Your 2009-10 Bulls Roster by 6-Year Adjusted-Plus Minus

Won’t really matter, and at this point what can you do? The team is going to be fucked without 17-18 PPG from the Fish. Gordon didn’t really rebound or pass the ball well for his position, so we can continue to expect another 1-dimensional season out of the SG spot….just not as explosive or efficient.

Brad Miller should remain productive, at least on offense and rebounding. A big reason the Bulls were so awful in the beginning was our pathetic frontcourt. It’s a pretty obvious rotation this season, and using Miller at the 4 and 5 for a full season is going to be miles ahead of using a disgusting combo of Gray, Gooden, and Nocioni. James Johnson…meh. He looks like someone who will have a couple of nice games, but just doesn’t look

Defense is a lost cause IMO because we have a stupid coach who doesn’t understand how to plan for different teams, and until he proves otherwise, one of the worst perimeter defenders in the entire NBA with Derrick Rose. Salmons is not a stopper by any stretch of the imagination, and his defense always seemed to be better against 3s anyways. However, Vinny has shown glimpses of occasional brilliance on offense (stealing from Mike D’Antoni can do wonders), and assuming health the team could be a top 10 offense. That, couple with a barely mediocre defense, should be enough for another 40+ win season and a 1st round flameout.

Luol and Kirk have to stay healthy, Derrick Rose has to be a star, B-Rad has to be awesome and JJ has to actually contribute? I can’t wait for the season to start already…

If Rose can see that characteristic second year jump and kirk stays healthy, I think the Bulls can be force to be reckoned with. Wade hade a big statistical jump his second year, but Wade was also older when entering the league. Hopefully Rose will have his jump this year rather than next.

John Salmons played for Sacramento most of the year who had a -8.8 per game point differential. I would like to know what his Adjusted Plus-Minus rating (APM) is for his games in Chicago verses Sacramento. Considering Sacramento was -8.8 his -7.14 does not look as bad.

Fish Stix finishes with a high percentage and his defense is passable, right? I guess not.

Basically, in defense of Salmons, I would make two points -

1. I think it has been pretty much agreed upon that Salmons has been near awful or awful every season he has been in the NBA except last season. So 6 year APM stats are certainly going to look bad for him, but may not reflect his current on court production. I wonder how much the 30% past 6 years part of the equation dragged down his APM.

2. Salmons, if he is confined to the 2 (I still believe VDN will find a way to play him mostly at the 3) won’t be counted on to play the all-around game of a typical small forward – the all around game he struggles to play. He basically will be asked to score. The question is will Salmons be able to score as efficiently as Gordon? The answer is obviously no, and I expect his efficiency to drop further at the 2. But I don’t think he will play defense any worse than Gordon. Gordon’s short – Salmons is slow; it should all even out.

3. I think the Bulls will suffer without Gordon, but mostly because Deng is nowhere near the scorer that Gordon is and the Bulls late season run was primarily fueled by how good they were on offense. I think the story of the season will be how well Deng (and to a lesser extent Hinrich – depending on how many more minutes he averages this season compared to last) replaces what Gordon brought. From these numbers it appears that Deng should do that pretty well. But I’m skeptical of the predictive capabilities of APM.

ok people this stats thing does take alot of things into account like : salmons numbers in the last 2 seasons compared to salmons number in the first few years of his career…salmons plays a deferent role in this team now and can into the bulls line up halfway through the season so stats are mixed up….Noc is a +0.7 as seen above wtfff is that? this statistical analysis takes everything into account in terms of player performance. so thats why salmons is ranked so low. because he doesnt create most of his shots and doesnt create much for the team, his a solid outside shooter and depending on whos d-ing him up a good inside scorer aswell. i dont think his our best defensder but…handsdown better than gordon who is ranked 103rd? wtff….salmons plays with the offensive flow and helps his team in that sense by not taking crazy shots …i am not a beleiver of this system!!!

can we move on about gordon yet…

for posting off topic but I found this funny. angryandy is doing his thing at

http://www.windycitygridiron.com/2009/8/16/991046/brian-urlacher-wont-take-no-bull

upsetting people once again.

There’s always a lot of random goofiness with APM numbers (like Aaron Gray being rated highly) that tend to make me distrust it.

This is a nice list though, and with the spreadsheet I thought it’d be interesting to look at some things folks don’t usually think about.

For example, what does the average player’s APM look like, by position.
Here is APM by position, for players with >1000 minutes and players with >2000 minutes
> 1000 minutes

		

Pos	Count	Min	O.APM	D.APM	APM

G	70	 2,016 	 0.99 	 (1.12)	 (0.13)

W	55	 1,831 	 0.43 	 (0.52)	 (0.09)

F	74	 1,888 	 (0.05)	 0.77 	 0.72 

C	50	 1,739 	 (1.44)	 1.48 	 0.04 

Pos	Count	Min	O.APM	D.APM	APM

G	42	 2,519 	 1.96 	 (0.82)	 1.13 

W	24	 2,589 	 1.11 	 (0.61)	 0.50 

F	39	 2,458 	 0.62 	 0.52 	 1.14 

C	22	 2,396 	 (0.35)	 1.43 	 1.08 

The positions – the way I think about them, are sort of a shorthand for defensive positions. I acknowledge up front it’s not a precise way of doing things, but no system really is.
G- Guard. Most point guards and smaller shooting guards (Rose, Gordon, Hinrich, Wade)
W- Swingman. A guy like Salmons or Iggy, who could be considered a big guard or a small forward.
F- A bigger forward who might play either forward position or both (Deng, Jamison, Millsap), but who you probably don’t want matching up against either guards or centers on a regular basis.
C- A guy who you feel can guard the average center (with this I’d include guys like Aldridge, who at 6’11 and 250lbs or whatever, is centerish, even if his position is usually PF).

Anyway, the really clear trends everyone should take away from this are that, as players get “bigger” they contribute less offensively and more defensively. Even the better guards in the league “contribute” based on their offensive effects, not their defensive effects, which are, on average, negative.

This more or less goes along with how I think about basketball (you build your defense from the inside out), but it’s interesting that the trends show up that way.

Good analysis…ben gordon is inconsistant

We’ll see this season.

1. I think Kirk’s excellent number probably reflects in part the fact he missed the time of the year when the rest of the team was struggling the most, and his return was largely coincident with the trade and Deng’s brief stretch of solid play. I can buy that Kirk has a positive APM, but especially his defensive APM really looks like an outlier and despite the fact that the A in APM tries to compensate for this sort of stuff, it ain’t perfect and there are obvious issues here we know APM doesn’t wholly compensate for.

2. Building off my stats from above, the only remaining Bulls that rated out as “above the average” for guys playing big minutes were… Miller and Noah. This tells me that absent an absolutely quantum leap from Rose, we’re going to struggle quite a lot offensively.

reference .

the less these numbers mean anything.

Otherwise constructing a matchup like this wouldn’t be possible

Guys in top 25%
G- Sessions, Gibson
G- Rudy. F, Foye
F- Young, Moon
F- Odom, Bonner
C- Foster, Przybilla

VS

Guys not in top 25%
G- Rose, Calderon
G- B. Gordon, Rip
F- Durant, T. Prince
F- Amare, Jefferson
C- D. Howard, Okafor