Lavine is....

[dice]

If Zach Lavine is a 6th man in the NBA than Sato is not an NBA player and should be playing somewhere in the Euro-Leauge.

What does Sato have to do with this? Why do you have to mention Sato in nearly every post you make in any thread?

Because people criticize Lavine, and Carter on every thread. I’m free to criticize Sato who sucked ass last year.

people criticize WCJ on every thread? really?

and no, sato didn't suck last year. he just didn't shoot the ball well. and again, he's not paid to be a starter

[dice]

You never hear players from opposing teams compliment Sato game like they do Wendell, Lavine, and Coby.

I couldn't care less what opposing teams players have to say. I only care what the scoreboard says at the end of the game.

Which doesn’t tell the whole story because the team could loose but a player could’ve played his heart out to win the game. Doesn’t make since to blame a player for a team losing if he has nonthing to work with.

and yet the team is consistently better with him off the floor. same players

[wonderboy2]

I couldn't care less what opposing teams players have to say. I only care what the scoreboard says at the end of the game.

Which doesn’t tell the whole story because the team could loose but a player could’ve played his heart out to win the game. Doesn’t make since to blame a player for a team losing if he has nonthing to work with.

and yet the team is consistently better with him off the floor. same players

Don't bait people

[TeamMan]

Agreed with Dice.

I disagree on a lot of GarPax's decisions, but "bailing on players" is not one of them. If anything, Pax fell in love with his players. Pax actually held on to players for too long. The majority of Bulls' RealGM is guilty of this.

- He should have traded away Deng after Deng's 3rd year.
- He traded Jimmy Butler away at the right time.
- He should have traded away Ben Gordon as much as I love Ben Gordon's microwave hot scoring streaks and clutch abilities. I understand keeping Gordon until the very end because we might have had a championship contending team with an emerging Derrick Rose. The Ben Gordon messy contract stand off took a long time to sort out.
- Dumping McDermott and Nikola Mirotic were correct. They were not supposed to be drafted here in the first place. I didn't want either of those guys here.
- For the record, I didn't want Laurie Markkanen here. I didn't heavily scout the 2017 prospects, but I knew I didn't want Laurie. I wasn't even looking at the kid at the time. The majority of the posters here wanted HARRY GILES; a kid with a torn ACL. I remember that. How embarrassing.

If I was the GM, I'm not offering a $30+ million to LaVine. Hell no. His game is not worth it. That's Franchise Superstar money. He's not even an All Star. He doesn't have any Playoff experience. He doesn't play defense. He has tunnel vision.

I'd trade LaVine.

When you speak of "not bailing" my impression is that you are thinking mainly about trades. But there were other players that were simply allowed to walk, or traded away for basically nothing, both with the goal of staying out of the Lux Tax.

For every name that you mention I can mention another name that was clearly a mistake not to pay.

go right ahead

FYI

I don't respond to quotes that are taken out of context for negative purposes.

Never have.

[DorO]

All Star born and bred

[drosereturn]

You never hear players from opposing teams compliment Sato game like they do Wendell, Lavine, and Coby.

I couldn't care less what opposing teams players have to say. I only care what the scoreboard says at the end of the game.

Why would Durant care about Sato when hes a super role player when all he sees is flashy Lavine play and think he is a superstar based on that? Players complimenting has really nothing to with evaluation bc all they want are highlight reels.

[Dez]

I couldn't care less what opposing teams players have to say. I only care what the scoreboard says at the end of the game.

Which doesn’t tell the whole story because the team could loose but a player could’ve played his heart out to win the game. Doesn’t make since to blame a player for a team losing if he has nonthing to work with.

and yet the team is consistently better with him off the floor. same players

They aren't.

[johnnyvann840]

Which doesn’t tell the whole story because the team could loose but a player could’ve played his heart out to win the game. Doesn’t make since to blame a player for a team losing if he has nonthing to work with.

and yet the team is consistently better with him off the floor. same players

They aren't.

But they are. That is a FACT. Consistently. His entire career. Again this past season he was a net negative (-4). The Bulls were actually better a 4 pt differential per 100 possessions without Lavine. That is really saying something because the team was terrible to begin with so to get that much worse with your supposed "best player" on the floor is really bad.

http://www.82games.com/1920/19CHI6.HTM#onoff

[wonderboy2]

You never hear players from opposing teams compliment Sato game like they do Wendell, Lavine, and Coby.

