Yfbb, my guy, I love your work, I do, but Pat at the 5? Coby White has a better defensive rebounding percentage than Pat. Pat is LaVine-like in how he doesn't like contact. Putting Pat at the 5 ain't gonna help him.
As far as Vooch goes, you can look at the starting center's weight to determine how effective he'll be. Nurkic is beefy and Vooch has problems with beef. That's ok, every guy has a weakness. The problem is that Vooch shines (relatively) in mismatches. Unfortunately, the coach can't find an offense that forces mismatches that Vooch has an advantage. And, in those rare occasions when he does get a mismatch, the guard either don't see it or can't get him the ball. A Vooch postup on Nurkic = bad. A Vooch postup against a 190lbs guard = better.
Donovan shoulda been fired last year. He wasn't. Billy has no pressure because Reinsdorf teams have no pressure. The only sin is embarrassment. Pax got canned because of the fire GarPax chants around the all-star game. Kenny Williams got canned because the players kept embarrassing the Sox on and off the field. Billy is a professional. Too professional to be an embarrassment. Unless Donovan quits he'll be here til the last year of his deal.
I know you don't like Vooch. I KNOW this. However, Vooch does more than score and rebound. Screening is a fundamental part of basketball. Vooch is a very effective screener. Screen assists are a noisy stat. However, if something is being measured, it doesn't hurt to look good. Vooch is like top 5 or 6 in screen assists this year. He's also like fourth on the team in potential assists. Vooch has some value. Playing Pat at the 5 would crater the Bulls offense during those minutes. Add in that Pat is a terrible rebounder and Pat at the 5 is completely unworkable. Unless you think Billy can come up with a completely different offense that doesn't depend on screening from the bigs.
in general I agree, but his screens are counterproductive at the end of games if it just brings a second defender to the ball and then he also runs to the ball/rim
That's on the coach and his offense! Vooch isn't shooting threes as much and not all of that is his reluctance. The Bulls aren't calling any pick-and-pops in those moments. The Bulls want better offensive rebounding and they pay no attention to the game state. That's coaching too!
It's really jarring to see how our "big guy" looks like a lil' peanut when banging against massive dudes like Jokic and Nurkic (among others). I really think that with his skill set, a Vooch who was 3 inches taller and 40 pounds heavier would be kinda awesome? But I also feel like Vooch sees those guys and thinks he's their size, which makes him worse than he should be at his actual stature.
I'm definitely on team "play through Vooch when he's got a matchup advantage." It's not a binary choice between him being the focus of the offense or a supporting player, even if Vooch himself thinks it is.
A good coach and a team with high basketball IQ would be flexing their style of play this way (as well as cutting to the basket when defenders hedge or double team). But Vooch has never been on that type of team in his career so we may be never know what he'd look like in that modality.
It's almost like giving an already player-overly-supportive coach an early contract extension takes the urgency out of coaching to win. Huh.
Putting the right people in the starting lineup has two bonus effects -- stops less-than but still useful players from taking usage/shots away from better teammates, and slots them into more appropriate bench roles where they might even be better than their opponent bench counterparts.
Finally, Billy has oddly never managed his roster to win. This is far from the first season he's placed not-ready young players into key roles for development purposes, going back to asking WCJ to start one season by shooting three pointers and being the free-throw line offensive hub through the never-ending help PW get aggressive saga. He also turned to DDR for hero-ball when everyone was hurt in the second-half of one year and forgot to turn him off when everyone returned the next.
I’m going to go out on a limb and say that from a big picture perspective, it’s not a good thing that Caruso is our best player.
He’s a win-now role player on a team that is incapable of winning now. And when you think about it that way, it would border on insanity if this front office doesn’t trade him for something like a first round pick and a young player.
Caruso not starting is a joke at this point. He's been the best player on the team. Also he's important for their ability to play uptempo because he forces turnovers, missed shots and pushes the ball. He needs to start. I'd start him with Coby or Carter. The mid 3 have always played better with 2 guards on the floor. Craig's numbers with the starters have been terrible (bc Derozan and Vuc are camped in the lane and they don't cut or move). There is a reason the 2nd best coach in NBA history was playing Derozan at the 4 ...
