Free Noa.

[Evil_Headband]

Was the G-League beneficial for Caruso, like did he become a better player by being in the G-League vs if he had made an NBA roster right away or was the G-League a necessary step for him because no team was initially willing to take a chance on him?

Q. What do you remember about those days with the
Blue [OKC G-League team]? Besides the relationship with Mark, what was
that experience like?
ALEX CARUSO: It was a good learning experience for me
just figuring out what professional basketball was. In
college I was impromptu point guard, and every time in
college I would look over to the sideline and get a play,
dribble it up, call whatever it was, get people set up. Once
you get to the professional game, at least over in this part
of the world, it's play fast. If you have an advantage, take
it. It was a lot more, like, organized open gym.
So I had to figure out -- I had to figure out how to play the
game, and also I had to figure out how could I have an
impact in the game because I knew if I had impact in the
game, it creates value, and if I have value, someone is
going to want me on their team.
So at that point it was just about trying to improve and get
better and then figure it out. I think playing a whole year in
the G League and then doing free agent workouts, playing
on a Summer League team. Again, it was all just great
learning experiences for me.
Then, obviously, to the next level and the next level, I just
kept learning and getting better and using it. That's
something I'm going to continue to do now that I'm here.

[HomoSapien]

Ignoring the "should he or shouldn't he" be in the G-League, it's great that he had an awesome G-League debut.

Given this is the path that the Bulls have chosen for him, it's great to see that he's experiencing really strong success in it (for at least the first game).

Watch on YouTube

Looking at the video, it is interesting that he's generally scoring via skill and not raw athleticism. He actually looks a little under athletic relative to my expectations, not a big leaper, mostly playing at the rim rather than above it. It will be interesting to see how he develops.

He's definitely not a leaper. His game definitely stems more from his mobility for his size and length.

[sco]

Ignoring the "should he or shouldn't he" be in the G-League, it's great that he had an awesome G-League debut.

Given this is the path that the Bulls have chosen for him, it's great to see that he's experiencing really strong success in it (for at least the first game).

Watch on YouTube

Looking at the video, it is interesting that he's generally scoring via skill and not raw athleticism. He actually looks a little under athletic relative to my expectations, not a big leaper, mostly playing at the rim rather than above it. It will be interesting to see how he develops.

Good points!

It seems like his drives to the basket seem to be targeted at initiating contact followed by a shot off the glass instead of a dunk (which makes sense if he's trying to draw fouls). I'm not sold on his 3pt ability at this point, but his form is decent.

The videos aren't showing how he's defending. I'm curious if he's able to stick with guys or is getting blow by's.

[Red Larrivee]

Looking at the video, it is interesting that he's generally scoring via skill and not raw athleticism. He actually looks a little under athletic relative to my expectations, not a big leaper, mostly playing at the rim rather than above it. It will be interesting to see how he develops.

This is partly why I never understood the Giannis comp. Essengue had a max vert of 35.5. He seems like a good athlete, but far from an elite one. And he definitely doesn't impact the game consistently with athleticism.

[AshyLarrysDiaper]

Giddey is managing just fine without that. Getting into the paint at will and drawing fouls.

Giddey is a unique player, an exception not the norm.

Noa could be another exception if he has very high skill level. Being 6’10” is huge advantage over most PF today. He will be able to get shot off against smaller 4s and just drive past most centers.

I don’t see reasons to believe he’ll develop a very high skill level given that he doesn’t shoot, pass, or dribble at an NBA level or even on par with most PF lottery prospects. He’ll need to maximize his tools to be a top 50ish player, which to my eye will involve adding burst.

[MikeDC]

Most of us (including me) are mostly arguing on our prior beliefs, conventional wisdom, and theoretical ideas.

Until somebody performs a well-designed study about the various approaches to NBA development, with proper data and statistics, your comment applies to all.

There is plenty of evidence but people just don't like it, so they're trying to find reasons it doesn't apply.

The evidence is
1. The Bulls history (with the current regime) is that they play guys if they can play (Matas, Pat, Coby, Lauri, Carter, Ayo, Gafford etc) and send them to the G-League for extended periods if they can't (Phillips, Terry, Marko).

