Continuing my tradition of posting my draft board of guys who I think can be rotation players for championship level teams during the primes of their careers. For reference to my tiers, you can check out the preamble to last years board here: https://allaboutbulls.sport.blog/2021/10/17/2021-nba-draft-board/

Superstar tier:

1. Victor Wembanyama

Typical number 1 picks:

All-Stars:

Above Average starters:

2. Brandon Miller

3. Scoot Henderson

4. Cam Whitmore

Average Starters:

5. Taylor Hendricks

6. Jarace Walker

7. Cason Wallace

8. Anthony Black

9. Amen Thompson

10. Grady Dick

11. Leonard Miller

12. Derrick Lively

2nd Rate Starters/ Rotational pieces:

13. Auser Thompson

14. Dariq Whitehead

15. Bilal Coulibaly

16. Brandon Podziemski

17. Brice Sensabaugh

18. Jordan Hawkins

19. Noah Clowney

20. Kris Murray

• Wemby is a clear and easy one, but not the best prospect since Lebron. Obviously incredible potential, but Luka was a far superior player entering the draft (more dominant against significantly better competition). Jump shot isnt what people make it out to be and concerns about strength, somebody that size staying healthy. My prediction is that never strong enough to be a DPOY, never efficient enough to be a #1 offensive weapon, and misses an above average time due to injury. Think his odds of superstardom go up qutie a bit landing with Pop. Still most likely outcome isnt true top 5 Giannis like player, but rather more of a co #1 on a championship team a la Anthony Davis.
• Scoot is even more overrated. Scoot posted way below average efficiency in the G League. Sometimes guys do that like Derrick Rose at Memphis, and their skill eventually catches their athletic pop. However, there are more Emmanual Mudiay types than people seem to remember.
• At least Scoot was playing against grown men. I want nothing to do with either of the Thompson twins. They were surprisingly not dominant playing against high schoolers as 20 year olds. One of the toughest evaluations ever based off the environment they played in. I honestly think I might have them too high, but am intimdated by being off the market even more than this.
• Leonard Miller at 33 might be my favorite pick of the draft. He actually put up better numbers on the same team as Scoot. His style is unorthdox, but that awkwardness is how guys like Haliburton slip to 11, or Tari Eason gets to 17.
• We shall see what happens with Cam Whitmore’s health, but getting him at 20 is awesome regardless. He easily could become this draft MPJ or Bol that wound up slipping way too far cause of injury concerns.

Continuing my tradition of posting my draft board of guys who I think can be rotation players for championship level teams during the primes of their careers. For reference to my tiers, you can check out the preamble to last years board here: https://allaboutbulls.sport.blog/2021/10/17/2021-nba-draft-board/

Superstar tier: nobody

Typical #1 picks

1. Chet Holmgren

All-Stars

2. Jabari Smith

Above Average Starters:

3. Paolo Banchero

4. Keegan Murray

5. Jaden Ivey

Average starters:

6. Bennedict Mathurin

7. Tari Eason

8. Shaedon Sharpe

9. Dyson Daniels

10. AJ Griffin

Second Rate Starters

11. Jeremy Sochan

12. Jalen Duren

13. Walker Kessler

14. EJ Liddel

15. Johnny Davis

16. Ty Ty Washington

17. Josh Minnot

***special sleeper: Hyunjung Lee

Overall, this was a weaker draft. The top 2 on my board are fine 1/2’s, but the quality dropped off quickly before having a handful of solid wings to capably fill out the back half of the first 10. The quality of the middle of this draft goes down quickly though.

I dont normally like drafting Centers high, and he’s old for his draft class, but Chet Holmgren is a clear #1 for me. A guy who projects in a tier just below DPOY conversation in his prime who scores efficiently, spaces the floor and can make plays off the dribble is a textbook mold of a guy who can be a core part of a championship team. I like him more than Cunningham or anyone else last year.

Banchero isnt so much as misevaluated as a prospect to me, as much as I anticipate him being overrated. He’s kind of a poor man’s Carmelo Anthony. Somebody who’s points per game numbers make him look better than he is , because average efficency and defense make him hard to build around.

Picks 8-10 is where I see the most value in this draft. Lots of guys who you can easily imagine capbably guarding and spacing the floor (and in some cases doing more). If there’s one guy who I think I’m higher on than the consensus it’s probably Tari Eason. If he can harness his wildness he could be an impact guy on defense who’s a terror in transition and maybe even be a secondary offensive weapon.

Also, I hate that I wound up agreeing with the Kings, but I agree with Murray>Ivey. He scored more and did it more efficiently with better defensive numbers in the exact same league. Ivey definitely has a higher ceiling, but Murray’s game is ready right now.

Preseason I made 8 different bets on over/unders.  During the All-Star break I checked-in to see how things were going, where I went wrong/right or where I had some good or bad luck.  I added a couple of thoughts on each bet and am sharing today.

My plays in order of bet size were:

1. San Antonio Spurs over 28.5

This has been a pretty annoying bet.  The Spurs have actually outscored their opponents this year, but have a jarring discrepancy with their actual win loss record of 24-36.  The underrated Derrick White being shipped off to Boston might make this a little more of a sweat than if ought to be, but as long as Murray stays healthy I don’t see Pop punting on a chance to go after the 10 seed.

2.  Toronto Raptors over 35.5

I thought coming into the year the Raptors were more likely to finish above .500 than below making this a no brain play.  So far they’ve done even better than expected.  Losing Lowry was tough, but having an actual home court again and regressing to the mean on injury luck was all they really needed to just be average.  They will beat this number with just 4 more wins.

3. Los Angeles Lakers under 52.5

Russell Westbrook hasn’t contributed to winning at a high level for years now and has been a predictably bad fit next to Lebron James.  Veteran teams particularly tend to be overrated by the consensus coming into a season and this was the oldest team in the league.  Already cashed!

4.  Charlotte Hornets under 38.5

My first true miss.  I thought Charlotte would be one of the worst teams in the league defensively and without a truly elite offensive force yet (good chance this changes when LaMelo hits his prime) they were going to be a mere above average offense and settle into the mid to low 30’s for win totals.  The offense has gone exactly to plan, but credit to them for getting the defense to more respectable 22^nd place ranking allowing them to be on a pace for 39-40 wins.

5.  Washington Wizards over 33.5

Ooph!  This looked to be a cakewalk to start the year when Washington came out with a 10-3 record.  Noting what I said about the Lakers earlier, I never really saw Westbrook leaving town as that bad for Washington’s short-term success.  A team with solid depth everywhere and a fringe top 20 player ought to be more in the high 30’s. There was a good chance they would’ve gotten there, but between Beal’s wrist injury and post trade Porzingis’ health, this one time sure bet is looking as rickety as KP’s knee.   Still, they have enough depth, and are close enough to the play-in to remain motivated that finishing 7-14 and close this thing out is probably more likely than not.