I couldn't care less what opposing teams players have to say. I only care what the scoreboard says at the end of the game.

Why would Durant care about Sato when hes a super role player when all he sees is flashy Lavine play and think he is a superstar based on that? Players complimenting has really nothing to with evaluation bc all they want are highlight reels.

Stop it! Do you really think players think like that. These players have gone against each other and had to game plan for the Lavine. It’s alittle bit more than watching a guy highlights on SportCenter. And Sato is not a Super role player. A super Role player doesnt average 9 points 5 assist, on 32 percent 3 point shooting.

[Axl Rose]

Mine is a mix of 2 & 5. I think he is a future all-star but probably not a #2 option on a championship team and that we should trade him if a good deal comes up.

[FriedRise]

Why are we talking about Sato?

[MGB8]

People understand that this is a "projection" thread, right.

LaVine is 25 and a half years old. And he seems to be a bit of a late bloomer - in that he's a significantly better player today than he was in his first couple of years. He looks like he has another year, maybe two, if improvement in him. He had a nearly 32% usage rate, and yet at that usage rate he had a solid, though spectacular 57% TS. He put up 26 / 5 rb / 4 as per game playing 35 minutes per. To do that on decent efficiency despite bad coaching... that has some meaning.

Per basketball reference, he had a positive plus minus (2.4), with a +3.2 on offense and a - 0.8 on defense. The last two years are the first years that they have him as a positive +/-. Those numbers are consistent with the eye test -- good offensive player but not as good as the pure scoring suggests (because of some poor decisions / lack of knowing when to involve others / lack of other strong offensive players) and a mild negative on defense.

The biggest thing is that for the past years he has been trending in the right direction - including on defense.

Given all that, I think that there's a solid chance, something like 30-40%, that he can become a #2 player on a contending team. But that leaves a 60-70% chance that he stays where he is - which would be a high level offensive player but maybe ideally suited to be a "microwave" type player on a contending team, a 6th man of the year candidate a la Lou Williams or Jamal Crawford.

[MGB8]

What does Sato have to do with this? Why do you have to mention Sato in nearly every post you make in any thread?

Because people criticize Lavine, and Carter on every thread. I’m free to criticize Sato who sucked ass last year.

people criticize WCJ on every thread? really?

and no, sato didn't suck last year. he just didn't shoot the ball well. and again, he's not paid to be a starter

I'll raise my hand and say that I criticize WCJ a lot - though mostly in that's an issue of reality vs. expectations of a #7 draft pick who was talked up on this forum.

As for Sato, though this is a tangent to this thread, He did pretty much suck. He's getting nearly 10% of the cap, more than the MLE, so in terms of "expectations," you are looking for a "better than average" veteran -- and by "better than average" I don't mean including players who float in and out of the league. Not only did Sato shoot poorly (43% / 32%), despite being on sort of "mid-level" usage (16.7) where he shouldn't have had much pressure - he also didn't defend particularly well, either. And while his passing stats look ok (5.4 assists to 2.0 turnovers) -- he wasn't really an initiator or creator.

Back to Sato's shooting though - that was one of the big reasons folks liked the FA pickup - the prior two years at 40% from 3 or more (albeit not on high volume) and around 60% TS. If he bounces back to that level, or even a little better, along with a little bit of improvement on defense, then he might be worth his contract as a very versatile reserve of "5th best starter."

And this is where the big caveat about our evaluation of the Bulls players needs to be mentioned. BOYLEN.

I think there are a few "loud" voice on this forum that understate, by a large margin, exactly how bad a coach he was, exactly how much of a negative influence he was on virtually every player (ironically with the exception of Zach LaVine, who apparently is one of those guys who gets motivated in part by jerk-bags pissing them off).

[johnnyvann840]

People understand that this is a "projection" thread, right.

LaVine is 25 and a half years old. And he seems to be a bit of a late bloomer - in that he's a significantly better player today than he was in his first couple of years. He looks like he has another year, maybe two, if improvement in him. He had a nearly 32% usage rate, and yet at that usage rate he had a solid, though spectacular 57% TS. He put up 26 / 5 rb / 4 as per game playing 35 minutes per. To do that on decent efficiency despite bad coaching... that has some meaning.