Very much agree with the need to play thru Derozan and space the floor to end games. Vuc is such a low percentage scorer in the interior, those late game post up seem even less efficient. Much better to have him space than clogging the lane. If he spaced maybe someone else could drive the lane. He's also pretty good at the 3 in late game situations.
Games like this highlight Akme roster failures. They lack a point guard so the ball is in Zack's hands too much, particularly down the stretch. They lack a power forward so they can't take Vuc off the floor to close games. Akme even removed the small ball center - now they can't go small (I don't trust Williams at the 4 or 5, he plays like he's more comfortable on the perimeter). The Bulls play with zero physicality down low and teams can basically beat them up on the offensive boards when they commit to rebounding.
My rotation
Carter / Coby
Caruso / Ayo (but mostly Coby)
Lavine / P Will
Derozan / Craig
Vuc / Drummond
It's small but it's not like Craig or PWill rebound. Caruso and White rebound better than both. Let Coby get back to scoring off the bench instead of constantly being forced to pass to Vuc. He should be trying to getn25 a night. Let Derozan dominate the ball more with the starters. You know Donovan - play to your guys strengths. Actually coach the team and understand what worked in the past instead of doing the exact same thing where we search for a power forward, realize we should start Caruso, watch him get hurt, than bring him off the bench as if that will stop him from playing like he's teen wolf and getting hurt again. With Derozan slipping, Caruso is the best player and identity of the team. Announce him last in the lineups. Hinrich 2.0. Embrace the weird.
Helps a lot when you have David Robinson, Tim Duncan, Tony Parker, Manu, and Kawhi. And now Wemby. Not saying he's not a great coach, but if he's the #2 then it makes me question how many great coaches there have really been. Riley, Jackson, Auerbach, Brown, Daly, Sloan... When I was growing up Larry Brown and Jerry Sloan teams always impressed me. I'd certainly put Pop top 4 coaches I think.
Though I do find it interesting these great coaches with military backgrounds. Pop, Coach K, Bobby Knight, in football Belichecks family had a military background.
Let's say you don't replace Craig or Coby with Caruso. Let's say he moves into the line-up for Zach Lavine, Zach has ceased to exist in our universe, and instead of Caruso off the bench you have some coldblooded chucker like Kelly Oubre.
I think the Bulls are slightly better than 3-6, but basically the same. I think the biggest difference would be decision making. Oubre makes less decisions in the course of a game than Lavine, thus Oubre is less likely to harm you.
With Lavine, if the Bulls played with more ball handlers on the floor and more spacing, he would be better. He's greatly overpaid, but I think he can be useful in a more scale backed roll. It just when he tries to be the MAN or think he has to be the MAN, he gets caught in these mistake prone spirals. I watch a lot of Suns basketball - Zach Lavine is basically Bradley Beal without John Wall / Russell Westbrook. Same frustrating decision making, same shot selection - those guys needs to be directed what to do on the court to get the most out of them. Gunners without basketball IQ. Its why the Bulls need to play him with 2 point guards. Lavine needs to be making less decisions, less dribbling and just cutting, catching and shooting. You put him on the floor with Caruso, Derozan and Coby/Carter - it cuts down on the chances he will harm you.
I think the bigger culprit in the empty stats convo is Vuc. If I become the #1 Vuc hater, than this year will have gone well. I just think his interior scoring where he avoids contact like the plague and never gets to the line is worse than what it seems.
The Bulls roster is like a poor mans' version of Boston (stay with me). Our best players are wings who perform best at the 3 and 4 position. Instead of playing to this strength as Boston does, the Bulls work against type. Boston plays 5 out. So much so, they actually traded Rob Williams because he didn't fit the style. Note Porzingis can post up. He can post just as well as Vuc. But he doesn't because that would clog the lane. Same with Horford - not as many post moves but in the past he had an in between game. Lets look at the Bulls. On every possession they have a 6'11 mediocre chucker demanding his touches at the top of the paint. It slows everything down. Unless Vuc is going to be a super efficient scorer or passer, building it so he gets a touch every other possession is ludicrous. It has a cascading impact. Almost every Bulls player would benefit from a more open lane except Vuc. it also hurts that he's a reluctant pick and pop shooter.
Basically I think the Bulls need to take the ball out of Vuc and Lavine's hands and be more equal opportunity. Vuc may have go stand in the corner some.
