Bulls Hacky Re-Tool the Correct Path… For Now

In the wake of the Bulls acquiring Dwyane Wade and Rajon Rondo, I wanted to write about how GarPax had once again crapped the bed, and to describe how they’ve set the team up for failure while once again dealing Fred Hoiberg an unsolvable personnel puzzle incapable of being fit to run the offense he envisions. While they certainly have put Hoiberg behind the 8-ball in this way, the more I analyzed and wrote, I could not escape the conclusion that this is the best course of action for the time being.

The alternative to the summer-of-’16 re-tooling would have had the Bulls opting to deal Jimmy Butler, and signaled the wholesale destruction of the roster and a rebuilding period to come. While I accept that the Bulls definitely listened to offers for him as reported, it would have only made sense to pull the trigger if they were getting a massive haul of lottery level picks and/or young NBA talent in return – In short, an offer they couldn’t refuse.  The value the Bulls now have in Butler on his 5-year, $95 million contract which he signed just 1 year ago is looking like a bargain, particularly for a player of his caliber. Jimmy has established himself as an elite defensive player having been named 2^nd team all-defense by the NBA the last three years running. He’s a top 3 defender in the league at either shooting guard or small forward and is as astute a team defender as he is locking guys down while on the ball.  Further, he has the quickness, size and strength to ably switch off onto point guards or power forwards as matchups dictate. He’s also proven to be a passable first option on offense, improving year over year in leaps and bounds since he entered the league in 2011 (see career stats below). He has exceeded draft-day expectations with a work ethic that is seldom matched, much less exceeded.

Jimmy Butler – Career Stats
Year	PPG	APG	MPG
2011-2012	2.6	0.3	8.5
2012-2013	8.6	1.4	26.0
2013-2014	13.1	2.6	38.7
2014-2015	20	3.3	38.7
2015-2016	20.9	4.8	36.9
2016-2017	25.1	4.1	35.2

Contrast his $95 million salary with the numbers that were dropped on far lesser (not to mention injury prone) talents over the summer:

• Mike Conley Jr. – 5yr/$150mil
• Bradley Beal – 5yr/$128mil
• Nicolas Batum – 5yr / $120mil

By comparison, Butler is a steal at his price, and the average salary over the full term of the contract is really even lower since the $19M+ for which he’s penciled in for the 5^th year is on a player option he would most definitely exercise barring some miracle concocted by the Bulls front office to re-build the team to contender status by then. For the time being, building something around Butler, even if it can’t yield a championship caliber roster makes logical sense in the following ways:

1. It’s likely to placate season ticket holders and die-hard fans who must be somewhere on a continuum of anger to sadness over the departure of Derrick Rose and Joakim Noah. Of perhaps even greater importance here is that signing Wade preserves some ticket value on the secondary market, as well as making the team more interesting to watch over the course of an 82-game regular season. In the short-run, at least, it’s a win for the fans.
2. Assuming management couldn’t get a good return for Butler, they are basically obligated to build around him. The alternative is to let him languish on an otherwise weak roster. That tack is problematic since it would only serve to devalue Butler on the trade market as the team struggles, and may even alienate him to the point he then demands a trade and further weakens any leverage the Bulls might have in dealing him.
3. The Bulls did NOT over-spend as other franchises ‘made it rain’ this summer, and will have room for a max free agent going into 2017-2018 even if Wade opts in for year two of his contract. Taj Gibson and Niko Mirotic are off the books after this year and the Bulls also have the option of dumping Rondo. This leaves them around $62 million committed to Butler, Lopez, Wade, McDermott, Grant, and Portis.

I had taken an extremely pessimistic view on Rondo because he’s got an overwhelmingly bad track record as a cancerous, uncoachable stain on any team he’s played for the last half decade. This is perhaps best symbolized by the Mavs leaving Rondo out in the cold when doling out playoff compensation in 2015. However, since he’s been in Chicago, he’s shown up to work with the younger players at the Las Vegas summer league, and made news for building a relationship with a group of at-risk kids on Chicago’s west side with whom he’s been working since before he even joined the Bulls. While he’s doing and saying the right things, the real motivator for him to change his behavior will of course be money. He was quoted by the New York Post after the end of last season saying “I want to make this – whatever I do – my last stop”. Unfortunately for him, there was basically no market for his services. The Bulls desperately needed a starting point guard given the departure of Rose and took what amounted to a very low-risk flyer on him. His deal nets him around $14 million for each of the next two seasons at which point he’ll hit the market again as a 32 year old unrestricted free-agent in what will likely be his last shot at real money. The Bulls have to hope he’s motivated to prove all his detractors (pretty much everybody) wrong. The bottom line is that the Bulls are buying low here, and gave themselves a team option to bail on Rondo after this coming season.