2. The league in general presents a gigantic number of examples that follow the basic evidence that "FRPs who can play, and even many who can't, stay with their NBA teams. Guys who can't go to the G-League and you hope for the best and say nice things". I'm sure someone will come up with a counter-example, but it usually has an obvious reason and it's definitely in 5-10%. The 90%-95% range, especially for lottery picks is to play.

3. The whole stated and speculated theory for sending him to the G-League, to give the guy more "on ball reps" is actually patently ridiculous. What everyone always harps on is that players need to learn how to play defense, play off the ball, and adjust to the speed of the game.

Putting the ball in a guy's hands to put up empty calories in the G-League is counter to everything everyone says that matters.

It's the basketball equivalent of putting Noa in the Leg Up Program. Let me get this straight, we're gonna catch up to everyone by going slower?

To be charitable, what we know is that Noa is already an outlier because of this. That doesn't mean that he can't/won't work out. But people don't do non-standard, outlier things for no reason. Usually they have non-standard outlier reasons.[/b]

[GoBlue72391]

Giddey is managing just fine without that. Getting into the paint at will and drawing fouls.

Giddey is a unique player, an exception not the norm.

Noa could be another exception if he has very high skill level. Being 6’10” is huge advantage over most PF today. He will be able to get shot off against smaller 4s and just drive past most centers.

True, but Giddey has elite craftiness, use of his body, and awareness of defender's positioning relative to his own which allows him to overcome his lack of athleticism.

It's not clear yet if Essengue posseses those traits, and if he does to what extent. They're not easily mastered and they're fairly rare. He certainly doesn't have a very high skill level relative to NBA competition as of yet, though he appears to have a solid foundation and I'm sure the org is prioritizing his continued skill development.

Giddey also has elite size for his position, while Essengue's is merely good. Less so if he winds up at C down the line.

Adding a little more explosion seems like an easier and more realistic path for him than developing a very high skill level or becoming a master of the stuff Giddey excels at.

[HomoSapien]

Honest question, in the last 25 years has there been a top 12 pick that received DNP-CD through his first ten games?

The better question is whether that question is relevant to anything beyond the parameters of the question itself. Does the answer mean anything?

Yes, I think it does.

Unless I missed someone, I think the answer to my question is zero. I think an unprecedented approach to developing a lottery pick suggests Billy might be going about this the wrong way. I'm all for taking things slow with young, raw prospects but this feels overly rigid. You mentioned Pat in a different post. I actually hated how we developed him. We handed him big minutes that he didn't earn, which probably reinforced his bad habits and low motor. Guys like Derrick Jones Jr. were routinely outplaying him, yet Pat stayed on the floor. What does that teach?

By contrast, I thought Billy handled Matas perfectly. He played 80 games, but started on a short leash, and his minutes ramped up gradually as he earned them. There was real teaching there: mistakes were corrected in real time, but he was never overpunished.

Essengue's development, so far, feels like the inverse of Pat's. I don't think he needs big minutes, but he does need some NBA minutes to grow. Dominating against G-League talent has value, but having your ass handed to you by opposing NBA vets is also critical to development. I'd understand if the rotation were too deep, but Terry and Philips are playing over him. Neither are good, neither are vets, and neither are part of our future. Most importantly, neither should be playing over him.

Seeing Essengue's G-League highlights cemented this opinion for me. It's clear he's more polished than he's been given credit for. His skill level is above players who are playing above him, and the importance of his development is only behind Buzelis and Giddey. I think there's a middle ground here that's better than this current approach. Give him limited NBA minutes so he gets a taste, builds hunger, and learns through exposure. Then supplement that with G-League minutes when it makes sense in the schedule. A blanket "you're not touching the floor for the first 10-15% of the season" policy doesn't make sense to me.

Coldfish, a few days ago, speculated that the Bulls were trying to protect him from embarrassment and failure. But I'm worried we're actually protecting him from experience. Matas got the right kind of tough love. Pat got the wrong kind. Essengue's getting no love at all, and that might be the worst approach yet.

