I thought I'd take a look at how this year's team compares to the Bulls teams over the last few years in the Four Factors categories.  If your not familiar with the Four Factors, this is a way to break basketball down into it's four basic statistical categories (Field goal shooting, turnovers, rebounding, and free throw shooting).  Field goal shooting is the most important category (50%), followed by turnovers (25%), then rebounding (20%), and then free throw shooting (15%).

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It's becoming clear that Vinny needs a little help figuring out lineups and rotations.  This preseason has worn away a lot of the hope I had for Vinny's coaching.  At least he didn't actually start Gray and bench Tyrus, but Vinny has left the impression that he might succomb to any stupid idea after this preseason.  Starting Thabo is probably the smallest crime he could have committed so I'm trying to look at that positively.  If starting Thabo is what Vinny is going to do then this is what he needs to do.

Backcourt

*If Thabo starts, Gordon replaces him before the 6 minute mark in the 1st quarter.

*Hinrich comes in for Rose, and he can play with Gordon, while Rose rests.  Rose comes in for Gordon, and Hinrich moves to SG.  Then Gordon comes back in for Hinrich to close the half.

If Thabo's spot in the starting lineup only amounts to 10-12 minutes in the backcourt, it's okay and actually makes the rest of the rotations easier.  Gordon still gets his 32 minutes at SG.  Hinrich hopefully comes in aggressive off the bench, which is when he's at his best.  Hopefully he's effective enough to keep Rose from wearing out, and he can get 4-8 minutes in at SG.  If Thabo is going to start this makes the best use of the four guys.

Frontcourt

*Deng plays 36+ minutes at SF, Thabo backs him up.  Nocioni's days of playing SF are over unless there is actually someone Nocioni can guard on the floor at SF.

*Thomas starts at plays every minute his foul situation allows.  It's time for the team to play its best and most talented big man.

*Noah can come off the bench, but he should be playing every minute his foul situation allows as well.

*Gooden can start at C if the matchup is okay.  And he competes with Nocioni for minutes behind Thomas.

*Nocioni only plays backup minutes at PF, except for very specfic matchups at SF.

*Aaron Gray only plays meaningful minutes when Tyrus is on the floor with him.  No Noah, and especially not Gooden or Nocioni.

The team really only needs a true center that could play 15-20 minutes per game to make the frontcourt rotations work.  Thabo backs up Deng, Nocioni backus up Thomas, and Noah backups the new guy, but plays the bulk of the minutes at C.  Vinny doesn't have to mix or match, it's simple 1 for 1 substitution.  Gooden is the easiet piece to move, and I think Paxson should be trying to move him for a Rasho Nesterovic or similar player as soon as possible.  Gooden isn't that big an upgrade over Nocioni as a backup 4, and his ineptitude defensively at center is a problem.  And the team shouldn't be wasting shots or possessions on Gooden in his contract year.  And I'd just as soon not leave the temptation around for Vinny to bench Thomas.

I think the team can work like that, and wins games.  The talent is there, but it needs to be used properly.  There are only a couple fo ways to make this collection of players work, and dozens of ways to turn this into a Jim Boylan like mess.  So far it's feels like Vinny is headed toward creating a mess with either Larry Hughes, Aaron Gray, Drew Gooden, or Thabo.  I hope to be pleasantly surprised tonight, but this preseason has worn much of the goodwill Vinny had coming in.

I haven't written much about Noah, and part of the reason for that is I don't feel like I have a good handle on what he'll become.  Part of the problem is that there's no one to compare him to.  He's basically a freak as a player.  Guys built like Noah don't handle the ball the way he does, and they usually are more natural shotblockers than Noah.  Noah actually had a very similar rookie season to that of his college teammate All Horford.  They had the same TS% to go along with similar TO%s, USG%s, and PERs.  Which shouldn't be surprising considering how similar their college stats were.  But, it's so much easier to envision what Horford will become because he's a much more conventional player.  If I had to compare Noah to any player right now, that player would probably be Ben Wallace.  The other part of the problem is that his performance in some key areas varied dramatically during his rookie season.  I'm not sure, which is the real Noah, yet.