Regardless of the future success or lack thereof with this group, questions will abound over whether fielding a middling team good enough to make the playoffs but not truly contend is worth it in the long run. The Bulls’ approach to free agency is beginning to mimic that of the other Reinsdorf-owned Chicago sports franchise: The White Sox.  The Sox have a track record of cyclically signing “risky”, (read: older) second-tier players in free-agency hoping they can catch lightning in a bottle and make a playoff run.  They clearly favor this approach over bottoming out in the hope of landing high draft picks with which to rebuild. However, this method is problematic in the NBA where the bar is significantly higher to attain the status of a contender.

The dynamic of the NBA playoffs is unlike that of baseball. It has been proven with statistical rigor that simply making the MLB playoffs is the entire goal of the regular season and that, ex post facto narratives aside, the eventual champion is crowned more as the result of a random set of outcomes in the post-season than it is an actual whittling down of that elite group to the one best team. The opposite is true in basketball, where the cream always rises, and playoff success correlates well with regular season success. To win a championship in the NBA requires a bonafide superstar: One of the top few players in the league who then leads a roster constructed specifically to complement their superior talents.  Obviously, there are two ways to acquire such a player… either through the draft, which nearly always requires one of the top 3 picks, or via trade/free agency. Given the inability of the Bulls to attract a big-ticket free agent in his prime (Note: It’s NEVER happened in the history of the franchise) One might argue that the only way for them to ever get back to contender status is to bottom out and take their swings in the draft.

A quick aside… If you’re thinking that the 2004 Pistons proved that there is indeed a 3^rd path to a title, I’d argue that this would be nearly impossible to replicate today. The current free agency climate can best be described as a once-in-a-lifetime bonanza for those mediocre players fortunate enough to hit free agency in 2016 or 2017. Players that would rate not far above league average at their position are signing maximum salary contracts as the salary cap explodes. The notion of putting 5 players who are all well above average at their position on the court at the same time would not be possible with the primary means of acquisition being free agency. At least a couple of them would have to be on rookie-scale contracts (i.e. draft acquisitions), which in the current CBA / salary cap set-up are of even more value than usual.

Beyond the difficulties in deciding on a long term approach to building their roster, the Bulls do not suffer as do the Sox (even when they’re playing well) to attract fans. In short, they don’t have the same revenue concerns. This is evidenced by the Sox bottom-5 attendance figure the first half of 2016 despite a promising start. On the other hand, the Bulls draw consistently no matter the quality of the roster.  Still coasting on the Jordan-era dynasty, the Bulls are as close to ‘recession-proof’ as you can get in the NBA. During their worst stretch of the last 3 decades, between ’99-’00 and ’08-’09, roughly the gap between the Jordan-era and the D.Rose-era, the Bulls still ranked first in the NBA in attendance by a sizable margin  pulling more than 20% higher than the league average for that period:

Team	Attendance	Rank
Bulls	20,891	1
Pistons	20,186	2
Spurs	19,467	3
Knicks	19,311	4
Jazz	19,234	5
Mavericks	19,186	6
Lakers	18,934	7
Raptors	18,553	8
Trail Blazers	18,422	9
Heat	17,763	10
League Average		17189

Only time will tell the intentions of the Bulls front office. They could very well trade one or more of their poor man’s ‘big 3’ to get younger or obtain picks should injuries, chemistry issues, or other failings arise this season but early returns are positive and it appears they intend on making a run with this group. While the media skewered Gar last summer for the mismatching of his actions in signing re-treads like Rondo and Wade with his words which were “younger and more athletic”,  the reality is that these signings were individual decisions which he likely felt he had to make. In the case of Rondo, the Bulls desperately needed a serviceable point guard given the departure of Rose. With Wade, it was more ‘asses-in-seats’, national TV appearances, jersey sales, keeping the team interesting enough to be in the national conversation, and all the other trappings of signing a guy with a marquee name. Three months ago, I’d have argued it’s just a Pau Gasol redux: Bringing in the big name that resonates with fans and over-paying for unrepeatable past successes. Fortunately for the Bulls, I was wrong in my estimation of Wade’s impact on this team. He’s been a true leader, commanding a respect reserved only for those who have won championships. Wade has also worked with Hoiberg on his Achilles’ heel: 3-point shooting and has managed to improve to the point he’s now an outside threat. Provided they can stick to a plan of giving him games off to rest, he’s clearly got plenty left in the tank to be an effective scorer and playmaker. While a lot of the short-term questions have been answered by a solid start to the season, we’re still left with the conundrum of how the franchise should plan to return to contender status. Can we take a historical look at the approaches of rebuilding teams to see if there is a statistically ‘right’ answer for how to go about that process?

