The East is so bad right now that it makes predicting anything hard. I would assume that the Bucks and Sixers will get better, but it’s hard to predict health. I know Embiid is supposed to be back this week, but how many games is he going to play the rest of the season? Fifty games seems high for him.
The wild thing is that pre-season I could imagine every team out west other than Portland and Utah being as high as a #4 seed this year and with the exception of the Pelicans (who are a trauma unit) that's proving out. Fun with small samples, but the Mavericks would be the #3 seed in the East and as of right now would not even qualify for the play-in out West. This obviously will even out, but I don't see anyone out there I don't envy.
“OH MAN, I WOULD *HATE* TO LOSE SUCH A PRODUCTIVE PLAYER, BUT I HAVE NO CHOICE! He’s…uh…(don’t say “overpaid” or “crappy”)… uh, he’s sleeping with the Benny’s wife, maybe? We’d love to keep him, but orders are orders — all Vooches must go!”
That's a bit of paraphrasing and I don't mean to say Stein said they won't trade him *because* he's playing out of his mind. But Stein said they weren't looking to move Vuc yet (and Vuc happens to be playing out of his mind)
Absurdly, I think Vuc is going to be tradable because there have already been a lot of centers on teams that are actually trying to win that got hurt.
* Hornets. Mark Williams and Nick Ward
* OKC. Chet, Hartenstein, JWill
* Lakers. AD
* Pacers. Both their backup centers, Wiseman and Isaiah Jackson suffered torn achilles. Weird.
* Knicks. Mitchell Robinson
* Philly. Embiid... they are already about to bench Drummond
Whether any team would actually give up something and have the contracts to make a trade work is a totally different thing. I think it's underestimated right now that the trade rules for contending teams have gotten so restrictive that it's actually hard to make a trade work.
At the same time, them not trading him *because* he’s playing out of his mind is also possible. Going from “we have to trade him because he’s not worth his contract” to “he’s playing well and worth his contract; we have to keep him” is not just AKME, but just very Bulls in general.
They’d much rather do something that holds value in the short-term than something that might hold greater value long-term.
Dalen Terry's "Defended Field Goal Percentage" is 30%. That's way below everybody else. That would be the lowest on the Celtics, that would be the lowest on the Cavs. His twitchiness, length and motor give him the foundation for a great defensive player, and now with his added strength and his reigned-in offensive play he's getting the chance to prove it.
What does everyone credit that growth to? Billy & the Bull's staff? Natural growth? Growth at the expense of other growth (defense vs offense, maybe?) Something else?
I think the biggest thing is he's put on some muscle. He's always shown flashes of defensive talent. In years past though, he's generally just been bullied by other teams. It also helps that it seems like he's guarding other guards more, whereas I feel like in the past he was being matched up against forwards.
I don't buy it, I'm still starting a change dot org petition lobbying Elon Musk to shoot Dalen Terry into the sun. Maybe the worst player on this team getting minutes.
That's the problem, isn't it? His defense looks incredibly good in short bursts. The problem is it's not consistently good enough to make up for the fact that he's a complete non-factor on offense.
It's really bad. He actually seems to get a lot of hockey assists or at least makes good passes, so I get what scouts saw there (i.e, Junior Troy Brown Jr.) But his shot is terrible and on drives he now hears footsteps after blowing so many fastbreak layups and dunks.
For the 2nd straight game, Giddey sat down the stretch (the final 3:31 this time). So either it is a similar problem as existed in OKC despite different personnel, or Billy Donovan doesn't know what he's doing. Both can also be true but I think not.
This is also the "it" of the post title. I don't think Giddey's a future star but if you believe that way you just can't sit your future star point guard down in the clutch of a 4 point game. He was getting completely savaged so it wasn't unjustified by the rules of "playing to win." It actually looked worse than it is represented by statistics as some keystone cops moments were saved from permanent highlight status by the Cavs missing shots or bobbling the ball. There was one play in the 4th when Ty Jerome seemed to nutmeg the ball between Giddey's legs (but probably just a really good bounce pass), went back door on him, caught it but it came off his hands for a TO. It was the very rare sequence when one player seems to be repeatedly victimized on the same possession.
