Was The End Of Season Chemistry Real or a Mirage?

[Stratmaster]

I think the question is too binary.

The Bulls were on a 55 win pace over the stretch you mentioned. Does anyone think they are a 55 win team? Of course not. They were on a 32 win pace prior to that. Does anyone think they're going to only win 32 wins next year? I'd also guess probably not.

So the truth is that likely the very weak scheduled at the end where we picked up tons of wins against teams not trying combined with the uptick in chemistry from the trade speculation and direction all year and putting guys into more formalized, final roles likely did improve things.

I don't know what the early Vegas odds are for the Bulls next year, but it feels likely that we're going to finish in the 35-45 win range, so closer to the first half of the season than the last.

I agree with everything you said. Except, the early Vegas odds are meaningless. I just did an analysis of 15 teams over 3 seasons and the Vegas predictions were off by an average of 7 games per team, per season, with a margin of error of somewhere over 9 games per season.

[DuckIII]

I think the chemistry was real. Its why I want to build something fun to watch around Giddey and Buzelis flying up and down the floor. Ayo and Coby are designed for and prefer a frantic pace of play as well.

Wins? Don't know. Hopefully not too many too fast in an East that's going to be even worse than last year. And last year's East was historically terrible. All I do know is that if you watched the last two months of the season, you probably saw two things: (a) entertaining basketball; (b) a significant number of opponents who weren't trying very hard and were bad.

[Stratmaster]

I am pretty much with Doug's analysis except I lean more toward 35 wins, and don't really see 45 as a realistic best case. I would expect 35-38 wins. But, of course, roster changes can and (hopefully) will affect that.

[MrSparkle]

I don’t think they’ll be losers, but Indiana, Milwaukee and Boston are gonna have their top scorers miss most the year with the achilles injuries. Bucks depth chart obviously needs help. 3 contenders who became regular teams. I think they’ll still be 4-8 seeds, but it’ll be a different landscape for sure. Cavs, Knicks, Pistons and Magic probably claim the upper seeds.

Apparently the 2026 draft is looking really strong. Of course AK suggests the opposite, but selling Collins, Vuc, Coby and giving the keys to Giddey, Matas, Phillips and the new pick would be a logical 1 step back, 2 steps forward strategy. Of course you can try to rehab PWilly’s value too, in a low-stakes environment. Keep them, and I do see fringe 500 regular season ball.

But removing Coby’s 20+ PPG and our vet C rotation would be easy hacks for handicapping Billy’s roster.

IMO Sixers, Hornets, Hawks, Raptors are ready to re-enter the fray. They’ve got more talent on their rosters than we do. Don’t want to be chasing these teams with better 1-2 options. Heat and Bulls seem to be in that 7-11 range. 3 teams are gonna have to slip, and once they do, they inevitably commit to tanking. Probably Hornets, but 5 tanks in the last 6 seasons is brutal. I just don’t understand how you can tank for that long.

There will be 2 definitive tank jobs in the East: the Nets and Wizards. I’d like the Bulls to join that group.

Will they? Probably not. I don’t see an advantage to chasing wins with Coby leading in PPG. If he makes the ASG (doubtful, even with Hali, Lillard out - Mitchell, Brunson, Trae, Cade, LaMelo, Herro, Maxey, now Bane will be a SG in the East, Quickley’s coming back), I’d sell high on the fella.

If they keep Coby, Collins, Vuc, Huerter… unfortunately I see that 7-11 seed run, with another year of missing out on top-3 superstar sweepstakes.

[dougthonus]

I agree with everything you said. Except, the early Vegas odds are meaningless. I just did an analysis of 15 teams over 3 seasons and the Vegas predictions were off by an average of 7 games per team, per season, with a margin of error of somewhere over 9 games per season.

I don't think the Vegas odds are so meaningful, except that you probably can't outpredict the Vegas odds consistently (or if so, you should be making a crap ton of money gambling). Actual outcomes can shift massively based on impossible to predict things like injuries as well as difficult to predict things like growth.

[kodo]

The most "miragey" performance in the run wasn't Giddey or Coby, but Kevin Huerter. He led the team in net rating, not Giddey or Coby. He was not only one of the Bulls best offensive players but also one of the best defenders by rating. Post ASG he was shooting 8 3s per game and hitting at 40%...that's better than Dame and a lot better than Herro. That's similar to Klay Thompson right before the injury.

If AK did get a budget prime Klay Thompson who was a lead leading off-ball 3P sniper while also being an all-defensive team member, yeah 45-50 Ws seems extremely plausible. I'm guessing this is not the case though.

I'll also throw out Detroit went from being called one of the worst teams in the history of the league to 44 Ws in one summer, and the biggest name they added was Tobias Harris who averaged 13 ppg 6 rpg and 34% 3P shooting. Sometimes teams can play a lot better with no massive change by just getting their crap together.

