Wayne Winston Demolishes Vinny Del Negro on TrueHoop

"Some coach told me that "there's ice cream among the s---." That's what you're looking for with the lineups. If the players are bad, there's probably a couple of combinations that work.

The amazing thing is, teams play lineups that don't work.

Like the Bulls. The five lineups they played the most last year were all bad. I mean, how dumb can you be? 82games.com has some of this data. How you can not look at how your lineups perform is beyond me. It really is.

But the lineup stuff, I really think we're good at that.

I really think I can look at a playoff series, and look at that data, and I can basically mine that stuff. I think the Mavericks are one of two teams to win 50 games nine straight years and that's how long we've worked for them. I think that's part of it. A very small part obviously. But I think they have better information than most people, with what we do."

about 1 month ago fundamentallysound 26 comments 0 recs |

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"I mean, how dumb can you be?"

With Vinny Del Negro, there is no final answer to this question.

by Big D on Oct 2, 2009 3:57 PM CDT reply actions 1 recs

I don't follow

The Bulls most used lineup was Rose-Gordon-Deng-Thomas-Noah, which was the most talented lineup we had. It doesn’t matter if they were negative for the season, our bench was our strength and we only needed our starters to keep it close. And we have a lot of money invested in those players. And they’re all young.

I’m not saying VDN is a lineup guru. But it’s shortsighted to judge a lineup based only on +/-…

by YaoPau on Oct 2, 2009 4:05 PM CDT reply actions 2 recs

Well if you're arguing for developing guys for the future, Ben Gordon should have just sat on the bench

for the entire year because he had no future with the Bulls and both parties, seemingly, knew it. Incidentally, the Rose-Hinrich-Deng-Thomas-Noah lineup was very good by adjusted plus minus, so using it would have made sense on two levels.

1. Cut a hole in a box
2. Put your Kirk in that box
3. Make some team open that box

by fundamentallysound on Oct 2, 2009 4:09 PM CDT up reply actions 0 recs

Vinny was in a no-win situation there, as far as I

In honor of the dearly departed, I declare July PB&J month - everyone raise a sandwich to the memory of Ben!

by wjb1492 on Oct 2, 2009 4:39 PM CDT up reply actions 0 recs

Dang it - definitely preseason posting form for me.

As I was attempting to post, it was kind of a no-win situation. Most people I know wanted to see the kids for development and wanted to see Ben because they like his offense. Aside from the questions of whether Vinny had the balls or intelligence to play the “right” lineup, I don’t think he had the clout.

As far as the quote, to me it just shows that the guy isn’t paying attention to how the situations in Dallas and Chicago are different. That’s mostly an old team trying to take its shot now. Chicago’s a hybrid to me – trying to win games now, for sure, but not at the cost of planning for the future. We all get really critical of how the FO is going about this, but I honestly believe that Pax and Gar are doing what they think is best to build a competitor with the restrictions JR puts on them.

In honor of the dearly departed, I declare July PB&J month - everyone raise a sandwich to the memory of Ben!

by wjb1492 on Oct 2, 2009 4:47 PM CDT up reply actions 0 recs

Very good in 61 minutes

There’s little evidence that inserting Hinrich for Gordon made the lineup better. Plus, benching your leading scorer while your team is .500 isn’t good for ticket sales or job security.

by YaoPau on Oct 2, 2009 4:47 PM CDT up reply actions 0 recs

Wasn't Deng hurt most of the season?

The Bulls six most productive line-ups according to 82 games.com were

Rose-Gordon-Deng-Nocioni-Gooden = 75 win pct
Hinrich-Gordon-Salmons-Tim.Thomas-Miller = 72.7 win pct
Rose-Hinrich-Deng-Thomas-Noah = 66.6 Win pct
Rose-Gordon-Salmons-Noah-Miller = 60% Win pct
Hinrich-Gordon-Salmons-Thomas-Noah = 60 win pct
Rose-Gordon-Deng-Thomas-Gooden =60 win pct

Just looking at these lineups, its obvious why they didn’t get on the court more… Deng and Hinrich were injured and Salmons/Miller weren’t on the Bulls for most of the season. If you are going to take that big a shot at Vinny, than it should be based in reality (not you fundamentallysound – Wayne Winston).

You could also argue that the Bulls looked at these numbers when they made the decision not to resign Gordon. Rose/Hirnich and Gordon/Hirnich seemed to work better than Rose/Gordon. But since Hinrich was hurt for a good part of the season, I think it would have been hard (as yaopau notes) to bench Gordon for Hinrich. I also agree that these numbers are skewed based on starting vs. coming off the bench. There doesn’t seem to be any rhyme or reason to which groups do well and which don’t.

Substituting Noah for Gooden on the line up with the highest win percentage drops the win percentage 40 pts?!?? So obviously, these stats aren’t perfect. I think playing the young guys is the one thing that VDN did right. You could see its effect in the improvement Rose, Noah and even Tyrus showed in the season.

