The BluePrint

Good to be back. The Bulls are currently playing the Cavs as I'm typing this, but in my area the game isn't shown. But I think its fitting that I'm not even seeing the game because in all actuality the individual games don't matter anymore. What is more important than one game is the states of these two similar teams. Even the most insanely optimistic of fans cannot see the Bulls reaching their preseason goals of the playoffs. But the time of reflection on what went wrong and what needs to be done can be done at greater depth and breadth at the end of the year. For now I want to discuss a team that is close to reaching the goal that the Bulls set: tonight's opponents, the Cavs. 

How similar are the two teams? Well speaking in the terms of current rebuilding phase, they are both teams that are looking to make a return to respectability. They have both very young talent as well as some imported veterans. And hell, the two GMs are brothers.

Cavaliers Roster
	2003-04 Roster
	NUM	PLAYER	POS	DOB	FROM	YRS
	4	Tony Battie	C-F	2/11/1976	Texas Tech '98	6
	1	Carlos Boozer	F-C	11/20/1981	Duke '03	1
	44	Ruben Boumtje Boumtje(IR)	C	5/20/1978	Georgetown '01	2
	3	J.R. Bremer(IR)	G	9/19/1980	St. Bonaventure '02	1
	5	Kedrick Brown	G-F	3/18/1981	Okaloosa-Walton CC FL (J.C.) '03	2
	52	DeSagana Diop	F	1/30/1982	Oak Hill Academy HS (VA)	2
	11	Zydrunas Ilgauskas	C	6/5/1975	Lithuania	5
	23	LeBron James	G	12/30/1984	St. Vincent-St. Mary HS (OH)	R
	24	Jason Kapono	F	2/2/1981	UCLA '03	R
	0	Jeff McInnis	G	10/22/1974	North Carolina '97	6
	14	Ira Newble	F	1/20/1975	Miami (Ohio) '97	3
	12	Kevin Ollie	G	12/27/1972	Connecticut '95	6
	2	Dajuan Wagner	G	2/4/1983	Memphis '05	1
	55	Eric Williams	F-G	7/17/1972	Providence '95	8

 

I'll start with the vets first, and how they compare  the Bulls. The Cav organization can really thank Celtics GM Danny Ainge for giving them 2 hard-working role players in Tony Battie and Eric Williams in the Ricky Davis swap. These are the types of players that coaches love, especially former Celtics coach Jim O'Brien who said that dealing Williams and Battie away was the leading factor in his abrupt resignation. Are Battie and Williams better mid-season additions than Antonio Davis and Jerome Williams? I think they're actually quite even, although in terms of age and salary the Cavs players have the advantage. They also have good veterans in the backcourt with the recently acquired Jeff McInnis and former Bull Kevin Ollie. Actually along with J.R. Bremer they have 3 point guards better than Rick Brunson. But is the difference in bench players really accountable for the two teams' contrasting fortunes? There's actually a far more obvious reason.

What wins in the NBA is the stars. Obviously the term 'star' is relative, its probably better to say 'core players' of the team. And that moreso than the supporting cast is what separates these two teams. On the Bulls' side you can say that the team's fortune rides on Curry, Chandler, Crawford, and Hinrich. It says volumes that Hinrich is probably the most consistent of the group, and as a result the team play is inherently inconsistent. For the Cavaliers, they obviously have a young star in James. But they also have consistent play from Carlos Boozer and Big Z. Boozer in fact is emerging as one of the premier young frontcourt players in the East. James' brilliance this year has really given the team something that the Bulls are still looking for in their young players, a leader to take them to the playoffs.

So while on the surface the teams have similar personnel and status, the Cavaliers are on the brink of the playoffs for a reason. Their marquee talent is simply outplaying the Bulls' counterparts all year, and that makes more of a difference than any fine tuning the brothers Paxson could do to their teams. Hey...but it looks like the Bulls won while I typed this all up :)

 

My Apologies

It's been a pretty busy week for me, sorry for the lack of posts. I'll be back next week. Luckily the Bulls keep playing terrible so there's little to write about anymore. till next time...