To begin, the Bulls recent history over the course of the last nine seasons actually reflects a somewhat typical evolution viewed from 30,000 feet despite all the agonizing twists and turns comprising that path. They went from a young and bad team, to a young and competitive team to an older but competitive team before rapidly devolving to ‘old and bad’ status. My goal was to examine NBA teams in rebuilding-mode, looking only at franchise states of ‘bad’ (i.e. – missed the playoffs and entered the draft lottery) to see how the future paths unfolded going forward. Specifically, over what timeframe does a team get back to the status of an elite contender? For the study, I considered only the period of 1985-2016. 1985 was my chosen starting point because it was the first year of the draft ‘lottery’ in the NBA. My definition of ‘elite contender’ is somewhat nebulous, but includes any team that either made the finals, or otherwise had a legitimate shot at a title that season. For the latter group, think 2002 Kings or 2000 Trailblazers.

Not surprisingly, the number of lottery appearances by franchise is normally distributed, implying that luck does indeed play a significant role in this cyclic process of teams phasing in and out of contention:

It’s worth noting the one team represented on the far left end (least lottery appearances) of this graph is the San Antonio Spurs, who have appeared in the lottery only 3 times, selecting David Robinson 1st overall in 1987, Sean Elliott 3^rd in 1989, and Tim Duncan 1^st in 1997.  Think about that… They were lucky enough to draw the #1 pick twice, and both times it was in a year where they were able to draft a franchise center. Give them credit for pulling another contributing piece to that first championship group with Elliott, and for surrounding them with complementary talent and a hall-of-fame coach, but the success of their franchise is certainly as much luck as it is skill.

There’s no doubting Gar Forman was telling it like it is, stating last summer: “When you’re deep in the lottery, it takes years and years to get back.” The truth is it will generally take years to get back even if you’re at the top of the lottery, unless your year happens to coincide with the opportunity to obtain an elite talent, which only occurs in about 50% of drafts even if you include guys whose careers were derailed due to injury (Rose, Oden, Jay Williams, etc.) Here’s a list of ‘franchise’ players drafted in the lottery-era who did not ‘flame out’. For these purposes, ‘Franchise player’ includes any guy who was the best player or in a 1/1a tandem which led a team to the finals… plus I added Scottie Pippen since I love Scottie Pippen (Note: I really do believe he achieved ‘1a’ status w/M.J. during the second three-peat):

Franchise Players – Lottery Era
Player	Pick	Year	Finals	w/orig. tm
Steph Curry	7th	2009	2	2
Kevin Durant	2nd	2007	1	1
Dwight Howard	1st	2004	1	1
LeBron James	1st	2003	7	3
Paul Pierce	10th	1998	2	2
Dirk Nowitzki	9th	1998	1	1
Tim Duncan	1st	1997	6	6
Allen Iverson	1st	1996	1	1
Kobe Bryant	13th	1996	6	6
Kevin Garnett	5th	1995	2	0
Shaquille O’neal	1st	1992	5	1
Gary Payton	2nd	1990	1	1
David Robinson	1st	1987	1	1
Scottie Pippen	5th	1987	6	6

These 14 guys drafted over the last 30 years accounted for 42 finals appearances, with a few overlaps among them. 32 of those 42 involved that player and the team that drafted them (or in the case of Kobe and Scottie – that acquired them on draft day). This would seem to argue for building through the draft, but the current climate of NBA free agency and the super-team-era kicked off by the 2008 Celtics and cemented with LeBron James and his infamous ‘Decision’ in the summer of 2010, may have shifted this calculus a bit.

