I regret to inform you that Vuc is still Vuc'ing
extension announcement soon, I fear
The Bulls 4-game road trip was a strange one:
Lose in Detroit to a Pistons team missing 4 of its starters
Lose in double-overtime in Utah after 3 days off
Win in Denver on a back-to-back where Coby White was held out after returning
Win in Portland, against a Blazers team missing several rotation players and on a back-to-back, only after a buzzer-beating three pointer
All of these games had wild swings in scoring margin, and wound up being close late (or at least in the 4th quarter). Perhaps that is just this season of This League, where there are too many games and they’re played with more effort and pace than ever. It definitely causes great variability in the opponent caliber heading into games, but perhaps also means more ‘runs’ during these games.
I haven’t researched (and will leave it to someone else to actually do so) but the Bulls do seem always in these games. You may even call them ‘competitive’. And when it gets close and late and maybe even moreso after there’s a huge scoring (or giving up scoring) run to get there, flukey things happen that determine win or loss.
Like in Portland how the Blazers went on a 31-7 run to take the lead, only to have the final 16 seconds see Jerami Grant and Deni Avdija - both > 85% FT shooters this year - miss 2 FTs and the Bulls hitting two threes on their end to win, culminating in a Nikola Vucevic look after Coby White was caught up in the air and made an incredible pass.
The game before, in Denver which was a no-caveats incredible overcoming of circumstances1 , Vuc hit a clutch three after being pretty awful for that game.
Against Portland though, he was cooking throughout:
Vuc looked downright agile compared to the much-younger-but-plodding Donovan Clingan2. Yes, the Bulls got killed on the glass, but that is more to Portland’s strength versus Vuc’s weakness - he is historically an excellent defensive rebounder. On offense, Vuc was able to exploit Clingan dropping in the lane to take wide open three point attempts, and when inside was able to use his quickness (Vuc!) to get off those inside dinkers and dumpers unencumbered.
Conventional wisdom, or at least mine, was that Vuc would regress after a bounce-back season last year. This inside finishing could be a matter of scheme and not individual skills. I’m sure there is a more detailed way to do this, but I can more quickly see that Vuc’s post-ups % has gone down each of the last 3 years, from 17.2% to 15.3% to 14.3% so far this season. And his attempts from mid-range have been halved from the 2023-24 season, and his % of 3 pointers attempted is now at a career high, from 25.8% to 30.9% to 37.6% so far this season.
More notable is that his 3 point make percentage is also way up. Perhaps that is a fluke - and even more odd of one given his age - or it’s sustainable in this style of play doing better to deemphasize his weaknesses than it was alongside LaVine and DeRozan.
Is any of this actually good news? Not to me! I don’t like watching it, and Vuc’s omnipresence speaks to the Organization’s true goals of proving haters wrong and obtaining playoff home gate revenue versus their public mantra of “competitive while building”.
And we know how this will end: it will never end.
essentially it was all the Bulls bench in that one, an extremely rare degree of difference between bench versus starters performance.
and to emphasize how goofy regular season basketball is - apparently not just in March anymore - the Blazers were forced to play Yang Hansen who is even younger and even slower.
This is what I mean by the angst of Vuc-ball. Some of it is unfair personal bias. But there is something to be said for this coming at the expense of the younger players.
https://bsky.app/profile/stephnoh.bsky.social/post/3m63cbtvb2c2t
The Bulls figure - and maybe they're not wrong, just lying - that the way for young players to develop is making sure they are participating in "meaningful" games moreso than more minutes.
As a Vooch hater, I must begrudgingly give the guy credit for somehow becoming the best 3-point shooting big man in the NBA in his mid-30s to save his career.
looking at some of his numbers this year is quite funny. obviously the 3-point shooting is hot, and his clutch shooting has won them at least 4 games (Pistons, Sixers, Nuggets, Blazers). He's 4 of 5 from 3 in clutch games in the final minute, with the one miss being that Jazz one the other night that was right on line.
on the other hand, the Bulls are getting crushed when he's in there (-5.5 on-court net rating), which is partially just a function of the starters being kinda sucky.
Bulls are now 8-6 with a negative point differential (what's up Bears), thanks in large part to Vucevic going beast mode in clutch time and mostly not missing his biggest shots of the game.