The Marko Simonovic season thread

[Pax for Prez]

I view Simonovic as Felico replacement on the roster with a chance to develop into possibly something more.

[CobyWhite0]

I view Simonovic as Felico replacement on the roster with a chance to develop into possibly something more.

Exactly. He's a guy you can sign after all your cap room is used and/or your trades are complete. You hope he's a hard worker who can eventually give you something.

[pipfan]

I agree-make him a 5th big, and develop him for a year

[waffle]

he's pretty agile for someone that big. Handles the ball fairly well. Good shooter. Seems to be a willing rebounder. Funny looking.

Needs some more weight to him

Not sure what to think of him. He's certainly not just a big stiff, many of which get drafted every year.

[MrSparkle]

I’ll take a skilled sub-$1m project at 5th big instead of cap-costing Felicio or Kornet. Might end up playing 15 total minutes in his NBA career, but the fact is he’s a better salary investment than the other two guys were, at over 8m and 2m, respectively.

[dougthonus]

I’ll take a skilled sub-$1m project at 5th big instead of cap-costing Felicio or Kornet. Might end up playing 15 total minutes in his NBA career, but the fact is he’s a better salary investment than the other two guys were, at over 8m and 2m, respectively.

That's sort of an irrelevant comparison though. Every team generally ends up with bad contracts and any player is better than those bad contracts. The Bulls will probably end up with new bad contracts soon. Whomever we get on the league minimum is better than a bad contract, but you don't know those contracts will be bad in advance or you wouldn't sign them.

In this case, the real comparison is Simonovic better than a different minimum salary player that would take his spot. Let's say someone like Daniel Gafford. Is he going to be better than Gafford? Probably not.

[TheFinishSniper]

I’ll take a skilled sub-$1m project at 5th big instead of cap-costing Felicio or Kornet. Might end up playing 15 total minutes in his NBA career, but the fact is he’s a better salary investment than the other two guys were, at over 8m and 2m, respectively.

That's sort of an irrelevant comparison though. Every team generally ends up with bad contracts and any player is better than those bad contracts. The Bulls will probably end up with new bad contracts soon. Whomever we get on the league minimum is better than a bad contract, but you don't know those contracts will be bad in advance or you wouldn't sign them.

In this case, the real comparison is Simonovic better than a different minimum salary player that would take his spot. Let's say someone like Daniel Gafford. Is he going to be better than Gafford? Probably not.

Bulls can't afford bad contracts given they are such bad team. You can afford Felicio on 8M if you have almost MVP level guy playing for less than what he is actually worth it like on rookie deal. You can afford multiple overpaid players on roster on such deals as long that player makes sum of rest better than they individually are.

That's how roster constructions in NBA work. Someone needs to be underpaid for someone to be overpaid. It's balance. Felicio at 8 could be literal reason why we missed playoffs this year. Because having actually one guy good enough to contribute and make difference on shi*** team like ours could have being that difference. Between losing few close games and not. And this guy was for almost 5 years on roster. And for us he was also untradable because we were such bad team that getting rid of assets for getting rid of him was huge no no.

[dougthonus]

Bulls can't afford bad contracts given they are such bad team. You can afford Felicio on 8M if you have almost MVP level guy playing for less than what he is actually worth it like on rookie deal. You can afford multiple overpaid players on roster on such deals as long that player makes sum of rest better than they individually are.

That's how roster constructions in NBA work. Someone needs to be underpaid for someone to be overpaid. It's balance. Felicio at 8 could be literal reason why we missed playoffs this year. Because having actually one guy good enough to contribute and make difference on shi*** team like ours could have being that difference. Between losing few close games and not. And this guy was for almost 5 years on roster. And for us he was also untradable because we were such bad team that getting rid of assets for getting rid of him was huge no no.

Bad contracts are often the result of not having superstar players. When your money is tied up in a few star players and everyone else is making low money then you avoid bad contracts because you just don't have extra money to pay them and often can get ring chasers on the cheap trying to win to better fill the gap.

In this sense you are right, but the cause / effect is opposite. Having bad contracts is often a result of lack of top end talent not the cause. It's really rare to see well balanced teams with lots of 20M type players without bad deals. What Wallace/Wallace/Rip/Prince/Billups Pistons might be the only successful team built in that model I can come up with.

