but Deng just can’t. Which means Vinny will have to sprout a real offense over the summer. I am not sure if he can do that. And how many things need to be better than we know they are for this team to be ok? Do we keep Gordon? Does Vinny grow a brain? Can we work Deng in? Will Salmons prove this year was a fluke? Will Noah bulk up? Will Tyrus be on the team?

The only thing I am not worried about is Rose oddly enough.

1. Everyone in the NBA profits from ball movement. We have VDN as our coach, so our players have to learn to do without. If you’re going to sign a guy to a 72 million dollar contract (let alone make him a starter on your team), he’d better score on isolation plays more than 6% of the time.

2. You speculate that Ben Gordon is more prone to turnovers in these situations that John Salmons. BG averages .44 more turnovers a game than Salmons, so your point is negated. Even if he does turn the ball over in these situations more than Salmons, Salmons is finding some way throughout the game to catch up with Gordon’s turnovers.

3. What exactly is Deng above average at again? Check the numbers, because its certainly not turnovers, assists, steals or even rebounds. And as for his defense, considering how many frontcourt players put up career highs on us during the first half of the season, I don’t think his defense was anything special either. He doesn’t exactly have quick feet.

4. Salmons is a better player, so who cares about Deng.

The whole Gordon turnover myth…. sure the TO’s he has can look bad, especially because they are most often unforced….but that “he’s TO prone and a horrible ball handler” is a pure 100% myth.

BG has a similar role on offense for our team to the Pierce’s, Wade’s, Kobe’s, Joe Johnsons, Lebron’s, etc for other teams….seeing as he’s the guy in the clutch when the defenses tighten he’s the guy with the ball asked to make the plays…..and look at this:

Gordon TO’s=2.4 for 36.6 minutes per game. He avg 16.0 FGA, 4.7 and only 4.7 free throws….

Pierce TO’s 2.8 for 37.5 MPG. He avg 14.6 FGA and 6.8 FTA per game….

Wade TO’s 3.4 (lowest since a rookie) for 38.6 MPG, he had 22 FGA and 9.8 FTA per game.

Joe Johnson 2.5 TO’s for 39.5 MPG, he had 18FGA and 4.6 FTA

Lebron 3.0 TOV, for 37.7 MPG and 19.9 FGA and 9.4 FT.

As you see here comparing to the first 5 guys I could think of who are the “clutch” performers on their team and all all stars….Ben compares very favorably. The reason I through Free Throw attempts on this list is because you and I all know that if a guy is driving and the ball is stripped but a foul is called, that ain’t a turnover….well how often do we see it that BG drives into the lane, gets hacked thrown to the ground and there’s a no call? Does he sometimes initiate this contact? SUre, but who on that list doesn’t, and I bet for a fact Pierce, Wade, Lebron most definitely initiate more contact and get many more benefit of the doubt calls than Ben’s ever had.

BG gets too flashy with the ball and tries to do too much, he no doubt leads this group in the unforced turnovers….but he ain’t a bad ball handler by any stretch, and has dramatically improved in that area the last 1.5 seasons…..he’s also thrown a really good pass or two.

Ben’s not in the list above’s league (Well besides Joe Johnson and I’d argue current Paul Pierce, not last year’s Paul Pierce) because he’s not the defender they are, and doesn’t get some calls….but on offense, Ben Gordon has few real flaws these days….if he was 6 foot 6, he’d be a superstar…..

If so then I agree with you.

I hadn’t been to bullsbeat in a couple of months…totally missed this.

The new site looks pretty good.

would be an even more extreme example (43.7% fg, but 30% of plays are iso and has a 72% effectiveness), but less relevant.

Under Skiles, Gordon seemed to have a lot more screens set for him and/or was used a bit different than he’s now being used. I’ve seen BG in more ISOs this season than I can ever remember in the past.

It seems like Skiles would run that little baseline screen & elbow curl for Ben at least 5-6 times a game. Now, we’re fortunate to see him get that once a game, maybe twice.

to throw illegal screens for us all season I’d think Gordon would be better off of screens. A single Noah screen is just no comparison to that.

With no BG, there should be more shots to go around. Meaning, if selfishness is a reason for Salmons going iso, then he may iso less. Salmons also scored more efficiently than BG did this year, although the sample size is smaller, he just didn’t do so as well in iso.

in fact, i find it hard to dislike Salmons.

And just as people unfairly hold Ben Gordon’s lack of height against him ad nauseum, I also think it’s wrong to hold Salmons’ age against him.

Salmons is a late bloomer. But he hit a number of clutch shots to give the Bulls, with their crummy coaching and rudimentary offense, a fighting chance. Just as Gordon did.

(Can you believe it? Me not agreeing with cranscape? Sorry to sweat you, cranscape… I’m not even a Battlestar Galactica fan!)

Don’t take my words out of context, nor pretend that I am saying things that I am not.
  We’ve had Salmons for half a year, you can’t say that a change in his style of play would be a life changing revolution. Salmons joined this team late in the season and did not practice as much nor have as much chance to run plays with the team at the start of the season. There’s plenty of precedent for a player to change how he plays after he has been with a team through the off-season and pre-season.
  Additionally, I made no mention of his chucking. Nocioni was a chucker, but he didn’t run isolation plays. The iso and the stupid poor shot (chucking) are totally independent and I don’t want to be credited for stupid comments that I don’t make (I’ll take credit for the ones I do make, see this one) .
  I was pointing out that essentially more shots must be taken by other players and that the ball would be in Salmons hands more (see my 2nd post above), so the number of isolation plays he takes might decrease. I don’t give a crap about Salmons on this team long term. But that doesn’t mean I want BG or Kirk either. I honestly think basketball is going to be drastically changed in 2011 and I want the Bulls to either have a superstar, or flexibility in 2011, neither of which re-signing Salmons, BG, or keeping Kirk accomplishes.
  If I got a little nasty I apologize, but I don’t like being dismissed as “one of those kind of people.” I don’t post unless I think through what I have to say or I want to hear others thoughts.

You see him getting easy layups against Orlando? He’s turning the ball over and the Magic are forcing him to take jumpshots. If he makes them, then Van Gundy lives with it.

Ray Allen’s play is exactly how he looked in Game 1 of the 1st round series. He’s getting his looks, they just aren’t going in. Pietrus has played some solid defense against him, but they aren’t preventing him from coming off screens and getting decent looks at the basket.

It was totally unintentional, of course – damn spell check and it’s inability to distinguish wrong words used incorrectly.

Apologies to Doug. :) I was not trying to imply anything, and this was in no way an intentional misspelling a la Ding, Hinbrick, Joke’em, etc.