What happened to the original thread title?

Darkhorse MVP!

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Sex isn't dirty, sex isn't a crime. It's a loving act between two or more consenting adults.

-Hank Kingsley

After self reflection, I didn't find it politically correct.

Lavine is not bad on the ball but he is terrible off the ball. He gets rung up on screens and he turns his head a lot.
He should be better defensively but he might turn out to be serviceable.

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$20 Million looks like a bargain now.

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Through the Bulls first 8 games, Zach Lavine is a -78. He has only had two games with a positive +/-, +5 and +3.

In his four games scoring 30 points or more, he is a -28 and he was positive in none of them.

More more Lavine plays (and scores), the more the Bulls lose by.

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Rick Hahn is the best GM in baseball.

+/- is useless for evaluating basketball.

In a single game, to evaluate a single player, you may be right.

But Lavine has been in the league for five years now. When he is on the court, the other team is outscoring his team. He directly contributes to his team losing. He often has the single worst +/- on the team. Zach Lavine isn't the first of his kind. Recent NBA history is full of these Monta Ellis type players. If you are simply looking at points in a box score and nothing else, they may look like good players.

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Rick Hahn is the best GM in baseball.

Get a (real) coach that teaches defense, mix in some very good defenders and you can hide his defense.

How much of this was accrued during the G.S. game?

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So in a single game, a stat may not tell the whole story. But when you have a large enough sample size of said stat, it can tell you something about the player.

Interesting.

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I actually agree. I didn't know if he was a guy you could win with but now i am convinced that he is. Lavine has No. 1 scoring option type ability. Those kind of guys don't grow on trees.

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This thread reminds me of the 70s and 80s where Sox fans called Chet Lemon and Harold "our" all stars.

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There are only two examples of infinity: The universe and human stupidity and I'm not sure about the universe.

The White Sox retiring Baines number in 1989, while still playing is still one of the most bizarre things ever

Letting Omar Vizquel use a retired number (11) was even stranger.

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Two games now he goes for the winning shot and loses the ball. WTF?

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Reality is your friend, not your enemy. -- Seacrest

Yes. Think of it as runs and pitcher losses. Max Scherzer sometimes gives up 0 ER and loses. Is Max Scherzer a bad pitcher?

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Rick Hahn is the best GM in baseball.

Zach Lavine couldn't even start on half the playoff teams in the league.

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Rick Hahn is the best GM in baseball.

That's just plain not true.

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Fare you well, fare you well
I love you more than words can tell
Listen to the river sing sweet songs
To rock my soul

Yep. Zach Lavine is looking like a big time steal at this point. He is better than what i thought. Has to get better on D but he has the type of offensive game that can compensate for it.

He has a complete offensive game.

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Then why has he not compensated for it? Why can't he outscore the other team? Why are the other teams scorers always better?

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Rick Hahn is the best GM in baseball.

Give Zach Lavine the ball and get out of the way.

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He has compensated for it.

It is difficult for one player to outscore an entire NBA team.

Other teams scorers aren't always better.

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Fare you well, fare you well
I love you more than words can tell
Listen to the river sing sweet songs
To rock my soul

https://www.foxsports.com/nba/chicago-b ... ISC&time=0

If you find Bulls lineups of any 5 guys excluding Lavine, you will find the Bulls are more competitive without him than with him.

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Rick Hahn is the best GM in baseball.

No you won't. You're misunderstanding what those numbers are representing. There's a reason that the guys who have started the most games all have the worst +/-.

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Fare you well, fare you well
I love you more than words can tell
Listen to the river sing sweet songs
To rock my soul

I knew'd you go that route. So take a look at another bad team: https://www.foxsports.com/nba/orlando-m ... ISC&time=0

Their best player has a better +/- than all of the other players on his team that start alongside him and play the same types of minutes. Out of anyone with a real amount of minutes, he has their best +/- (but admittedly it is still negative because they suck.)

I'm not expecting Lavine to be +300 when the season ends. But he should not be in the Bottom 5 in the league in plus-minus, which he is now.

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Rick Hahn is the best GM in baseball.

Max Scherzer has a career W-L record of 159-82.

Now a guy with a record of say 84-83 is decidedly mediocre, even though he had a great game here and there.

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You have an over-reliance on +/-, and these two examples perfectly illustrate why it's bad to only use that metric when evaluating a player. All of the advanced and traditional numbers suggest he is quite clearly a net positive player.

Now, to be clear, I don't really like Lavine and I'm not sure this hot start is sustainable. I suspect it's not. If he regresses offensively he's no longer going to be a useful player, his defense is just too bad. But as long as he's putting up 28+ a game on north of 50% shooting while being the entire starting lineup's focal point on offense, he's a good, useful player. He's on one of the worst teams in the league, on arguably the worst defensive team of all time, so his +/- is going to be horrendous all year even if he started averaging 40 ppg on 60% shooting.

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Fare you well, fare you well
I love you more than words can tell
Listen to the river sing sweet songs
To rock my soul

looking good!

Bum slayer.

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I’ll take 41 on 25 shots any time.