[MrSparkle]

I’ll take a skilled sub-$1m project at 5th big instead of cap-costing Felicio or Kornet. Might end up playing 15 total minutes in his NBA career, but the fact is he’s a better salary investment than the other two guys were, at over 8m and 2m, respectively.

That's sort of an irrelevant comparison though. Every team generally ends up with bad contracts and any player is better than those bad contracts. The Bulls will probably end up with new bad contracts soon. Whomever we get on the league minimum is better than a bad contract, but you don't know those contracts will be bad in advance or you wouldn't sign them.

I like my team's 5th/project big to be paid minimum salary. That's all I'm saying. I liked Gafford. He was an excellent pick and a great signing; one of the few only bright spots of GarPax's last 5 years. He's a different project than Simonovic. If you asked me to blindly gamble on a type of big, sure -- I will put my money on the uber-athletic energy guy over the unathletic/skill guy. But at sub-$1m, I'm not worrying at all about whether either guy pans out or not. From what I see, Simonovic is about as decent a $1m late 2nd gamble as anybody; he has some tools and good fundamentals. Not expecting anything, but I also don't see him as a joke of a pick. At worst, he's just entirely physically unfit to run and bump with NBA pros (personally I see much agility and versatility than Kornet). At best, he's a 3P spacer with good fundamentals on both ends and on the glass.

I'm willing to bet AKME never throw money down the drain like GarPax did with Felicio. We already saw them handle the Lauri situation pretty rationally- standing down instead of settling on a 80m extension. Remains to be seen whether it backfires (i.e. losing Lauri for nothing), but for however crappy our record was after ASB, the Bulls pay structure was perhaps the best value in the league. Going into 21/22 with one bad salary on the books (Aminu), who I'm still convinced can have a half-decent expiring season (or isn't a total negative trade filler).

I'm high on pay structure in my little virtual GM games. I think you're in big trouble if fringe scrubs or defunct positions are overloaded with cap-space; which was basically a GarPax norm since 2007. How many one-way traditional PFs & Cs and one-way sieves can you sign with your cap? Low-minute players at that... AKME's orgs had clean caps; no burning contract money on replacement G-League scrubs. I think the immediate effect of 1 season turnover, is they've really done away with the one-way scrubs, wisely favoring the guys with an offensive pulse.

I expect some bad contracts, because we're expecting to overpay to address needs (whether it's one of those mid-tier starting PGs or upping the pay of a role-player like Theis, Temple, etc.). These kinds of moves pale in comparison to a blatant waste of $20m cap (and 5 valuable roster spots) on this G-League line-up: Arci-Valentine-Hutchison-Kornet-Felicio. And I understand FRP busts happen, Valentine had his redeeming moments, and Arci gave a lot of effort and could at least produce, but (A) there shouldn't be this many one-way, fringe NBA players on one team, and (B) they should each cost less than $1m against the cap.

[dougthonus]

I like my team's 5th/project big to be paid minimum salary. That's all I'm saying.

Of course, guys who end up in the 10-15 spots in your rotation should all be on vet min or BAE deals. If anyone that is in your 10-15 rotation spots is paid more than that then you screwed up.

I'm willing to bet AKME never throw money down the drain like GarPax did with Felicio. We already saw them handle the Lauri situation pretty rationally- standing down instead of settling on a 80m extension. Remains to be seen whether it backfires (i.e. losing Lauri for nothing), but for however crappy our record was after ASB, the Bulls pay structure was perhaps the best value in the league. Going into 21/22 with one bad salary on the books (Aminu), who I'm still convinced can have a half-decent expiring season (or isn't a total negative trade filler).

Without looking into it, I would bet if you went and looked at every GM in the league, that has held their job for 5 years or more that probably 75%+ have wasted at least 40M in bad salary. It just something that happens with almost everyone.

In terms of Lauri, it's not really a meaningful comparison, but as I noted in another thread, our last FO would have almost certainly flipped him for a 1st if they didn't want them. Virtually every player they had was either flipped for prospects prior to leaving or was extended and we got court value out of them. Ben Gordon is the only exception I could find to that in almost all of their years.

Our FO may not screw up by overpaying Lauri (or maybe they will, who knows), but it's a different situation and they screwed up in a different way.

I'm high on pay structure in my little virtual GM games. I think you're in big trouble if fringe scrubs or defunct positions are overloaded with cap-space; which was basically a GarPax norm since 2007.

