ZoomSlowik

QUOTE (DBAHO @ Jul 13, 2012 -> 07:25 PM) I think best case scenario the Bulls are hoping Asik can develop more offensively, similiar to a career path like Marcin Gortat, who actually flourished when he became a starter (let's see how he does without Steve Nash this season though). I'm wondering if the Rockets are going to sign Asik to that offer-sheet now though, considering they're probably all in for Dwight and will have to take 2 bad contracts back as well in all likelihood to get him. As a Magic fan, I'm hoping that Asik doesn't end up in Houston. I can't really say I'm all that familar with Gortat pre-Phoenix, but I'd be very surprised if he was as raw offensively as Asik. I can see that he was putting up a very good PER in his limited minutes. That's another issue. Barring a major injury, his minutes aren't likely to double like Gortat's did. Our two starting big men are signed for a while, and Gibson would still probably get first crack.

QUOTE (Chisoxfn @ Jul 13, 2012 -> 07:21 PM) What are you talking about? He's clearly not a better low post scorer then the average center. My point was that you aren't going to be better off leaving him wide open and fouling him 24/7. If you did do that, he'd actually end up scoring at a better rate then an overall offense. I was purely defecting Badger's so called strategy, nothing more. In no way am I making a case for Asik being efficient offensively, because he's not, but the strategy proposed wouldn't have been a good strategy, imo (the fouling). I do think teams would leave Asik alone by and large and you would see some 4 on 5 and he has things to do to improve under the hoop at making teams pay when they do completely leave him. Your wording on that was extremely strange, it looked like you were trying to argue that because he shoots 52% in the basket area and doesn't shoot anything outside of there that it was somehow good. They already do leave him wide open. They cheat off Asik constantly, especially on the pick and roll. Even when he gets the ball, he brings it down and has to collect himself before going up. He gets so few actual attempts at the basket that he can convert that he's just a huge liability.

QUOTE (Chisoxfn @ Jul 13, 2012 -> 07:18 PM) 8M over the total deal, or approximately 10M over 2 years. That is when the Bulls should be dealing him and that contract is moveable. I'm not saying you will necessarily get a 1st round pick for him, but the financial opportunities alone make it worthwhile. One thing you have to remember is you can't just create payroll, so his contract, in a sense, is a quasi-asset if you utilize it appropriately (along with other assets) to potentially land a star or above average player when otherwise you financially wouldn't be able to do. Now if the plan truly is 2014, well then so be it, but I've yet to see what exactly they will be looking for in that year. Additionally, I still think you can move Asik at the end of the year and thus from a basketball perspective, you get Asik and that is better then not having Asik. Only real loss is Jerry spending potential luxury tax money this year (but that doesn't really prevent the Bulls from making moves, especially if the club plans on moving him a year from now anyway). Yes, it costs money, but unless you think you can't move that deal a year from now (in which case, I think you do have to potentially think hard about not matching), then it really isn't that bad of deal. Expensive yes, but moveable and for the current year better then the alternative. It isn't like the Bulls can take this money and spend it elsewhere. They either match or they let Asik walk and only have the minimum to give to a player to replace him. Here's the problem with that: if you try to trade him after this year, his salary for the trade would only be the current year's salary, which would be $5 million. That means the receiving team would be taking on a s***load of money in the second year. That basically eliminates any team within $10 million of the luxury tax because it'd cost them a ton to take on Asik, or anyone with any desires of free agency the next year. Hence the "poison pill" part. If you do it in the last year, you'd still have to give up actual assets in order to get anyone of real worth. Jerry hasn't shown any indication he is willing to go comfortably into luxury tax territory, which is what he'd have to do with Asik. You'd basically have to cut loose at least two of Boozer, Gibson and Deng with no cap space to bring in major pieces, otherwise he'd be looking at a massive luxury tax bill, especially since the Bulls would be repeat offenders. This isn't a 1:1 tax if you go over, it could easily be pushing 3:1. Meaning it wouldn't be costing them $15 million to keep Asik, it might be pushing $50 million. That's a lot to swallow if I'm JR, and I'd probably try to avoid using my mini-MLE every year to keep adding more. The future costs of keeping Asik are just absolutely massive, all for a backup center. Seriously, he's strictly defense-only and the costs are going to be extremely high. Just let him go, he's just not that good and not worth potentially killing your team if no one wants to take him at $15 million. I sure as hell wouldn't touch that.

