Introducing: The Skiles-O-Meter

No, it's not quite the statistical resource that Knickerblogger's stat page is, but I wanted to find a way to track what's going on in the world of Scott Skiles. So what I have been tracking is every rotation player's mpg over the course of the season. This allows one to see over time what players are falling in and out of favor with the coach.

One difference that I have implemented from the standard mpg is that when a player gets a DNP-SD(Skiles' decision), that is recorded as 0 minutes instead of not counting it as a game played (like it is when a player is suspended or injured).

I'll be updating this throughout the season, and hopefully it'll see that Gordon line spike up while the Duhon line falls. More on THAT in the future.

Smith Waived: One player who won't be in the Skiles-o-Meter will be rookie Tommy Smith, who after failing to get off the IR this season, was released today. January 10th is the day when all non-guaranteed contracts (Smith, Pargo, Duhon, Reiner) become guaranteed for the season, so its possible that after then Smith will be re-signed to a 10-day contract or two. The team also may look towards filling this roster spot externally, as there will be a few players around the league looking for work after this date.

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Bulls beat Hornets: The Bulls eeked out a victory against the hapless New Orleans Hornets tonight, 95-89. With Eddy Curry back from his flu-induced absence, the Bulls were in control for much of the game. It got close at points, and the Bulls tried their damndest to blow it and cause me to scream at my radio (again, no Comcast). But the crunch-time of Curry,Chandler,Deng,Gordon and Hinrich got the job done. In case you forgot, that lineup has an average age of 21.6 years. A scary, but valuable experience for the youngins. Even though their opponent had 2 wins on the season, a close road victory should give them confidence for the upcoming 5 game homestand.

This non-post brought to you by Comcast Sports Net Chicago

Get your game on! Unless you have Dish Network of course, then you can suck an egg. I think they cut that last part out of their official slogan, but actions speak louder than words, since I still don't get the channel that is showing nearly half of the Bulls games this season.

Tonight's was one of them, a close loss to the Pistons. Eddy Curry didn't play because of the flu, and from the looks of the 87-80 final score, he probably could've helped. On the bright side though, this is the first game that a rotation player has missed due to injury (or in this case, sickness), so its hard to cry 'unlucky' in this situation.

 Check out the links to your left if you missed the game like I did and need a recap. I look forward to discussing it tommorow in the comments of this post :).

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I can't leave you all on that note though, especially since this is my first post of 2005. Luckily I have an easy target in My Man Sam(TM), who today used the Denver Nuggets coaching search to get Jordan worshippers (and their ringleader Jay Mariotti) salivating:

Jackson and Riley both have suggested they won't coach again. But they might make an exception for a team like Denver, with its young potential stars. Or Seattle, with a lame-duck coach. Portland? The Knicks or Nets? Some friends believe Brown would go to New York to complete the circle because he was born in Brooklyn. The Magic? The Mavericks? The Kings? Or the Bulls?

Riley always believed in starting with a big man, and the Bulls have two young big men who are looking good right now. Jackson likes taking over a team on the verge of something, and that could be the Bulls. Plus Jackson's return could give Michael Jordan a legitimate reason to rejoin the organization and work with Jackson.

The Bulls have a good general manager, and Jordan is not about to take a minority stake in a franchise as Magic Johnson did. But what a great excuse to return to work with Jackson.

As Hawk Harrelson would say: STRETCH! Smith is naturally up to his old tricks of trying to stir some gossip, since the chances of Riley or Jackson coming to coach the Bulls are pretty weak. The best part though is the needless inclusion of Jordan. I'm blatantly ripping off Dan Bernstein of the Score (who addressed this very article this afternoon), but what is Jordan going to do?!??! "work with Jackson". And do WHAT? Not only does he have no desire to learn about and work at identifying and developing personnel, the one time he claimed to be interested he failed miserably.

Eh, I shouldn't use those mean looking italics. My Man Sam(TM) is probably just playin around with the likes of me. Throw in a Jordan reference once in a while, stir the pot, I get it. As long as everyone remembers what I wrote about the mythical ability that Jordan possesses to attract players to play for him, I won't need to wring my hands every time this happens.

In terms of ugly games, that was the equivalent of TJ Kidd

I wondered last night if the Nets would come out sluggish, but didn't think the Bulls would follow suit, especially with a near-sellout crowd welcoming them.

But they did, and a completely winnable game was given away by the Bulls like their 24 turnovers. In a game that had a first quarter end in a 12-12 tie, and a halftime score of 31-30, the Bulls almost managed to overcome their own hideous play and looked like they had a win in hand in the 4th quarter. While failing to establish themselves down low against the much smaller Nets, Ben Gordon and Kirk Hinrich were intent on winning this game on their own.