Noah's season can be pretty easily divided into three time periods.  Two months where he was he played limited minutes.  Two months where he mostly came off the bench playing about 20 minutes per game, and two months where he started.

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I intended this to come shortly after Deng signed.  But, it sat half finished for a couple of months.

Too often people focus on the wrong aspects of Deng's game, especially Deng's overrated midrange jumper.  There is all too much emphasis on changing Deng's game without acknowledging where Deng's value comes from in the first place.  Both Deng and the Bulls need to be aware of how Deng's attempts to expand his offensive game impacts the core of his existing game.  Adding skills can actually have a detrimental effect on a player's impact if those skills are used improperly.  When Rasheed Wallace developed a 3-point shot, he certainly had more potential as an offensive player.  And he has certainly used that skill to make some big shots, but has it ultimately made him a more effective basketball player on a consistent basis?  For a season or two it did, but since then I would say no.  And I have some similar concerns about Deng, and his quest to expand his game.  How he and the team employ those new skills will determine whether they make Deng a more effective player.

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An interview with Olympiacos assistant Manos Manouselis on K.C. Johnson's blog caught my eye.  What stood out me was the language used by this assistant coach of a Greek team.  (emphasis mine)

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After the 2006/2007 season, I sat down with the Basketball-Reference player season finder to look for players that had similar rookie seasons to Tyrus Thomas in order to understand how he might develop.  Only one other player of any age had such an extreme rookie season in terms of both good things like blocks, steals, rebounds, freethrow attempts, and bad things like turnovers and personnel fouls with at least 800 minutes played.  That other player was Shawn Kemp.  Kemp was also the most similar player to Tyrus according to John Hollinger's similarity score system, he'd have to be given how rare their combination of statistics and attributes were.  That they both entered the league as raw super athletic 20 year old PFs made the comparison only more intriguing.  I discussed this similarity a year ago in a review of Tyrus's rookie season, and thought it was time to reflect on Tyrus's season and check back in with the Kemp comparison.   I had hoped to see Tyrus get something close to the 30 minutes per game and 66 starts that Kemp received in his 2nd season.  Seattle made the decision to trade Xavier McDaniel 15 games into Kemp's 2nd season to open up playing time for him.  The Bulls management failed to make a similar decision.  I was against the Joe Smith signing simply because it was an easy excuse for Skiles to not play Tyrus, and unfortunately my fears were realized and and Tyrus only received 27 starts and played 1100 fewer minutes than Kemp did in his 2nd season.

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[From the FanPosts. A very fun and interesting read. -ed.]

The events of the last few weeks has me thinking about the Seattle Supersonics of the 1990's.  They had the #2 overall pick in the 1990 draft, which they used to select Gary Payton after Derrick Coleman went 1st overall.   Payton joined a team that had just  missed the playoffs with 41 wins after losing in the 2nd round the year before.  He also joined a team with a collection of good players, but no stars, and a raw 2nd year athletic PF in Shawn Kemp.  The Sonics made the playoffs in Payton's 1st season, the 2nd round in his 2nd seasons, and all the way to game 7 of the Western Conference finals in his 3rd season.  That 3rd season was the beginning of a six year run where the Sonics won at least 55 games, averaging 59.5 wins.  They finished in the top ten in both offensive and defensive efficiency every season.  According to Basketball-Reference's rating system, the Sonics never finished with worse than the league's 3rd best regular season during the six year run.  These Sonics had some famous playoff failures, most notably losing to the 8th seed Nuggets in 1994 only eclipsed by the Mavericks exiting the 1st round at the hand of the Warriors.  Still the Sonics were good enough to compete for a championship and with different fortune could have won one.  And there's some similarities to what the Bulls are now trying to accomplish.

Gary Payton is a different player than Derrick Rose, but there are some similarities in terms of being a PG with physical advantages, but not a developed jumpshot.  But, the bigger similarity is that the Bulls are asking Rose to do what Payton did.  To join a team with established playoff level talent as a somewhat raw top 2 overall draft  pick and become not only the best player on the team, but also the team leader.  It took Payton time.  He didn't average double digit points per game until his third season.  He only had a PER of 13 in his 1st two years.  And only averaged 13.5 points and 4.9 assists when the Sonics went to the Western Conference Finals in his third year.  It wasn't until his fifth season that Payton established himself as both the best player on the team and the team leader.  I don't think it will take Rose that long, but if he struggles Payton is an example to keep in mind.  Seattle also did the right thing by starting him the entire time and playing him close to 30 minutes per game even during those 1st two seasons.