QUOTE (Chisoxfn @ Jul 13, 2012 -> 07:13 PM) 62% from the paint, but the point was more in argument with Badger who indicated that they would just consistently foul, etc. My point was 52% > overall scoring (not necessarily in the paint scoring percentages). That makes no sense. So because he can't make anything inside or outside of 3 feet that somehow makes him more valuable than someone that can actually score?

QUOTE (Chisoxfn @ Jul 13, 2012 -> 05:29 PM) Coming from the guy who thinks Thibbs should be fired and that Rose's injury is 95% on him, well, that doesn't say much. The point is, given the overall market, Asik isn't going to be ridiculously overpaid. As a UFA he probably gets paid more on average over the contract, however, the CBA prevented teams from offering more. What did the Rockets too, they back loaded it with one large deal but the overall average contract is probably consistent (if not less) then he would get as a UFA, which means, there is potential value to trade him a year from now, in which case, the contract really doesn't matter much (it isn't like the Bulls can spend the money elsewhere, so by matching him they at least get the benefit of trading him for a TPE or draft pick or something else so that they don't waste the asset). He's going to be making $15 million in 3 years. That's absurdly overpaid. That's really the only year that matters since it's cap-killing bad. The average is a little easier to swallow though still bad, $15 mil is abysmal. Every year you keep him at that reasonable salary makes him a lot harder to swallow as the team getting him. You'd also still have to add assets to get anyone good, and the receiving team is either going to dump a huge salary on your or have to be $15 mil under the cap. It absolutely matters for the Bulls because they have to deal with that total for luxury tax payments. It also absolutely destroys any chance you have of being a player in FA in the 2014 off-season. Without Asik, Deng is off the payroll and Boozer can be amnesty'd. With Asik, you're stuck paying something like $35 mil to three frontcourt players (extending Gibson, who is far more important) and another $18 mil or so to Rose. That obviously doesn't leave any space. Assuming they can dump him on someone is a big risk to take for a guy that you can live without.

QUOTE (Chisoxfn @ Jul 13, 2012 -> 05:25 PM) But the point is, as a 5th option, that sort of percentage is just fine, and as a whole, if your strategy is to leave him open, 52% of your shots is still > the average shooting percentage in the league (excessively) so I don't really see how it is a good strategy to keep fouling him and or letting him have dunks. Seems pretty foolish to me. On a sidenote, if you are playing the Heat, you are going to be doubling Lebron a lot no matter what (irregardless of who your center is) but no team has 5 legitimate offensive options and defensively, they'd be a lot better with a guy like Asik who could just shut down the paint. It's really not, it's well below league average (62%). They're giving up a bunch of offensive opportunities by having him out there and making life harder for the other 4 players. Actually, let's be honest here, he's making life harder for Rose since he's already carrying the rest of the team on his back. The Heat got a lot better offensively when they stopped playing Joel Anthony 30 MPG and they still defended just fine. That's not a coincidence.

QUOTE (Chisoxfn @ Jul 13, 2012 -> 05:23 PM) And on the flip side, they were significantly better defensively with him on the court, to the point where he was a net gain. I've never said he's a great offensive player. I've said that on the right teams he's a good fit and as a whole he's a great bench center. I also think given the market for centers, you wouldn't have much difficulty trading him 6 months from now. Statistically, he was a net loss even with his very good defense this year. Their D was only 7.5 points per 100 better with him on the floor. And again, he plays less than 15 minutes per game. In what universe is that worth $15 million a year for that third season? That completely destroys their salary structure for that year, as it would for basically any team. It's just not worth it. He's not a star in any definition of the word, and he's not going to start.

QUOTE (RZZZA @ Jul 13, 2012 -> 05:20 PM) Is it realistic for a team to have 5 offensive threats on the court? In an ideal world, that would be great, to have 5 players on the court at all times that are good at both offense and defense. The Heat did it. Battier isn't a world-beater, but you have to cover him in the corner or he'll hit the open 3 on him. The Bulls would have it with their starting lineup if Rose were healthy and Hamilton were healthy and productive. The Spurs did it with regularity. "Offensive threat" doesn't necessarily mean they have to score 15 a game, just that you can't get away with playing 10 feet off him with regularity.

