Is Fred VanVleet an all star?

[SF_Warriors]

Scary stuff, this is like historically valuing Drummond or Hassan Whiteside over Marc Gasol at the center position.

It’s an all star game. Not who can anchor the best defense game.

So then it begs the question, what does it truly mean to be an All Star?

Elite scoring volume combined with elite scoring efficiency.

I absolutely love fvv but his team is only 1.5 games out from the bulls, with fvv having vastly better teammates. After fvv and lavine, I would easily take three guys on the raps before I would even consider taking anyone from the bulls

The fact that this inexperienced bulls team missing their starting frontcourt for much of the season is even in playoff contention is impressive for me...more impressive than being 1.5 games ahead of them at this point with a deeper, more experienced team, imo.

[PistolPeteJR]

I don't see Lavine as vastly better than Van Vleet, but the "Bulls are better when he sits" argument ignores context.

The Bulls are force feeding their youth. No team starting Coby White at PG is serious about the present. The Bulls are better when they sit their youth in place of serviceable vets like Satoransky, Porter and Young, but instead they are thinking forward.

Toronto probably deserves an All-Star based on their play, but they are the prototypical "sum is better than its parts" team.

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Have you actually watched the Bulls this year? Coby is playing pretty decently.

Have you watched the Bulls this year? Coby has been an absolute train wreck at times this year. He's look better in the most recent stretch because he's been relegated to mostly off ball now. He's been pretty brutal for the most part with some hot games every now and then.

Exactly. He’s a second year player drafted in the worst time in history for young player development but is going real signs of figuring it out.

[Dan Z]

Lavine ranks higher in BPM, VORP, WS/48

While FVV has better defensive adv stats and is unquestionably the better defensive player, Lavine seems to be rated higher overall according to those metrics, which is derived from both sides of the court. Lavine has a TS of nearly 65%.. that is like superstar scoring efficiency. Not saying he is a superstar but he should be rewarded for having a great year as well. Lavine has a much worse supporting cast, but his team is only 2 games behind the raps.

Hilariously, I've actually been coveting Lavine for a while for the Raps

I’d trade for him in a heartbeat. Putting him next to Fred, OG, Siakam would be legit.

Lowry + Powell + 1st for Lavine and Porter Jr?

The Bulls would have no interest in that trade. Lowry is good, but he's 34 years old.

[PistolPeteJR]

Hilariously, I've actually been coveting Lavine for a while for the Raps

I’d trade for him in a heartbeat. Putting him next to Fred, OG, Siakam would be legit.

Lowry + Powell + 1st for Lavine and Porter Jr?

The Bulls would have no interest in that trade. Lowry is good, but he's 34 years old.

No value in getting Porter off the books and developing Coby?

[everdiso]

Lol, no he’s not. He’s a good defender, but about two tiers below Simmons on that front. Come on.

He's an elite defender, by every measure.

You’re moving the goalposts. Reread what you said that I responded to.

I'm not moving any goalposts.

We are comparing two elite defenders here.

RPM and RAPTOR and win shares have Fred as the better defender right now. BPM favors Simmons.

Both are tied in steals and blocks. Fred fouls less.

Fred won a championship checking Steph Curry man up.

On the other end, Fred is the better scorer, with the better a/to ratio to boot.

[Dan Z]

I’d trade for him in a heartbeat. Putting him next to Fred, OG, Siakam would be legit.

Lowry + Powell + 1st for Lavine and Porter Jr?

The Bulls would have no interest in that trade. Lowry is good, but he's 34 years old.

No value in getting Porter off the books and developing Coby?

Porter is expiring at the end of the season so his contract doesn't matter that much.

As for Lowry helping with Coby's development that's not worth giving up LaVine.

[jordanwilliams6]

Have you actually watched the Bulls this year? Coby is playing pretty decently.

Have you watched the Bulls this year? Coby has been an absolute train wreck at times this year. He's look better in the most recent stretch because he's been relegated to mostly off ball now. He's been pretty brutal for the most part with some hot games every now and then.

Exactly. He’s a second year player drafted in the worst time in history for young player development but is going real signs of figuring it out.

Yes he's developing, and Bulls fans are mostly fine with him starting. That doesn't change the fact that he isn't currently conducive to winning and is hurting the starting group.

[IzzyT]

The absurdity of claiming FVV is a better defender than Ben Simmons based on single (partial) season box score derivative stats and noisy adjusted +/- cannot be overstated. It really can’t.