Bulls lost a lot of dumb games like to Atlanta's 3rd stringers, Memphis bench, Charlotte, Pelicans, etc.. Sometimes a big improvement can come from just fixing your stupidest moments during the reg season even without raising your ceiling.

[prolific passer]

It was always real to me dang it.

[dougthonus]

I am pretty much with Doug's analysis except I lean more toward 35 wins, and don't really see 45 as a realistic best case. I would expect 35-38 wins. But, of course, roster changes can and (hopefully) will affect that.

It is hard for me to guess, but the East is even weaker this year than next year. Celtics / Pacers / Bucks are all going to be missing a key superstar for the year (maybe not officially announced yet with Hali, but sure seems likely). That's three of the top five teams that are likely going to be closer to us than their previous performance.

Would also note, half the roster is in a contract year, so motivation should be really high for a lot of these guys that might fend off potential burn out that might otherwise exist. I also think the LaVine situation had a bit of a cloud over the org. You ever work some place where it's just really awkward because the boss and employee don't work well together, and everyone is trying their best to make it work, but the employee leaves and all of a sudden it is a breath of fresh air? I think we have that going on here too.

I'm not like super high on the team next year by any stretch, but it wouldn't surprise me to see low 40s in wins. I still don't have much hope for our ability to build on anything, but we'll see. They will have largely a blank slate starting next year with like most of the money off the books, all their draft picks, a few young assets, and can then have the chance for a really large shift even if it isn't intuitively obvious how that will be a good large shift.

[Red Larrivee]

Every night in today's NBA, there's a decent chance that you're playing:

1. A team sitting one or more of their best players.
2. A team that's playing a bunch of games in a short stretch.
3. A team that's tanking.
4. A team that's just not very good no matter what.

It's going to happen for every team at some point in their schedule. It's going to be even worse next year for a draft that people consider to be more than a 1-man lottery prize. Add on that the Eastern Conference looks depleted because of injuries to stars. I don't think going 1-6 in your first 7 games after the LaVine trade and then going 17-8 after is something that can be attributed primarily to a schedule shift.

I think it's also important to remember that despite these things, the Bulls were betting underdogs in the majority of those games to close the season. So, nobody thought highly of this team regardless. In hindsight things look a lot more favorable than they were at the time, but not to a degree that the Bulls should've been expected to steamroll through that stretch.

I think the Bulls stumbled into a group of pieces that fit their team better. They essentially had two pure point guards in Giddey and Jones who improved ball movement and made looks easier for players. Huerter was quietly a solid two-way wing after looking like a shell of himself in Sacramento. Collins was serviceable as a starter and a reserve. Coby played the most efficient basketball of his career. And the defense, though still very flawed, was better.

It was just a very, very different team stylistically.

Do I think they're going to continue a 50-win pace? No. But, I think there's a believable chance they can be more competitive if they carry over 80-90% of the things that were working well for them after the ASB.

[sco]

The most "miragey" performance in the run wasn't Giddey or Coby, but Kevin Huerter. He led the team in net rating, not Giddey or Coby. He was not only one of the Bulls best offensive players but also one of the best defenders by rating. Post ASG he was shooting 8 3s per game and hitting at 40%...that's better than Dame and a lot better than Herro. That's similar to Klay Thompson right before the injury.

If AK did get a budget prime Klay Thompson who was a lead leading off-ball 3P sniper while also being an all-defensive team member, yeah 45-50 Ws seems extremely plausible. I'm guessing this is not the case though.

I'll also throw out Detroit went from being called one of the worst teams in the history of the league to 44 Ws in one summer, and the biggest name they added was Tobias Harris who averaged 13 ppg 6 rpg and 34% 3P shooting. Sometimes teams can play a lot better with no massive change by just getting their crap together.

Bulls lost a lot of dumb games like to Atlanta's 3rd stringers, Memphis bench, Charlotte, Pelicans, etc.. Sometimes a big improvement can come from just fixing your stupidest moments during the reg season even without raising your ceiling.

Huerter is a good example of guys who can thrive in one role but not another. When going from a bench guy playing 20MPG shooting <40% FG and <30% 3pt% to 31MPG post trade, playing in a new system, shooting 46% FG% and 40% 3pt%. He is a good starter (albeit probably just average as a starting wing), but a bad bench player. He's a heady glue guy, but I'm not sure he's the guy you want playing between White and Giddey.

[jnrjr79]

I think the question is too binary.

The Bulls were on a 55 win pace over the stretch you mentioned. Does anyone think they are a 55 win team? Of course not. They were on a 32 win pace prior to that. Does anyone think they're going to only win 32 wins next year? I'd also guess probably not.

So the truth is that likely the very weak scheduled at the end where we picked up tons of wins against teams not trying combined with the uptick in chemistry from the trade speculation and direction all year and putting guys into more formalized, final roles likely did improve things.