Circling back to the evolution of a contender… Following the abrupt end to the Jordan era in 1998, the Bulls have been through 3 separate rebuilds: The Curry/Chandler/Jay Williams era of the early 2000’s which failed to launch due largely to Williams’ career ending motorcycle injury. Then there was the Ben Gordon/Kirk Hinrich/Luol Deng era of the mid-2000’s which jumped directly to the 2010’s Derrick Rose/Joakim Noah era thanks to that 1.7% lottery miracle in 2008.

In the history of the league, there have been many contenders built by cobbling together a strong roster via trade and free agency (the aforementioned 2000 Trailblazers and 2002 Kings to name two), but only 3 situations where that contender reached the ultimate goal. These were the Lakers 3-peat team of 2000-2002, the 2008 Celtics, and the back-to-back champion Heat of 2012-2013. All three of these relied on the same formula:

• Destination team already possesses an elite star (Kobe / Pierce / Wade)
• An additional elite star(s) hit free agency in his prime and chose to leave an organization for what they perceived to be greener pastures.

While this formula seems simple, maybe one fifth of all NBA teams possess such an elite talent. Roughly, that list looks like this:

• Cavs – LeBron, Kyrie
• Warriors – Durant, Curry
• Thunder – Westbrook
• Pelicans – Anthony Davis
• Clippers – Chris Paul
• Rockets – James Harden

At this point, age/retirement/injury have pushed several guys that were in this group as recently as 5 years ago to the side. (Kobe, Duncan, Dirk, Dwight Howard, Nash, D.Rose, Pierce)  A relevant question then is what young players might have the ability to join this group? Kawhi Leonard? Damian Lillard?? Andrew Wiggins??? That list might prove to be even shorter than that of the current top-tier stars. For the Bulls the only thing that matters is whether they believe Jimmy Butler can be one of those guys. For the moment though, let’s assume he can’t…

Considering that the contender-via-free-agency model has the built-in prerequisite of acquiring a franchise cornerstone through the draft, why would the Bulls not bottom out as rapidly as possible and take their chances in the lottery? The answer is simple: Due to all the luck required to hit big in the draft, the timeline to rebuild a franchise to contender status is historically well north of a full decade. I had a very difficult time even attempting to quantify this….but here’s how I did it:

First – I looked at spans of time between fading and reemerging from contender status where at least part of said span occurred in the lottery era. (1985 or later)

Second – Only spans where a franchise eventually did return to contender status were considered. It’s worth noting that by the definition of ‘elite contender’ I outlined earlier, 8 of the NBA’s 30 franchises have NEVER contended during the lottery era. (Bobcats/Hornets, Nuggets, Clippers, Grizzlies, Bucks, Hornets/Pelicans, Raptors, Bullets/Wizards) Here’s an example where a franchise faded and eventually returned: The Lakers faded from contention in 1992 (Magic’s HIV retirement) and returned in 2000 (Rise of Shaq/Kobe 3-peat). This is considered to be an 8 year ‘rebuild’. Here are the statistics for all NBA franchises:

• Average time to rebuild = 14.16 years.
• Longest rebuilding period = 40 years (Warriors: 1975 – 2015)
• Shortest rebuilding period = 4 years (Heat: 2006 – 2010)

This 14.16 year average is a bit misleading as it only considers ‘closed’ loops where a franchise did eventually work their way back to contention. If you consider ongoing stretches of non-contention (and the ‘never contenders’ each factored in at the 31 year span of the lottery era) the average climbs even higher to 15.64 years. While these numbers may skew high due to an unlevel playing field given relative market sizes, one can see why the Bulls would be hesitant to throw in the towel knowing the route back to prominence may take 15 years if the balls don’t (literally) bounce their way.

A cynic would dismiss the Bulls’ current rebuild-on-the-fly attempt as the desperation of an 80-year old owner in Jerry Reinsdorf who wants one more shot at a title before he kicks the can. But, given the likely timeframe of a full rebuild and the relatively new dynamic of star players shuffling about the league in the current-day NBA, I believe it’s easier to make a reasoned case for the Bulls’ approach… Even if it doesn’t carry a very high probability of that ultimate ‘success’.

Can Jimmy Butler make the leap from ‘all-star’ to being an elite player capable of carrying a franchise? Only time will tell. For now, we can enjoy Wade’s twilight years and have hope the franchise can once again turn the corner. If they can’t…. Oh well… See you in 2032!