Fred can defend one position reliably. Simmons defends all five and even offers weak side rim protection. He’s an all-league athlete by every raw physical measure whereas FVV has, probably, the worst physical toolbox of any major rotation player in the NBA.

[PistolPeteJR]

He's an elite defender, by every measure.

You’re moving the goalposts. Reread what you said that I responded to.

I'm not moving any goalposts.

We are comparing two elite defenders here.

RPM and RAPTOR and win shares have Fred as the better defender right now. BPM favors Simmons.

Both are tied in steals and blocks. Fred fouls less.

Fred won a championship checking Steph Curry man up.

On the other end, Fred is the better scorer, with the better a/to ratio to boot.

You said “name one thing Simmons does better”.
I’m done here.

[Marty_Budda]

The Bulls would have no interest in that trade. Lowry is good, but he's 34 years old.

No value in getting Porter off the books and developing Coby?

Porter is expiring at the end of the season so his contract doesn't matter that much.

As for Lowry helping with Coby's development that's not worth giving up LaVine.

Raps would need to give up at least 2 FRP for Lavine and that may not get it done either. Norm + Boucher + 2FRP.

Bulls need to figure out what they want to do with Lavine as well. Because they don’t seem to want to offer him a max but he’s 100% gonna get one. So if that’s the case they need to look to trade him now when his value is at its highest and he’s not an expiring which he will be next year.

A FVV, Lavine, OG, Siakam core does make my mouth water. That team has the potential to be a good team for the next 6/7 years

[everdiso]

You’re moving the goalposts. Reread what you said that I responded to.

I'm not moving any goalposts.

We are comparing two elite defenders here.

RPM and RAPTOR and win shares have Fred as the better defender right now. BPM favors Simmons.

Both are tied in steals and blocks. Fred fouls less.

Fred won a championship checking Steph Curry man up.

On the other end, Fred is the better scorer, with the better a/to ratio to boot.

You said “name one thing Simmons does better”.
I’m done here.

OK.

[everdiso]

The absurdity of claiming FVV is a better defender than Ben Simmons based on single (partial) season box score derivative stats and noisy adjusted +/- cannot be overstated. It really can’t.

Fred can defend one position reliably. Simmons defends all five and even offers weak side rim protection. He’s an all-league athlete by every raw physical measure whereas FVV has, probably, the worst physical toolbox of any major rotation player in the NBA.

It's not one season, and it's not one stat. It's every season, and every stat.

Plus a playoffs resume of actually checking the other team's superstar, something Simmons hasn't been able to do.

[Marty_Budda]

The absurdity of claiming FVV is a better defender than Ben Simmons based on single (partial) season box score derivative stats and noisy adjusted +/- cannot be overstated. It really can’t.

Fred can defend one position reliably. Simmons defends all five and even offers weak side rim protection. He’s an all-league athlete by every raw physical measure whereas FVV has, probably, the worst physical toolbox of any major rotation player in the NBA.

It's not one season, and it's not one stat. It's every season, and every stat.

Plus a playoffs resume of actually checking the other team's superstar, something Simmons hasn't been able to do.

I have no idea how you can say Fred is a better defender than Simmons. Fred isn’t even the best defender on the raps as that would be OG.

Simmons’ and OG’s ability to effectively switch 1-5 makes them invaluable. Fred is elite at guarding perimeter players under 6ft 4. Anything above that and he’d struggle guarding 1 on 1. He is a great team defender tho and you could argue he has a higher defensive iq than Simmons. But that’s not enough. Dude made the all defensive first team last year. And he’s gonna make it again this year.

[everdiso]

The absurdity of claiming FVV is a better defender than Ben Simmons based on single (partial) season box score derivative stats and noisy adjusted +/- cannot be overstated. It really can’t.

Fred can defend one position reliably. Simmons defends all five and even offers weak side rim protection. He’s an all-league athlete by every raw physical measure whereas FVV has, probably, the worst physical toolbox of any major rotation player in the NBA.

It's not one season, and it's not one stat. It's every season, and every stat.

Plus a playoffs resume of actually checking the other team's superstar, something Simmons hasn't been able to do.

I have no idea how you can say Fred is a better defender than Simmons. Fred isn’t even the best defender on the raps as that would be OG.