QUOTE (Chisoxfn @ Jul 13, 2012 -> 05:16 PM) Yes, they are 30 other centers in this league that are better then him. You are correct. Most centers in this league can't score and are butterfingers. No one is saying he's Bynum. The dude would start on quite a few teams in this league and is a very capable player (despite the fact that Pop would just use a crushing defensive strategy against him). Even if he dropped half of the passes, he's still getting dunks and converting at a high percentage. Plus, if teams just leave him, then he's got position for offensive boards. He doesn't convert at a high percentage. He only made 52% of his shots in the basket area this year, which is the kind of number that you typically see from a 6'1" point guard. The guy is absolutely awful on offense.

QUOTE (RZZZA @ Jul 13, 2012 -> 05:15 PM) I was talking about the Heat. The team that has Lebron/Wade/Bosh/Ray Allen. You said Asik would not make the Heat better. The same thing would be true on the Heat, they can still ignore him and send another guy to discourage drives. I suppose it's a coincidence that the Heat offense was a lot better this year when they went with Batter/James as their 4's and Bosh at center, actually making you guard all 5 players. Also, I didn't say it. That said, they didn't exactly struggle to defend without him.

QUOTE (RZZZA @ Jul 13, 2012 -> 05:12 PM) Apparently people think Asik has a stub and a hook instead of hands. Yeah go ahead and play 4 on 5, he's still seven feet tall and can catch the ball and dunk it occasionally. Heat don't need Asik to have the ball, they have Lebron, Wade and Bosh. Between those three and ray allen/chalmers, there's 0 shot opportunities for Asik except on offensive rebounds maybe. The Bulls were 8 points worse per 100 possessions on offense when Asik was on the floor this year, and Noah isn't exactly Wilt Chamberlain. You can absolutely cheat off him and make sure a person that can actually do something with the ball if they catch it doesn't beat you.

QUOTE (Chisoxfn @ Jul 13, 2012 -> 05:08 PM) You really can't. He's going to be out setting picks and doing other things. It really isn't a 4-5 game and if you really go away, you'll get a lot of dunks when he's under the hoop. He has to catch the ball to be able to dunk it.

Asik played 14.7 MPG this past year. He is our backup center and will always be our backup center as long as Joakim Noah is on the floor. You can't pay a backup center $15 million, even if it is for one season. The end.

QUOTE (Soxbadger @ Jul 13, 2012 -> 04:38 PM) There are 12 minutes in a quarter. 24 seconds per possession. Lets say 30 seconds per 2 (as we are fouling). That is 24 possessions per quarter, 12 being on defense. You would need 48 fouls to accomplish fouling Asik every time down the court. If you have a team of 10 players that is 60 fouls to use. Hence why Popovich, the smartest coach in the game, came up with the strategy. Its mathematically brilliant. You suck at math. If you're fouling every 30 seconds, that's 24 fouls per quarter, 96 per game. Of course Asik isn't going to play 48 minutes, just felt like that had to be mentioned. Edit- Ha, you caught it.