Whatever. Its all doomed though because Derozan isn't a top 15 player anymore.
DeMar's shooting profile is starting to even out a bit and resemble 2022/23. The shot efficiency is not though - he's down to 24% from 10ft to 16ft (50% last season) and a hair under 40% from 16ft to the 3point line (46% last season). He's now shooting 33% from outside 10 feet (45% last season).
For someone that shoots as much as he does from 10 feet out, that is lethal. Certainly he's capable of putting up a game when he shoots like 20 for 25, and maybe a couple of those fix everything, but it's concerning that this doesn't seem to be based on anything you can point to as a cause. For the first 10% of the season, a shooter who specializes in shooting from a specific range just can't shoot from it anymore.
"But I just wrote an article about Zach so I won't hammer him more".
Proceeds to hammer Vuc for the millionth time over the last 6 months. Beginning to think the Zach article was only written because you feel you have to mix in a non -Vuc article every once in a while
That was a really bad performance by the Suns, 22 turnovers mostly unforced, and a pretty good performance for the Bulls at home, and they found a way to lose. Playing the Suns without their best player, with their third best player not integrated well yet, and somehow can't take advantage of all those factors, getting cooked by the likes of Grayson Allen having another career day.
Ok, yfbb, time to hit the showers. Come back in the game when you remember how to enjoy, like, anything. Caruso is the last part of this squad that's at all fun. He's the best help defender on the team, and the best help defending guard I've seen since Jason Kidd. You'll watch these half court possessions where you suddenly realize that Alex, who is fuckin 6'4'', has single-handedly shut down half the court. The opponent will try like three different ideas sequentially and Alex just stymies all of them by himself. It's awesome. It's hilarious. You know I'm fucking with you, but for real, how on earth are you watching these games lol?
Gotta trade Caruso this season, he's the perfect acquisition for a team midseason to push them over the top in championship contention. Only question is in what order, as the rest of the Bulls will assuredly look worse and hence worse trade value after he's gone.
Not quite two years but we definitely missed the "sell high" option for him and DeMar.
Signing them to reasonable deals are the two good moves that AKME made. But when it was clear that Lonzo was not coming back and we would not even try to replace him, we should have cashed them in for some assets. DeMar coming off of an all-NBA season or the following trade deadline could have fetched a handsome price from a contender needing a bit more scoring punch. And pretty much every contending team can picture Caruso as the missing piece.
But DeMar's value has gone down and his contact is expiring so it is unclear what you can get back at this point. Caruso is playing very well but his injury concerns are well known. So we are just signing guys to pretty good contracts but then not trying to win and then not trading them to someone who is. Not sure what the plan is.
Seems pretty clear to me that this team is lottery bound. They're 3-6 and why would we expect improvement from here? There is zero improvement for this organization to point to anywhere over the last 2 years post-Lonzo, just one continuous decline that they seem unable to recognize let alone reverse. Coby is a better all around player than he was a couple years ago. That's it, that is literally all they have to show for their precious continuity and having a 'players' coach.'
I still can’t believe you were actually okay with re-signing Vucevic. I won’t rehash that here, don’t worry, but man, nothing and BLANK SPACE going forward when would have been better.
I wanted them to blow it up. But if their goal was to be as good as possible, then re-signing him was their best option (which is another reason why you blow it up).
And I guess I still disagree. We’ll see at the end of the season, but I still think he’s a net-negative. What he does well, this team has. He doesn’t do any of the small things well. If you give him the ball, there’s an 80% that someone else on the court could give you his same pts/100 or better than he does. And there are a lot of guys who could provide better defensive presence.
I get what you’re saying: if all they want to do is add even one win for the whole, then adding Vucevic for $20 million is better than adding some random center at minimum for a -1 win. I disagree with that premise, but even if I grant it, I don’t accept that the conclusion is true.
Vucevic is already a negative on defense, and I think this year, he’ll be even to negative on offense. We’ll see.
At least people survived the Titanic. This season is Oceangate ignoring every safety regulation and engineer’s warning for their backyard science project of a submersible and getting ready to dive down to 3000 ft.
Caruso needs to be an actual contender like yesterday....dude is getting absolutely wasted on this shit squad and i have no clue why he isn't starting. Like he can't injured off the bench either...Billy is an idiot
Please trade him...he could get a 1 FRP and maybe a middling prospect from a good number of teams. DeMar needs to be traded too, not sure he's gonna fetch much but if you can somehow finagle a late 1st or even a prospect that has some promise, do it.
