The Chicago Bulls Are…Good?

The Chicago Bulls Are…Good?

The Chicago Bulls are one of the last three undefeated teams left in basketball. What What is this league that we love? A couple weeks ago, before the season started, I made a video about the one thing slash one player on the Chicago Bulls that I was the most excited for. Of course, that was Modus Bellas. And my expectation going to the season was fun, but not so good NBA team. So far, through the first five games, we’ve been good. And I I don’t I don’t know how to balance the feelings and emotions attached to being 5-0 right now, right? Um the people that are in the numbers will let you know that the opposing teams are shooting historically bad against the Chicago Bulls. And maybe just them, the teams that we go against shooting league average, that 5-0 start is not nearly 5-0. That real time regression is is coming. But could is it really just that simple? like are the the reason that the Bulls are 5-0 just because the opposing teams can’t shoot against them right now or is there something else happening? Is there a combination of the two things? I don’t know. I want to say this. The last 25 games the Bulls have played again dating back to last season. The Bulls are 20 and five. 20 and five is something we say about the OKC Thunder, about the Cleveland Cavaliers, the the Denver Nuggets. Not the Bulls. that Archunis Carne is a guy who I’ve been so damn critical of over the last four years that he accidentally find something or was it even an accident to start off with? Was his whole plan was to get the the rag time group of mix misfits to run the NBA. One of the questions I had going to the season on the Kenny Beum podcast. Oh, it’s not even called that no more on Small Ball with Kenny Beichum when I did an episode where I was talking about one question I had about all 30 teams in the NBA going into the season. The question I had about the Bulls was, “Will any of your reclamation projects work?” The way the Bulls have ran their organization over the last couple seasons, all of the traits they made are getting pieces that have showed that they can be okay basketball players, but haven’t been working out at the previous stop. Kevin Herder was a part of a team that went to the conference finals with the Atlanta Hawks. He got to the Sacramento Kings. They were lighting a beam. It was great. And then the second year of that, it wasn’t good. Jaylen Smith was a former top 10 pick that had been on a couple different teams. Josh Giddy was a young promising player that before the season where OKC was the one seed made to the postseason a few years ago. He was on every 25 under 25 list but he got to the postseason and he couldn’t play. Isro was the top what five was he number five in that draft number five number six in that year’s draft class and he was traded away for a road player. So, the entire identity of the Bulls from the front office perspective is to get guys that we’ve seen be good or have still potential to be good, throw them on the same team and see what happens. And again, through five games, it’s kind of been working good. But it’s the there’s the the lima of it all because I just I’ve watched the scrimmages of Camboozer. I watched the scrimmages of Darren Peterson. I watched the scrimmages of all the top end guys who just look like automatic superstars in basketball one day, right? And this is the year we might be might be good. Now, I was listening to No Dunks and Trey Kirby had a stat that said that he went through all of the teams that started off 4-0. Um, I’m sure that number has changed now that the Bulls are 5-0 and a few teams that started off 4-0 in recent history didn’t make the postseason, right? So, that’s not out of the realm of possibility for the Chicago Bulls. And maybe we show that there’s something here, but we still keep a lottery pick. I don’t know. Um, and one of those teams, funny enough, ended up being a Vousvich team from the Orlando Magic where they started off 4-0 and still missed the postseason. They won 21 games. So there there is a scenario where this is lightning in the bottle, right case uh, right scenario where the Orlando Magic still haven’t figured it out. The Atlanta Hawks still haven’t figured it out. The Detroit Piston only had one ball handler. Um, the Sacramento Kings are the Sacramento Kings and then the Knicks are still dealing with their own troubles of trying to figure out what the hell they’re doing under Mike Brown. So there’s a world where the Bulls just there’s a 0.00 001% chance they started off 5-0 and they did it. Like that that’s a possibility, right? But it’s also part of me that sees like what the hell Billy Donovan is trying to incorporate. I I I’ve never like I mean maybe I have now that I think about it. I’ve talked about the Bulls so much in my life that maybe is squeaked out before, but from my understanding off the top of my head, I don’t think I’ve ever been a guy that’s disliked Billy Donovan. I’ve always disliked some people on the roster. I’ve disliked the people that are running the show. But Billy Donovan is a Hall of Fame co for a reason. Like I understand that most of his success have come uh in in in college realm when he won championships with Florida, but if you think about his NBA tenure, he has been able to get the most talent out of a lot of different rosters. A team that has 0.2% chance to make the postseason. Billy Donovan said, “Oh, we going to run a triple point guard lineup between Shay, uh Chris Paul, and Dennis Shruder and not just make the postseason. We’re going to be in the four five matchup.” Like Billy Donovan has been able to to raise the ceiling on a couple different teams. Maybe that’s