6.  Brooklyn Nets under 56.5

I wasn’t buying the hype in Brooklyn that they were overwhelming favorites out of the east, but wow did that get ugly quickly.  Just like the Lakers they had a lot of overrated veteran pieces to go along with stars that had questions with health.  The crazy part is that Brooklyn has actually been lucky when it comes to defensive 3 point shooting and have overperformed their point differential!  Just a dumpster fire all around and will in all likelihood be betting strongly against them the rest of the season and into the playoffs. 

7.  Oklahoma City Thunder under 23.5

If there’s one bet that is basically a coinflip going forward it’s this one.  On one hand, the Thunder are on pace to eclipse this record by about a game and a half.  On the other, using history as reference, there is no team likely to tank as hard over the last month-plus.  How much SGA, Lu Dort and Kenrich Williams are allowed to play will probably ultimately decide if the bet turns out a winner or not.

8.  Golden State Warriors under 48.5

Whoops! :s

Adding it all up, we’ve got two bets that have already cashed, two more that almost certainly will, three that it’s still too early to tell (best guess is that I’ll get one of the three) and one big mistake. Considering 5-3 was the goal before the season started, I’m happy with the position I’m in.  That record is the most likely outcome.  Doing some back of the napkin math tells me 6-2 is even more likely than 4-4 right now (with an outside chance at 7-1 to boot).  Now lets see how this season finishes.

I know I’m a little late on this, but I have really liked spending some time the past few off seasons evaluating prospects for the NBA draft and looking back on it years later.  I figured I’d share with anyone else interested/bored waiting for the NBA season to start.

For a recap here is how I tier players.

Super star tiers- Obvious future all-stars who project as top 10 players at a minimum in their primes if they stay healthy. A prospect like this comes around once every five years. Since 2000, there has been Lebron, Oden, AD, Luka and Zion.

Normal #1 picks- Guys who are #1’s in a typical year, but in most cases have at least 1 issue that keeps them from being in the tier above. A franchise shouldn’t be too overly excited to pick them at 1, but would be awesome value at #2. Examples would be Derrick Rose, John Wall and Ben Simmons.

All-star tier-  Top 25  guys during the primes of their careers, but never someone you’d think of being the best player on a championship level team. There is normally 2 or 3 in each class. Think Ja Morant or Bradley Beal.

Above average starters- 7 or 8 WAR guys who probably have at least one and probably a couple year where they are viewed as top 50 players in the league. This is what you should be expecting with picks between 3 or 4 until picks 6 or 7. Think CJ McCollum or Clint Capela

Average starters- This is what you’re hoping from picks 7 until around 11. These are guys who you’re hoping will be in the neighborhood of 50-100 best players in the NBA during their peaks. Your completely average NBA starters like Ivaca Zubac, Joe Ingles or Spencer Dinwiddie.

Second rate starters- Guys who you don’t want starting if you’re a championship level team, but  content with if you’re not. These are guys who project to be somewhere between 20th-35^th best players at their respective positions. This is what you’re looking for until around pick 20 in the draft.

Anybody after that range probably isn’t quite good enough to stick in the league for more than 5-7 years. On to the list itself:

Generational talents: nobody

Typical #1’s:

1. Cade Cunningham (purposefully in a tier right behind these two levels)

All Stars: 2. Alperen Sengun

3. Johnathon Kuminga

4. Jalen Green

5. Jalen Suggs

Above average starters: 6. Scottie Barnes

7. Evan Mobley

Average starters: 8. Josh Giddey

9. Franz Wegner

10. Moses Moody

Rotational Pieces 11. Usman Garuba

12. Jaylen Johnson

13. Jared Butler

14. Isaiah Jackson

15. Trey Murphy

16. Cory Kispert

17. Josh Primo

18. JT Thor

19. Chris Duarte

Overall thoughts:  While Cunningham isn’t the slam dunk easy #1 prospect some make him out to be, the overall depth of the top 5 is really strong.  Jalen Suggs slotting in at 5 is about as strong as you get at that part of the draft.  After that, however, the quality of this draft falls off more quickly than an average draft. In a typical year I have 9 or 10 guys I project as above average or average starters.  This class has a pretty jarring low of five. The rest of the first round was pretty typical with an interesting blend of high floor/no potential polished seniors ready to contribute right away and some interesting freshman who could develop into starters or be out of the league in 5 years and neither would surprise me.  

Some overrated and underrated prospect comparisons:

Davion Mitchell vs. Jared Butler

This is one of the most confusing mis rankings of prospects I can ever recall seeing.  These guys were teammates so how the bigger, younger, and better current player slipped to the 2^nd round while the other was a lottery pick is baffling.  Mitchell is 6’0”, has limited point guard skills and shot 66% from the FT line his last year in college.  His on ball defense is grade A stuff, but even if that more than compensates for his lack of size how is he contributing as a guard offensively?  I’m not sure he would’ve made my top 30.

Every year there seems to be a Monte Morris/Fred Van Vleet/ Payton Pritchard/Kyle Lowry type of point guard that was extremely productive in college but scouts right off due to lack of athleticism or size, and a franchise winds up with a steal late in the draft.  Butler looks like the guy this year.  He’s a little bit of a tweener at the guard spot, and I don’t know if there is more to his knee in his medical files, but his skillset screams 3^rd guard in the NBA for a long time.  That teams in win now mode passed on him for long shots (think Cam Thomas to the Nets) towards the end of the first round was wild.

Alperen Sengun vs. Evan Mobley:

If there is a hot-take I want to be known for this draft its Alpy Sengun over Evan Mobley. Sengun is a year and a half younger than Mobley and won MVP in a league against grown men well Mobley was occasionally being pushed around guys who can’t by beer yet. 

Mobley is a fine prospect, but his rebounding numbers were nervously low for an apparent can’t miss big man.  I question his ability to score effectively on the block, and the ability to stretch the floor seems unlikely based off what he’s shown so far.  The defense is obviously the calling card and his ability to legitimately switch onto guards provides defensive versatility rare for a big man, but the ability to hang down low with huge dudes just might not be there. Both from a physical comparison, to analyzing college numbers the similarities to Mo Bamba are scary. Ultimately he has a better feel for the game and passes better Mo did at the same stage, but this looks a lot more like a little better version of Nerlens Noel than the next Anthony Davis to me.

Sengun is almost a virtual guarantee not to be a bust.  Everyone who has been as accomplished as him in Europe at this age wound up developing into a league average starter at worst.  Scouts are apparently worried about the defense, which is fair to an extent, but he was putting up block steal, and rebound rates that all point to being just fine defensively.  The guy has a phenomenal feel for the game.  If he can get enough minutes in a semi crowded Houston frontcourt he’ll be in contention for rookie of the year and I bet he makes at least one All-star game.  Phenomenal value at pick 16.

Cade Cunningham vs. Johnathon Kuminga

Most draft analysts have a pretty wide gap between these two prospects, but I don’t see it.  Cade did enough at Oklahoma State to keep his preseason number 1 spot, but he never really dominated like you’d want to see a #1 pick do.  He can stroke it, and at that size will always be able to get his shot off, but the lack of ability to bend defenses and create for others (yikes at that assist/turnover ratio) tells me that he’s probably more ticketed to being the midpoint between Khris Middleton and Jayson Tatum than the next Luka.