[GoBlue72391]

Ignoring the "should he or shouldn't he" be in the G-League, it's great that he had an awesome G-League debut.

Given this is the path that the Bulls have chosen for him, it's great to see that he's experiencing really strong success in it (for at least the first game).

Watch on YouTube

Looking at the video, it is interesting that he's generally scoring via skill and not raw athleticism. He actually looks a little under athletic relative to my expectations, not a big leaper, mostly playing at the rim rather than above it. It will be interesting to see how he develops.

Good points!

It seems like his drives to the basket seem to be targeted at initiating contact followed by a shot off the glass instead of a dunk (which makes sense if he's trying to draw fouls). I'm not sold on his 3pt ability at this point, but his form is decent.

The videos aren't showing how he's defending. I'm curious if he's able to stick with guys or is getting blow by's.

Take this with a massive grain of salt, but I saw a guy on the Bulls subreddit claim he watched the entire game and while Essengue's offense was good, he didn't have much of a defensive presence and his motor was lacking.

[GoBlue72391]

Honest question, in the last 25 years has there been a top 12 pick that received DNP-CD through his first ten games?

The better question is whether that question is relevant to anything beyond the parameters of the question itself. Does the answer mean anything?

Yes, I think it does.

Unless I missed someone, I think the answer to my question is zero. I think an unprecedented approach to developing a lottery pick suggests Billy might be going about this the wrong way. I'm all for taking things slow with young, raw prospects but this feels overly rigid. You mentioned Pat in a different post. I actually hated how we developed him. We handed him big minutes that he didn't earn, which probably reinforced his bad habits and low motor. Guys like Derrick Jones Jr. were routinely outplaying him, yet Pat stayed on the floor. What does that teach?

By contrast, I thought Billy handled Matas perfectly. He played 80 games, but started on a short leash, and his minutes ramped up gradually as he earned them. There was real teaching there: mistakes were corrected in real time, but he was never overpunished.

Essengue's development, so far, feels like the inverse of Pat's. I don't think he needs big minutes, but he does need some NBA minutes to grow. Dominating against G-League talent has value, but having your ass handed to you by opposing NBA vets is also critical to development. I'd understand if the rotation were too deep, but Terry and Philips are playing over him. Neither are good, neither are vets, and neither are part of our future. Most importantly, neither should be playing over him.

Seeing Essengue's G-League highlights cemented this opinion for me. It's clear he's more polished than he's been given credit for. His skill level is above players who are playing above him, and the importance of his development is only behind Buzelis and Giddey. I think there's a middle ground here that's better than this current approach. Give him limited NBA minutes so he gets a taste, builds hunger, and learns through exposure. Then supplement that with G-League minutes when it makes sense in the schedule. A blanket "you're not touching the floor for the first 10-15% of the season" policy doesn't make sense to me.

Coldfish, a few days ago, speculated that the Bulls were trying to protect him from embarrassment and failure. But I'm worried we're actually protecting him from experience. Matas got the right kind of tough love. Pat got the wrong kind. Essengue's getting no love at all, and that might be the worst approach yet.

The bolded is exactly what should be happening.

[jnrjr79]

Honest question, in the last 25 years has there been a top 12 pick that received DNP-CD through his first ten games?

The better question is whether that question is relevant to anything beyond the parameters of the question itself. Does the answer mean anything?

Yes, I think it does.

Unless I missed someone, I think the answer to my question is zero. I think an unprecedented approach to developing a lottery pick suggests Billy might be going about this the wrong way. I'm all for taking things slow with young, raw prospects but this feels overly rigid. You mentioned Pat in a different post. I actually hated how we developed him. We handed him big minutes that he didn't earn, which probably reinforced his bad habits and low motor. Guys like Derrick Jones Jr. were routinely outplaying him, yet Pat stayed on the floor. What does that teach?

By contrast, I thought Billy handled Matas perfectly. He played 80 games, but started on a short leash, and his minutes ramped up gradually as he earned them. There was real teaching there: mistakes were corrected in real time, but he was never overpunished.

