Cubbie Swagger

The entire reason this discussion started was I was saying that those first 8 years of Brand's career, before major injury, could have helped the Bulls stop sucking much sooner. That's why I am talking about that particular timeframe. Then, if you want to bring up someone like Grant, I think it only makes sense to look at the best stretch of his career for comparison. Rather than, say, picking a 6-8 year stretch at random. In the context of this conversation, it just doesn't make sense for you to bring up the career numbers of Horace Grant. Of course, debating Brand vs Grant in the first place has no bearing on anything at all. We're just busying ourselves. BTW nobody said anything about consecutive years. Does it change anything if its an 8 year stretch vs a 6 year stretch?

I made it clear, like, pages ago that I was not talking about Brand from a career perspective. I was only talking about the first 8 years, before he got hurt. 2 with the Bulls, and 6 with the Clippers. That's why I was comparing the 6 years with the Clippers to the best 6 year stretch of Grant's career. If we were talking career numbers, we wouldn't be having this discussion.

Brand kinda kicks Grant's ass in some of those. I don't see ORtg or DRtg on there.

That's kind of an odd comparison. In Horace's best scoring season, he was still 10 points shy of Elton's best season, and significantly shy of even an average season for Elton. I know Horace was playing alongside prolific scorers, but they weren't very similar players. Kinda hard to compare value. It's not hard to compare, but you've already stated you don't bother looking at any kind of advanced basketball stats, so here we are. I would encourage you to peruse the very delightful Basketball Reference when you have the time. http://www.basketball-reference.com/players/g/grantho01.html http://www.basketball-reference.com/players/b/brandel01.html I use Basketball Reference all the time. I just don't put much stock into advanced stats, because that's just not how basketball really works. Out of curiosity, which advanced stats should I look at that would make a person think Grant and Brand were similar in value? VORP? In the six seasons after we traded Brand, he put up a total of 31.9 VORP. Over the best 6 year stretch of Grant's career, he put up 26. Is that comparable? That puts Brand at about 1 more per year, obviously.

That's kind of an odd comparison. In Horace's best scoring season, he was still 10 points shy of Elton's best season, and significantly shy of even an average season for Elton. I know Horace was playing alongside prolific scorers, but they weren't very similar players. Kinda hard to compare value.

Points taken. But, I should point out that the entire concept of trading away a star player that you JUST drafted with the #1 pick is extremely rare. Let alone trading them for another draft pick. It's rare because it's stupid, so that's why you won't find many comparable situations. Usually, the only time recent top draft picks get traded is when they still haven't proved themselves, and there is a bit of risk involved (maybe Anthony Bennett as an example). You saw how the Bulls had no interest in trading Jimmy for one of the top picks in the draft. When you roll the dice and WIN, like we did with Brand, you don't ask for a do-over. You don't roll the dice again.

Elton Brand was really good, dammit. That is all.

That or Jerry Krause was just a pompous ass God, he was so easy to hate.

All I was saying is it would have been possible to sell higher on him, like, after that season. Hindsight, he improved a little bit that next year, but the book that was written on him probably is unchanged. He wasn't a franchise changer, not before the draft, not after two years, not after three years. There are very few players that are capable of single-handedly turning a bad team into a playoff team. You could probably put Lebron James on any team in the league and they would make the playoffs, but who else can you say that about? Elton Brand could have been a very nice piece on a contender if we had been able to pair him with a couple other elite players. He could have been, like, the Chris Bosh of a Big 3.

On another note... I was thinking earlier about how the Bulls traded Charles Oakley without consulting Michael or anything. That is what supposedly started the whole, "the Bulls' front office isn't loyal" thing. I feel like that would never happen today. Could you imagine the Cavs just up and trading one of Lebron's cronies without saying anything? Maybe it's just a result of the game changing over time? Players have more power now, I guess.

They absolutely did not. If they were going to trade him, they would have been better off allowing him to blossom for a few years into a legit superstar. At his peak, they could have received a lot more than the #2 pick in return for him. It would have been a whole package. Again, he didn't get injured until 8 years into his career. It wasn't like Rose where it happened right away. They had won 32 games in two years with him as a 20/10 guy. He wasn't going to blossom in value by being the leader of sub 20 win teams with a dwindling rookie contract. He saw a small uptick in his third year after the trade and that's then basically who he was sans one All Star year 5 years later. All I was saying is it would have been possible to sell higher on him, like, after that season.

They absolutely did not. If they were going to trade him, they would have been better off allowing him to blossom for a few years into a legit superstar. At his peak, they could have received a lot more than the #2 pick in return for him. It would have been a whole package. Again, he didn't get injured until 8 years into his career. It wasn't like Rose where it happened right away.

Why couldn't they just let that horsefeathering goat into the ballpark?

We ARE talking about a big difference in players for the first 8 years of their careers. The only reason they sort of leveled out in the end is that Brand had a very severe drop in production due to injury, whereas Chandler just had a normal decline due to old age. Brand was averaging 25 and 10, plus getting assists, steals, and blocks. He was an elite player at his position. Chandler has never been more than a really good role player. I know that having Elton Brand on a really bad team wouldn't have made much difference by itself. I guess the assumption would be that if you have Elton Brand, maybe you become a little more aggressive about surrounding him with talent. tyson chandler was a legitimate impact defensive player and one of the best rebounders in the league. he also basically averaged a double double a few times. he was more than just a role player. Yeah, I mean, it just depends how you define the various roles. By "really good role player", I mean that on a good team he is going to be a complimentary piece alongside a couple of legit scorers. Typically guys that aren't primary scorers on their team are going to be regarded as role players. The fact that he took so long to develop was probably the biggest issue. Brand was ready. 20 and 10 in his rookie year. Also, for an impact defensive player, he didn't block many shots. I'm not saying he wasn't a good defender, though, don't get me wrong.