Kuminga might be the biggest wildcard in the draft.  He’s 8 months younger than the average freshman in this draft class and has as much upside from a physical perspective as anyone in the draft.  He also had the highest usage rate on of his G League team (again, a way higher level of competition than what the college guys face) when he played.  Starting at that point gets you excited and the moldings of a Kawhi Leonard are there (side note: It annoys me how many players get compared to Kawhi at a young age.  Sorry fellow Bulls fans, but there is virtually zero reason to think Patrick Williams will get to that level.  That every year the analysts get asked “who’s the next Kawhi from this draft?” is ridiculous cause he’s a once a decade type of talent.  That being said Kuminga is the guy I got the most Kawhi-like feel from in a while).  Like most prospects the questions are will the shooting come around, and will he pick up his defensive intensity?  If the answer is no to both, he’ll be just a rotation guy like Jeff Green, but if they do come around Kuminga could easily become a top 10 player in this league.

A part of me really wanted to be contrarian and put Kuminga at number one, and I do think he has more superstar potential than anyone in this draft, but there were just too many potential roadblocks for him to get there to actually go ahead and pull the trigger on it. When doing my best prospects over the past 10 drafts I get Cunningham around 8 and Kumniga around 14.

Thoughts?

After being a laughingstock around the league with an absolute clown of a coach combined with a prehistoric Front Office calling the shots for a cheapskate owner before everything shut down due to the Coronavirus, it feels so good to have something moderately interesting to talk about with the Bulls again.

As written elsewhere I am not a huge believer in neither new team architect Arturas Karnisovas nor coach Billy Donovan. Still, they represent a level of respectability and upside that this team hasn’t generated in years. This tends to be the apex of Jerry Reinsdorf led teams, respectable figures in the most important positions offering a glimmer of hope that if everything breaks right you can have an ’05 Sox moment. (Thank God Jerry doesn’t care about this team as much as the Sox, otherwise Phil Jackson would be teaching Tomas Satoransky how to run the triangle right as we were finding out he got arrested for running a shrooms operation in Montana.)

In this piece I’ll go through who I’d like the Bulls to draft and sign in free agency trying to be as realistic as possible. For the record, AK is 0 for 3 in moves I would’ve made so far in tendering contracts to restricted Free Agents. (I like Denzel, but who was going to give him $4.7 million? Shaq Harrison is a little reDunndant with Kris, but I would’ve liked to keep one of them at their respective numbers if possible as the steal rates both guys have were elite even if they were both somewhat artificially inflated by Boylen’s goofy scheme.). None of those moves really move the needle, and are more clues into the style the team would like to play rather than really bad moves. I bet both Harrison and Dunn wind up going to really smart teams though.

Ideas for the Draft

The dream scenario is easy…..hope and pray that Lamelo Ball falls to #4. While he isn’t a “safe” pick, the way the game is being played he’s got the only semi reasonable path for becoming a queen piece in the game of chess that is the modern NBA. Every NBA contender has a guy big enough to play on the wing combined with the ability to get to the paint and score/create for others: AND is either an elite 3 point shooter or defender OR at least average at both as the foundation of their team. Lebron, Giannis, Kawhi, Jimmy Butler, Jokic, Harden, maybe KD, Luka and Tatum are probably the next in line all fit this mold. It’s almost as binary as you either have one of these guys and you can compete for titles, or you don’t have one and you can’t. Steph Curry with the Warriors is the only real exception, and that’s because he’s the greatest 3 point shooter in history by a fairly wide margin.

Now is Ball likely to get that level? Undoubtedly no. Over the past 20 years, only Lebron and maybe Luka have projected to be that good coming out of the draft. However, starting at 6’7″ with an elite first step and the kind of vision and feel that you can’t teach means you can probably check the first box off on the “will this guy be a star?” list. The red flags certainly exist, he only shot 25% from 3, scouts didn’t like his defense, his dad is annoying and he only played 11 games last year.

Stepping back further he’s 18 years old, his free throw shooting indicates he doesn’t have bad touch and his steal rate shows that he can at least read defenses. The outlines for the queen piece is there in a way no other prospect in this draft demonstrates. Even if he doesn’t get there being a prime John Wall kind of player isn’t a bad investment with #1 pick, although there is a non-zero chance he’s a total flop and becomes nothing more than a taller Rondo/Michael Carter-Williams type. At the end of the day he’s worth pursuing.

I have seen mocks where he actually has slipped all the way to 4, but that still seems more unlikely than not. I’d be willing to package assets to go and get him. From what the Bulls pieces that other teams might want here’s how much I’d prioritize keeping them.

1. The #4 pick
2. Coby White
3. Wendell Carter
4. Lauri Markannen
5. Zach Lavine
6. Daniel Gafford

Would the Wolves trade the #1 pick for Lauri and the #4 pick? Would swapping Lauri out for Carter with them throwing in Culver make more sense for both teams. These are conversations I hope AK is having (also worth noting that he worked with Gersan Rosas, the guy running Minnesota, back in the day with Houston). There is one trade I like more than all others that I’ll get to in a second.

If a Ball trade/slip in the fails to materialize there are a couple of other moves I’d be Ok with the Bulls pursuing. In no particular order

1. Trading down. This draft is pretty weak at the top, so getting more bites at the apple makes sense. Boston is one team in particular that jumps out as a team that could consolidate multiple picks. They have the 14th, 26th and 30th pick in the draft. I wouldn’t mind seeing that deal go down where the Bulls take RJ Hampton, Aleksej Pokusevski and Tre Jones with those picks. Hampton is as good as Isaac Okoro and Patrick Williams, mid lottery guys, only he might fall out of the lottery. Aleksej Pokusevski is the biggest wild card you’ll find this year. He’s the youngest guy in the draft, 7 feet tall and moves like a guard with plus passing skills and solid 3 point stroke. He’s also rawer than raw. I didn’t know it was possible to be over 7 feet tall and under 200 pounds. The kid somehow makes Chris Sale look like the Rock. He could become a midpoint between Giannis and KP or he could be worse than Nikoloz Tskitishvili and I wouldn’t be surprised. At 26 that roll of the dice makes sense. Tre Jones was the best player in the toughest conference in America last year. He doesn’t have physical tools nor a statistical projection that would tell you a future star is imminent, but I feel confident saying he’ll be a good backup and there is even a chance he develops into a solid second rate starter.

2. Draft a slipping Anthony Edwards or “reach” for Tyrese Halliburton. Edwards might be the consensus best player on the board, but like Ball there is a chance he falls to 4. While I think he’s somewhat overrated by the general scouting community, the upside for a potential Bradley Beal or Victor Oladipo kind of player down the road is apparent. Still when compared to Ball I’d rather have a peak John Wall type, than a peak Bradley Beal type, and I think Ball is slightly more likely to get to that level than Edwards.