Zach should be traded too but i honestly don't think there's much of a market for him anymore.
I honestly don't know where the light is in this shit tunnel
There's a corporate expression called "fail fast" that extols the benefit of focusing intently on an idea/product in its early stages to test its viability. The quick insights gained (and months/years of time and capital saved) though applying this concept are often what distinguish innovative organizations from stagnant ones.
Clearly over the past few seasons the AKME Bulls have been focused on failing as excruciatingly slowly as possible. But perhaps these first 2 weeks are a blessing in that it's quickly becoming clear this 2023-24 team is headed nowhere. As yfbb noted above, "the ultimate best result for this season is for management to realize that and start trading."
Well, I'd rather management realize that now than after a promising start that plunges downhill in Feb/March when it's too late to blow things up.
You know, people knock Zach's defense but in overtime he completely shut down his own drives to the hoop.
Yfbb, my guy, I love your work, I do, but Pat at the 5? Coby White has a better defensive rebounding percentage than Pat. Pat is LaVine-like in how he doesn't like contact. Putting Pat at the 5 ain't gonna help him.
As far as Vooch goes, you can look at the starting center's weight to determine how effective he'll be. Nurkic is beefy and Vooch has problems with beef. That's ok, every guy has a weakness. The problem is that Vooch shines (relatively) in mismatches. Unfortunately, the coach can't find an offense that forces mismatches that Vooch has an advantage. And, in those rare occasions when he does get a mismatch, the guard either don't see it or can't get him the ball. A Vooch postup on Nurkic = bad. A Vooch postup against a 190lbs guard = better.
Donovan shoulda been fired last year. He wasn't. Billy has no pressure because Reinsdorf teams have no pressure. The only sin is embarrassment. Pax got canned because of the fire GarPax chants around the all-star game. Kenny Williams got canned because the players kept embarrassing the Sox on and off the field. Billy is a professional. Too professional to be an embarrassment. Unless Donovan quits he'll be here til the last year of his deal.
I'm not particularly worried about helping Pat, I would play him at the 5 to add more spacing and lower usage out of that position
it's possible his deficient rebounding would negate beyond any positive
I know you don't like Vooch. I KNOW this. However, Vooch does more than score and rebound. Screening is a fundamental part of basketball. Vooch is a very effective screener. Screen assists are a noisy stat. However, if something is being measured, it doesn't hurt to look good. Vooch is like top 5 or 6 in screen assists this year. He's also like fourth on the team in potential assists. Vooch has some value. Playing Pat at the 5 would crater the Bulls offense during those minutes. Add in that Pat is a terrible rebounder and Pat at the 5 is completely unworkable. Unless you think Billy can come up with a completely different offense that doesn't depend on screening from the bigs.
in general I agree, but his screens are counterproductive at the end of games if it just brings a second defender to the ball and then he also runs to the ball/rim
That's on the coach and his offense! Vooch isn't shooting threes as much and not all of that is his reluctance. The Bulls aren't calling any pick-and-pops in those moments. The Bulls want better offensive rebounding and they pay no attention to the game state. That's coaching too!
Entirely possible, that's why I said first coach Vuc, but if he keeps whining then bench him
And while we don't know what is said behind closed doors, publicly they've been at odds already and Vuc is taking fewest threes in like 5 seasons
It's really jarring to see how our "big guy" looks like a lil' peanut when banging against massive dudes like Jokic and Nurkic (among others). I really think that with his skill set, a Vooch who was 3 inches taller and 40 pounds heavier would be kinda awesome? But I also feel like Vooch sees those guys and thinks he's their size, which makes him worse than he should be at his actual stature.
I'm definitely on team "play through Vooch when he's got a matchup advantage." It's not a binary choice between him being the focus of the offense or a supporting player, even if Vooch himself thinks it is.
A good coach and a team with high basketball IQ would be flexing their style of play this way (as well as cutting to the basket when defenders hedge or double team). But Vooch has never been on that type of team in his career so we may be never know what he'd look like in that modality.
It's almost like giving an already player-overly-supportive coach an early contract extension takes the urgency out of coaching to win. Huh.