what’s happening right now because though the opposing teams are not shooting well from three behind them, the Bulls are dead last and giving up threes. Actually, let me bring up some statistics about it all because it has been a super fascinating goal right now. All right, we’ll start off here that goes through the offensive and defensive ratings and everything of every NBA team filtering out garbage time. The Bulls right now are top 10 in offense and top 10 in defense, which in other cases being top 10 on both means you’re a contender. Obviously, five games table size. All these numbers are going to shift throughout the course of it all, but we are the sixth ranked defense and the fourth ranked offense right now. And if we continued this, we are playing like a team that is a 62- win team. Holy [ __ ] Um, let’s say it again. The Bulls are playing basketball as if they are a 62- win team. There’s also a team out there playing like they’re 71 team, but that’s Wimyama’s great defense and all. Um, the Dallas Mavericks 30th and Oh jeez. Um, the defense is good. So, here are the shots that the Bulls are giving up. The last two seasons, as you can see, it has been a point where Billy Donovan has wanted opposing teams to not shoot threes. Right now, teams are only shooting 26% of their shots from three against the Bulls. That’s crazy. The league average is 38 and a let me get that over. The league average is 38 and a half. So, you know, Bulls are forcing teams to shoot 8%. This is the I guess this is the different number. I don’t know why it would be a different number. shooting 8% less threes per game. And not only are they bottom in the amount of threes they’re giving up, they’re bottom when it comes to percentage of threes that those teams are making. Again, league average is about 36%. There are six a 6% difference between what players are shooting against the Bulls versus what they’re shooting against an average NBA, another NBA team. And then it’s like how what percentage of that is luck and what percentage of that is good defense? The reality is, if I had to put it into percentages, I would say 80% of that is luck and 20% of that is schematic. I mean, again, I’ve watched every single possession in all these games. Some of these games we’re just leaving a certain certain player wide open from three and he just so happened to miss it. Hell, last night when they went against the New York Knicks, we were up by 23 points. And part of the reason why the Knicks were able to bring that game back is because Muel Bridges and Ojanobi got so many corner open three-pointer shots and they they made them, right? So, there’s there’s probably like 80 20 75 25 as the number versus uh luck versus schematics. And again, in this video, I’m playing like devil’s advocate to myself because I I’ve got to say that I’ I’ve loved watching this team. Um, even dating back to last season, I I thought that again, last year’s was lightning in the bottle, right? So, that’s why this season I came into like, yeah, we’re going to be bad. We were just really good at the end of last season for whatever reason. Josh Getty turned into Superman. Um, this is the thing that scares me the most. If you’re the most optimistic Bulls fan, hey, not only are we good, we’re going to be a top six seed in the Eastern Conference, which I can’t say is impossible, but I’m going to say unlikely. Is this stat called the location effective field goal percentage? If this team allowed the league average field goal from from each location, what would their opponent’s field goal effective field goal percentage be? Basically, based on your shot diet, if the teams you were going against were shooting averely, how good would you be? The Bulls are 29th. The Bulls are 29th. That’s not good. If I had to remind you, that’s not good. Now, 29th is by like two percentages, right? So, maybe I’m being a little bit dramatic, but the difference between 29th and I don’t know, 15th is literally 2%. Right? It’s literally 2%. So, maybe that’s not even We don’t even care about that no more. I changed my math. Damn it. It don’t matter. We here. the opposite side of that on the offensive side, we’re number one in that same exact statistic by a percentage between us and the number two spot. So, it’s it’s just interesting. I mean, there’s so many players that are currently on our roster that are having career years, right? Josh Giddy has been phenomenal. I I know that like he’s one of those players that there are times where you watch and you would look at the box score and say, “Oh, he ended up with 1877. It didn’t feel like his impact was that positive.” And then there’s other times you watch like last night against the New York Knicks, you’re like, “Oh [ __ ] he is the best player on the entire court.” I don’t think there’s ever going to well maybe not ever, but like sometimes the advanced stats or onoff numbers or yada yada yada don’t really tell the full story of Josh Giddy. Um, and I feel like that might be the case earlier in the season. There was times where um especially during the preseason, maybe the first couple games of the year that the Bulls start off the game, they were down 16 to6 and then Josh Giddy went to the bench and I sumu came into the game and then the Bulls tie the game up while Josh Giddy was on the bench. Also, I sumu is another one of those advanced stats hate like the advanced stats hate Josh Giddy. I mean I sumu. He’s like one of the worst players in the entire league according to his advanced stats. And that’s why I always tell people you can’t just be a statsoriented person. You got to watch these games because Aayodumu has hit at like a clutch shot in every [ __ ] game we’ve had this