Haliburton is seen as more of a mid lottery guy than top 5 pick, but I think that’s a misread. While the jump shot is a little funky the numbers show it goes in a lot, and he demonstrated tuns of versatility while grabbing 6 boards, dishing out 6 assists, and getting 2 and a half steals per game. It’s very unlikely he becomes a star, but outside of the most elite of ball handlers, this kind of not super explosive athlete is the kind of player generally undervalued in scouting circles. I’d be satisfied to get a Malcolm Brogdon type with the #4 pick in this years draft.

What I don’t want to see the Bulls do is take Advija or Williams at 4 as some rumors are suggesting. Both of those guys are fine, but it’d produce much more expected value at that time to trade back even if it were a somewhat “light package”. Normally the 8 pick and 23 pick wouldn’t be enough to move up to 4, but I’d rather do that and take one of the wings that falls between Williams, Advija, Okoro or Vassell (or even Haliburton or RJ Hampton), then be the first to choose between a bunch of guys who all project in the same tier.

The Dream Move

As it seems more likely than not Ball won’t be available at 4, the play is to cash in on some chips and make a play for him. My favorite deal:

Zach Lavine and Thad Young to the Warriors and the #2 pick

I love this deal for both teams. Right now the Warriors have nobody on their team capable of creating their own shot other than oft-injured Curry. Enter Zach Lavine who finally gets to play in the role he’s designed for: secondary option next to a superstar creator. Zach then more or less runs the show with Curry on the bench. He has Dray and Klay around to help and hide defensively. Its a near perfect fit. Young is overpriced, but he’s the kind of switch-y defender Golden State builds their system around and is a high IQ passer capable of spacing the floor to fit seamlessly into their offense.

For the Bulls they give up a couple fair priced veterans who may not even be on the team the next time this team is ready to make serious noise in the playoffs to get the guy with the most potential for superstardom in the draft. Having to take on the Wiggins contract hurts a lot, but a worthwhile price to pay considering their immediate prospects.

If you really want to go crazy with this, adding Lauri Markannen or maybe even Wendell Carter from the Bulls along with the Minnesota pick the Warriors got in the Russell deal would make sense as well.

Second Round Options

My favorite realistic option would be local product Paul Reed. He has the length and athleticism you look for in an ideal wing defender with huge numbers to back it up (he averaged 4.5 stocks/game this year at Depaul). The question of course like a lot of these guys is of course: can they shoot enough to space the floor and stick in the league? The answer is I don’t know, but nothing indicates he’s any worse gamble than guys like Jaden McDaniels and Tyler Bey who most have going at the end of the first round.

If he’s not available I’d look at any of the plethora of smaller, not super athletic yet very successful college point guards available. Every year it seems like teams miss on a point guard who fits that mold (Fred Van Vleet, Monte Morris, Devonte Graham). They are like the smaller versions of my guy Tyrese Haliburton. I wouldn’t predict anyone of them by themselves is more likely than not to develop into a strong rotation piece, but I bet one of the Malachi Flynn, Cassius Winston, or Payton Pritchard trio does.

The last guy on the list would be Xavier Tillman. He led the nation in Box Plus Minus last year and is a year younger than Obi Toppin. He’s got enough of an all around game that it doesn’t take much to imagine him becoming a very sold 3rd big man for a team in the not too distant future.

I’m hoping to write more on Free Agency coming up here soon! Let me know what you think and fingers crossed for tonight.

Believe it or not I’ve actually had quite a bit of time on my hands lately. So, I decided to a deep initial dive into the 2020 NBA draft whenever it may be. I’ll do a more complete board later, but for now I’ll share my initial board. Before I get into that, here’s a quick breakdown of all the tiers I put each prospect in.

Super star tiers- Obvious future all-stars who project as top 10 players at a minimum in their primes if they stay healthy. A prospect like this comes around once every five years. Since 2000, there has been Lebron, Oden, AD, Luka and Zion.

Normal #1 picks- Guys who are clear #1’s most year, but in most cases have at least 1 issue that keeps them from being in the tier above. Examples would be Derrick Rose, John Wall and Ben Simmons.

All-star tier- Guys who project as 9-win, top 25 WAR guys at the prime of their careers. There is normally 2 or 3 in each class. Think Ja Morant or Jaren Jackson Junior.

Above average starters- 7 or 8 win guys who probably have at least one and probably a couple year where they are viewed as top 50 players in the league. This is what you should be expecting with picks between 3 or 4 until picks 6 or 7.

Average starters- This is what you’re hoping from picks 7 until around 11. These are guys who you’re hoping will be in the neighborhood of 50-100 best players in the NBA during their peaks.

Second rate starters- Guys who you probably don’t want starting if your a championship level team, but are content with if you’re not. These are guys who project to be somewhere between 20th-35^th best players at their respective positions. This is what you’re looking for until around pick 20 in the draft.

Superstars: None

Normal #1’s: None

All-stars:

1. LaMelo Ball

Above Average Starters:

2. Anthony Edwards

3, Tyrese Halliburton

4. Onyeka Okongwu

5. Killian Hayes

Average Starters:

6. James Wiseman

7. Rj Hampton

8. Isaac Okoro

9. Devin Vassell

Second Rate Starters:

10. Deni Advija

11. Aleksej Pokusevski

12. Josh Green

13. Kira Lewis

14. Obi Toppin

15. Tyrese Maxey

16. Theo Maledon

17. Jahmi’us Ramsey

18. Patrick Williams

19. Aaron Nesmeth

20. Tre Jones

With the Bulls hiring of Arturas Karnisovas now complete I went ahead and wrote a couple thousand words on the Bulls’ new hire. Most Bulls fans are exuberant that GarPax no longer exists, but I wanted to try and do a more thorough review not only of the new boss calling shots in the Windy City, but the process they went about to bring him on.

At the conclusion of this piece I’ll be giving this move a final grade.  As always, the cutoff between B-/C+ is right where I consider it to be a good move or bad move.

Let’s get started with:

Negative 1:  The Bulls didn’t swing for the biggest fish.

This part is getting lost too much in the discussion of this hire.  The Bulls are international icon, have the largest unshared market in the sport, and hail from a city/part of the country where basketball reigns supreme. Getting priced out from the most sought after executive’s is a bullshit excuse that too many people eat up.

Jerry Reinsdorf is a billionaire who wants to pretend that he owns the Cleveland Cavaliers instead of one of the ten most recognizable franchises in North American sports.  This search should have had a ridiculous 10 year $120 million rumor for Masai Uriji or Daryl Morey. If that wasn’t enough to get them to leave their current comfortable situations then turn to some of these promising up and comers that they started with.

It’s also worth noting that this isn’t a simple decision to be cheap, it’s a bad business move.  Investing in an elite level decision maker is one of the most profitable moves owners of sport franchises can make.  Good teams make exponentially more money than bad ones. Ticket prices go up, they wind up on TV more, and people buy more merchandise. Paying a lot of money for someone who gets you a good team winds up paying for itself.

