Chicago Bulls 2019-2020

[Brian]

The march to maybe playoffs starts tonight.

 

The Athletic has a big profile on Boylen up today. And it has the most Jim Boylen thing possible in it. Dude installed a time clock at the practice facility.

 

When he arrived each day, Boylen would manually stamp his time card in the company’s time clock. He’ll never forget it. He thought it was sort of cool but also symbolic, punching into work, logging his hours, keeping inventory of his week through a time-honored method that would make it clear whether he had been responsible and accountable.

 

And three days before the start of this year’s training camp, Boylen brought in another memory of his factory days. He ordered a time clock. He had it painted from green to red and inscribed with “Chicago Bulls” in white letters on the front. On the sides are Bulls logos. It sits on a north wall inside the Advocate Center, just off the training room, steps away from the weight room. To the right, resting in two small adjacent grey placeholders, are the players’ time cards. Each one is red and white, with the player’s name and his jersey number at the top. The custom-made cards also are adorned with a Bulls logo.

 

“So when guys come through the doors they punch in now,” Boylen said. “Punching in to work.”

 

[Regular Show]

Nope. Not down with the time clock idea:

 

http://giphygifs.s3.amazonaws.com/media/Qqq8b2K5qsg8M/giphy.gif

 

[Old Style]

The "CHICAGO BULLS" on that time clock is crooked and it's driving me nuts looking at it.

 

And yes, it's an idiotic idea.

[ChiCubsFan]

I was kinda somewhat starting to support him. Then he had to go and do this.

[WrigleyField 22]

I hope every player was given bootstraps and a lunch pail too

[The_Achiever]

I hope every player was given bootstraps and a lunch pail too

 

Personalized dry erase boards so they can all be "coaches on the floor" too.

[Regular Show]

Bulls better not to lose to the Hornets in game 1 of the season (currently losing 32-40). Boylen should be fired after the game if that happens...

[SpongeWorthy]

PLAY DEFENSE YOU MOOKS

[UMFan83]

Bulls are better but I have no idea why people thought they improved by 20+ wins over the offseason

 

+7 or 8 sounds right. Puts them at 29-30 wins and the 7th pick

[Sammy Sofa]

Bulls are better but I have no idea why people thought they improved by 20+ wins over the offseason

 

[ChiCubsFan]

Because there are a lot of really bad teams. And they improved a lot from the start of last season (Thaddeus, Otto, Wendell, and Coby). I wouldn’t now write them off based on one very poor defensive performance on the road. If it was a home loss to them, then sure. Still, defense looked about as bad as any team I’ve ever seen.

[David]

Bulls are better but I have no idea why people thought they improved by 20+ wins over the offseason

 

+7 or 8 sounds right. Puts them at 29-30 wins and the 7th pick

nah

 

they'll win in the 40's and make the playoffs by a fairly comfortable margin

 

seasons don't start with the last year as some sort of baseline.

[David]

nice debut from lauri after all the bitching (on realgm that is) about his preseason

 

[Cubswin11]

Bulls are better but I have no idea why people thought they improved by 20+ wins over the offseason

 

+7 or 8 sounds right. Puts them at 29-30 wins and the 7th pick

Assuming health I think they’re a 35-42 win team and get the 6-8 seed. Tonight was ugly and embarrassing but there’s talent there.

[UMFan83]

https://twitter.com/markstrot/status/1187362791113535490

 

Obviously they still hit a ridiculous number of those shots but that is pretty damning defensive performance against the worst team in the league (we think). I saw a lot of bad switches and late close outs which is exactly what I was worried about defensively carrying over from last year. Offense looked mostly fluid during the part of the game I saw which was good and should look even better when LaVine isn't playing terrible.

[SouthSideRyan]

I'd imagine that's close to league average when "open"

[Flames24Rulz]

Bulls are better but I have no idea why people thought they improved by 20+ wins over the offseason

 

+7 or 8 sounds right. Puts them at 29-30 wins and the 7th pick

nah

 

they'll win in the 40's and make the playoffs by a fairly comfortable margin

 

seasons don't start with the last year as some sort of baseline.

 

i'm really not seeing this, especially with coach Meatball running things.

[David]

i don't really care that he's a meatball and a lot of that goofy stuff, while off putting, doesn't really matter. he came highly regarded out of san antonio. he should be fine and they're saying the right things (and showing it so far) about how the offense will run in a modern fashion.