Putting the right people in the starting lineup has two bonus effects -- stops less-than but still useful players from taking usage/shots away from better teammates, and slots them into more appropriate bench roles where they might even be better than their opponent bench counterparts.
Finally, Billy has oddly never managed his roster to win. This is far from the first season he's placed not-ready young players into key roles for development purposes, going back to asking WCJ to start one season by shooting three pointers and being the free-throw line offensive hub through the never-ending help PW get aggressive saga. He also turned to DDR for hero-ball when everyone was hurt in the second-half of one year and forgot to turn him off when everyone returned the next.
Sigh.
I’m going to go out on a limb and say that from a big picture perspective, it’s not a good thing that Caruso is our best player.
He’s a win-now role player on a team that is incapable of winning now. And when you think about it that way, it would border on insanity if this front office doesn’t trade him for something like a first round pick and a young player.
Yep, trade him to Philly for Jaden Springer, Furkan Korkmaz and a 1st (not sure Philly do Springer + the first, so maybe a couple of 2nds)
They can do better than that.
Long-term boned is the worst kind of boned.
Caruso not starting is a joke at this point. He's been the best player on the team. Also he's important for their ability to play uptempo because he forces turnovers, missed shots and pushes the ball. He needs to start. I'd start him with Coby or Carter. The mid 3 have always played better with 2 guards on the floor. Craig's numbers with the starters have been terrible (bc Derozan and Vuc are camped in the lane and they don't cut or move). There is a reason the 2nd best coach in NBA history was playing Derozan at the 4 ...
Very much agree with the need to play thru Derozan and space the floor to end games. Vuc is such a low percentage scorer in the interior, those late game post up seem even less efficient. Much better to have him space than clogging the lane. If he spaced maybe someone else could drive the lane. He's also pretty good at the 3 in late game situations.
Games like this highlight Akme roster failures. They lack a point guard so the ball is in Zack's hands too much, particularly down the stretch. They lack a power forward so they can't take Vuc off the floor to close games. Akme even removed the small ball center - now they can't go small (I don't trust Williams at the 4 or 5, he plays like he's more comfortable on the perimeter). The Bulls play with zero physicality down low and teams can basically beat them up on the offensive boards when they commit to rebounding.
My rotation
Carter / Coby
Caruso / Ayo (but mostly Coby)
Lavine / P Will
Derozan / Craig
Vuc / Drummond
It's small but it's not like Craig or PWill rebound. Caruso and White rebound better than both. Let Coby get back to scoring off the bench instead of constantly being forced to pass to Vuc. He should be trying to getn25 a night. Let Derozan dominate the ball more with the starters. You know Donovan - play to your guys strengths. Actually coach the team and understand what worked in the past instead of doing the exact same thing where we search for a power forward, realize we should start Caruso, watch him get hurt, than bring him off the bench as if that will stop him from playing like he's teen wolf and getting hurt again. With Derozan slipping, Caruso is the best player and identity of the team. Announce him last in the lineups. Hinrich 2.0. Embrace the weird.
> There is a reason the 2nd best coach in NBA history was playing Derozan at the 4 ...
tbh I thought that was the plan when he came here.
Helps a lot when you have David Robinson, Tim Duncan, Tony Parker, Manu, and Kawhi. And now Wemby. Not saying he's not a great coach, but if he's the #2 then it makes me question how many great coaches there have really been. Riley, Jackson, Auerbach, Brown, Daly, Sloan... When I was growing up Larry Brown and Jerry Sloan teams always impressed me. I'd certainly put Pop top 4 coaches I think.
Though I do find it interesting these great coaches with military backgrounds. Pop, Coach K, Bobby Knight, in football Belichecks family had a military background.
> Helps a lot when you have David Robinson, Tim Duncan, Tony Parker, Manu, and Kawhi
I thought this post was about DeRozan? None of those guys played with DeRozan in San Antonio.
If you are making a point about Popovich, OP said that, I just quoted the sentence I was replying to.
You called him the 2nd best coach ever, did you not?
> If you are making a point about Popovich, OP said that, I just quoted the sentence I was replying to.
Let's say you don't replace Craig or Coby with Caruso. Let's say he moves into the line-up for Zach Lavine, Zach has ceased to exist in our universe, and instead of Caruso off the bench you have some coldblooded chucker like Kelly Oubre.
