A few weeks ago I had a few coments on the backcourt players.  Then I couldn't watch the games for a few weeks, but that issue has been solved by a return to Illinois.  Here's a look at the center position with a look at the forwards hopefully coming soon.

According to 82games the minutes at center have been distributed like: Noah 39%, Gray 26%, Gooden, 23%, Thomas 8%, Nocioni 2%, and Simmons 1%.  This has been the worst position for the Bulls in terms of 82games' PER differential, last pl ace in the NBA.  In fact the Bulls are essentially tied with the Warriors for giving up the highest counterpart PER at any position with a 21.8 PER, and looking at that minute distribution it's easy to see why.   When Drew Gooden, Aaron Gray, and Andres Nocioni are playing over 50% of the minutes at center you have a defensive disaster.  Thomas isn't the defensive disaster at center that those guys are, but if he's listed as playing center that means Deng or more likely Nocioni is playing PF another terrible defensive situation.

Joakim Noah

So far has has played the same percentage of the team's minutes as last season,because 39%.  Obviously Noah coming into the season out of shape was a serious problem, but he still only played 24 minutes/game in January when he was clearly in shape enough to play more and Gooden was in street clothes.  I still maintain that he should be playing every minute his foul situation allows, which should be 30+ minutes per game.

Despite his conditioning issues, Noah has been demonstrably better this season.  I wrote about some of the things I'd be looking for back in October, and I'm fairly pleased at this point.  Noah has been less involved offensively this season. Opportunities to post up offensively have been virtually non-existent, but that isn't necessarily a bad thing.  He's not getting to the FT line at the same rate as last season because of that, but he's been even more effective on the offensive boards.  He's gone very good at 12.4% to great at 15.5%.  If there's an example of an area where Derrick Rose is making his teammates better this is probably it.

He's also finishing his limited opportunities better.  After improving his FG% throughout his rookie season, he's been better this year.  He made 52% of his FGA over the last two months of his rookie season, and has made 54% of his FGA so far this season.  In October I wondered whether he was capable of being a high efficiency offensive player like Chandler or Biedrins, and he's made big strides towards being that kind of consistent high efficiency player that takes maximum advantage of limited opportunties with a current Offensive Rating of 118, which puts him among the top 30 players in the league.

Defensively I wondered whether Noah could improve his rebounding and shot blocking, and his performance has been at least partly positive in both areas.  His defensive rebounding is slightly up, 18% to 20%.  There's signficant room to improve, but at least it's movement in the right direction.  Noah's shotblocking has had the more dramatic improvement.  After blocking 3.3% of shots last season, he's blocked 5.3% this season and 6% in both December and January.  I wanted to see improvement in this area from Noah, but he's probably over done it.  The result has been an increase in his foul rate to 5.5 fouls per 36 minutes and a drop in steal rate, but overall I feel better knowing that Noah at least has the ability to block shots at this rate.

With his overall improved play and the knowledge, according to Doug Thonus, that Noah now has a live in personal trainer, I feel more confident in Noah's ability to be productive physically.  His ceiling is now predicated on how much he can improve inconsistency and the mental arts of the game. 

Drew Gooden

I know there's a segment of Bulls fans that loved Joe Smith's mini-resurgence last season and were thrilled by the addition of Drew Gooden, but I'm clearly not a member of that segment.  Statistically Gooden has given Bulls one of his thoroughly average years.  This TS%, OR%, DR%, TRB%, AST%, STL%, TO%, USG%, ORtg, and PER are all essentially at his career averages.  Gooden this season has become more of a jumpshooter than ever.  He's shooting a solid 41% on jumpshots, but two thirds of his shot have been jumpers after only taking a little more than half his shots outside the paint during his best years.  I've written before about Luol Deng being a player that's better than his statistics, which shows up in Deng's consistently high adjusted plus/minus.    Gooden is the opposite type of player who is worse than his statistics.  He's had a long career of relatively consistent production, which makes his adjusted plus/minus more reliable.  Gooden had an adjusted plus/minus for 2007/2008 (Using 5 years of data to reduce noise) of -2.31 on offense and -1.36 on defense to finish 56 out of 74 PFs.  And that feels like an accurate assesment of Gooden, and fits with Cleveland's issues with him.  Gooden has been perfectly predictable, and really hasn't pleasantly surprised in a single area.

I've thankfully been almost able to forget that Gooden is on this roster.  That was until I heard Vinny talk about what an asset Drew would be when he comes back after the New Orleans game.  When they were both playing I had a hard time deciding whether Gooden or Nocioni annoyed me more.  But, this may be a good test to find out if Vinny has learned anything from this last month.  If he passes this test there may be hope for him yet.  For the past two years it seems like as soon as I get to an optimisitc place again, it's right back to the same old crap.

Aaron Gray

Thankfully the Aaron Gray love seems to subsided or his most ardent fans have left for more welcoming surroundings.  I don't feel like I have to emphasize why he sucks.  He's a successful 2nd round pick and serves a purpose against Yao and Shaq, but Gray playing 26% of the time feels like a crime against basketball.  But, then again that's not only the crime against basketball Vinny has committed this season.

This year's team has treated Gray like Noah and basically ignored him.  His usage% has fallen to 13.7% after the Boylan insisted on ffeding him the ball to the tune of 22% as a rookie.  That might be too big of a swing since Gray has no defensive value and really only has offensive value if he's scoring in the post, but it's closer to the ideal. 

Defensively we're talking about player that is commiting 7 fouls per 36 minutes for the 2nd straight season.  And the list of players that have done that is not impressive.  I don't see how he gets much better defensively given his physical limitations.  He's so top heavy that he can't play with any any knee bend or balance.  But, Vinny didn't do him any favors by starting him alongside Gooden.  And awful as Gray is there are still times where I'd rather have him on the court than Gooden or Nocioni because Gray won't take a shot outside of 10 feet, and his teammates will largely ignore him.  If Vinny would make sure that only one of Nocioni, Gooden, and Gray is ever on the court at anytime, it'd go a long way toward lowering my aggravation level.

A Last Appeal for the White Whale

I know the recent buzz is about Bosh and Amare, and rightfully so, but I'd still be really content with Brad Miller if he can be had without involving Thomas or Noah. There's a reason he has had a consistently high adjusted plus/minus, including this season.  His gae is a great fit with with Noah and Thomas up front, and no worse defensively than the guys who have played 50% of the minutes at center this season  His passing would make Deng and others more effective on offense,and he's a great pick and roll counterpart for Rose.  Depending on who was involved in the trades, I could see a Miller trade having a bigger impact over the next year and a half than a Stoudemire or Bosh trade, while leaving open the opportunity to sign someone in 2010 when Miller's contract expires.  But, of course this comes from someone who has been a consistent believer in Tyrus.