season. At least one, some games, three clutch shots in a single fourth quarter. So, it won’t tell the full story of Ayoduma as a player, but I would say he’s having a career year. Josh Giddy is having a career year. Musalis obviously with him only being in year number two. Kevin Hurder looks like the player that we saw a few years back. But not only just that, Kevin Herder has sneakily been a really good defensive player. His hands are really active when people are trying to get blown by him and he’s getting his hands in a cookie jar. Trey Jones was kind of like this misfit player of a guard that can’t shoot. But somehow when the ball is in his hands, good things happen time and time again. Patrick Williams, who he gave up hope on, looks like a real ball player. Like everybody’s looking good. And that’s unless your name is Isaac Coral. That’s got to be scary. Vousvich continues to look good. That’s got to be scary because this had to be some type of regression. Seven out of the eight players in your rotation can’t all have career years. It’s it’s it’s unprecedented. It just doesn’t happen. And we don’t even have Kobe White. We don’t have Kobe White who, if you ask majority of people going into the season, even though Josh Giddy ended very well, most people tell you that Kobe White is the best player on the Chicago Bulls. He has not played a single second just yet. And I don’t even know when he’s supposed to come back. And guess what? They’re playing so well. I ain’t even thought to Google it. Damn it. I ain’t even I didn’t even thought about him being on that bench right now. Um, so things are going well. And again, kind of toying with the emotions of having a good team without a good team because I feel like that’s the best way to describe the Chicago Bulls. They’re a good team that’s that is not constructed to be a good team. Even after we traded Zack Lavine away um during February’s trade deadline, Artunes Carneas was asking Bulls fans to give him a couple years. This he didn’t envision this team being 5-0, right? This team is not built to be good. But if you end up being good while not being built to be good, then I think you’re lowering the overall ceiling of your franchise. Let me explain that. If the Bulls one were winning enough to be a real playoff team, we talking like top six, there still is not a bunch of avenues to go get a star player, which is what you need to really win in this league. It is so cool that the power of friendship has been so great to be 5 and0. And hell, I hope it continues to go to some extent. I mean, but I do recognize that unless Josh Giddy turns into like a real superstar or maybe Might as well is going to be that guy, finding a superstar is hard to do if you don’t have a top pick. you obviously can hit. I mean, Giannis was not a lottery. Big Jokic was a second router. Like, we can go on about success stories, but for every success story, there is a thousand guys that were drafted 16th that not that didn’t end up being Alen Shining. You know what I mean? And it’s not as like this Chicago Bulls team has done such a great job with drafting in those back spots that you feel like, oh yeah, if we have the 16 pick, that’s fine. We got lucky with Mile as Ellis. He was the projected a top three pick like three months before the draft started. He somehow fell to 11. Patrick Williams was drafted four with Hallebert and Maxi and hell of people on the board. Ida Sum was a good pick. That’s Chicago’s very own. We gota love for that. But this this front office has not drafting well enough for me to think that yeah, we’ll be able to put together a good I mean Dalen Ter shout out to my boy DT. He was drafted right outside the lottery. He don’t he got eight total minutes on the season. Eight this many. This one hand the two hands I can that’s how many minutes he’s played. But again playing devil’s advocate to my devil’s advocate. The Bulls have hella um cap space this year. And I think about the players that are currently gonna be a free agent for us like a Kevin Herder or uh Zack Holland who has yet to play this regular season, Jaylen Smith. A lot of those guys I feel like we can retain without bumping too much into that cap space. So maybe there’s a world where most of this team is back next season and the way we get better is using cap space to trade or using cap space to sign a star player. I don’t I don’t know. Um, what I will say is that I’m having so much fun watching this team and I’m fully prepared for the sky to fall. I’m fully prepared to go through a stretch where the Bulls lose five straight games and I like, you know what I’m saying? I’m I’m prepared for it. I don’t know, man. This team’s been fun. It’s a lovable group of guys. Uh, the social media team, I know y’all don’t care because you’re not a Bulls fan. The social media team has been killing it, giving us these videos of locker room speeches just like the Chicago Bears, Bear Down. Um, and it’s been so fun. to see a team with zero expectations go against a team against like the Knicks who have championship aspirations and be like you in Chicago baby this is our city now we go against them again tomorrow and they may spank that ass whatever you know the entire first couple weeks of the season is literally all about overreacting anyway right if if the Bulls were not if this same exact team was existing and doing this not named Chicago Bulls I’d probably be more optimistic because it’s not my team there’s just a little piece of me that just recognized that Chicago sports are always [ __ ] since 1999 Nah. So, like I I’m I’m ready for the sky to fall. And if it does, cool. If it doesn’t, cool.

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