Are the Bulls:
1. 3-6
2. Better than 3-6
3. Worse than 3-6
Do you think they would be
1. struggling to make the play-in
2. struggling to struggle to make the play-in?
I think the Bulls are slightly better than 3-6, but basically the same. I think the biggest difference would be decision making. Oubre makes less decisions in the course of a game than Lavine, thus Oubre is less likely to harm you.
With Lavine, if the Bulls played with more ball handlers on the floor and more spacing, he would be better. He's greatly overpaid, but I think he can be useful in a more scale backed roll. It just when he tries to be the MAN or think he has to be the MAN, he gets caught in these mistake prone spirals. I watch a lot of Suns basketball - Zach Lavine is basically Bradley Beal without John Wall / Russell Westbrook. Same frustrating decision making, same shot selection - those guys needs to be directed what to do on the court to get the most out of them. Gunners without basketball IQ. Its why the Bulls need to play him with 2 point guards. Lavine needs to be making less decisions, less dribbling and just cutting, catching and shooting. You put him on the floor with Caruso, Derozan and Coby/Carter - it cuts down on the chances he will harm you.
I think the bigger culprit in the empty stats convo is Vuc. If I become the #1 Vuc hater, than this year will have gone well. I just think his interior scoring where he avoids contact like the plague and never gets to the line is worse than what it seems.
The Bulls roster is like a poor mans' version of Boston (stay with me). Our best players are wings who perform best at the 3 and 4 position. Instead of playing to this strength as Boston does, the Bulls work against type. Boston plays 5 out. So much so, they actually traded Rob Williams because he didn't fit the style. Note Porzingis can post up. He can post just as well as Vuc. But he doesn't because that would clog the lane. Same with Horford - not as many post moves but in the past he had an in between game. Lets look at the Bulls. On every possession they have a 6'11 mediocre chucker demanding his touches at the top of the paint. It slows everything down. Unless Vuc is going to be a super efficient scorer or passer, building it so he gets a touch every other possession is ludicrous. It has a cascading impact. Almost every Bulls player would benefit from a more open lane except Vuc. it also hurts that he's a reluctant pick and pop shooter.
Basically I think the Bulls need to take the ball out of Vuc and Lavine's hands and be more equal opportunity. Vuc may have go stand in the corner some.
Whatever. Its all doomed though because Derozan isn't a top 15 player anymore.
DeMar's shooting profile is starting to even out a bit and resemble 2022/23. The shot efficiency is not though - he's down to 24% from 10ft to 16ft (50% last season) and a hair under 40% from 16ft to the 3point line (46% last season). He's now shooting 33% from outside 10 feet (45% last season).
For someone that shoots as much as he does from 10 feet out, that is lethal. Certainly he's capable of putting up a game when he shoots like 20 for 25, and maybe a couple of those fix everything, but it's concerning that this doesn't seem to be based on anything you can point to as a cause. For the first 10% of the season, a shooter who specializes in shooting from a specific range just can't shoot from it anymore.
"But I just wrote an article about Zach so I won't hammer him more".
Proceeds to hammer Vuc for the millionth time over the last 6 months. Beginning to think the Zach article was only written because you feel you have to mix in a non -Vuc article every once in a while
sadVucShrug.png
It's basically endearing at this point. I just wish the Larsa Pippen story could be woven into the Vuc narrative to make it more interesting
That was a really bad performance by the Suns, 22 turnovers mostly unforced, and a pretty good performance for the Bulls at home, and they found a way to lose. Playing the Suns without their best player, with their third best player not integrated well yet, and somehow can't take advantage of all those factors, getting cooked by the likes of Grayson Allen having another career day.
Ok, yfbb, time to hit the showers. Come back in the game when you remember how to enjoy, like, anything. Caruso is the last part of this squad that's at all fun. He's the best help defender on the team, and the best help defending guard I've seen since Jason Kidd. You'll watch these half court possessions where you suddenly realize that Alex, who is fuckin 6'4'', has single-handedly shut down half the court. The opponent will try like three different ideas sequentially and Alex just stymies all of them by himself. It's awesome. It's hilarious. You know I'm fucking with you, but for real, how on earth are you watching these games lol?