Ben's game was pretty remarkable, shooting 7-9 in a game where the combined shooting percentage was 38% by all other players for both teams. Every minute he was in the game was noticeable compared to his replacements, mainly Chris Duhon. Skiles put Gordon in for Duhon earlier than normal in the second half (5 minutes in),  but the case can be made that it wasn't soon enough. What this game showed me most about Gordon's importance is when the Bulls needed to finish it off. Constantly in foul trouble, Gordon was pulled by coach Skiles with 6:45 left in the 4th with 5 fouls, only to see him foul out a minute and half after he was put back in. It was at this point (3 minutes left) that you could feel the game slipping away. Hinrich had a fantastic night (30 points), and Curry can always be competent down low (when you get him the ball in the right place), but without Gordon those two were unable to step up and fill his role. Meanwhile the all-star trio of Vince Carter, Jason Kidd, and Richard Jefferson turned it up on both ends to give the Nets the lead for good.

Kirk Hinrich's foul troubles are well known, but Ben's game tonight got me wondering how often he's been hacking:

	Fouls	Minutes	Fouls/40
Chandler	81	678	4.78
Nocioni	64	571	4.48
Gordon	64	579	4.42
Curry	71	650	4.37
Hinrich	97	908	4.27
Davis	52	555	3.75
Duhon	53	588	3.61
Deng	44	722	2.44

(min 500 minutes, doesn't include tonight's game)

So being behind only the notoriously hacktastic Chandler and Nocioni, Gordon obviously needs to cut down on his fouls, as he had his 6 in only 24 minutes tonight. The off-the-ball fouls really hurt him, but you have to wonder how much of that is due to lack of referee respect, Gordon's carelessness, or the fact that his matchup is always someone bigger and stronger than him.

That all said, the way the Nets played (or were defended) tonight, there's no reason the game should've been that close for it to matter. The Nets started out 0-10 and the Bulls could only get a 6-0 lead, failing to use their size advantage throughout. And the numerous turnovers by Nocioni (4), Deng (6) and Curry (5) almost give credence to Skiles keeping the untalented Duhon on the court, at least he treats the ball like it has some value. I wish I could say differently, but his won't be the last time it happens during the season, teams can and will underperform and still remain close. And when that happens its obvious that the Bulls live and die with Ben Gordon. But increased contributions from the other players on the court can make unnecessarily close games like these happen less often.

Good news

The New Jersey Nets may be a little sluggish for Tuesday night's game against the Bulls, having spent the previous night in overtime against the defending champs. Plus Vince Carter got injured again. Its just a leg cramp, but they (and I mean 'they' as in Charles Barkley) don't call him half-man, half-injury for nothing.

(hat tip to my Dad)

Bulls Blog: home of the historic '2004 winning streak'

Oh well, it had to end sometime. The Bulls vaunted 5-game winning streak was halted by one of its own victims, as the Milwaukee Bucks rebounded from last week's loss at the United Center to win Sunday night's game at home 99-92.

Like President Roosevelt's fireside chats, I was only able to access the game via radio. The Bulls radio crew does a real good job (even throwing in some Marcus Fizer jokes), but it doesn't replace television, unfortunately. Eddy Curry started the game red-hot, and had 12 points in the first quarter. At first I wondered why Eddy wasn't in the game more than 24 minutes after that output. But the Bucks scored 36 points that quarter, and I'm guessing coach Skiles had to wonder what the point was of having Eddy on the floor if he was just gonna be a matador for Bucks players going to the basket. I can't accurately(again, due to no Comcast) say that it was Eddy's fault the Bucks started out so well, but when stuff like this happens, its usually Eddy's fault :).

The star of the game was obviously Michael Redd, who continued the trend of opposing guards blazing their Bulls counterparts with a 39 point game, 1 short of his career high. He was a big part of that start by the Bucks, and had his team up by 18 in the second quarter. The Bulls chipped at the lead until finally tying it in the 4th, but it was Redd again who closed the game out.

Will Ben Gordon become the Bulls version of Redd? He certainly gave it his best effort, and has become the go-to guy for the Bulls down the stretch. And for me it isn't a scary thing anymore for the Bulls to be in a close game. Gordon has shown that he is willing, and able. But one problem with that is he has to be as clutch defensively as he is offensively. Else bigger guards like Redd will fire back whatever Gordon can dish out.

Lets hope that this 'streak' will be the first of many. The only reason it has significance thus far is that the Bulls have 9 wins total. And they'll need a few more 'streaks' to touch the holy grail of .500 basketball.