Zippy-The-Pinhead wrote:
Tall Midget wrote:
Zippy-The-Pinhead wrote:
blackhawksfan wrote:
This team has a worse future than the Bears. They suck!
I agree with the last part but not necessarily the first. If Patrick Williams develops and they sign a competent point guard they are a top 6 team in the East. If Williams becomes a stud they are top 3. If he’s a bust then yeah they are destined to suck for the next few seasons.
Those are a lot of "ifs". I liked the pick when the Bulls drafted him, but Williams hasn't looked like a future stud so far from what I've seen. Also, what is the Bulls salary cap situation? Do they have room to sign a good or very good point guard? Giving up 2 firsts for Vucevic doesn't look like a great move so far.
Hard to tell on the cap. If they let Lauri, Young and Sato go then they got some room.
I would be very surprised if they let Young go. As Michael Pina documented, he's been one of their most important players this season:
Quote:
Behind LaVine, Young has been the Bulls’ most significant revelation. They outscore opponents by 5.5 points per 100 possessions when he’s on the floor and are outscored by 7.7 points per 100 possessions when he sits. It’s the type of imprint typically made by superstars, especially on offense, and the results have glimmered even brighter when Young is surrounded by reliable players. (Chicago has outscored opponents by 10.7 points per 100 possessions in lineups that feature Young but not Coby White, Wendell Carter Jr. or Lauri Markkanen.)
Young entered the starting lineup in the middle of March after making a better Sixth Man of the Year case than anyone outside Salt Lake City. He should be a staple of that first unit now and going forward, with an adaptive guile that makes up for a nonexistent outside shot (he’s 6-for-25 on threes this season). The 32-year-old’s highest assist rate coming into this season was 12.4%. Now it’s 26.5%. His true shooting percentage is also at a career-high.
Assuming the Bulls guarantee Young’s contract this summer, he can help mold what their religion should be: methodical, occasionally unstoppable offense that leans on post-ups, keen bigs directing traffic from the high post (Young ranks fourth in elbow touches per game—despite averaging only 25 minutes—and Vučević is sixth), smart cuts and passes. Once comfortable as a group, they’ll swirl through an improvisational series of ball screens, pin downs and (fake) dribble handoffs that are accentuated by constant movement on the weak side and a willingness to reverse the ball.
LaVine’s two-man game with Vučević is common-sense gold and the bedrock of Chicago’s playbook. But when the Bulls need a bucket or have to stop a run, LaVine’s partnership with Young has been Chicago’s bread and butter all year long. Young doesn’t have Vučević’s gravity popping out to the three-point line, but he can expertly play-make out of 4-on-3 situations and bully switches into submission.
There’s a reason LaVine lobbied the team not to trade Young before the deadline. He sees the game from a crow’s nest and can make quick decisions in real time.
Pina says the Bulls can let Lauri and Theis go and still have over $20 million to spend in free agency this offseason. That seems like the way they'll go. Apparently Beale and Donovan have a strong relationship. I would imagine he'll be a guy the Bulls will try to lure to Chicago.
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Antonio Gramsci wrote:
The crisis consists precisely in the fact that the old is dying and the new cannot be born; in this interregnum a great variety of morbid symptoms appear.