a few years, which will partially offset that. I also think that Giddey will boost Vuc's efficiency numbers with his ability to draw defenders on the PNR and find his C in the paint, and the same may be true for Zach's efficiency with Zach likely being put in fewer ISO situations. Coby will likely regress significantly in terms of his shot attempts. He was up to 15.3 shots per game last season. Zach will get a similar number of shots as Demar had, but I think that Vuc, Giddey and Coby will all get around the same number of shots at around 12 per game (and Pat with around 8). The good news is that I think Coby is going to get more open catch-and-shoot 3's this season, and will not see much double-teaming.

As has been said repeatedly, I expect our defense will just be so much worse without Caruso. The trio of Giddey, Lavine and White, while all decent effort defenders, are all very bad on defensive rotations.

I don't think it will be too difficult to match our clutch play on offense. I think there's a misconception that the Bulls were an unusually elite clutch shooting team, we really weren't.

Our clutch offense was 60% TS. That's the same as at least half the teams, Utah was 59%, Charlotte 60%. Turns out in clutch situations, everyone gives the ball to their best players and their offense goes up a bit. Only DAL/OKC/DEN really played unusually well on offense (63%-65%), probably because Luka/Shai/Joker handled every possession.

But we had the best defense in the league in clutch, and normally our D is 21st. Potentially we have a lot of very good on ball defenders to stop hero ball, and I would include Lavine in that next season. Also since we're 28th in pace, that slow methodical close game play is our normal.

Although the intangible factor is if the team knows they're not built to win next year, they may just not care as much. We did win a lot mid season by playing like it was the playoffs already, and ran out of gas after a couple of months. We were hustling like game 7 in early December.

Yeah. I think the whole clutch performance thing is more important to bad teams than good ones. Good teams are often in the lead by a decent amount at the end, so no clutch needed. I agree that we have to play every game like a game 7 to eek out wins.

Right, exactly. The Bulls aren't going to sacrifice minutes for a guy where the question is "can he be a star" for other players where the question is "can he be a rotation player?"

If we're worried about minutes for Matas, be worried about vets like Craig taking them if Billy is trying to win immediately. Don't worry about the Dalen Terrys of the world.

[Narigo]

25-40

Bulls defense would be very bad without Caruso and with Zach returning

[HearshotKDS]

I'm a debbie downer and think this team doesnt know how to tank/bottom out and so will win 30-34 games in a fruitless attempt to make the playins again. At least this year I suspect that will be driven mostly by good play from the youth (not like Vuc is going to put the team on his back lol), so to me thats at least better tidings for the future than watching a playin fueled mostly by 84 year odl Demar Derozan, so there is light at the end of the tunnel and it doesnt sound like its coming from a train.

Picked a lower win bracket but feel like I was pretty close on the end result and nailed how we got there. Interesting to look back on this thread now that we know the final regular season win total.

[dougthonus]

Given the Bulls won as many or more games than 89% people predicted, I guess Billy Donovan did a pretty good job.

[MissileMike]

Given the Bulls won as many or more games than 89% people predicted, I guess Billy Donovan did a pretty good job.

I think he did a good job too, but the roster moves also played a part.

I think that if, before the season, we said "The bulls will trade Zach, and win 39 games led by Josh and Coby" we would all be pretty good with that. For me, this season was a success.

[League Circles]

I'll guess 36 wins. I think we'll be really bad the first half of the year and then pretty solid the second half. So good chance we don't keep our pick IMO.

Aww yeah!

[dougthonus]

Given the Bulls won as many or more games than 89% people predicted, I guess Billy Donovan did a pretty good job.

I think he did a good job too, but the roster moves also played a part.

I think that if, before the season, we said "The bulls will trade Zach, and win 39 games led by Josh and Coby" we would all be pretty good with that. For me, this season was a success.

I think this season was a success based on win parity with last year, removal of contracts they didn't want, and average age of contributors now being like 25. I have concerns that they won't be able to parlay those wins into anything more sustainable in the future, but that is tomorrow's problem. They did accomplish some meaningful goals this year IMO.

[sco]

Given the Bulls won as many or more games than 89% people predicted, I guess Billy Donovan did a pretty good job.

I think he did a good job too, but the roster moves also played a part.

I think that if, before the season, we said "The bulls will trade Zach, and win 39 games led by Josh and Coby" we would all be pretty good with that. For me, this season was a success.

I think this season was a success based on win parity with last year, removal of contracts they didn't want, and average age of contributors now being like 25. I have concerns that they won't be able to parlay those wins into anything more sustainable in the future, but that is tomorrow's problem. They did accomplish some meaningful goals this year IMO.