QUOTE (thxfrthmmrs @ Jul 13, 2012 -> 01:31 PM) 1) The good ol' what if scenario. Bricking open shots happens in every game, every series, more often than you think. If three point shooting was a huge part of your offense, you are bound to have nights like that. It's pretty simple, the Bulls weren't going to win that series with the rest of that team if Rose was shut down. Suppose even if the shooters caught fire, they were still going to put Lebron Rose. With Lebron on Rose, and without that missing guy to run and create the offense, Bulls had no shot. 2) Sounds like you are talking about Ben Gordon or JJ Reddick. While I do see your point, I think the first need for that missing piece is ball handling and scoring, much like Durant and Harden, and the secondnary need is the three point shot. I think you are looking for a guy with shooting as a primary shooting, who can do a bit of scoring and handling, though I don't think that would be as good a fit and as effective in this system. 3) While we don't need a guy like Durant for us to beat the Heat, the guy we need isn't as easy to obtain as we would like, if it was easy, we would have gotten him already. I see guys like Harden Ginobili, the Joe Johnson from two years ago, and even Mayo or Thornton as great fits for the team. They also happen to be scorer first and shooter second. 1) It wasn't one night, it was the every game but game 1. Korver shot 28.6% on the series, Bogans 30%. They went into that series with basically one threat from 3, and he was awful. If you have guys that can hit that shot, they can spread the floor for Rose and he has more chances to make plays. See the Heat during the finals. 2) Durant and Harden aren't really ball-handlers, they're shooters. Durant takes 15 shots a game from outside the basket area and 50% of his shots are from 16 feet or farther out. Harden takes 7 of his 10 from outside the basket area and 46.5% of his shots are 3's. They have some ability to drive, but it's far from their main skill. 3) How exactly are you a "scorer" first when the majority of your shots are long jumpers? That makes no sense. Percent of shots from outside 16 feet for the guys you mentioned: Harden: 56% Manu: 57% in 10/11, 53% on 09/10 (last year is a small sample) Johnson: 51% in 10/11, 52% the year before (wasn't sure which you meant by "two years ago") Mayo: 63% this year, 67% the year before Thornton: 52% this year, 54% last year All those guys are extremely reliant on their jumper and only Thornton gets more attempts at the rim than Luol Deng. Guys like Rose or Evans or Westbrook or Parker are guys that are primarily ball-handlers/scorers, they get much closer to 40% of their shots from outside and more like 6 shots at the rim than around 3(one definite outlier is Monta Ellis, who takes a lot of dumb jumpers despite his driving ability). Most of those guys are exactly the type of guy I was talking about (Mayo not ideal, too jumper-heavy and not a good enough shooter to compensate). All of them can play off the ball (ISO Joe would have to adjust a bit) and hit jumpers, but still get there own shot to some degree. None of them are the kind of guy that would fight for the ball like a Wade or Evans or Ellis type. I'd even settle for an Arron Afflalo, though he's a little less adept at getting his shot than I'd like. SOMETHING besides relying on role players and washed up vets.

QUOTE (RZZZA @ Jul 13, 2012 -> 12:32 PM) 6 months sounds good to me. The point is, I think, to eventually trade him. It's actually a year upon further research on Larry Coon's awesome FAQ for the CBA: At that point, the team that takes him would be on the hook for 2 years and $20 mil. That's a horrible contract and I have a hard time believing they would get legitimate talent back for him.

QUOTE (RZZZA @ Jul 13, 2012 -> 12:29 PM) Match and trade sounds good to me. I'm not going to freak out about this like I'm sure 75% of Bulls fandom will. They can't trade a guy once he gets an offer sheet. That's why Brooklyn panicked and overpaid Brook Lopez. I believe it's 6 months from the time of the signing until they can trade him again.

QUOTE (thxfrthmmrs @ Jul 13, 2012 -> 11:30 AM) No. The type of player you are describing is more of a 3 point specialist. We had one in Korver and he didn't help in the Heat series because he was a liability on defense. The Heat proved that they can shut down our offense if they put Lebron on Rose. We need another guy who can handle ball and score at the wing position. The reason Lebron didn't shut down Westbrook like he did on Rose is because they have Durant and Harden who can handle the ball, if they put Lebron on either of the three, the other two can still step up and create offense. That's why Westbrook was able to do his thing. We don't have that other guy on our team yet. We don't just need a shooter, we need a wing who can handle and create if we want to beat the Heat. Three comments... 1) The Bulls also bricked a ton of outside shots in that series. Bogans and Korver were essentially useless, bricking wide-open 3's all series. If they had hit a few of those, the series would not have ended in 5. 2) I never said they need another Kyle Korver. What they need is a 2-guard (not a backup PG that is never going to be on the floor at the same time as Derrick) that can do a little bit of everything. The ability to stretch the floor is important because otherwise you get teams successfully packing the paint like the Heat did in that playoff series, and they need at least some ability to get decent shots in one-on-one situations. That's very different from getting a pure driver that needs the ball to be effective and would take the ball out of Derrick's hands. 3) The Thunder are basically what you want, but it has very little to do with having additional ball-handlers. Their wing players aren't Tyreke Evans or Monta Ellis types that have to play on the ball to be effective. Durant isn't a guy that dominates the ball looking for driving opportunities. He gets a ton of catch and shoot looks and drives when the opportunity presents itself. Harden is similar. He's not going to get 6 attempts at the rim per game, virtually half his FG attempts are 3's. He drives enough to get to the line and make people respect the threat that he'll go by them. Unfortunately, those kind of multi-talented players aren't very easy to find.