Per basketball reference, he had a positive plus minus (2.4), with a +3.2 on offense and a - 0.8 on defense. The last two years are the first years that they have him as a positive +/-. Those numbers are consistent with the eye test -- good offensive player but not as good as the pure scoring suggests (because of some poor decisions / lack of knowing when to involve others / lack of other strong offensive players) and a mild negative on defense.

The biggest thing is that for the past years he has been trending in the right direction - including on defense.

Given all that, I think that there's a solid chance, something like 30-40%, that he can become a #2 player on a contending team. But that leaves a 60-70% chance that he stays where he is - which would be a high level offensive player but maybe ideally suited to be a "microwave" type player on a contending team, a 6th man of the year candidate a la Lou Williams or Jamal Crawford.

Actually, Basketball Reference has him at net negative -5. Bottom right is the net total difference. Not sure why they have him 1.0 pt worse, at -5.0 than 82games does at -4.0. Either way, the team was better without him.

https://www.basketball-reference.com/players/l/lavinza01/on-off/2020

[dougthonus]

People understand that this is a "projection" thread, right.

LaVine is 25 and a half years old. And he seems to be a bit of a late bloomer - in that he's a significantly better player today than he was in his first couple of years. He looks like he has another year, maybe two, if improvement in him. He had a nearly 32% usage rate, and yet at that usage rate he had a solid, though spectacular 57% TS. He put up 26 / 5 rb / 4 as per game playing 35 minutes per. To do that on decent efficiency despite bad coaching... that has some meaning.

Per basketball reference, he had a positive plus minus (2.4), with a +3.2 on offense and a - 0.8 on defense. The last two years are the first years that they have him as a positive +/-. Those numbers are consistent with the eye test -- good offensive player but not as good as the pure scoring suggests (because of some poor decisions / lack of knowing when to involve others / lack of other strong offensive players) and a mild negative on defense.

The biggest thing is that for the past years he has been trending in the right direction - including on defense.

Given all that, I think that there's a solid chance, something like 30-40%, that he can become a #2 player on a contending team. But that leaves a 60-70% chance that he stays where he is - which would be a high level offensive player but maybe ideally suited to be a "microwave" type player on a contending team, a 6th man of the year candidate a la Lou Williams or Jamal Crawford.

Actually, Basketball Reference has him at net negative -5. Bottom right is the net total difference. Not sure why they have him 1.0 pt worse, at -5.0 than 82games does at -4.0. Either way, the team was better without him.

https://www.basketball-reference.com/players/l/lavinza01/on-off/2020

+/- is a correlation stat not a causal stat though. The numbers for many players are not consistent year to year and swing wildly. I put very little faith in that as a statistic as it doesn't take into account too many factors (like quality of the other players on the court).

If you're going to go with +/- then you at least need to use one of the ones that regresses competition quality and other factors (like RPM used to do but now includes box score stats).

[johnnyvann840]

People understand that this is a "projection" thread, right.

LaVine is 25 and a half years old. And he seems to be a bit of a late bloomer - in that he's a significantly better player today than he was in his first couple of years. He looks like he has another year, maybe two, if improvement in him. He had a nearly 32% usage rate, and yet at that usage rate he had a solid, though spectacular 57% TS. He put up 26 / 5 rb / 4 as per game playing 35 minutes per. To do that on decent efficiency despite bad coaching... that has some meaning.

Per basketball reference, he had a positive plus minus (2.4), with a +3.2 on offense and a - 0.8 on defense. The last two years are the first years that they have him as a positive +/-. Those numbers are consistent with the eye test -- good offensive player but not as good as the pure scoring suggests (because of some poor decisions / lack of knowing when to involve others / lack of other strong offensive players) and a mild negative on defense.

The biggest thing is that for the past years he has been trending in the right direction - including on defense.

Given all that, I think that there's a solid chance, something like 30-40%, that he can become a #2 player on a contending team. But that leaves a 60-70% chance that he stays where he is - which would be a high level offensive player but maybe ideally suited to be a "microwave" type player on a contending team, a 6th man of the year candidate a la Lou Williams or Jamal Crawford.

Actually, Basketball Reference has him at net negative -5. Bottom right is the net total difference. Not sure why they have him 1.0 pt worse, at -5.0 than 82games does at -4.0. Either way, the team was better without him.

https://www.basketball-reference.com/players/l/lavinza01/on-off/2020

+/- is a correlation stat not a causal stat though. The numbers for many players are not consistent year to year and swing wildly. I put very little faith in that as a statistic as it doesn't take into account too many factors (like quality of the other players on the court).