I hate to use the North Side baseball team of Chicago as a positive example, but what was the first move the Cubs made in their run to breaking the most famous curse in sports?  They gave Theo Epstien, who at the time was arguably regarded as the best GM in the sport, complete control of personnel decisions for the organization.  Not only was he the chief reason the Cubs wound up ending their title drought, but he got revenues soaring.  The Ricketts bought the Cubs for $900 million in 2009.  Three days ago Forbes valued the franchise at $3.2 billion.  I don’t care if Jerry never makes another penny again the rest of his life, but that he’s so principled in his frugality even when it’s in his own best long term financial interest is incredibly frustrating.  It’s why other than one fluke White Sox season he’s never gotten a finals without #23.

Positive 1:  Karnisovas is neither an inexperienced former NBA player nor player agent.

Vlade Divac and James Jones serve as strong examples of poorly run franchises’ valuing playing experience in their shot callers instead of hiring people who make more data driven decisions to steer the ship.  Add in Mitch Kupchak in Charlotte and Jon Paxson, and of the five worst GM’s in the league last year, four were former players (lol at the knicks for being the fifth). It’s not that playing experience can’t help when making dcisions, but when it starts to take precedent over empirically driven reasoning the results tend to get ugly.

Conversely, when looking at the best executives in the sport, NBA experience is actually quite rare.  Uriji never made it to the league, Morey didn’t even play in college.  Popovich and Buford in San Antonio? No and no.  Presti in OKC?  He only played D-III.  The only easy exception to this rule I can find would be Danny Ainge in Boston.  I haven’t crunched the numbers sufficiently to definitely claim this, but I’d imagine the number one indicator in predicting the future success of a first time executive decision maker in the sport would be seeing they didn’t have NBA experience.

There also is a growing trend in not just the NBA, but across all of American sports of hiring player-agents to run a club’s basketball operations.  The idea goes that these guys have built strong relationships within the sport and by knowing everyone they can work good deals.  Bob Myers’ success in Golden State probably plays a big role in why this is becoming a thing.

I’m not buying it though.  While Myers has 3 titles, it really helps to have inherited Steph Curry, especially on a deal that paid him like he was just a league average starter, and Klay Thompson.  While he did make some nice moves even those feel particularly fluky.  Signing Kevin Durant only happened, because Harrison Barnes turned down a contract extension the year before and the infamous cap boom.  Even giving credit for drafting Draymond Green at 35 is kind of hard considering he took Festus Ezeli five picks before that.

Long story short I want someone who not only understands numbers, but uses them at high level and uses it over what former players think is important. All great decision makers in the league appear to do this.

Negative 2:  I question if he’s analytical enough

As I got into my previous point, I want a numbers nerd calling the shots and it remains to be seen if Karnisovas operates like that.

On one hand, he has spent time with organizations like Denver and especially Houston who are well known for how well they incorporate data into their decision making processes.  Still after sifting through a couple of interviews it’s clear that while Karnisovas certainly is aware of analytics, he leans towards the use of traditional scouting at a less than ideal rate for my taste,  In general I find that teams who use scouting to support their data rather than vice versa tend to be more successful and that may not be the case with the new regime in Chicago.

Positive 2:  Offensive Philosophy

After researching more on AK he clearly has a vision where players aren’t limited to traditional roles based on the position they play offensively.  He prefers ball and player movement and to have players who possess high skill levels1-5.  He prefers to have multiple players capable of handling the rock.  

All of that works well for me.  I prefer an egalitarian style, absent a transcendent Lebron/Giannis level superstar as having multiple guys capable of making plays makes it hard for defenses to hide weaknesses, and tends to promote camaraderie.  

The traditional mold of a maestro ball handler working the pick and roll with one lob man surrounded by 3 shooters is totally fine, but makes a team more susceptible to an injury or getting schemed out of the playoffs.  Also, as much as Zach Lavine has improved, neither he nor anyone else on this roster is nearly on the level as to where he can effectively quarterback a high level offense by himself. Speaking of Lavine it’ll be interesting to see if he can improve his playmaking for others. If not, there’s a good chance he’ll have a new home before the end of his current contract.

Negative 3:  The defensive scheme

Stephen Noh did a really good in-depth piece a couple days ago on Karnisovas and found some quotes where AK stated how he liked to have his bigs come out of the paint and defend in space on the perimeter at times.  While it doesn’t seem he wants to go as far as playing the ultra aggressive trap inducing scheme Jim Boylen utilized, I prefer defenses’ like the one Milwaukee has utilized under Mike Budenholzer the past two years. In that scheme players protect the paint at all costs and try to funnel shots to bad 3 point shooters.

The Bucks were leading the league in defensive efficiency by a mile before the league stopped.  They were playing at a historic level by some measures.  Protect the nest and eat glass is how defenses should be built.  I’m not a big fan of the schemes he’s promoting that focus on pressuring the ball and wind up forcing defenses into rotations sooner than they need to be.

Positive 3:  Ability to exploit my two of my favorite inefficiencies in the draft: health and Europe.

When I make a draft board there are three or four kinds of players that I routinely find to be too low on other people’s boards.  In general these flaws stem from teams being too risk averse while valuing talent that comes from more familiar places.  It makes intuitive sense.  If you’re making a multimillion-dollar investment do you really want to “roll the dice” when a wrong decision could ultimately cost you the job you’ve spent you’re entire life working for?

Even with that excuse, there is a ton of positive Expected Value when targeting players who have question marks about their health.  Every year it seems like there is a guy teams look foolish for not drafting significantly earlier due to fear of injury including: Joel Embiid, OG Annouby, and Malcolm Brogdon.  The Nuggets were the team who capatlized on the two players who fit this mold the most in the past two drafts.  The risk already started to bear fruit this year with Michael Porter Jr, and next year I’m predicting that they’ll look like geniuses again with Bol Bol.

I’m not sure how much of the credit ought to be assigned to Karnisovas for these moves, but that he’s coming from the organization that made them is reason to be excited as a Bulls fan who’s watched this team value high floor over high ceiling for far too many years.

The success Denver has had scouting Europe does seem like an area Karnisovas should receive a lot of credit for.  Insiders say he was big in the push to draft Nikola Jokic a couple years ago.  That’s a gold star that should get anyone an opportunity to run their own team.

There are to chief reason I think teams tend to find good value in targeting Europe.  One is that teams tend to place too of a high of value on raw athleticism and not enough on present day skill when drafting players.  Guys coming from Europe typically tend to be more polished. The best example would be Luka Doncic. He didn’t slip to #3 in the draft cause people were doubting his skill level, it was all about whether or not he had the athleticism to make it as a star in in the league. AK saw that Jokic would make it in the league despite limited athletic ability as well. This the number one reason to be pumped about Karnisovas. He has shown his chops evaluating the draft.

