Season Review Part VII: P.J. Brown

I pointed out when I made my stats based win prediction of 49.4 Bulls wins last July that I thought P.J. Brown would be a key player this season.  Unfortunately, statistically P.J. Brown had the worst season of his career.  He's 6-11 and shot 40.7% from the field.  He had the highest turnover rate (14.1), lowest assist rate (7.9), and lowest PER (9.7) of his career, and he beat all of his career lows by a wide margin.  He did play better after the All-Star break, but his turnovers remained consistently high.  He was so bad on offense that it's hard to imagine P.J. playing that bad again even at 39 years of age.  At least his bad offense didn't cost the team much on the offensive end.  On the other side of the ball Brown remained steady.  His DRtg was a solid 100 against the 106 league average.  His rebounding rate matched his last season with the Hornets.

I'd be perfectly happy to have Brown resigned for another year.  Finding big men who defend and can make an open 18 footer is very difficult, and I'd rather overpay Brown in the short term than being locked into a five year deal with a big stiff.  Brown's strongest assests shouldn't decline that much with another year of age.  Hell, any decline should have happened five years ago.  He never could jump to begin with so his rebounding or shot blocking hasn't suffered much with age.  He should return to shooting at least 44% from the field.  His big problem is he struggles to finish inside without having a wide body, great upper body strength, or leaping ability.  He had 29% of his close to the basket shots blocked.  

I like Brown the most as a jumpshooting high FT% alternative to Ben Wallace at center.  The team played much better with Brown at center than with Brown and Wallace together.  I also thought Tyrus and P.J. played really well together as a tandem.  Brown played in the screen rolls leaving Tyrus free to roam for lobs or off rebounds.  The Bulls will need at least one veteran taller than 6'9''.  It might as well be Brown.