 

as for last year's record, they should be replacing a lot of awful g-league minutes with competence or better this year. removing that drain makes a big difference.

 

 

i'm hardly alone on this. nationally the bulls are being talked about as an up and coming sleeper in a few different places.

[WrigleyField 22]

i don't really care that he's a meatball and a lot of that goofy stuff, while off putting, doesn't really matter. he came highly regarded out of san antonio. he should be fine and they're saying the right things (and showing it so far) about how the offense will run in a modern fashion.

 

as for last year's record, they should be replacing a lot of awful g-league minutes with competence or better this year. removing that drain makes a big difference.

 

 

i'm hardly alone on this. nationally the bulls are being talked about as an up and coming sleeper in a few different places.

To the extent that coaches matter, it's mostly their ability to manage star players/egos. Anything gimmicky you worry about wearing thin over time.

 

That said, the Bulls don't have that star player yet unless LaVine wants to turn into one. So whatever, a scrappy young team that runs a modern offense and can make the playoffs would still provide some entertainment. Maybe I'd watch them a little this year!

[David]

I'd imagine that's close to league average when "open"

 

Can't speak to the accuracy of this (seems a bit low to me)

 

[WrigleyField 22]

I'd imagine that's close to league average when "open"

 

Can't speak to the accuracy of this (seems a bit low to me)

 

Um yea there's no way that's right, league average on ALL 3 pointers was 0.355 last year. .362 the year prior.

[SouthSideRyan]

https://www.cbssports.com/nba/news/wide-open-3s-and-ranking-how-each-nba-team-fared-at-making-defenses-pay/

 

This from 2016 breaks it down by team shooting percentage, but more interesting was this

 

There can be some noise in these shot tracking stats, but SportsVu tracking for NBA.com has 39.4 percent of all 3-point attempts happening in that "wide-open" distinction. Meanwhile, 41.7 percent of them are "open" 3s, 17 percent are "tightly" contested and just 1.7 percent of 3-pointers are coming on "very tightly" contested shots.

 

So they were a couple shots off from the 2016 average in openness allowed.

[WrigleyField 22]

Well apparently its right based on NBA's official data;

 

https://stats.nba.com/teams/shots-closest-defender/?Season=2018-19&SeasonType=Regular%20Season&sort=TEAM_NAME&dir=1&PerMode=Totals&CloseDefDistRange=4-6%20Feet%20-%20Open

 

It turns out that NBA players are a lot better at shot selection that I gave them credit for. Wide Open 3's on average were only converted at 38% of the time, but made up 52% of all 3 pointers. Open, Tight or Very Tight together were converted at 32%, and each had about a 4pt spread. But Tight and Very tight 3's only accounted for 11% of 3's taken.

 

*Note* - The NBA stats from last year seem to be missing 346 3's or about 0.44% of all 3's.

 

 

ETA for Context;

 

On a individual player basis, Klay Thompson hit 43.2% of open 3's.

https://stats.nba.com/players/shots-closest-defender/?Season=2018-19&SeasonType=Regular%20Season&PerMode=Totals&sort=FG3_PCT&dir=1&CF=FG3A*G*200&CloseDefDistRange=4-6%20Feet%20-%20Open

 

Steph Curry hit 52% of Wide Open 3's

https://stats.nba.com/players/shots-closest-defender/?Season=2018-19&SeasonType=Regular%20Season&PerMode=Totals&sort=FG3_PCT&dir=1&CF=FG3A*G*200&CloseDefDistRange=6%2B%20Feet%20-%20Wide%20Open

[WrigleyField 22]

Well this shot data is going to ruin my day.

 

The Bulls actually had pretty strong shot selection last year in context of the rest of the league. From wide open to very tight. 55% / 35% / 9% /0% ( again there are some lost shots in there which is why it doesn't equal 100). They only took 3 very tight 3's last year.

 

But they were God awful at open 3's, with only the Mavs, Jazz, and Raptors coming close in terms of variance betweem open 3 % verse total 3%. The Jazz and Raptors were very good at therefor taking less open 3s and more wide open 3's.

 

The Bulls were also near the bottom third in total 3s taken, so perhaps they also just sucked at generating those wide open 3's (only 4 teams shot less of them).

[Brian]

starting to think the Bulls strategy of always leaving someone on the other team wide open is not a good one