The other reason is the European prospects provide value in the draft is the leagues they play in.  While a good chunk of Americans sports fans love hyping up their favorite college teams, the truth is that those teams are terrible and full of teenagers.  The guys international players have to deal with are actual men, almost all of whom were really good college basketball players at one point and who have only gotten better with time.   While most teams are watching a 22-year-old Obi Toppin dunk on a bunch of 19 year old 2 star recruits, I’d rather have a 19 year old who can hold his own in limited minutes in the Euroleague everything else being equal.  It’s hard for teams to account for the drastic difference in competition between college and a league like La Liga in Spain.

And Jokic isn’t the only international success story on his resume though.  Daryl Morey indicated that AK was the driving force in drafting Sergio Llull in the 2009 draft.  For those of you asking, “who the hell is that?’ Llull has been the best player in all of Europe the majority of the past half-decade (Luka Doncic and Niko Mirotic are the only other two who would have a strong argument against him).  While Llull decided that he preferred to live in Europe and star for Real Madrid, drafting him at #34 was an absolute steal.  Nearly every scout thinks he would’ve been at least a league average starting point guard and maybe more.

While I don’t buy the small market ethos/dependency on the draft GarPax and Reinsdorf have espoused the last two decades (the Bulls have a market where playing in free agency can be the chief pillar for the foundation of a championship calibar team), knowing where to find value in the draft is always an asset.  Karnisovas comes from organizations that know where to look, and there are are stories of him helping drive those decisions.  That alone is a reason to be bullish on this hire as a Chicago fan.

Conclusion:

There still is a lot of unknowns as to how this hire will play out.  Who will Karnasovis pick as his GM and coach?  Does he have any ideas on how to improve on all of the injuries the Bulls have suffered the last decade?  Does he have a way of getting more out of these current players?  Will Paxson still have a say in personnel decisions?

The truth is we don’t know, but at least at this point it appears the strengths of the positives outweigh the weaknesses of the negatives.

In looking at this hire I wanted to be critical in my assessment and not just react to the fan boy in me exclaiming “NO MORE GARPAX!!! WOOO HOOO!!!!”  

As stated earlier, I think the Bulls should have tried harder to make a true powerhouse move for one of the league’s executives.  Short of that, Karnisovas seems like a pretty good move, yet maybe not a great one.

Final Grade: B

For reference sake here’s how I would’ve graded other moves:

Masai Uriji: A+++

Daryl Morey: A+

Sam Presti: A

Sam Hinkie: A-

Bobby Webster: A-/B+

Troy Weaver/Justin Zanik/ David Simon: C+

Wes Wilcox/Danny Ferry/Kevin Pritchard: C-

Mark Barlstein: D

Inserting some ex player with no experience like Kirk Hinrich: F

Sticking with GarPax: F-

I’m happy with where we are at! How is the rest of Bulls Nation feeling?

Each passing day brings about more information making the re-start of the NBA season seem less and less plausible. While this is news saddens me and many of my friends who love the sport, there is still an opportunity to analyze how this season has played out, how things look going forward, and some tweaks the league can make it to make the experience even more enjoyable.

Today I am going to do a breakdown of my preseason over/under’s both for entertainment purposes and as a part of the process to figure out what I got right and wrong as I do this exercise again in the future. Since the season obviously hasn’t finished I’m going to assign each pick a 0, 25, 50, 75, or 100% chance of happening and see how things play out from there. I am using a combination of 538’s Raptor, Kosta Mevdevovsky’s DARKO, and the teams current win percentage with a little bit of intuition to try and figure out how likely each team was to hit their preseason win totals.

I’ll start with my least confident picks and work my way up

Decent Plays I would make

12. Minnesota Over 35.5

Whoops….Not a good start here. O%

11. Oklahoma City over 32

If I had known they would’ve gotten off to a better than expected start and not moved anyone at the deadline this might have been my #1 play. 100%

10. Utah under 53.5

This is the first one where it’s hard to say if it’s more of a 50% chance or 75%. They’d have to go 1-5 the rest of the season which is certainly doable, but less likely than not. All systems have them as 51 or 51.5 win team. They might have more to play for with seeding, but even factoring that in I’m calling this a 75% play.

9. Chicago over 32.5

Coaching matters folks. Jim Boylen clearly isn’t cut out for this. 0%

8. New Orleans over 37.5

This would’ve been one of the 2 nail-biters for me coming down the stretch. On one hand, the Pelicans are on pace for well less than this total. On the other hand, they would have had the easiest schedule in the league going forward, and you may have heard that they had a guy named Zion Williamson coming back from injury. Both RAPTOR and DARKO had them narrowly edging it out, but not with enough confidence for me to call this more than a 50% chance

7. Lakers under 51.5

Don’t take Lebron James for granted folks. Don’t underestimate him like fools like me do 😦 0%

6. Charlotte over 23.5

It certainly has not been the sexiest of paths, but the Hornets are 1 win from clinching. I’ll take my wins no matter how ugly they are 100%

Close to Locks

5. Dallas over 40.5

Much better start to this round. We can safely assume that Dallas isn’t going 0-15 to end the season 100%

4. Detroit under 37.5

Oooph! I was obviously low on the Pistons, but not even I saw them being bottom 5 overall team in the league bad 100%

3. Philly under 54.5

I said it before the season and Ill say it again. This team didn’t win this many games last year, nor did their point differential indicate they should have. If that weren’t enough THEY GOT RID OF THEIR BEST PLAYER!!! It never made any sense 100%

2. Phoenix over 29.5

This was one that was kind of hard to figure where to place. They just had to go 4-13 to end the season which they clearly would be favored to. Still it’s plausible they lose a couple close games and decide to tank the rest of the season when it becomes clear they can’t make the playoffs and wind up just missing their over. I’d say the odds of something like that happen are between a quarter and 0 percent of the time. Ultimately I’m calling it 75%

Lock for the season

1. Indiana under 47.5

Gulp! They’re on pace for 49 wins, but their schedule is getting harder. Darko and 538 both have them between 48 and 48.5 wins. I’d say I’m an underdog on this one, but a very slight one. This is one that very likely could’ve come down to whether or not they were fighting for seeding or more in the mood to rest for the impending playoffs. We’ll never find out, but I’m calling it a coin flip 50%

Conclusion

Add it all up and you get a projected record of: 7.5-4.5

That’s a pretty good year for me. 7-5 is what what my expected record would be, anything more is good, anything less bad. There’s a reason there aren’t too many people that consistently beat Vegas, it’s not easy. I didn’t do particularly well with the first group, but those teams were all in my 55-60% confidence interval. It’s possible that I would’ve gotten a clear 6-0 sweep of my top picks if everything would’ve broken correctly, and those are the ones that were more important to me. I would’ve bet more heavily on them had I been wagering.

Based off projected records the Oklahoma City over and Detroit under would have been the second and third best preseason bets one could’ve made (behind only Golden State’s under of 48.5). Memphis over at 26 would have been #4 and that was the last play to make it off my list of “Plays I would make”. The Lakers’ over coming it #6 is the only major blemish when looking at teams that went +/- 10 games from their projected records on Bovada.