I don't know what the early Vegas odds are for the Bulls next year, but it feels likely that we're going to finish in the 35-45 win range, so closer to the first half of the season than the last.

I agree with everything you said. Except, the early Vegas odds are meaningless. I just did an analysis of 15 teams over 3 seasons and the Vegas predictions were off by an average of 7 games per team, per season, with a margin of error of somewhere over 9 games per season.

I don't think an 8.5% margin of error really supports the idea that Vegas odds are "meaningless."

[Red8911]

It was real, Bulls were playing like a top 4-5 team in the east. It was a lil too late that’s why they never made it to the playoffs and the play in game can happen in a one game elimination.

[jnrjr79]

I am pretty much with Doug's analysis except I lean more toward 35 wins, and don't really see 45 as a realistic best case. I would expect 35-38 wins. But, of course, roster changes can and (hopefully) will affect that.

It is hard for me to guess, but the East is even weaker this year than next year. Celtics / Pacers / Bucks are all going to be missing a key superstar for the year (maybe not officially announced yet with Hali, but sure seems likely). That's three of the top five teams that are likely going to be closer to us than their previous performance.

Would also note, half the roster is in a contract year, so motivation should be really high for a lot of these guys that might fend off potential burn out that might otherwise exist. I also think the LaVine situation had a bit of a cloud over the org. You ever work some place where it's just really awkward because the boss and employee don't work well together, and everyone is trying their best to make it work, but the employee leaves and all of a sudden it is a breath of fresh air? I think we have that going on here too.

I'm not like super high on the team next year by any stretch, but it wouldn't surprise me to see low 40s in wins. I still don't have much hope for our ability to build on anything, but we'll see. They will have largely a blank slate starting next year with like most of the money off the books, all their draft picks, a few young assets, and can then have the chance for a really large shift even if it isn't intuitively obvious how that will be a good large shift.

Re: your first paragraph - this is why I'm not spending a lot of time thinking about how good the Bulls will be next year, as currently constructed. Now I think this would be a bad approach, but understanding AK is the GM we're talking about, doesn't it seem like there's a substantial chance that he's going to look at the injuries at the top of the East and say "now's the time to make a big swing?" Won't he also look at the Pacers this season and think that as long as you can get into the solid middle of the playoff seedings in the East, then you can go on a run and anything can happen (and maybe you even win a chip if your best player doesn't get injured early in game 7)?

I feel like these conditions really increase the chance the Bulls (and other East teams) make some sort of aggressive offseason trade this year.

[DuckIII]

I think the question is too binary.

The Bulls were on a 55 win pace over the stretch you mentioned. Does anyone think they are a 55 win team? Of course not. They were on a 32 win pace prior to that. Does anyone think they're going to only win 32 wins next year? I'd also guess probably not.

So the truth is that likely the very weak scheduled at the end where we picked up tons of wins against teams not trying combined with the uptick in chemistry from the trade speculation and direction all year and putting guys into more formalized, final roles likely did improve things.

I don't know what the early Vegas odds are for the Bulls next year, but it feels likely that we're going to finish in the 35-45 win range, so closer to the first half of the season than the last.

I agree with everything you said. Except, the early Vegas odds are meaningless. I just did an analysis of 15 teams over 3 seasons and the Vegas predictions were off by an average of 7 games per team, per season, with a margin of error of somewhere over 9 games per season.

I don't think an 8.5% margin of error really supports the idea that Vegas odds are "meaningless."

I'm not sure its all that useful an exercise anyway unless you account for significant unpredictable factors that a pre-season odds-maker can't really consider. Trades, significant unexpected falloff from key players, a massively disruptive cancer, a significant injury to a significant player who is not typically injury prone, significant injuries to an unusually large number of role players, etc. That's the only way to know to what extent Vegas odds-makers were wrong at the end of the day, if you are running a pre-season and post-season analysis.

Interesting discussion though. Had never really thought about it.

[jnrjr79]

I agree with everything you said. Except, the early Vegas odds are meaningless. I just did an analysis of 15 teams over 3 seasons and the Vegas predictions were off by an average of 7 games per team, per season, with a margin of error of somewhere over 9 games per season.

I don't think an 8.5% margin of error really supports the idea that Vegas odds are "meaningless."

I'm not sure its all that useful an exercise anyway unless you account for significant unpredictable factors that a pre-season odds-maker can't really consider. Trades, significant unexpected falloff from key players, a massively disruptive cancer, a significant injury to a significant player who is not typically injury prone, significant injuries to an unusually large number of role players, etc. That's the only way to know to what extent Vegas odds-makers were wrong at the end of the day, if you are running a pre-season and post-season analysis.

Interesting discussion though. Had never really thought about it.