I read another article, maybe one Tyger or Moon cited that suggested that at most, the benefit of playing time in actual games only required like 800-1000 minutes of PT in a season. That's enough to give you all the benefit there is. If there is any.
This makes sense because the vast majority of development comes from practice. Players, especially young ones, spend a huge amount more time practicing than they do playing. Orders of magnitude more.
I also strongly believe that people respond to incentives. Giddey isn't spectacular or anything, but a guy with his offensive feel shouldn't be so terrible. He'll never be great, but he doesn't even get in a fucking proper stance. He obviously has no idea what to do about half the time.
Point is, I'm totally fine with sitting him at key points and giving him the clear message that if he wants to play, he needs to clean that shit up.
More than fine, in fact. If they never make him learn that lesson, he never will. This is the actual "development" problem the Bulls are facing with Giddey. Playing time needs to be a reward for good effort and putting in the work to develop.
I'm not saying he shouldn't play at all, but the expectations need to be set or they will set themselves.
I suppose a bigger concern than 'why isn't Donovan just leaving Giddey out there to stink?' is 'why does Giddey stink so much?' , and the unending dread that AK will say he doesn't know, wait and see etc. and give Giddey a contract based on his prior favor towards him
In which case, you should also be in favor of Giddey sitting whenever appropriate.
Because that takes away cover for just pretending everything is OK and giving Giddey a new contract. Maybe it'll still happen, but that way it has to happen over the pretty obvious issue of "this guy stinks and is routinely benched in crunch time".
"If they never make him learn that lesson, he never will."
He's been sitting on the bench at crucial moments for the last 12 months. At least last year he had something he could wave a towel about.
This was a most incredible contrast. Zach LaVine was actually playing defense for significant stretches in the game. The reason was clearly because of the competition with Donovan Mitchell, who Zach believes he's at least equal to if not better. Like DeMar, you can see from these moments that Zach can actually do it. I've seen no evidence of this from Giddey. He doesn't have moments of competency. He has moments of "standing in the right place at the right time, sometimes." He seems totally unfamiliar with most of the concepts, a blank slate. I have never seen that at this level. Maybe someone like Michael Olowokandi who started playing basketball when he was 17 or something.
>> If they never make him learn that lesson, he never will.
> He's been sitting on the bench at crucial moments for the last 12 months. At least last year he had something he could wave a towel about.
At every point though, he's been given an out. When he was getting benched on the Thunder, he could say it was for better players and it meant something.
His whole trade request was him trying to pretend it wasn't a problem.
Always with an excuse. I say, keep holding his feet to the fire. Maybe he never gets it. Probably he won't. But he damn sure won't if they don't hold him accountable.
Wade just grabs Ayo and walks him down the lane. Giddey thinks he's still there, takes the wrong angle entirely, the lane is wide open, Vuc, who doesn't protect the rim anyways is hindered by Ayo and Wade, easy bucket for Garland.
Yep, the Jerome play I mentioned is "Unvailable" but it was I believe the one at 5:50 about a minute before this.
On the other end Giddey went down and missed one of his patented 4 footers and then suddenly he wasn't there anymore.
This is fucking surreal, the guy was on the verge of a phantom triple double ("Josh Giddey is an Almost Triple Double Machine!") yet he is so terrible when it matters that he's unplayable. Any smart team is going to hunt him, like you said in the game thread, and I don't even think St. Alex of Caruso standing next to him would help.
What's Giddey's offensive role in the 4th anyways? Do they play ball movement or do they play iso, cause Coby and LaVine want to play iso, and maybe you want the ball in Coby's hands down the stretch. If it's with Coby, then Giddey is useless.
it was an interesting postgame discussion at Chuggo, the usual guys were puffing up LaVine (Gottlieb: "I thought he wasn't a winner????" - didn't they lose and he had a late-game TO?) and Will Perdue mentioned that the 4th quarter was antithetical of the 'new era' with Zach bringing up the ball and pounding
Can't wait for Billy to sit Giddey to close out the vast majority of games over the remainder of the season and then for AK to extend him at like $30 million a year claiming he's part of this team's new core. And then for no reporters to ask why they'd extend a guy at that kind of money if he can't even be trusted to close games.