Essengue's development, so far, feels like the inverse of Pat's. I don't think he needs big minutes, but he does need some NBA minutes to grow. Dominating against G-League talent has value, but having your ass handed to you by opposing NBA vets is also critical to development. I'd understand if the rotation were too deep, but Terry and Philips are playing over him. Neither are good, neither are vets, and neither are part of our future. Most importantly, neither should be playing over him.

Seeing Essengue's G-League highlights cemented this opinion for me. It's clear he's more polished than he's been given credit for. His skill level is above players who are playing above him, and the importance of his development is only behind Buzelis and Giddey. I think there's a middle ground here that's better than this current approach. Give him limited NBA minutes so he gets a taste, builds hunger, and learns through exposure. Then supplement that with G-League minutes when it makes sense in the schedule. A blanket "you're not touching the floor for the first 10-15% of the season" policy doesn't make sense to me.

Coldfish, a few days ago, speculated that the Bulls were trying to protect him from embarrassment and failure. But I'm worried we're actually protecting him from experience. Matas got the right kind of tough love. Pat got the wrong kind. Essengue's getting no love at all, and that might be the worst approach yet.

Whether the Bulls' evaluation is right or wrong, it seems fairly clear why the treatment of Noa differs from that of Matas. The Bulls think Noa is not as far along as Matas was to begin the year last season, so it's going to take longer for him to crack the rotation/ramp up to a regular role.

Like everyone else in the thread, I find myself annoyed watching Terry and Phillips get minutes that could go to Noa. I doubt very much this is because the Bulls think those guys are better than Noa. It's probably not about that. It's about whether they think Noa will develop better with this conservative approach vs. throwing him into the rotation now. A lot of people obviously disagree that this is better from a developmental perspective, but presumably that's what's driving things rather than simply asking "who is the 10th best guy on this team" or whatever.

[DuckIII]

Looking at the video, it is interesting that he's generally scoring via skill and not raw athleticism. He actually looks a little under athletic relative to my expectations, not a big leaper, mostly playing at the rim rather than above it. It will be interesting to see how he develops.

This is partly why I never understood the Giannis comp. Essengue had a max vert of 35.5. He seems like a good athlete, but far from an elite one. And he definitely doesn't impact the game consistently with athleticism.

Its like deja vu. We discussed this all summer both before and after the draft and during SL. His elite physical traits are his speed and lateral movement for a player his size, which were near the top of the draft even if you reclassified him as a guard. Its actually really freaking crazy.

But not his vert. His vert is certainly fine and not problematic, but he was never going to look like Buzelis bouncing around out there like he's on a pogo stick. And I assume he will have a much slower second jump than Matas as well.

[Senor Chang]

Looking at the video, it is interesting that he's generally scoring via skill and not raw athleticism. He actually looks a little under athletic relative to my expectations, not a big leaper, mostly playing at the rim rather than above it. It will be interesting to see how he develops.

This is partly why I never understood the Giannis comp. Essengue had a max vert of 35.5. He seems like a good athlete, but far from an elite one. And he definitely doesn't impact the game consistently with athleticism.

Its like deja vu. We discussed this all summer both before and after the draft and during SL. His elite physical traits are his speed and lateral movement for a player his size, which were near the top of the draft even if you reclassified him as a guard. Its actually really freaking crazy.

But his vert. His vert is certainly fine and not problematic, but he was never going to look like Buzelis bouncing around out there like he's on a pogo stick. And I assume he will have a much slower second jump than Matas as well.

He looks more tayshaun prince than stromile swift athletically.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[DuckIII]

Honest question, in the last 25 years has there been a top 12 pick that received DNP-CD through his first ten games?

The better question is whether that question is relevant to anything beyond the parameters of the question itself. Does the answer mean anything?

Yes, I think it does.

After 10 games in his entire career?

[HomoSapien]

The better question is whether that question is relevant to anything beyond the parameters of the question itself. Does the answer mean anything?

Yes, I think it does.

After 10 games in his entire career?

I'm not sure what your'e getting at. I'm not saying they're ruining his career, I'm saying I don't think it's a good approach to his development.