I have learned that picking the records of teams entering the season as "middling" is a fools errand because mid-season tanking has become so prevalent. I do wonder if you looked at all of the teams expected to win less than 42 games and took the under bet for all of them whether you'd do well?

[dougthonus]

I have learned that picking the records of teams entering the season as "middling" is a fools errand because mid-season tanking has become so prevalent. I do wonder if you looked at all of the teams expected to win less than 42 games and took the under bet for all of them whether you'd do well?

Yeah, I'm not going "wow we are so good" by any stretch, but we seem no worse off than last year while in a better contract situation with a younger roster and didn't rally give up any assets to make it happen. Perhaps not huge wins, but I do think it is some progress.

[Jcool0]

Given the Bulls won as many or more games than 89% people predicted, I guess Billy Donovan did a pretty good job.

Pretty good job is a stretch for a team that was completing for a top 5 pick 2 months ago. I think we would not be in the play in had Giddey not taken on a bigger role and Huerter not turned things around. Given where both were you can make a case Billy is the reason for that. But this is also not necessarily new for them, so you can also make the argument this is more on AK then Billy. So i guess we really haven't learned anything about this turnaround. Could this be a 45 win team next year? Sure they are 15-5 in the last 20. But also as you pointed out in another thread 12 wins have come against varying degrees of "bad" teams since Zach was traded.

[dougthonus]

Pretty good job is a stretch for a team that was completing for a top 5 pick 2 months ago. I think we would not be in the play in had Giddey not taken on a bigger role and Huerter not turned things around. Given where both were you can make a case Billy is the reason for that. But this is also not necessarily new for them, so you can also make the argument this is more on AK then Billy. So i guess we really haven't learned anything about this turnaround. Could this be a 45 win team next year? Sure they are 15-5 in the last 20. But also as you pointed out in another thread 12 wins have come against varying degrees of "bad" teams since Zach was traded.

I think Billy had a good year. I view a coach having a good year as having the impact of your 6th best guy having a good year FWIW, I don't think there were any magic buttons Billy was going to press that got this team to 50 wins, but on aggregate:

Mended fences with Zach and got him playing well enough to get traded.

Successfully transitioned team to Giddey for our future (for however high ceiling you think that might be, I'm not super enthused)

I thought he handled Matas really well as a developmental prospect, he seemed overwhelmed, and Billy largely put him in situations to succeed and grow.

Kept the team trying hard and playing hard even when they were bad and had to manage a massive locker room transition from old regime to new regime with the players.

If Jim Boylen was our coach, I think we'd have won upper 20s or low 30s in games and still likely be stuck with Zach LaVine on the roster.

Billy having a good year may not have done anything meaningful for the franchise long term, if we would have gotten Flagg on a bad year, we'd have been better with the bad year. That said, objectively based on his goals, I can't fault him for much this season.

[ChettheJet]

I would like to congratulate the 5 others who chose the 35-39 category on being so spot on.

I thought that's where it would fall starting the season with Lavine in place. Of course things didn't pick up to get to 39 wins until Zach left and the revamped Bulls finished 15-5. But the team managed to save those with the 35-39 prediction.

[MGB8]

As expected, the Bulls defense was bad - 3rd worst in NBA ppg. But we weren’t as bad on PPP or efg against, actually a mid team, possibly in part that by playing at a higher pace than before, the Bulls took some teams out of their games. Also mid FTA.

Offense was improved - Giddey and bounce back years from Zach and Vuc being big reasons why, along with Coby building on last season - and also the recent stretch and associated circumstances.

[MGB8]

I would like to congratulate the 5 others who chose the 35-39 category on being so spot on.

I thought that's where it would fall starting the season with Lavine in place. Of course things didn't pick up to get to 39 wins until Zach left and the revamped Bulls finished 15-5. But the team managed to save those with the 35-39 prediction.

They were pacing for where expected until the trade, then a combination of some “lucky bounces” in terms of opponent conditions (Jokic and Hali being out, Philly having imploded, Miami stepping back, etc.) plus things like the Giddey heave changed the ultimate W/L.

I’m not sure how much better than the projected record the Bulls are. That said, the signs from the Giddey-Coby-Matas trio are encouraging, if nothing else. If Philly didn’t flame out and the Bulls were fighting with the Heat for the 10th spot play-in berth (loser falls out) though, I could see the season having ended pretty closely to where the consensus prediction was.

[Indomitable]

I missed my 50 win vote

Get some more rim protection and see what happens.

I really like Giddey and Matas. There is actual hope and at least the team makes sense