His first 11 games last year were _really_ bad. Dude might be a slow starter, and he had an injury this summer... or he might always have an injury in the summer.
It’s funny how this team kind of feels like they’re overachieving yet they have the 4th worst point differential in the East and they’re only 1.5 games ahead of the 14th seed.
This could be a year where the 10th seed in the East and the 15th seed are separated by about 3 games. If the difference between having a legitimate shot at an elite prospect and potentially losing our pick is a few pointless wins, then you need to trade LaVine and Vuc as soon as possible. I don’t want a scrappy 32 win team. I want a “I don’t think it’s possible for them to win 25 games no matter how hard they try” team. It’s the only way to change the fortunes of this incredibly poorly run franchise.
When I say "I think they'll be better than what people think." I don't mean they'll be good. I mean that I think they'll lose plenty of games with a bad point differential, but there will be nights when they're playing surprisingly competent and gain a win. Like, I bet they'll have the win differential of a 24-28 win team (~30-35% win percentage), but instead of losing that one game by 1 or 2 they'll be just good enough to win it. Over 82 games, that would make them a (~40% win %age) a 32-34 win team.
Kind of off topic, but can someone much smarter than me explain Coby and Ayo's contract situation? Like I know the Bulls can only offer a certain percentage more than those guys are currently making. Does that make it basically impossible to re-sign White after next year if he continues to look like an almost-All-Star?
My understanding is that due to the veteran extension rules they are capped at offering an 140% raise based on the last year of the current contract, or 140% of the average player salary, whichever is higher. That is, unless they clear cap space, in which case they can use the cap space to increase the offer. They could also wait until free agency, and I think at that point they could go over the salary cap to re-sign, but that comes with increased risk since there are no matching rights, and you could lose them for no return.
I might be really off but I think executives have had the right read on LaVine longer than we have and it really hasn't changed.
It's time: time to see if he ever figures his shit out, and time to wear off that onerous contract. Both of these are better done with the Bulls than paying a $40 million 3rd option for several years.
Think Zach should probably sit down with his grandpop and question how he let Klutch misread the situation so badly. They like to use use words like "brand" but being a good scorer on a lousy team that *nobody will trade for* is a hell of a hit to your brand. That was true anyway, but it's better not to prove it to the entire world with an ill-fated trade demand, timed for when he was playing the worst basketball of his career since he was recovering from a blown out knee.
Bulls doing me a favor by following this pattern last few games and not necessitating a new post.
Against Knicks: Vuc stays hot, LaVine is doing his usual (great shooting then late-game turnovers), and they win some and lose some based on the opponents' fatigue and some clutch luck. Donovan making some of his own luck by benching Josh Giddey down the stretch every game now (Ayo was particularly great in NY)
Buzelis did play 12 minutes instead of 2. Had 3 blocks in that time which is pretty notable.
I don't quite get the praise of Patrick Williams (citation: Chuggo post-game), he hit 3/4 threes but when not doing that looks like crap
Dalen Terry's "good games" streak ends at ... 2? a -23 in ten and a half minutes
Ayo played 12 4th quarter minutes last night. He's gotten off to a very slow start to the season, but is picking up steam.
It still blows my mind that AK saw how Ayo played at the end of last year and decided that the Bulls needed a point guard. I like how Giddey distributes the ball, and during the part of the game where defense matters less I think Giddey does a great job of keeping things fast, but Ayo is the better player and I'm glad Donovan is playing him in the 4th.
"I don't quite get the praise of Patrick Williams (citation: Chuggo post-game), he hit 3/4 threes but when not doing that looks like crap"
Over the course of the season, yes he's been bad other than shooting threes and playing defense. Last night though? Nah, he definitely made an impact outside of shooting threes. He was a huge part of the Bulls getting out the gate strong last night and then made multiple nice plays down the stretch too.