I agree, but this is reverse causation. Good teams typically have all their money locked into stars. If you don't have stars, you pay the next best options more money than the even worse options, and sometimes those next best options go downhill and you lose a ton of money.

How many one-way traditional PFs & Cs and one-way sieves can you sign with your cap? Low-minute players at that... AKME's orgs had clean caps; no burning contract money on replacement G-League scrubs. I think the immediate effect of 1 season turnover, is they've really done away with the one-way scrubs, wisely favoring the guys with an offensive pulse.

I think you're vastly overestimating the amount of cap the Bulls have spent on guys like this in the past 20 years. How many bad deals have they really signed? Felicio? Ben Wallace? Carlos Boozer? I mean two of those three they were betting on stars and had huge improvements in the team outcome partially due to those signings in the short term. Other than that, they've had remarkably few bad deals. They were a FO that actually managed really well around the edges and almost always had clean books and flexibility to the point where they were even mocked for valuing flexibility.

[MrSparkle]

I like my team's 5th/project big to be paid minimum salary. That's all I'm saying.

Of course, guys who end up in the 10-15 spots in your rotation should all be on vet min or BAE deals. If anyone that is in your 10-15 rotation spots is paid more than that then you screwed up.

I'm willing to bet AKME never throw money down the drain like GarPax did with Felicio. We already saw them handle the Lauri situation pretty rationally- standing down instead of settling on a 80m extension. Remains to be seen whether it backfires (i.e. losing Lauri for nothing), but for however crappy our record was after ASB, the Bulls pay structure was perhaps the best value in the league. Going into 21/22 with one bad salary on the books (Aminu), who I'm still convinced can have a half-decent expiring season (or isn't a total negative trade filler).

Without looking into it, I would bet if you went and looked at every GM in the league, that has held their job for 5 years or more that probably 75%+ have wasted at least 40M in bad salary. It just something that happens with almost everyone.

In terms of Lauri, it's not really a meaningful comparison, but as I noted in another thread, our last FO would have almost certainly flipped him for a 1st if they didn't want them. Virtually every player they had was either flipped for prospects prior to leaving or was extended and we got court value out of them. Ben Gordon is the only exception I could find to that in almost all of their years.

Our FO may not screw up by overpaying Lauri (or maybe they will, who knows), but it's a different situation and they screwed up in a different way.

I'm high on pay structure in my little virtual GM games. I think you're in big trouble if fringe scrubs or defunct positions are overloaded with cap-space; which was basically a GarPax norm since 2007.

I agree, but this is reverse causation. Good teams typically have all their money locked into stars. If you don't have stars, you pay the next best options more money than the even worse options, and sometimes those next best options go downhill and you lose a ton of money.

How many one-way traditional PFs & Cs and one-way sieves can you sign with your cap? Low-minute players at that... AKME's orgs had clean caps; no burning contract money on replacement G-League scrubs. I think the immediate effect of 1 season turnover, is they've really done away with the one-way scrubs, wisely favoring the guys with an offensive pulse.

I think you're vastly overestimating the amount of cap the Bulls have spent on guys like this in the past 20 years. How many bad deals have they really signed? Felicio? Ben Wallace? Carlos Boozer? I mean two of those three they were betting on stars and had huge improvements in the team outcome partially due to those signings in the short term. Other than that, they've had remarkably few bad deals. They were a FO that actually managed really well around the edges and almost always had clean books and flexibility to the point where they were even mocked for valuing flexibility.

In the big picture, they demonstrated that low-risk, low-ceiling, overly frugal management has zero pay-off in the NBA. And if you’re pumping penny stocks, you eventually end up with an overpaid penny stock team. Prior to this season, we couldn’t even brag about any trade assets. We were discussing dump trades for mid FRPs with our best talent (Zach), settling on late FRP scenarios with Wendell, Lauri, Coby, and basically stuck with the rest of the deadweight contracts. I don’t find flexibility in a roster with 1-2 trade assets, even if there’s cap space and your FRP at the end of the tunnel.

Note that even Temple could’ve been traded for something half decent at this deadline. I really think AKME have a better concept of player-to-league value. GarPax operated in a bubble, where their $1m treasure find (ie Felicio, Shaq, Arci) was a pat-on-the-back and an excuse to stay the course.

I think we agree that sports salaries are just numbers. Highly relevant to the situation, thus very hard to judge a signing by at face value (as in, sure- Boozer and Wallace were fine). I guess to me, there is a big picture where you need these guys to be coveted pieces around the league, not just empty-stat bodies that cost a pine-cone (or conversely overpaid, empty calorie duds).