Simmons’ and OG’s ability to effectively switch 1-5 makes them invaluable. Fred is elite at guarding perimeter players under 6ft 4. Anything above that and he’d struggle guarding 1 on 1. He is a great team defender tho and you could argue he has a higher defensive iq than Simmons. But that’s not enough.

Let's be real - Simmons couldn't slow down Kawhi in the playoffs even a little bit, and even Tatum has shrugged him off easily in two playoffs series now.

[Marty_Budda]

It's not one season, and it's not one stat. It's every season, and every stat.

Plus a playoffs resume of actually checking the other team's superstar, something Simmons hasn't been able to do.

I have no idea how you can say Fred is a better defender than Simmons. Fred isn’t even the best defender on the raps as that would be OG.

Simmons’ and OG’s ability to effectively switch 1-5 makes them invaluable. Fred is elite at guarding perimeter players under 6ft 4. Anything above that and he’d struggle guarding 1 on 1. He is a great team defender tho and you could argue he has a higher defensive iq than Simmons. But that’s not enough.

Let's be real - Simmons couldn't slow down Kawhi in the playoffs even a little bit, and even Tatum has shrugged him off easily in two playoffs series now.

And you think Fred can stop those guys or slow them down more than Simmons could?

[PistolPeteJR]

Have you watched the Bulls this year? Coby has been an absolute train wreck at times this year. He's look better in the most recent stretch because he's been relegated to mostly off ball now. He's been pretty brutal for the most part with some hot games every now and then.

Exactly. He’s a second year player drafted in the worst time in history for young player development but is going real signs of figuring it out.

Yes he's developing, and Bulls fans are mostly fine with him starting. That doesn't change the fact that he isn't currently conducive to winning and is hurting the starting group.

I wasn’t suggesting he’s Morant.

[IzzyT]

The absurdity of claiming FVV is a better defender than Ben Simmons based on single (partial) season box score derivative stats and noisy adjusted +/- cannot be overstated. It really can’t.

Fred can defend one position reliably. Simmons defends all five and even offers weak side rim protection. He’s an all-league athlete by every raw physical measure whereas FVV has, probably, the worst physical toolbox of any major rotation player in the NBA.

It's not one season, and it's not one stat. It's every season, and every stat.

Plus a playoffs resume of actually checking the other team's superstar, something Simmons hasn't been able to do.

For most of his career, FVV has been relegated to the bench because his own coaching staff thought he’d be a liability on the defensive end. It’s why he was drafted where he was...

Every season, every stat? That’s demonstrably false. You just posted that that’s not true.

And, again, who cares? There’s only two stats. Box score derivatives which look at steals, blocks, rebounding, pace, and a few other factors. That doesn’t capture defensive impact. Even the creators of this like DBPM don’t encourage people to take it at face value.

Then you have adjusted +/- stats which are so noisy that they cannot help with granular comparisons due to attribution errors. Adjusted +/-, for single seasons, is good for telling us things like, this guy might be under/overrated or this guy is definitely a star and not just a bench player. They have huge standard deviations and it isn’t meant to be used in the way it is by so many posters. It’s useful for making broad categorizations. It isn’t for telling who is better between two guys with similar numbers.

[PistolPeteJR]

The Bulls would have no interest in that trade. Lowry is good, but he's 34 years old.

No value in getting Porter off the books and developing Coby?

Porter is expiring at the end of the season so his contract doesn't matter that much.

As for Lowry helping with Coby's development that's not worth giving up LaVine.

Ooh never mind missed on Porter expiring too.

[everdiso]

I have no idea how you can say Fred is a better defender than Simmons. Fred isn’t even the best defender on the raps as that would be OG.

Simmons’ and OG’s ability to effectively switch 1-5 makes them invaluable. Fred is elite at guarding perimeter players under 6ft 4. Anything above that and he’d struggle guarding 1 on 1. He is a great team defender tho and you could argue he has a higher defensive iq than Simmons. But that’s not enough.

Let's be real - Simmons couldn't slow down Kawhi in the playoffs even a little bit, and even Tatum has shrugged him off easily in two playoffs series now.

And you think Fred can stop those guys or slow them down more than Simmons could?

Fred won a championship checking steph curry.

[theonlyclutch]

Let's be real - Simmons couldn't slow down Kawhi in the playoffs even a little bit, and even Tatum has shrugged him off easily in two playoffs series now.

And you think Fred can stop those guys or slow them down more than Simmons could?

Fred won a championship checking steph curry.

Curry averaged 30/5/6 on 60% TS being checked by FVV.