I'm too lazy to look, but I guess I had just assumed that Vegas wouldn't even offer you futures on next season until after the draft/free agency, for this reason.

[DuckIII]

I don't think an 8.5% margin of error really supports the idea that Vegas odds are "meaningless."

I'm not sure its all that useful an exercise anyway unless you account for significant unpredictable factors that a pre-season odds-maker can't really consider. Trades, significant unexpected falloff from key players, a massively disruptive cancer, a significant injury to a significant player who is not typically injury prone, significant injuries to an unusually large number of role players, etc. That's the only way to know to what extent Vegas odds-makers were wrong at the end of the day, if you are running a pre-season and post-season analysis.

Interesting discussion though. Had never really thought about it.

I'm too lazy to look, but I guess I had just assumed that Vegas wouldn't even offer you futures on next season until after the draft/free agency, for this reason.

I may be confused. What I'm imagining is the Vegas odds 1 minute before opening night tip-off vs. the end result. The variables I'm referring to impacting success rate would occur between those two points in time.

I think in order to fully analyze the reliability of Vegas predictions, retroactively, you'd have to consider those factors in determining the merit of the opening prediction.

[jnrjr79]

I'm not sure its all that useful an exercise anyway unless you account for significant unpredictable factors that a pre-season odds-maker can't really consider. Trades, significant unexpected falloff from key players, a massively disruptive cancer, a significant injury to a significant player who is not typically injury prone, significant injuries to an unusually large number of role players, etc. That's the only way to know to what extent Vegas odds-makers were wrong at the end of the day, if you are running a pre-season and post-season analysis.

Interesting discussion though. Had never really thought about it.

I'm too lazy to look, but I guess I had just assumed that Vegas wouldn't even offer you futures on next season until after the draft/free agency, for this reason.

I may be confused. What I'm imagining is the Vegas odds 1 minute before opening night tip-off vs. the end result. The variables I'm referring to impacting success rate would occur between those two points in time.

I think in order to fully analyze the reliability of Vegas predictions, retroactively, you'd have to consider those factors in determining the merit of the opening prediction.

Oh, sorry, that's my confusion. I was thinking of Vegas odds for next season as they would be set today (the day after the Finals) vs. Vegas odds set shortly before the season begins. Strat made a reference to "early" Vegas odds, and I thought he was distinguishing the odds as they might exist right now as opposed to "later" odds which would be after significant offseason transactions have occurred. That caused me to wonder aloud whether you can even bet NBA over/unders right now, given all the uncertainty.

You're talking odds vs. actual performance.

[GoBlue72391]

We ended the season on an impressive 17-8 run and there was a lot to like in the process. After the All-Star break, Josh Giddey averaged 21.2 ppg, 11 rpg, and 9.3 apg. Coby White averaged nearly 28 points per game in March and was named player Eastern Conference Player of the Month. Buzelis' potential is clear as day and he became a significant contributor.

Beyond that, guys like Huerter, Jones, and Collins all looked like real rotation players. At times, this roster felt surprisingly deep. Perhaps for the first time ever, we saw "Billy Ball". Outside of internal development the roster theoretically has a gear to get better when Ayo and Ball return next season (and Jones if he is resigned).

All that said, we saw an end of season mirage with the Three C's in 2003. I tend to believe that the chemistry was legitimate. With Haliburton, Tatum, Lillard, and Thibs all unexpectedly erased from the 2026 season, the Eastern Conference landscape is much more wide open than it should be. Knowing AKME's lack of interest in bottoming out, I have to believe that making a playoff run in this climate is very much top of mind.

A mirage. When the games actually matter, a competent playoff caliber team can neutralize us fairly easily.

It was fun, but it probably won't translate to much in the long run. And in hindsight, we got a worse pick out of it.

We are better than we were, but we're not as good as that end of season stretch made it seem. A solid, perhaps even good regular season team, but we don't have enough firepower to overcome defensive gameplanning in the playoffs. Our best scorer is Coby, that's just not gonna cut it.

[GoBlue72391]

a mirage. these are dudes who play video games together and tiktok with each other we have to forget the days of telling truths and getting hammered on the golf course. they're going to still call each other besties even after htey move onto the next player or next team. they're not limited by like vooch showing them where to find a nice fine young ummm montenegrin classy steakhouse. they can just tiktok it and have your friend's daughter playing switch 2 for 150 dollars

I agree that it was a mirage, but you really lost me with all that random rambling.

[Mr. Tibbs]

a mirage. these are dudes who play video games together and tiktok with each other we have to forget the days of telling truths and getting hammered on the golf course. they're going to still call each other besties even after htey move onto the next player or next team. they're not limited by like vooch showing them where to find a nice fine young ummm montenegrin classy steakhouse. they can just tiktok it and have your friend's daughter playing switch 2 for 150 dollars

HOF post right here. No notes.