[dougthonus]

In the big picture, they demonstrated that low-risk, low-ceiling, overly frugal management has zero pay-off in the NBA. And if you’re pumping penny stocks, you eventually end up with an overpaid penny stock team. Prior to this season, we couldn’t even brag about any trade assets. We were discussing dump trades for mid FRPs with our best talent (Zach), settling on late FRP scenarios with Wendell, Lauri, Coby, and basically stuck with the rest of the deadweight contracts. I don’t find flexibility in a roster with 1-2 trade assets, even if there’s cap space and your FRP at the end of the tunnel.

Note that even Temple could’ve been traded for something half decent at this deadline. I really think AKME have a better concept of player-to-league value. GarPax operated in a bubble, where their $1m treasure find (ie Felicio, Shaq, Arci) was a pat-on-the-back and an excuse to stay the course.

I think we agree that sports salaries are just numbers. Highly relevant to the situation, thus very hard to judge a signing by at face value (as in, sure- Boozer and Wallace were fine). I guess to me, there is a big picture where you need these guys to be coveted pieces around the league, not just empty-stat bodies that cost a pine-cone (or conversely overpaid, empty calorie duds).

I mean obviously in the end, GarPax didn't do well or they'd still be here. I'm just saying the view that they signed lots of bad deals (and also the widely held view they hang on to players or let guys leave for nothing) are both not areas where they struggled. They were really good in the margins.

They failed to bring in star talent for the most part. Outside of Rose, Jimmy Butler (maybe 15-20 player when here) was the best player they had in their tenure. It's a long time to go to not really have much in the way of star talent, especially given the number of lottery picks they had. They were a group that could be counted on to hit lots and lots of singles but they struggled to ever make big things happen.

The new regime is certainly aiming for higher risk / higher reward. We'll see if that works. It's a different philosophy. The old regime generally was pretty good at creating average to good teams. They had 12 of 13 years in a row of .500 or better basketball up until the rebuild with the Jimmy trade. The problem is with all of that, they got out of the 1st round only three times. They could never get to great. They did take some calculated chances (Tyrus, trading a 1st to open up 2 max slots to bid on Bron/Bosh, aggressively pursued Melo) but they failed with all of them.

We'll see what AKME does. So far, I'm not a fan of what they have done, but part of that is because I'm philosophically someone that probably overvalues long term assets and building via the draft which is the opposite of what they've done. We'll see what outcomes they generate in the long haul.

They certainly contrast with the last group considerably to me. That doesn't mean they'll be more successful of course.

[heir_jordan22]

He looks like Lauri-light. Can shoot and attack from the perimeter decently. Weak around the basket for pretty much everything: defense, rebounding, scoring in traffic. But as a 5th big, why not. I'd rather draft an athletic project in the second round like Charles Bassey or Ibou Dianko Badji.

[Repeat 3-peat]

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[rtblues]

A recent Simonovic game:

Watch on YouTube

[sco]

A recent Simonovic game:

Watch on YouTube

Better handles/vision than I remember, but has Brook Lopez hops. Maybe he can replace Thad after next season. Don't see him coming over for next season, although the g-league would be a good next step.

[Almost Retired]

I can see AK bringing him over next season to get acclimated. I bet he could play garbage minutes at the "3" or "4". Too thin to play the "5" until he matures into his frame in a few years. But he runs the floor pretty fluidly. He can shoot a little. He puts out effort rebounding the ball, but I'd expect less production here once he's going up against the big dogs. But he'd give us at the very least what Shrek gave us at less than 1/4 of the price. I could see a bench squad of Sato, Coby, TBJ, Marko and Thad or Theis if we can resign him.

[sco]

I can see AK bringing him over next season to get acclimated. I bet he could play garbage minutes at the "3" or "4". Too thin to play the "5" until he matures into his frame in a few years. But he runs the floor pretty fluidly. He can shoot a little. He puts out effort rebounding the ball, but I'd expect less production here once he's going up against the big dogs. But he'd give us at the very least what Shrek gave us at less than 1/4 of the price. I could see a bench squad of Sato, Coby, TBJ, Marko and Thad or Theis if we can resign him.

IMO, it depends on what happens with Theis, Thad, Lauri and Aminu. If we keep/are stuck with them all, can't see them bringing him over for another year.