Indiana is a team I want to do a deeper dive on. I thought losing 4 of their 5 starters would’ve had a bigger impact on the team than it did.

Thoughts?

With the trade deadline a little over a week away its time to take a look at some of the moves the Bulls SHOULD be making before February 6th. I emphasized the should because this exercise is what I would do to try and make the Bulls championship contenders as quickly as possible. This is not what I expect John Paxson to do, which is more likely to be window dressing of the mess he’s made. 

As the Bulls new czar of basketball operations, I’m punting on the rest of this season with the sole focus of trying to make us look as attractive as possible to Giannis, Lebron, Kawhi, Paul George, maybe Anthony Davis, and everyone else involved in the absolutely loaded 2021 Free Agent class. 

The Big Question

Zach Lavine is the hardest part to figure out going forward. I’m comfortably between the two camps of team “Lavine is an obvious All-Star”, and the “he’s just a glorified chucker/6th man” school of though populating Twitter. 

On one hand he clearly isn’t quite there as a truly upper echelon scorer in the Harden/Curry mold. What keeps him from even being in the Trae Young/Kemba Walker class offensively is the lack of playmaking skills. Zach’s FGA to assist ratio isn’t good enough for a guy in his role. It’s almost as if his athleticism is a detriment sometimes in this regard. He can put himself in positions to get off shots that most could never even think of. However, at least once a game you’ll find an instance where getting that shot off comes at the expense of missing Lauri Markannan wide open behind the arc. 

Still the guy can score efficiently on a heavy volume of shots. Generating points is the point of the game after all, and Zach does it on a level that’s only 15 or so guys on the planet are capable of. 

He’s also grading out higher defensively than he’s ever had in the past, and putting up career high steal rates. Even with the improvements he’s still below average on that side of the court as he’s still slow to rotate at times, and doesn’t give enough effort in transition or on the boards. 

Add it all up and that’s a guy who’s more finge star than All-Star. That’s fine considering what he gets paid. Further more, when you start to factor in his age and unreal physical talent it still isn’t completely unrealistic to hope their is another half grade development around the corner as a passer and defender. 

The issue with the team is that Lavine is being asked to be an alpha for this group. For as much as he’s improved throughout his career he’s clearly in the bottom third of “quarterbacks” in the league. I think Zach would grade out significantly better analytically if he got to play in a Khris Middleton in Milwaukee role. He’d excel as spot up shooter, secondary pick and roll guy, who gets to run the offense when the actual superstar is catching his breath. Combine that and having a huge Lopez twin behind him in a simpler defensive scheme and that might bring out an actual all star performance. 

I’d try and see if a reactionary front office like Sacramento or Atlanta was feeling a little pressure to start winning right now and were willing to throw an unprotected first rounder in with salary filler like Chandler Parsons or Kent Bazemore for Lavine. 

Add it all up and unless there is at least a Mike Conley level offer including multiple first round draft picks I would rather try and clear space for 2 max free agents around Zach in 2021 rather get a middling first round pick in a weak draft right now.

The Recent Free Agents

Both Tomas Satoransky and Thaddeus Young came with a fair amount of acclaim when they were added to the roster last summer as veterans who plugged holes by being able to contribute without needing the ball in their hands all the time. A half a year later they both have more or less met expectations (Sato for sure. Young is more debatable, but I’d still say it’s hard to argue he’s been a disappointment). It’s totally fine if both of these guys are still on the roster come February 7th. Still, since they both have some guaranteed money for the 2021 season I’d like to find them new homes on the chance that cap space comes of use.   

That being said, getting rid of Satoransky just to get rid of him makes no sense. At very minimum he’s a capable starter with a salary more in line of a bench guy. The absolute minimum to move him would be recouping the two second round draft picks it took to acquire him without taking on any dead money past next year. Would the Lakers package two seconds (or 1 second rounder with Talen Horton Tucker) with the expiring contracts of Avery Bradley and Demarcus Cousins?  Houston and Philly are two other teams I could see making similar offers. 

Young on the other hand I would salary dump if possible. He’s making more money and doesn’t fit on this roster as well. Additionally, he is already on the wrong side of 30. The contract is probably underwater, and he’s apparently (and justifiably) not happy with his playing time. If the Heat wanted him for Meyers Leonard, the Clippers for Mo Harkless, or Portland for Hassan Whiteside (although I’d try and get them to attach their 2022 second rounder as the ticket to getting them out of the luxury tax). Even a swap for Bismack Biyombo or Evan Turner would work. 

Cashing in on old Lottery picks

Coming into this season Kris Dunn and Denzel Valentine have flashed potential at various points throughout their careers, but have had a hard time with consistency and health. This year their respective routes have veered in different directions as Dunn has turned into arguably the best perimeter defender in the league night in and night out, while Valentine has been behind Shaquille Harrison in the rotation most of the season for reasons that are only clear in the bald head of Jim Boylen (who’s been fired by the way now that I’m calling the shots). 

Ive seen it argued that the Bulls should be trying to trade Dunn for something valuable before the deadline. I understand the logic, but though there are a couple reasons why I don’t see it happening. 

One is Dunn himself. He’s shooting just 25% from the 3 point line. In a playoff series, which is where a team that’s acquiring Dunn has to think of how well he’ll fit, will teams be able to just muck up the paint and freely help off Dunn at all times? If so, he’s not good enough to have an offense run through him obviously, so it’s possible that he might become unplayable a la Tony Allen or Andre Roberson in a deep playoff series. I don’t see him fetching a first round draft pick with free agency 30 games away. 

The other reason I’m probably holding onto him is with the way the free agency is shaping up. Only 5 teams are projected to have any kind of cap space this offseason. All of them are rebuilding teams that don’t really figure to throw major offers for role players over the age of 25 (although you never know with the Knicks I guess). In a market like that it’s hard to imagine Dunn getting anymore than the mid level exception. While Dunn is no star he’s good value at the roughly $10 million/year it looks like he’s in line to make. And if he ever develops even an average 3 point shot he can become our version of Marcus Smart. That’d be an absolute steal. Give him 4 years and a hair over $40 million with the last year not fully guaranteed and a declining annual salary that makes him easier to trade in case it’s required to land a second max guy 2 summers from now, and everyone goes home happy. 

Denzel Valentine should be on every other GM’s buy low list right now. He’s roughly a 40% 3 point shooter, who is more than capable of running an effective pick and roll, and only a little below average defensively. It’s honestly unfathomable that he has not been able to secure more playing time on a team so deprived of any kind of offensive oomph. If he and Coby White switched the number of minutes they’ve played this season the Bulls would be the current 8 seed in the East. 

However, since Boylen is now gone in this hypothetical we’re going to find out what Denzel looks like getting at least 20 minutes a game in a Bulls uniform rather than another one. 