I'm not saying he was amazing last night or anything like that, but he was good overall.
The East is so bad right now that it makes predicting anything hard. I would assume that the Bucks and Sixers will get better, but it’s hard to predict health. I know Embiid is supposed to be back this week, but how many games is he going to play the rest of the season? Fifty games seems high for him.
The wild thing is that pre-season I could imagine every team out west other than Portland and Utah being as high as a #4 seed this year and with the exception of the Pelicans (who are a trauma unit) that's proving out. Fun with small samples, but the Mavericks would be the #3 seed in the East and as of right now would not even qualify for the play-in out West. This obviously will even out, but I don't see anyone out there I don't envy.
Reluctant to trade Vuc while he's playing out of his mind. What do you even say lol.
“OH MAN, I WOULD *HATE* TO LOSE SUCH A PRODUCTIVE PLAYER, BUT I HAVE NO CHOICE! He’s…uh…(don’t say “overpaid” or “crappy”)… uh, he’s sleeping with the Benny’s wife, maybe? We’d love to keep him, but orders are orders — all Vooches must go!”
Yeah, that sentence alone summarises the perfectly how bad the Bulls front office is lol
That's a bit of paraphrasing and I don't mean to say Stein said they won't trade him *because* he's playing out of his mind. But Stein said they weren't looking to move Vuc yet (and Vuc happens to be playing out of his mind)
Ah I see. I thought maybe AK's conscience wouldn't let him treat other GMs the way they treat him.
Absurdly, I think Vuc is going to be tradable because there have already been a lot of centers on teams that are actually trying to win that got hurt.
* Hornets. Mark Williams and Nick Ward
* OKC. Chet, Hartenstein, JWill
* Lakers. AD
* Pacers. Both their backup centers, Wiseman and Isaiah Jackson suffered torn achilles. Weird.
* Knicks. Mitchell Robinson
* Philly. Embiid... they are already about to bench Drummond
Whether any team would actually give up something and have the contracts to make a trade work is a totally different thing. I think it's underestimated right now that the trade rules for contending teams have gotten so restrictive that it's actually hard to make a trade work.
I think that motivation is stronger if Vuc's contract was only for this year
Listen, can we just admit that a trade to Philly would be the funniest outcome?
(Also accepted nominations for Orlando.)
At the same time, them not trading him *because* he’s playing out of his mind is also possible. Going from “we have to trade him because he’s not worth his contract” to “he’s playing well and worth his contract; we have to keep him” is not just AKME, but just very Bulls in general.
They’d much rather do something that holds value in the short-term than something that might hold greater value long-term.
Rumor has it AK has a sign in his office that reads, "Whatever you do, don't sell high!"
Dalen Terry's "Defended Field Goal Percentage" is 30%. That's way below everybody else. That would be the lowest on the Celtics, that would be the lowest on the Cavs. His twitchiness, length and motor give him the foundation for a great defensive player, and now with his added strength and his reigned-in offensive play he's getting the chance to prove it.
Alex Caruso is at 28.3%, best on the Thunder.
Now Peter Patton just needs to teach him how to shoot.
What does everyone credit that growth to? Billy & the Bull's staff? Natural growth? Growth at the expense of other growth (defense vs offense, maybe?) Something else?
I think the biggest thing is he's put on some muscle. He's always shown flashes of defensive talent. In years past though, he's generally just been bullied by other teams. It also helps that it seems like he's guarding other guards more, whereas I feel like in the past he was being matched up against forwards.
I don't buy it, I'm still starting a change dot org petition lobbying Elon Musk to shoot Dalen Terry into the sun. Maybe the worst player on this team getting minutes.
That's the problem, isn't it? His defense looks incredibly good in short bursts. The problem is it's not consistently good enough to make up for the fact that he's a complete non-factor on offense.
It's really bad. He actually seems to get a lot of hockey assists or at least makes good passes, so I get what scouts saw there (i.e, Junior Troy Brown Jr.) But his shot is terrible and on drives he now hears footsteps after blowing so many fastbreak layups and dunks.