[DuckIII]

Usually they have non-standard outlier reasons.

Interesting because that's exactly what people like me are saying. That the roster is deep enough at his positions, with the team being successful, and given his age and physical readiness, is not needed in NBA games so they are temporarily using GL games to help him work on a more broad range of skills.

Its precisely because Noa is in a unique situation, both as to himself and within the context of the Bulls roster and goals, that the Bulls approach is at minimum logical whether people would chose to do it that way themselves or not.

Now some, perhaps you, are suggesting that this "outlier" reason is that they stink and are being hidden. And that certainly could be true as well, but doesn't seem particularly likely based on what we've seen in SL.

10 games into his career, people.

The whole stated and speculated theory for sending him to the G-League, to give the guy more "on ball reps" is actually patently ridiculous. What everyone always harps on is that players need to learn how to play defense, play off the ball, and adjust to the speed of the game.

That was BD who said it. And then it appears its what they did with him. If the Bulls' long term plan for Noa is to develop him into a guy who can handle and make decisions, when that has never been his role in the past, then yes beginning the process of developing those skills at lower intensity scenarios over a longer period of time with incremental upticks in competition is a logical approach.

[DuckIII]

Yes, I think it does.

After 10 games in his entire career?

I'm not sure what your'e getting at. I'm not saying they're ruining his career, I'm saying I don't think it's a good approach to his development.

You specifically cited the fact that he hadn't played in his first 10 games as being something that is significant to his development. Is it? If so, why?

Not because you think its unusual. But materially, why it matters to his development.

[HomoSapien]

After 10 games in his entire career?

I'm not sure what your'e getting at. I'm not saying they're ruining his career, I'm saying I don't think it's a good approach to his development.

You specifically cited the fact that he hadn't played in his first 10 games as being something that is significant to his development. Is it? If so, why?

Not because you think its unusual. But materially, why it matters to his development.

I think it's both unusual and overly conservative. From a development standpoint, I think it slows it down unnecessarily. You mentioned we're deep enough at his position, but I don't really see that. Our rotation at his spot is primarily Okoro, Williams, Phillips, and Terry. It's our weakest position on the roster. Okoro and Pat have looked good at times, but they've also been invisible at others. Given that inconsistency, it feels like there is room for him to get spot minutes, learn the speed of the NBA, and at least start building a foundation. If the guys ahead of him aren’t consistently locking down the role, I don’t see why easing him into 6–10 minutes a night is such a big risk.

Edit: And one more point, he actually looks like he's good enough to help us now. Not necessarily in a meaningful way, but enough to give us a boost in small bursts.

[dougthonus]

You specifically cited the fact that he hadn't played in his first 10 games as being something that is significant to his development. Is it? If so, why?

Not because you think its unusual. But materially, why it matters to his development.

Something being unusual often has significance in that there is a reason for the unusual behavior even if you are not certain what it is. Particular if the behavior is uniquely unusual. It just gives credence to the idea that something bad is going on here because often if something bad IS going on then you will see things like that.

That said, I discount that in this case because I believe management is being generally honest about their approach here. I don't think there is a larger concern about his ability level or anything else at this point. I disagree with the approach, but another way to think of it is that literally guys have taken full on gap years of doing nothing because of an injury and still came back and been amazing.

Even if this isn't the best thing to do, it also isn't going to have that meaningful impact one way or the other. He's not off playing rugby or something totally absurd or something. The reality is that as long as he's working hard wherever he is at to improve his game then that's probably 95% of the battle.

[WindyCityBorn]

Giddey is a unique player, an exception not the norm.

Noa could be another exception if he has very high skill level. Being 6’10” is huge advantage over most PF today. He will be able to get shot off against smaller 4s and just drive past most centers.

I don’t see reasons to believe he’ll develop a very high skill level given that he doesn’t shoot, pass, or dribble at an NBA level or even on par with most PF lottery prospects. He’ll need to maximize his tools to be a top 50ish player, which to my eye will involve adding burst.

He is 18 years old. You nor I have any real clue about how he will develop. That’s a fact.