Last summer I wrote about Shawn Kemp having what was really the only similar rookie season to Tyrus Thomas.  A comparison that was more interesting because of their similarities as raw 20 year old athletic power forwards.  Those similarities were actually still present, despite Tyrus's disappointing 2nd season and Kemp's solid 15 and 8 2nd season.   But,  that's it's own fanpost.  Let me summarize by saying that a Shawn Kemp like impact is still possible for Tyrus.  And I see the Bulls future success tied to Rose and Thomas in the same way that Seattle's was tied to Payton and Kemp.

In addition Deng is actually a pretty similar player to Detlef Schrempf in terms of never being an effective #1 offensive option or efficiently averaging 20+ points per game.  But, Deng like Schrempf can be a very efficient 3rd option averaging close to 20 points per game.  Schrempf shot a very good 3 point %, but never took many 3 point shots.  It's that type of role where's he's the third best player on the team that's perfect for Deng.

I also find it interesting what Seattle did with with the SG position.  While Payton and Kemp were getting up to speed, Seattle relied on a one dimensional scorer in Ricky Pierce to be the team's leading scorer.  In the 2nd half of Seattle's run, Seattle used a former 20 point per game scorer and undersized SG in Hersey Hawkins as a very efficient fourth option.  If you're primarily a shooter, it's easier to make that transition from 1st option to 3rd or 4th option like Ray Allen did last season.  If Gordon is re-signed then I'd anticipate that type of evolution in role.  If the team is winning, while Gordon's role decreases I think he'll be fine.  And if not then he's a much easier to replace when the team needs less scoring from that position a few years from now.  If I'm Paxson, I think hard about paying Gordon more to get him on a shorter three year contract.  The team does need his scoring in the short term.

Seattle's big problem has been the center position ever since my third cousin left for Milwaukee in 1986.  In addition to George Karl mixing and matching Sam Perkins with the likes of Benoit Benjamin, Michael Cage, Ervin Johnson, Bill Cartwright, and Jim McIlvaine in their quest for a starting center.  If only they had been able to draft Mouhamed Sene a decade earlier.  This is where Noah can be difference maker.  One of the reasons for Seattle's problems in the playoffs is that despite being a top ten defense, they were a below average defensive rebounding team.  In the playoffs where it's harder to force turnovers, defensive rebounding becomes more important.  That shouldn't be a problem area for the Bulls as it wasn't over the last few years, finishing in the top ten from 04/05 through 06/07, and nearly everyone in the rotation is at least an average defensive rebounder for their position.

I thought these were interesting similarities.  I'm not suggesting Seattle is a blue print to follow, but it's an interesting precedent for what the Bulls are trying to do over the next couple of years.  There are some similar dynamics at work.  Obviously if there is a 2010 free agent miracle then the complexion of the team will greatly change.  But, I think starting lineup of Rose, Gordon, Deng, Thomas, and Noah works.  They'll be some obvious differences at the individual level, but the sum of the parts could be something very similar to what the Sonics had in terms of overall impact.  Anyway, I thought it was a comparison worth making.

John Hollinger changed his method of evaluating college big men.  His new method projects a19 PER in year 3 of Beasley's NBA career.

The Sure Thing

Michael Beasley, Kansas State, 19.31

 

 

 

Beasley's rating is the highest of any player going back to 2002, and it's the best by a pretty sizable margin. Obviously, this isn't new information -- nobody doubts this guy's talent level.

 

 

But he might be even better than people realize. His numbers were superior even to Kevin Durant's from a year ago, and Durant had everyone gaga over his performance as a college freshman.

 

 

Somehow Beasley didn't resonate quite as strongly, perhaps because of concerns over his character, but if he keeps his head on straight he's going to be insanely good.