Gotta trade Caruso this season, he's the perfect acquisition for a team midseason to push them over the top in championship contention. Only question is in what order, as the rest of the Bulls will assuredly look worse and hence worse trade value after he's gone.
Man, these storylines all feel 2 years old
Not quite two years but we definitely missed the "sell high" option for him and DeMar.
Signing them to reasonable deals are the two good moves that AKME made. But when it was clear that Lonzo was not coming back and we would not even try to replace him, we should have cashed them in for some assets. DeMar coming off of an all-NBA season or the following trade deadline could have fetched a handsome price from a contender needing a bit more scoring punch. And pretty much every contending team can picture Caruso as the missing piece.
But DeMar's value has gone down and his contact is expiring so it is unclear what you can get back at this point. Caruso is playing very well but his injury concerns are well known. So we are just signing guys to pretty good contracts but then not trying to win and then not trading them to someone who is. Not sure what the plan is.
Seems pretty clear to me that this team is lottery bound. They're 3-6 and why would we expect improvement from here? There is zero improvement for this organization to point to anywhere over the last 2 years post-Lonzo, just one continuous decline that they seem unable to recognize let alone reverse. Coby is a better all around player than he was a couple years ago. That's it, that is literally all they have to show for their precious continuity and having a 'players' coach.'
White Sox are reducing payroll
Haha you're still getting on me for tweeting my best stuff!
it's even worse now, what are you doing on there still?!?
(I kid, there's nowhere else to go yet)
(except this comment section, just saying)
Can you get on Threads? X is toxic.
I still can’t believe you were actually okay with re-signing Vucevic. I won’t rehash that here, don’t worry, but man, nothing and BLANK SPACE going forward when would have been better.
I wanted them to blow it up. But if their goal was to be as good as possible, then re-signing him was their best option (which is another reason why you blow it up).
And I guess I still disagree. We’ll see at the end of the season, but I still think he’s a net-negative. What he does well, this team has. He doesn’t do any of the small things well. If you give him the ball, there’s an 80% that someone else on the court could give you his same pts/100 or better than he does. And there are a lot of guys who could provide better defensive presence.
I get what you’re saying: if all they want to do is add even one win for the whole, then adding Vucevic for $20 million is better than adding some random center at minimum for a -1 win. I disagree with that premise, but even if I grant it, I don’t accept that the conclusion is true.
Vucevic is already a negative on defense, and I think this year, he’ll be even to negative on offense. We’ll see.
This team is exactly what they have been for the last ~2 years. So glad we brought it all back.
This season is deck chairs on the Titanic. Complete waste of time. There is so little to enjoy. Blow it up already.
Oh look, Zach dribbled off his foot again.
At least people survived the Titanic. This season is Oceangate ignoring every safety regulation and engineer’s warning for their backyard science project of a submersible and getting ready to dive down to 3000 ft.
Well, I'll be Rose, pushing AK and everyone else off the lifeboat.
Caruso needs to be an actual contender like yesterday....dude is getting absolutely wasted on this shit squad and i have no clue why he isn't starting. Like he can't injured off the bench either...Billy is an idiot
Please trade him...he could get a 1 FRP and maybe a middling prospect from a good number of teams. DeMar needs to be traded too, not sure he's gonna fetch much but if you can somehow finagle a late 1st or even a prospect that has some promise, do it.
Zach should be traded too but i honestly don't think there's much of a market for him anymore.
I honestly don't know where the light is in this shit tunnel
There's a corporate expression called "fail fast" that extols the benefit of focusing intently on an idea/product in its early stages to test its viability. The quick insights gained (and months/years of time and capital saved) though applying this concept are often what distinguish innovative organizations from stagnant ones.
Clearly over the past few seasons the AKME Bulls have been focused on failing as excruciatingly slowly as possible. But perhaps these first 2 weeks are a blessing in that it's quickly becoming clear this 2023-24 team is headed nowhere. As yfbb noted above, "the ultimate best result for this season is for management to realize that and start trading."
Well, I'd rather management realize that now than after a promising start that plunges downhill in Feb/March when it's too late to blow things up.
Donovan was asked about not playing Jevon Carter more...he keeps answering like player rotations are not something that HE HAS CONTROL OF
https://twitter.com/lookwhatdrewdid/status/1723068420311126437