I mean, I’ve been saying this…
Cavs thread is UP https://open.substack.com/chat/posts/68282022-9ed7-4f26-a970-2458b9181897
now that's a team with continuity.
For the 2nd straight game, Giddey sat down the stretch (the final 3:31 this time). So either it is a similar problem as existed in OKC despite different personnel, or Billy Donovan doesn't know what he's doing. Both can also be true but I think not.
This is also the "it" of the post title. I don't think Giddey's a future star but if you believe that way you just can't sit your future star point guard down in the clutch of a 4 point game. He was getting completely savaged so it wasn't unjustified by the rules of "playing to win." It actually looked worse than it is represented by statistics as some keystone cops moments were saved from permanent highlight status by the Cavs missing shots or bobbling the ball. There was one play in the 4th when Ty Jerome seemed to nutmeg the ball between Giddey's legs (but probably just a really good bounce pass), went back door on him, caught it but it came off his hands for a TO. It was the very rare sequence when one player seems to be repeatedly victimized on the same possession.
I know it's unfashionable, but there is actually a lot of data to suggest that game playing time is basically irrelevant for development.
https://x.com/nicidob/status/1152411949059256320
I read another article, maybe one Tyger or Moon cited that suggested that at most, the benefit of playing time in actual games only required like 800-1000 minutes of PT in a season. That's enough to give you all the benefit there is. If there is any.
This makes sense because the vast majority of development comes from practice. Players, especially young ones, spend a huge amount more time practicing than they do playing. Orders of magnitude more.
I also strongly believe that people respond to incentives. Giddey isn't spectacular or anything, but a guy with his offensive feel shouldn't be so terrible. He'll never be great, but he doesn't even get in a fucking proper stance. He obviously has no idea what to do about half the time.
Point is, I'm totally fine with sitting him at key points and giving him the clear message that if he wants to play, he needs to clean that shit up.
More than fine, in fact. If they never make him learn that lesson, he never will. This is the actual "development" problem the Bulls are facing with Giddey. Playing time needs to be a reward for good effort and putting in the work to develop.
I'm not saying he shouldn't play at all, but the expectations need to be set or they will set themselves.
I suppose a bigger concern than 'why isn't Donovan just leaving Giddey out there to stink?' is 'why does Giddey stink so much?' , and the unending dread that AK will say he doesn't know, wait and see etc. and give Giddey a contract based on his prior favor towards him
In which case, you should also be in favor of Giddey sitting whenever appropriate.
Because that takes away cover for just pretending everything is OK and giving Giddey a new contract. Maybe it'll still happen, but that way it has to happen over the pretty obvious issue of "this guy stinks and is routinely benched in crunch time".
"If they never make him learn that lesson, he never will."
He's been sitting on the bench at crucial moments for the last 12 months. At least last year he had something he could wave a towel about.
This was a most incredible contrast. Zach LaVine was actually playing defense for significant stretches in the game. The reason was clearly because of the competition with Donovan Mitchell, who Zach believes he's at least equal to if not better. Like DeMar, you can see from these moments that Zach can actually do it. I've seen no evidence of this from Giddey. He doesn't have moments of competency. He has moments of "standing in the right place at the right time, sometimes." He seems totally unfamiliar with most of the concepts, a blank slate. I have never seen that at this level. Maybe someone like Michael Olowokandi who started playing basketball when he was 17 or something.
>> If they never make him learn that lesson, he never will.
> He's been sitting on the bench at crucial moments for the last 12 months. At least last year he had something he could wave a towel about.
At every point though, he's been given an out. When he was getting benched on the Thunder, he could say it was for better players and it meant something.
His whole trade request was him trying to pretend it wasn't a problem.
Always with an excuse. I say, keep holding his feet to the fire. Maybe he never gets it. Probably he won't. But he damn sure won't if they don't hold him accountable.
This play is incredible https://www.nba.com/stats/events?CFID=&CFPARAMS=&GameEventID=631&GameID=0022400212&Season=2024-25&flag=1&title=Garland%202%27%20Driving%20Finger%20Roll%20Layup%20(15%20PTS)
Wade just grabs Ayo and walks him down the lane. Giddey thinks he's still there, takes the wrong angle entirely, the lane is wide open, Vuc, who doesn't protect the rim anyways is hindered by Ayo and Wade, easy bucket for Garland.
