Season Review X: The Team

[From the Diaries. -Matt]

Based on the players 05/06 seasons, the Bulls were basically a 49 win team.  And the Bulls finished the season with 49 wins.  However, the team greatly underachieved in the win column.  Based on their points scored and points allowed, the Bulls shoud have been a 55 win team.  (Matt, you can at least claim to have theoretically predicted the Bulls win total among your fellow bloggers.)  The Bulls should have finished 1st in the East ahead of 53 win Detroit and 52 win Cleveland.  That's the ultimate reason that the Bulls finished first in the East in Hollinger's Power Rankings.  That means expectations for next season should be at least 55 wins and the 1st seed in the East.  I imagine that home court advantage at the very least would have made the Detroit series more competitive.  Here's what the players did in 05/06 compared to this season.  

05/06       PW PW% Min  06/07       PW PW% Min     Difference
Gordon    4.2  38.3  2483 Gordon     8.2  66.2 2704    +4.0
Hinrich     7.5  60.7  2955 Hinrich      9.6  80.8 2839    +2.1
Nocioni    6.9  72.8  2238 Nocioni    4.3  69.6 1406    -2.6
Deng        6.7  62.1  2602 Deng      10.9  83.6 3071    +4.2
Duhon      5.3  67.0  2157 Duhon      4.7  69.3 1906    -0.6
Brown      4.6  51.3  2382 Brown      1.9  34.0 1456    -2.7
Wallace  11.0  91.1  2886 Wallace    8.6  82.5 2697    -2.4
Sweetney  2.3  40.3  1228 Thomas    2.7  57.7  966    +3.1
Allen         0.9  32.6    701 Griffin       1.2  53.9  585
                 49.4       19632 Sefolosha  0.6 17.6   868
                                        Allen         0.9 33.8   638
                                        Sweetney  0.5 26.2   385
                                        Khryapa    0.4 42.2  231
                                                         54.5      19752
The team shifted from an ensemble to a "star" driven team, totally dependent on the big three of Hinrich, Gordon, and Deng for scoring once Noc went down.  This was the core's big jump.  Combined Gordon, Hinrich, and Deng were responsible for an additional 10 wins this season.  More than offsetting Wallace, Brown, and Noc's decline in productivity.  However, it's unrealistic to expect anything more than another 1-2 additional wins from the core next year.

Now lets look at team statistics.  The Bulls again played at one of the faster paces in the  league.  They were 5th in the league in 05/06 at 92.9, and finished 6th this season despite slightly increasing their pace (93.6).  Here's how the 05/06 team compares to the 06/07 team.  The numbers are offensive and defensive efficiency, points/100 possesions.

         Offense       Defense
04/05 101.3 26th  100.3 2nd
05/06 104.2 22nd  103.2 6th
06/07 105.2 20th    99.4 1st The Bulls increased their point differential by almost 5 points.  And the Ben Wallace signing seems to have met expectations in terms of overall team performance.  The Bulls did go from a good defensive team to the best defensive team without the offense suffering.  Here's a look at the "Four Factors of Basketball Success": shooting (40%), turnovers (25%), rebounding (20%), and free throws (15%).                                   Offense                                          Defense
                       05/06   Rank     06/07   Rank     05/06   Rank    06/07 Rank
Effective FG% 48.7%  16         49.3%   17       46.4%      3       47.3%  3
Turnover Rate 15.5%   21        16.6%   24       15.4%    12       18.0%   2
Rebound Rate 26.3%   19         28.6%    9       74.7%      5       74.3%  10
FT/FGA           21.6%    27        22.9%   22       29.5%    29      25.2%  19 The team shot the ball better, but didn't improve their ranking.  The Bull shot jump shots better this year (45.6% versus 46.2%.  Got 1% more dunks, but shot 3% (53% to 50.1%) worse on close shots.  Thanks Big Ben.  A rise in turnovers was partially offset by getting to the FT line slightly more, but the big offensive improvement was in offensive rebounding.  It was the only offensive area where the Bulls were above average this year.  On the defensive side of the ball, the Bulls missed out on a third consecutive defensive FG% title.  But, they did maintain their 3rd place ranking in eFG%.  Their defensive Reb Rtg was consisent, despite the fall in ranking.  Again at least in terms of team statistics, Ben Wallace seems to have met expectations.  The two areas where he was expected to improve the defense, less fouls and more turnovers, is where the defense improved.  The Bulls gave up 253 less FTA and forced 201 more turnovers in 06/07.