Eh; those were REALLY bad teams, and like David has pointed out, we're not talking about that big a difference in players. Best case scenario likely would have just them being less bad. We ARE talking about a big difference in players for the first 8 years of their careers. The only reason they sort of leveled out in the end is that Brand had a very severe drop in production due to injury, whereas Chandler just had a normal decline due to old age. Brand was averaging 25 and 10, plus getting assists, steals, and blocks. He was an elite player at his position. Chandler has never been more than a really good role player. I know that having Elton Brand on a really bad team wouldn't have made much difference by itself. I guess the assumption would be that if you have Elton Brand, maybe you become a little more aggressive about surrounding him with talent.

You mean Tyson put together a nice career, right? Tyrus was a total bust. Chandler ended up becoming a useful center, but he never came close to Elton Brand in his prime. And he certainly wasn't "the next KG". Brand continued to dominate every single year until he got hurt. yeah you beat my edit by like 2 seconds. i meant tyson, of course. i don't see how "the next KG" thing is at all relevant...yeah, i'd take brand's career. never said i wouldn't...but for the sake of argument, elton has had 109.6 win shares in 1058 games, and tyson has had 92.7 in 986. so while elton was the better player with the better career, i think there's probably a serious case to be made that tyson closed the gap quite a bit after all was said and done. definitely more than just a useful player in his prime. The next KG is just what he was called when we drafted him. All I was saying is that Tyson was a disappointment. If you consider the fact that Brand ended up getting hurt, and Tyson has remained useful until basically now, yeah, there might be some debate there as far as who had the better overall career. It was still a horrible trade that I would not have made, even in hindsight. The first 8 years of Brand's career would have been worth so much to us in our rebuild. We could have stopped the sucking so much sooner. Also, I pay literally no attention to advanced stats in basketball. I'm sure some of them are valuable, but I don't have the same desire to learn about them as I do with baseball.

You mean Tyson put together a nice career, right? Tyrus was a total bust. Chandler ended up becoming a useful center, but he never came close to Elton Brand in his prime. And he certainly wasn't "the next KG". Brand continued to dominate every single year until he got hurt. Also, how funny is it that Eddy Curry was hailed as a smaller version of Shaq? Considering Shaq's best attribute was his size, that doesn't sound so great.

I was just thinking about how the Bulls drafted Elton Brand, he put up 20 and 10 in each of his first two seasons in the league, and then we traded him for the rights to Tyson Chandler. I was 11 years old at the time, and I remember yelling, "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!" at the TV when David Stern announced the trade. You know you're horsefeathering up when even little kids are smarter than you. Then, we followed that up by drafting Lamarcus Aldridge and trading him for the rights to Tyrus Thomas. I think I genuinely prefer the current GarPax strategy of signing recognizable names and drafting whoever the reigning college player of the year is.

It seems unlikely that it just comes and goes periodically. There have to be some contributing factors that cause it to become more or less severe. I wonder if cell phones and/or sugar have anything to do with it?

Well, from what I understand, it can be temporarily resolved by resting, right? That's what I was getting at. It will certainly come back, but isn't it possible that he is able to get through a season? It's less resting and more that sometimes it hurts to the point you can't run or walk on it and you have no choice but to scale back or stay off your feet. Physical activity can't definitely exacerbate, but it's not really healed or lessened by rest; you can spend a month being as careful as possible and then you go for a jog and it flares up again. You're basically at its mercy, and from what I've heard Noah's got it pretty bad. Hmm. Interesting. Again, glad I'm not a Knicks fan.

Well, from what I understand, it can be temporarily resolved by resting, right? That's what I was getting at. It will certainly come back, but isn't it possible that he is able to get through a season?

I was just thinking people in New York are getting a little impatient. How many years are they gonna wait for Phil to figure this out? If Rose gets hurt and Noah continues to regress really bad, that is gonna be frustrating.

If? lmao I'm reserving some small possibility that it works out in the short term. Like I said, Rose is playing for his career, and he knows it. I personally think he was holding back last year to conserve himself. And yeah Noah has bad knees and feet, but he's had a change to rest them for an extended period of time now. There's at least a chance that they have rebound years, I think. Long term, yeah, it's a sinking ship. Over the next 2-3 years, Rose, Noah, and Melo are likely going to degrade to basically nothing. Even if Rose has his best year since his MVP year, I can't imagine any team is going to give him a big deal without a games played clause or something.

I was shocked that anybody was willing to give him a big contract.

As I sit here watching highlight videos of Wade, I realize how thankful I am that I'm not a Knicks fan watching highlight videos of Rose and Noah. Phil is taking such an enormous risk. If the Rose and Noah thing is a flop, he's almost certainly going to get canned, I would think. By the time Porzingis is a superstar, Melo is going to be retiring. If they don't get a crazy best-case-scenario resurgence from Rose and Noah, they are screwed. On that note, Rose is basically playing for his career this year, and Noah's knees/feet should be the freshest they've been in years. What a story that would be if the Knicks were good this year.