Yep, the Jerome play I mentioned is "Unvailable" but it was I believe the one at 5:50 about a minute before this.
On the other end Giddey went down and missed one of his patented 4 footers and then suddenly he wasn't there anymore.
This is fucking surreal, the guy was on the verge of a phantom triple double ("Josh Giddey is an Almost Triple Double Machine!") yet he is so terrible when it matters that he's unplayable. Any smart team is going to hunt him, like you said in the game thread, and I don't even think St. Alex of Caruso standing next to him would help.
NBA dot com doesn't make porn available
What's Giddey's offensive role in the 4th anyways? Do they play ball movement or do they play iso, cause Coby and LaVine want to play iso, and maybe you want the ball in Coby's hands down the stretch. If it's with Coby, then Giddey is useless.
it was an interesting postgame discussion at Chuggo, the usual guys were puffing up LaVine (Gottlieb: "I thought he wasn't a winner????" - didn't they lose and he had a late-game TO?) and Will Perdue mentioned that the 4th quarter was antithetical of the 'new era' with Zach bringing up the ball and pounding
LOL at Chuggo
If you give a $20 superchat can they force Will Perdue to do some coin tricks with his hands
There's a trick with a knife I'm learning to do
Can't wait for Billy to sit Giddey to close out the vast majority of games over the remainder of the season and then for AK to extend him at like $30 million a year claiming he's part of this team's new core. And then for no reporters to ask why they'd extend a guy at that kind of money if he can't even be trusted to close games.
Giddey wasn't benched for quite as long. Matas had an even shorter stint.
but the effective age in that game was on the side of the youth movement Bulls. 25.86 years versus 27.0 for the Cavs.
is this anything? Patrick Williams blocked against (p100poss)
2021-22: 0.8
2022-23: 0.8
2023-24: 1.2
2024-25: 1.1
He's shooting 34% inside the arc, lowest % of attempts and makes at the rim in his career
and here is his put in the basket by Evan Mobley https://videos.nba.com/nba/pbp/media/2024/11/11/0022400212/303/c420bcae-337a-b429-cab6-ef2e4f35bd55_1280x720.mp4
I don't want to do a full 'what's wrong with Pat' post because *both sides* means I'd have to do a 'Vuc is shooting well' post. I'll give it 20 games.
His first 11 games last year were _really_ bad. Dude might be a slow starter, and he had an injury this summer... or he might always have an injury in the summer.
why did they rush him back into the season? It just would've *felt bad* if he wasn't ready? They already signed the extension
Tank commander?
Jk, we know they're not actually tanking.
It really suck that he stinks so bad. His archetype would have been a really fun player.
With another couple years of hard work Dalen Terry is going to develop into Talen Horton-Tucker.
It’s funny how this team kind of feels like they’re overachieving yet they have the 4th worst point differential in the East and they’re only 1.5 games ahead of the 14th seed.
This could be a year where the 10th seed in the East and the 15th seed are separated by about 3 games. If the difference between having a legitimate shot at an elite prospect and potentially losing our pick is a few pointless wins, then you need to trade LaVine and Vuc as soon as possible. I don’t want a scrappy 32 win team. I want a “I don’t think it’s possible for them to win 25 games no matter how hard they try” team. It’s the only way to change the fortunes of this incredibly poorly run franchise.
When I say "I think they'll be better than what people think." I don't mean they'll be good. I mean that I think they'll lose plenty of games with a bad point differential, but there will be nights when they're playing surprisingly competent and gain a win. Like, I bet they'll have the win differential of a 24-28 win team (~30-35% win percentage), but instead of losing that one game by 1 or 2 they'll be just good enough to win it. Over 82 games, that would make them a (~40% win %age) a 32-34 win team.