Everyone else

Everybody else on the roster is potentially a part of the next good Bulls team, or nobody would realistically want (although I guess it wouldn’t hurt to at least call Mitch Kupcheck about Cristiano Feliciao). Some might disagree on that when it comes to Otto Porter, but I can’t see anyone really wanting Porter at that dollar amount with the injury issues he’s had the past couple years. 

 Verdict

While it is in fact hard to find deals that work there ought to be moves available for the 2 Free Agent signings this summer. 

Any of the Young offers discussed earlier suffice. For the sake of this exercise I’m moving him to LA for Mo Harkless. It’s debatable as to who’s a better player, but Young makes more sense for their roster with Harkless’ skillset already found in spades on the current Clips roster with Kawhi and Paul George.  The Clips don’t have a true 4 you’d really trust come playoff time and Young can provide that. They’ve apparently shown interest and him being under contract for 2 more years may not be an issue as they won’t have any cap space to add to the team these next couple off seasons. 

Harkless comes over more for his salary, but would also be a welcome addition. He’d give the Bulls a true wing they’ve been missing since Porter got injured. He’s also got sufficient size to at least cover some of the minutes Young played as the backup 4 once everyone gets healthy. If all works out it’d be fine to bring him back in the offseason at a similar dollar amount to serve as a 1 year stopgap. 

Outside of that, I’d see If the Lakers chomp at the offer for Sato I made earlier (2 expiring contracts and 2 second rounders). Satoransky’s versatility would fit perfectly for that team and they’re clearly in win at all costs this year mode. Enjoy the conference finals you two!

After that, I’d stay put. 

The way things are playing out it looks like the Bulls will have yet another top 10 draft pick this year, and probably next year as well. While this draft doesn’t appear particularly strong they should be able to add two more future starters the next 2 years. 

If all goes to plan the Bulls will have a bunch of cap space and a tun of valuable young assets (Carter, Lauri, White, Gafford and 2 more probable lottery picks) to acquire multiple stars and still fill in pieces after. I’d go after Giannis, see if AD could convince Lebron to follow him home, or see if the Clippers were ready to breakup. Even if you couldn’t land one of the big fish there are plenty of guys in the Victor Oladipo class of borderline all stars scheduled to be available. I’d also bet on that being the summer the Sixers finally make their big move on deciding between Simmons and Embiid to build around going forward, and trading the other. 

Would the Sixers bite on a combo of Lavine and the Bulls two most recent first round draft picks for Simmons? Would he be a big enough star to lure AD home? Could the Bulls find a way to get 3 stars by targeting a younger PG like Trae Young, Ja Morant or Shai Gilgeous-Alexander vía trade and having enough cap room for 2 more stars?

I don’t know the answer to any of that, but the idea is way more exciting than seeing if Zach Lavine can drag this team to 35 wins and an embarrassing 8 seed beat down at the hands of the Bucks these next two seasons. Be competitive, build for the future, and see what the rolling of the dice brings come 2021. 

Krueger hit me up last week asking me who my NBA All stars were. Now that we’re at the halfway point of the NBA season and voting ending tonight, This seems like a good time to do a deep dive and see how the teams should play out. 

Beginning with the East 

Starters:

Kemba Walker

Ben Simmons

Jimmy Butler

Giannis

Pascal Siakam

Bench:

Kyle Lowry

Joel Embiid

Jason Tatum

Kris Middleton

Trae Young

Bam Abedayo

Damontis Sabonis

Last 5 off:

Devonte Graham

Tobias Harris

Eric Bledsoe

Jaylen Brown

Zach Lavine or Fred Van Vleet

Man the East guards are weak. All off candidates were either guys putting up all star scoring numbers, but with bad defense on unsuccessful teams, or secondary guys on good teams. Life would’ve been much easier if I could put Butler in as a guard and get Embiid starting. Alas, we’re left debating A bunch of low level alphas vs. above average betas. Kyle Lowry might be the only guy who has been doing more than that, and he missed a lot of time with injuries.   

Ultimately I prefer to reward guys who are on more successful teams rather than points per game warriors. Kemba Walker is probably the best example of this. He’s the exact same player he’s always been, but his role in Boston is smaller and he’s seen his points per game drop by about 5 points this year. I think he should be commended for adapting his game to his situation rather than point out the lower productivity. 

Ben Simmons is as polarizing as a player as you’ll find in the league, but sharing a team with Joel Embiid is always going to take away from him posting dominant box score totals. Even then he’s a potential triple double guy every night and a versatile, monster defensively. 

The other starters were super easy choices. The first 4 spots on the bench were locks as well. The last 3 spots I changed my mind on which 3 to pick between Young, Graham, Adebayo and Sabonis. Ultimately the scoring and passing ability of Trae Young was too much to look over even though the Hawks are a dumpster fire and he’s a mess defensively. I don’t think he’s been one of the 30 best players in the league this year, but the East guards lack so much star talent that he gets the nod anyways. 

Graham is my favorite to win most improved player in the league right now, but even then he’s not getting 20 a night on a bad team, and I don’t buy some of the advanced numbers claiming he’s an above average defender. 

Ultimately I rewarded winning teams. Of top 6 teams that have taken a commanding lead in the conference, all got 2 players except Indiana (this is why ultimately went Sabonis with my final spot. They needed at least one). Enjoy the experience Trae Young

West Starters:

Luka Doncic

James Harden

Lebron James

Kawhi Leonard

Anthony Davis

Bench:

Damian Lillard

Donovan Mitchell

Rudy Gobert 

Nikola Jokic

Montrezl Harrell

Chris Paul

Paul George

Last 5 out:

Karl Anthony Towns

Devin Booker

Brandon Ingram

Jamal Murray

Dennis Schroeder or C.J. McCollum 

Unlike the East, the starters out west were pretty easy (although Gobert is closer to AD than most probably think). The other 4 guys are either guys who are top 4 in the current MVP race or was the best player in the playoffs last year who improved his playmaking skills over the offseason. I don’t think any of these are controversial and need to be explained. 

The first four bench guys were no doubters, but things got tough towards the end. Harrell comes off the bench for the Clippers, but just dominates his minutes for an elite team. Likewise George hasn’t played a run of minutes, but the ones he has have been top 10 player in the league good. Chris Paul does a lot more deferring these days, but still is so smart and best player on a surprisingly good team that he needed a spot. 

Towns would be on the team in the East, but the lack of defense in addition to the games missed ultimately put him behind a guy like George. Murray, Ingram and Booker are all still a year away, although I’d probably take them all over Young if they played back east. Booker and Ingram in particular fall into what I’m going to call the “Lavine class” as guys putting up huge numbers on teams that just aren’t quite good enough to overcome their lack of playmaking and defense. 

In all this years All Stars feel a little weak compared to years past. Some of that’s due to injuries (Curry, Klay, Durant, Wall, Kyrie, Blake, Zion) that are making the “Lavine class” a little closer than they’d be most years. 

Another hypothesis I’m thinking could be is that as teams do more of letting their best guy go to work James Harden style every time on offense, that maybe in turn that’s deflating the second tier guys a little bit.