If you're going to go with +/- then you at least need to use one of the ones that regresses competition quality and other factors (like RPM used to do but now includes box score stats).

I agree with this and understand that. However, there are some players where they are consistently one way or the other. With Zach, he has been very consistent since he came into the league as a net negative. Outside of a 5 week span last season (2018-19) where he had a stretch playing with OPJ where he was in net positive territory, he has been a net negative on some really horrible teams. That is hard to do. Then, we have the other side of the coin with players like Jimmy Butler, who is consistently one of the more net positive players in the league. Niko was actually one of those players also.. always made his team better when on the floor.

RPM used to be of value until they took defense heavily out of the equation. It's become a stat that only emphasizes offensive numbers. Zach went from one of the worst players in the league in RPM to not bad because of this change.

No matter what stat you look at, I agree that context is very important. Zach has been around long enough and has enough minutes on two different teams with many different teammates and the results have been very much the same for the vast, vast majority of his time in the league. He just isn't a positive impact player when it comes to the scoreboard. He's that rare player who looks great, has a beautiful shot, he's an athletic freak, he's pretty efficient and can score with the best in the league. Yet, somehow, his play just doesn't translate to wins and it never has.

[MGB8]

People understand that this is a "projection" thread, right.

LaVine is 25 and a half years old. And he seems to be a bit of a late bloomer - in that he's a significantly better player today than he was in his first couple of years. He looks like he has another year, maybe two, if improvement in him. He had a nearly 32% usage rate, and yet at that usage rate he had a solid, though spectacular 57% TS. He put up 26 / 5 rb / 4 as per game playing 35 minutes per. To do that on decent efficiency despite bad coaching... that has some meaning.

Per basketball reference, he had a positive plus minus (2.4), with a +3.2 on offense and a - 0.8 on defense. The last two years are the first years that they have him as a positive +/-. Those numbers are consistent with the eye test -- good offensive player but not as good as the pure scoring suggests (because of some poor decisions / lack of knowing when to involve others / lack of other strong offensive players) and a mild negative on defense.

The biggest thing is that for the past years he has been trending in the right direction - including on defense.

Given all that, I think that there's a solid chance, something like 30-40%, that he can become a #2 player on a contending team. But that leaves a 60-70% chance that he stays where he is - which would be a high level offensive player but maybe ideally suited to be a "microwave" type player on a contending team, a 6th man of the year candidate a la Lou Williams or Jamal Crawford.

Actually, Basketball Reference has him at net negative -5. Bottom right is the net total difference. Not sure why they have him 1.0 pt worse, at -5.0 than 82games does at -4.0. Either way, the team was better without him.

https://www.basketball-reference.com/players/l/lavinza01/on-off/2020

No, they don't. Their BPM has him at 2.4 for 2019-20 - with +3.2 on offense and -0.8 on defense. See below, under "advanced stats." https://www.basketball-reference.com/players/l/lavinza01.html

You are misusing the "on-off" subset of data in that what you are pointing to is the "raw" plus minus, that is not adjusted in comparison to the average player (as a way of trying to adjust for opponent quality).

[dougthonus]

I agree with this and understand that. However, there are some players where they are consistently one way or the other. With Zach, he has been very consistent since he came into the league as a net negative.

That's irrelevant though. Raw +/- has been shown to be awful, non projective, and have no value. Out of 500 players, some will be always good or always bad by random chance. If a stat is lousy, then it's lousy. I don't find much value in saying "Well I know this stat is lousy, but I'm going to use it here because it supports my case". That doesn't make sense.

RPM used to be of value until they took defense heavily out of the equation. It's become a stat that only emphasizes offensive numbers. Zach went from one of the worst players in the league in RPM to not bad because of this change.

They didn't pull defense out of the stat. They added box score contribution, so it now combines contribution (causal) as well as just regressed plus minus numbers (correlation). The new RPM much better reflects the eye test IMO and removed the ridiculous outliers of things like saying David West was a top 10 player in the league two years ago.

No matter what stat you look at, I agree that context is very important. Zach has been around long enough and has enough minutes on two different teams with many different teammates and the results have been very much the same for the vast, vast majority of his time in the league. He just isn't a positive impact player when it comes to the scoreboard. He's that rare player who looks great, has a beautiful shot, he's an athletic freak, he's pretty efficient and can score with the best in the league. Yet, somehow, his play just doesn't translate to wins and it never has.