This Wayne Winston guy may know stats, but he fails at simple basketball analysis. No wonder the Mavs traded Kidd for Harris. This guy lacks foresight.

by Basketball Smurf on Oct 2, 2009 5:45 PM CDT up reply actions 0 recs

He also says in the artical that put KG and Luol in and he thinks the bulls win.

interesting.

by silentpete on Oct 2, 2009 4:21 PM CDT reply actions 0 recs

looking at 82games

it appears as though of the five lineups that logged major minutes ( +100 mins) for the mavs, the best lineup was given the fourth fewest minutes. actually, i despise vinny, but this guy winston is kind of a bastard.

by TheMoon on Oct 2, 2009 5:47 PM CDT reply actions 0 recs

He also says Tim Thomas is an underrated player, and the Knicks were stupid to not play him more.

Give me a fucking break.

Same guy said the Bulls were complete morons for letting Gordon walk, but now the data suggests Hinrich should have started over him regardless.

Pretty comical a guy who touts how much the Mavs use APM doesn’t mention a single thing about how the team has happily signed shitty +/- players like Thomas, Gooden, and Dampier.

The 2009 White Sox....like a 40 degree day.

by Ozzie Montana on Oct 2, 2009 6:32 PM CDT reply actions 0 recs

Exactly

He’s been there for nine years so he was there when they signed Dampier and let Nash walk, traded for Kidd, etc. This guy sounds like a douche that’s just tooting his own horn.

"I'm in the Hall already, on the wall already, I'm a work of art I'm a Warhol already"-Jay Z

by bigballa10 on Oct 2, 2009 9:12 PM CDT up reply actions 0 recs

I'd take their nine years over ours.

USE THE SOFTWARE. Actions-> Rec/Flag. Reply to comments with the reply button. Rec good fanposts/fanshots so the crud gets pushed down.

by your friendly BullsBlogger on Oct 4, 2009 4:30 PM CDT up reply actions 0 recs

He inherited

a 21 year old Dirk, 25 year old Nash, 26 year old Finley, and an owner with an unlimited budget.

by YaoPau on Oct 4, 2009 8:37 PM CDT up reply actions 0 recs

indeed

I’d take it!

USE THE SOFTWARE. Actions-> Rec/Flag. Reply to comments with the reply button. Rec good fanposts/fanshots so the crud gets pushed down.

by your friendly BullsBlogger on Oct 5, 2009 12:39 PM CDT up reply actions 0 recs

He gives some examples. E.g. Wright was abysmal at SG, but for some reason the coaches figured he was a good substitution for Josh Howard at SF despite a size disadvantage, and the numbers confirmed this so they used him against San Antonio and won easily. Or that Dampier was effective when defending other big big guys like Shaq or Duncan but had trouble against others. On the other hand, they had no players to contain all Nuggets as soon as J.R. Smith and Anderson were in the game.

Tim Thomas brings some good outside shooting when used like in Phoenix, which can help to spread the floor for players who operate closer to the basket or penetrate. Phoenix is now trying this again with Channing Frye, the Mavs with the original Thomas. Maybe it would have helped the Bulls, maybe not.

"I think he can still play" - Kevin Pritchard on Juwan Howard

by Norsktroll on Oct 3, 2009 5:46 AM CDT up reply actions 0 recs

I don't think many of us would care if he stuck to Mavs players

I don’t even care if he wants to talk about how he tries to identify players not working out well elsewhere that he believes will work well on the Mavs. But I am tired of him taking potshots at the Bulls while acting like every team is in the same situtation as Dallas, with the same immediate goals and the same system of play and the same locker room chemistry. Sure, part of it is like defending your little brother at school, even though you pick on him mercilessly at home. But I also flat out disagree with a lot of what he says.

If he and the Mavs are happy with what his numbers are telling them to do, more power to him. I might be slightly more inclined to listen had his numbers produced a better product and if he didn’t come off sounding like an arrogant ass.

In honor of the dearly departed, I declare July PB&J month - everyone raise a sandwich to the memory of Ben!

by wjb1492 on Oct 3, 2009 7:50 AM CDT up reply actions 0 recs

Maybe he'll do better with Kidd setting him up, and his Bulls stint was a small sample

But he isn’t the same guy from that half-season in Phoenix. That year he actually played up his matchup advantage and still tried to rebound. Similar to Nocioni, he’s still a decent spot-up shooter. Carlisle is a better coach so he’ll likely put him out there when there’s a higher chance to succeed (as opposed to Vinny who had Nocioni guard Yao Ming).

The 2009 White Sox....like a 40 degree day.

by Ozzie Montana on Oct 3, 2009 12:17 PM CDT up reply actions 0 recs

This guy makes himself sound like an ass

“You take out Bryant and leave Odom in, they were good. You take out Odom and leave Bryant in they weren’t good. That’s why I say Odom was better than Bryant.” On what planet is Odom better than Bryant? He acts as if there are no other factors contributing to whatever stats made Odom look better than Bryant. Some of these guys are out of control I swear.

"I'm in the Hall already, on the wall already, I'm a work of art I'm a Warhol already"-Jay Z

by bigballa10 on Oct 2, 2009 9:19 PM CDT reply actions 0 recs