QUOTE (RZZZA @ Jul 13, 2012 -> 11:15 AM) I'm excited by Teague too, by all signs he is also a good penetrator and finisher at the rim. The more guys we have collapsing the opponents defense, the better imo. Makes us less predictable on offense. One of the main benefits of collapsing the defense is creating open 3-point shots. If everyone is trying to drive and you don't have anyone that can shoot, you end up with a team like the 76ers that can't get good shots because every defender is cheating to the lane.

QUOTE (RZZZA @ Jul 13, 2012 -> 11:11 AM) No, Derrick needs someone else by him that can handle the ball. Thats what every Bulls fan has been screaming for since last year. He also needs athletic people next to him that know how to finish at the rim to take advantage of the fast break game. Last year we basically had only 2 people on this team who had any fast break game at all: Derrick and Rip. And Rip is old and not exactly a good finisher at the rim. Adding more ballhandlers and athletes is a good sign. If we improve our back up PG depth, then maybe that won't force Thibs to overplay Derrick in the regular season It really isn't. People have been asking for someone that can put the ball in the net, not someone that would take the ball out of Derrick's hands.

QUOTE (RZZZA @ Jul 13, 2012 -> 11:02 AM) For the third time, I'm excited that we're targetting players that know how to dribble drive, are athletic and can handle the ball That doesn't really complement Derrick, that does a very poor imitation of Derrick. Complementing Derrick would be surrounding him with guys that can play without the ball and actually hit 3-point shots. Besides, this guy has maybe a 5% chance of getting any meaningful minutes.

1) Lee Elia, pretty much impossible to be topped. 2) Jim Mora. Playoffs?!?! Gets me every time. 3) Bobby Knight rant. I used to love it when they'd play it on the radio and everything would be bleeped out, there would be one every couple of seconds.

QUOTE (RZZZA @ Jul 12, 2012 -> 04:21 PM) Let's see if Luol Deng is overpaid. I've compiled a list of the top 8 SFs in the league, of which Deng is one. We're going to add up the numbers of these contracts on a per year basis and divide by 8 to determine the average. Lebron James: $17.5 Kevin Durant: $16.6 Carmelo Anthony: $19.4 Paul Pierce: $16.8 Danny Granger: $13 Rudy Gay: $16.5 Andre Iguadala: $14.7 Luol Deng: $13.3 Point is, Deng is on the low end of this spectrum. His contract is not overpriced, if anything it's under priced. Why would you take the top-8? The salaries of those top-4 aren't remotely relevant since they're all quite a bit better than Deng. You need to start at the Granger/Gay/Iggy area (who most would still probably consider better than him) and go down to get a relevant range. It's also an extremely arbitrary list since Deng was actually 22nd at the position in PER this year and 14th in PER last year. You really need to include guys like Gallinari, Wallace, Marion and Dudley since they all finished with a higher PER each of the last two years. Guys like Batum and Wright are fairly relevant too since they're in basically the same tier. Of course the problem with that is that when I include all of them, Deng's salary looks a fair amount higher. While he's decidely better than a couple of them, he's not better than all of them. At $10 mil or less, you could legitimately argue he might be a bargain. In the $13-$14 mil range, it's a stretch. It's not like he's posting a 20 PER at that price, he's hovering between 14 and 16 the last three years.

QUOTE (bmags @ Jul 12, 2012 -> 04:17 PM) That's the thing. I don't think GMs trading stars really want fair value back in terms of talent. They want cap space and lottery picks. So I don't think Deng/Noah/Etc are very valuable yet in trading for a superstar. It's hard to trade players in their second contract for upgrades. While this is true, there are certainly worse players you could be forced to swallow in order to match salaries in a trade (see Brook Lopez).

Noah is probably a slight bargain based on market conditions for a center. Deng, absolutely not. AT BEST he's paid fairly, probably leaning more towards overpaid (especially if his wrist continues to be an issue).