I share concerns here, but I don't think they're nearly as damning as you do. He came into the league as an extremely raw project, and he's improved every year. He had an interruption due to injury, but even his numbers across these stats have generally improved over time and his defensive metrics have improved over time. His role shifted from off ball 3rd option and bench player to on ball first option with high volume and good efficiency.

He's made absolutely tremendous strides and to just sum it up as "he just doesn't win" I think does a disservice to the improvements he has made and has vastly over simplifies the situation.

That said, I'm not going to suggest to you that Zach is a star and is a guy you build around or a legit #1 option in the league. However, he hasn't stopped improving yet and has made absolutely massive strides since his rookie season. There's every reason to think he can be a good contributor IMO. Now if some other team said "That Zach Lavine's a star player, I'm giving up the farm for him!" then I'm all in on trading Zach away. I don't actually expect his value around the league to be that high due to the same reasons you don't value him and expect his trade value is actually fairly low (also due to the fact he only has 2 more years of control left).

I guess in the end, I don't think Zach is the answer, but I don't think he's the problem either. Of the guys on this team, I think he's still their best player and the one that has the most obvious long term fit and quality. It's just that that isn't saying much on this squad.

[johnnyvann840]

People understand that this is a "projection" thread, right.

LaVine is 25 and a half years old. And he seems to be a bit of a late bloomer - in that he's a significantly better player today than he was in his first couple of years. He looks like he has another year, maybe two, if improvement in him. He had a nearly 32% usage rate, and yet at that usage rate he had a solid, though spectacular 57% TS. He put up 26 / 5 rb / 4 as per game playing 35 minutes per. To do that on decent efficiency despite bad coaching... that has some meaning.

Per basketball reference, he had a positive plus minus (2.4), with a +3.2 on offense and a - 0.8 on defense. The last two years are the first years that they have him as a positive +/-. Those numbers are consistent with the eye test -- good offensive player but not as good as the pure scoring suggests (because of some poor decisions / lack of knowing when to involve others / lack of other strong offensive players) and a mild negative on defense.

The biggest thing is that for the past years he has been trending in the right direction - including on defense.

Given all that, I think that there's a solid chance, something like 30-40%, that he can become a #2 player on a contending team. But that leaves a 60-70% chance that he stays where he is - which would be a high level offensive player but maybe ideally suited to be a "microwave" type player on a contending team, a 6th man of the year candidate a la Lou Williams or Jamal Crawford.

Actually, Basketball Reference has him at net negative -5. Bottom right is the net total difference. Not sure why they have him 1.0 pt worse, at -5.0 than 82games does at -4.0. Either way, the team was better without him.

https://www.basketball-reference.com/players/l/lavinza01/on-off/2020

No, they don't. Their BPM has him at 2.4 for 2019-20 - with +3.2 on offense and -0.8 on defense. See below, under "advanced stats." https://www.basketball-reference.com/players/l/lavinza01.html

You are misusing the "on-off" subset of data in that what you are pointing to is the "raw" plus minus, that is not adjusted in comparison to the average player (as a way of trying to adjust for opponent quality).

OK. You're using BPM. In your post, you stated a positive +/-. I assumed you were just talking about his raw +/- on/off numbers. Not a fan of BPM because of the way they adjust. I wish they just left RPM alone instead of changing into a offensive only stat. It's the same problem we have with Box Plus/Minus.

[Ice Man]

But that leaves a 60-70% chance that he stays where he is - which would be a high level offensive player but maybe ideally suited to be a "microwave" type player on a contending team, a 6th man of the year candidate a la Lou Williams or Jamal Crawford.

Or the 2nd player on a solid playoff team, but not a real contender. For me, he belongs in the same box as Booker, Mitchell, Murray, McCollum, and DeRozan. They score enough to be help a team that has other useful parts be an above-average team, but if players like that are one of the team's two best players then that team isn't a true contender.

Personally, I think it's pretty difficult to progress from being a player like that to being a true star, a two-way guy who really can be the anchor of a contender. I am struggling to think of examples. Kobe, for sure -- but he had already made that transition by the time he was as old as those guys are. Not saying it can't be done, but I wouldn't be surprised if none of the players that I mentioned every manage that feat.