Any significant offensive improvement next season should come from the turnover rate.  Deng, Gordon, Wallace, Brown, Thomas, and Sefolosha are all capable of reducing their turnover rates.  The Bulls turnover rate should at least return to the 05/06 15.5%.  Interestingly, the Bulls offensive turnover problems make the Bulls defensive efficiency that more remarkable because of the easy baskets that come off turnovers.  The next five best defensive teams all were in the top 10 in offensive turnover rate, San Antonio (6th), Houston (8th), Cleveland (9th), Dallas (7th), and Detroit (1st).  A reduction in turnovers should improve both the offense and defense.  Those five teams were also all 18th or lower in Pace, which again makes the Bulls defense unique.  I wonder how many teams have finished 1st in Deff Eff, while finishing in the top ten in Pace and bottom ten in off turnover rate?  Not even B-R.com will let me search that.  Improvement in FT/FGA would be beneficial, but it has the smallest impact on winning of these categories and none of the Bulls championship teams finished higher than 15th (90/91), and they were 28th in 96/97.  When it comes to shooting (40% of winning games), improvement must come from the supporting players.  The core is very unlikely to make another huge jump eFG% next year.

The Bulls could realistically be an even better defensive team next season.  More minutes from Tyrus on defense means at the very least more forced turnovers and better rebounding.  More mintutes from Thabo also should improve the defense in rebounding and eFG% if for no other reason than a hand in the face from a 6'7" guard is a lot higher than from a 6'1" guard.  (Thabo's DRtg of 99 was also better than Hinrich and Duhon's 102 so there is some statistical evidence to back this up).  Those two are the key to making the Bulls fast paced defense even better.

Statistically the Bulls were the best team in the East this season, but that failed to show up in the win column.  An argument could be made that stems from the Bulls inability to win close games given their lack of a go-to scorer, post game, or trips to the FT line combined with their ability to blow out weaker teams.  I'll accept some of that, but I think alot of it was simply misfortune.  Ben Gordon missed alot of his potentially game winning shots this year, and I'd argue those misses have more to do with luck than "being good in the clutch".  So I'll stick with the 55 win baseline for next season, and hope for more.  To begin with, Skiles starting an effective lineup would help.

That's the regular season though.  And while winning 50+ games and/or a 1st  seed would be an important step, the playoffs are the measuring stick.  While the Detroit series was extremely disappointing this year, it feels alot like last year's Miami series.  If the Bulls play Detroit next year with homecourt advantage, I think the Bulls win and maybe they win easily given the possible upheaval in Detroit this summer.  Detroit was a bad matchup in alot of ways.  Great at defending the pick and roll, and a team with no one to hide Gordon on defensively.  They were also a team where Wallace and Thomas had to guard people, rather than roam the court and help on defense.

Cleveland is an entirely different challenge.  I don't know what would have happened, and it's tough to predict anything by the regular season. It's certainly easier to hide Gordon on defense. But, Cleveland's a very good defensive team that keeps teams out of the paint and dominates the boards.  Their bigs are good enough to force Wallace to guard them, and their height gives him problems.  And James is an issue unto himself.  Based on the regular season, these were roughly equal teams. Here's where I'll draw hope.  Cleveland is locked into it's roster, and their only means of improvement is from James himself.  Unless anyone thinks Boobie or Sideshow Bob is going to become really good.  And their a Big Z foot inury away from big trouble.  The Bulls have 3-5 players with a decent possibility to improve.  At worst the Bulls will stand a fighting chance of not perishing before King James by exploiting his supporting cast.  And should be the better regular season team, which at the very least means homecourt advantage.  

I may have been a little overly positive in these season reviews, but I believe I've been fairly objective.  I believe that collectively the Bulls have a decent chance of being good enough to win a title.  Hinrich is 26, Gordon 24, Deng 22, Thabo 23, and Thomas is 20.  Hinrich is still likely two seasons away from his entering the NBA prime of 28-32.  Deng is still six years away from that prime.  If Gordon and Deng do sign extensions this fall it will mean that Paxson also has a realistic shot of keeping the team in acceptable luxury tax territory, and keeping these guys together into Deng's prime.  I hope to see that because I believe this collection of players can be really special, even if they're a bunch of all-stars without a superstar.