Kind of off topic, but can someone much smarter than me explain Coby and Ayo's contract situation? Like I know the Bulls can only offer a certain percentage more than those guys are currently making. Does that make it basically impossible to re-sign White after next year if he continues to look like an almost-All-Star?
My understanding is that due to the veteran extension rules they are capped at offering an 140% raise based on the last year of the current contract, or 140% of the average player salary, whichever is higher. That is, unless they clear cap space, in which case they can use the cap space to increase the offer. They could also wait until free agency, and I think at that point they could go over the salary cap to re-sign, but that comes with increased risk since there are no matching rights, and you could lose them for no return.
Mort Stig Jensen has an article about the dynamics around the vet extension stuff here: https://www.forbes.com/sites/mortenjensen/2024/05/18/the-nbas-new-140-veteran-extension-is-a-problem/?sh=7222a3263e16. He mentions both Coby and Ayo, as well as in a different article specifically about them: https://www.forbes.com/sites/mortenjensen/2024/05/22/ayo-dosunmus-big-leap-might-have-made-him-too-expensive-for-the-bulls/
Thank you!
"nobody-wants-them" rankings.
1) Ben Simmons
2) Trae Young
3) Dame Lillard
4) LaVine
Not sure if there's anybody else in this category, but LaVine has made progress here and maybe shouldn't even be on this list with these other 3.
Bulls have been better with LaVine than without him this season, that's a big change.
Is this ranked most or least wanted?
Ha, Ben Simmons at the top! least wanted to less-least wanted.
Has Ben
I might be really off but I think executives have had the right read on LaVine longer than we have and it really hasn't changed.
It's time: time to see if he ever figures his shit out, and time to wear off that onerous contract. Both of these are better done with the Bulls than paying a $40 million 3rd option for several years.
Think Zach should probably sit down with his grandpop and question how he let Klutch misread the situation so badly. They like to use use words like "brand" but being a good scorer on a lousy team that *nobody will trade for* is a hell of a hit to your brand. That was true anyway, but it's better not to prove it to the entire world with an ill-fated trade demand, timed for when he was playing the worst basketball of his career since he was recovering from a blown out knee.
just in time: KNICKS GAME THREAD AND ROSTER SNAPSHOT: https://open.substack.com/chat/posts/c9ba0ba4-3888-4ed5-808b-a847d109a46b
Massive Negative Impact
Bulls doing me a favor by following this pattern last few games and not necessitating a new post.
Against Knicks: Vuc stays hot, LaVine is doing his usual (great shooting then late-game turnovers), and they win some and lose some based on the opponents' fatigue and some clutch luck. Donovan making some of his own luck by benching Josh Giddey down the stretch every game now (Ayo was particularly great in NY)
Buzelis did play 12 minutes instead of 2. Had 3 blocks in that time which is pretty notable.
I don't quite get the praise of Patrick Williams (citation: Chuggo post-game), he hit 3/4 threes but when not doing that looks like crap
Dalen Terry's "good games" streak ends at ... 2? a -23 in ten and a half minutes
if Brunson simply holds on to this bad pass, it's Zach throwing away another game
instead Ayo grabbed it and was fouled in the process
https://videos.nba.com/nba/pbp/media/2024/11/13/0022400219/637/7c606ed4-78ec-e121-a205-cb9f7aef9698_1280x720.mp4
Ayo played 12 4th quarter minutes last night. He's gotten off to a very slow start to the season, but is picking up steam.
It still blows my mind that AK saw how Ayo played at the end of last year and decided that the Bulls needed a point guard. I like how Giddey distributes the ball, and during the part of the game where defense matters less I think Giddey does a great job of keeping things fast, but Ayo is the better player and I'm glad Donovan is playing him in the 4th.
"I don't quite get the praise of Patrick Williams (citation: Chuggo post-game), he hit 3/4 threes but when not doing that looks like crap"
Over the course of the season, yes he's been bad other than shooting threes and playing defense. Last night though? Nah, he definitely made an impact outside of shooting threes. He was a huge part of the Bulls getting out the gate strong last night and then made multiple nice plays down the stretch too.
I'm not saying he was amazing last night or anything like that, but he was good overall.