Stat Boy

Little going on in the world of the Chicago Bulls. Even the extremely faint dose of optimism was extinguished over the weekend after two weekend losses to the Kings and Grizzlies. Even when the team is playing relatively well, its hard to expect to beat teams that are actually...how you say.... "good". I wasn't able to actually catch the games this weekend, but like I said last week, the team looks a little better since the return of Tyson Chandler. Thanks to Doug's stat page, looking up stats for the previous 10 games is a snap. This 10-game span started the game before Tyson came back, at the Golden State Warriors. So on with the tables:

Player	G	M/Gm	FG%	3PT%	APG	RPG	PPG
crawford,jamal	10	34.50	0.383	0.288	4.3	4.5	18.3
curry,eddy	10	30.90	0.514	1.000	1.5	6.8	17.9
hinrich,kirk	10	38.10	0.374	0.386	7.9	4.0	13.0
robinson,eddie	10	28.80	0.539	0.500	1.4	2.6	10.5
jefferies,chris	2	12.00	0.429	0.500	0.5	1.5	8.5
fizer,marcus	5	16.40	0.444	1.000	0.4	3.6	8.2
pippen,scottie	3	16.70	0.412	0.500	2.3	3.0	6.3
williams,jerome	10	23.10	0.488	0.000	1.5	6.2	6.0
davis,antonio	10	28.40	0.296	0.000	1.4	7.8	5.0
dupree,ronald	10	10.90	0.279	0.000	0.6	2.1	3.8
chandler,tyson	9	17.60	0.381	0.000	0.6	6.1	3.6
blount,corie	6	12.50	0.333	0.000	0.8	2.8	3.3
brunson,rick	8	11.10	0.450	0.500	1.6	1.4	2.6

 

Those numbers represent the "traditional" stats, sorted by PPG. As much crap as I (and most of the media) puts on Jamal Crawford, he has been averaging 18ppg over the past 10 games. However I think this number should be in the mid 20s considering his responsibility as a main scoring threat. Crawford's inability to make that 'leap' in performance to put him along the great scoring guards is one of several things keeping the team back. Having Tyson Chandler play only 18 minutes a game doesn't help his numbers either. I can only assume the team is simply being cautious with him. below are some more stats, these are the analytical ones derived using John Hollinger's stat methods. He has made better and more inclusive models to evaluate performance, but cut me some slack here :).

Player	PSA	Ast Ratio	TO Ratio
crawford,jamal	0.98	16.91	9.44
curry,eddy	1.09	7.35	12.25
hinrich,kirk	0.99	33.92	9.87
robinson,eddie	1.12	11.53	11.53
jefferies,chris	1.14	5.30	15.89
fizer,marcus	0.99	3.90	15.60
pippen,scottie	1.04	25.62	7.32
williams,jerome	1.12	19.59	10.45
davis,antonio	0.66	13.75	11.78
dupree,ronald	0.75	8.83	16.20
chandler,tyson	0.96	10.57	19.02
blount,corie	0.67	12.50	12.50
brunson,rick	1.03	31.37	19.31

Without knowing what this means those numbers don't mean jack. Here's the cliffs notes,for the actual formulas and such, get Hollinger's book, its pretty neat-o.

• PSA = points per shot attempt. Takes your total points divided by shots. And throws in a little wrinkle for free throws. For reference, last year Eddy Curry lead the league in FG%, and also in PSA, with 1.234. This weighs heavily towards players who are near the basket and 3-point specialists, which makes Eddie Robinson's performance look really impressive, considering that his game is mainly mid-range jumpshots.
• Ast Ratio = Shows the percentage of assists per possessions used. For reference, the highest percentage last season was Brevin Knight at 40.8, and lowest was Etan Thomas with 1.5. This stat shows how much farther Eddy has to go with his passing...and also re-affirming Marcus Fizer's reputation as the 'black hole'.
• TO Ratio = Same as assist ratio, but instead with turnovers. Obviously here a lower score is better. Check out the difference between Kirk Hinrich and Rick Brunson. Pax, get somebody from the NBDL please....anybody to take Brunson's spot.

I was going to do Rebounding Rate...but for some reason the numbers didn't work out at all, so forget it. It is very important to keep in mind with  these stats, traditional and non-traditional, that 10 games (or less for some players here) is an incredibly small sample size of data and its hard to draw any conclusions. But they're fun to look at.

At the end of the season I'll try and do a comprehensive list of Bulls' stats. This was just a little sample, hopefully it didn't bore you too much. The more complex stuff should be easier to calculate at the end of the season, like Usage Rate, Offensive Percentage, and PER.