Cubs Fan-Friendly In Spite of Chapman Acquisition:

The Cubs front office is not really hypocritical in its actions here because it was never their intent to run squeaky clean in the first place. This was on display from Jed and Theo’s earliest days when they brought Manny Ramirez into the organization. Ramirez had been the center piece of the 2004 World Series Championship team that ended an 86 year franchise drought and forever changed the mindset of the Red Sox fan base. Despite Ramirez (and David Ortiz) later being disgraced for PED use, no one involved in that championship run really bears a mark on their legacies, neither individually nor collectively. They won. It’s all that mattered. Jed and Theo know it…and they’re attempting to duplicate that success with the Cubs.

The signing of Chapman also does NOT un-do the work that they’ve done in changing the culture of the Cubs organization from top to bottom. Jed and Theo can still honor their credo that ‘character’ and ‘make-up’ matter with every individual player they draft or otherwise acquire and compartmentalize the occasional departure from that path when the logical best move dictates otherwise.  The truth is that they only care about character insofar as it is sufficient to prevent rocking the boat to the point it capsizes. Maximizing the aggregate value of their roster is a must in the zero-sum game of professional sports.

Of course, those for whom domestic violence hits a little too close to home are much less likely to overlook such a shift in priority.  The silent majority of fans who might NOT take offense can still agree Chapman is a bad guy, but reconcile it with the fact that the world is full of bad guys and that one bad apple, Donald Trump notwithstanding, does not spoil the whole barrel. That said, there certainly exists a pain point unique to every fan (and anti-fan) of the team beyond which the whole bunch becomes cast in a negative light. Surely, the savvy Cubs front office and ownership will not let it get to that point.

The relationship of a professional sports franchise and its fans vis-à-vis ethics and morality is much like that of a college dorm RA and their freshman residents. There exists an implied contract not to take things too far such that one party can no longer pretend the misgivings of the other don’t exist. As the RA might look the other way while the case of beer is brought in, so too do the fans as the Cubs sign bad-guy-Chapman. We just don’t want to wake up tomorrow and find out some kid down the hall is running a brothel and selling illicit drugs…

Not All His Fault, But Bulls Should Still Fire Gar Forman

These past two seasons of Bulls basketball have been a maddening emotional roller coaster for fans. Sometimes the team shows up and plays with the ferocity we once took for granted as their ‘style’. Far more often though, they’re either sleepwalking through the game, or just quitting en masse on nights when the opposition brings the fight to them. Whether you’re more of a Zen-like Phil Jackson-type, or you channel the sideline volcano that was Tom Thibodeau, it’s likely been impossible for you to modulate championship expectations as the current group has given just enough of a taste of its potential to keep us interested without ever really accomplishing anything. This February, Pau Gasol touched on this Jekyll and Hyde tendency after an embarrassing loss to a bottom-feeding team:

 “There’s no mystery. The results speak for themselves, and there’s a situation we’re dealing with. How do we face it? Do we accept it, do we embrace it, or do we try to improve and change it? This is who we’ve been for the last year and a half or so. I feel when we are full throttle and the guys are available, we can be as good as anyone. “

Paraphrasing the future hall-of-famer: I know it’s obvious that sometimes we give a damn, and sometimes we don’t… I can’t or won’t say why. We have to hope for all the stars to align and a perfect syzygy of giving-a-shit and not-being-hurt to occur, otherwise we’ll drift along being bad.

The Bulls roster is mostly ‘good guys’ (read: they have sufficient character as to not indict the efforts of one another in the press). The result for fans/media observers is that we really can’t comprehend all of the machinations going on inside the locker room that have drained this team of any real chemistry.  That said, a few things are now abundantly clear:

• Hiring Fred Hoiberg was a mistake.
• The ouster of Tom Thibodeau empowered the players, who are now running the show or several individual shows, as the case may be.
• The play of the bench is far less effective, to the point it is a net loss, rather than the massive, winning edge over the opposition it was during the ‘bench-mob’ era.
• While productive, Pau Gasol was a complete mismatch for this team, particularly under the Thibodeau regime.
• All of the above are attributable in part, if not in full, to Gar Forman’s decisions as general manager.

Last summer, Gar and Bulls management booted one of the most successful coaches in the game (.647 regular season winning percentage). This move emboldened the players and essentially let the inmates run the asylum while stripping the team of its defensive identity. Then, Joakim Noah went down for the season with a shoulder injury and things devolved further, feeling like a skateboard ride down the side of a mountain. With no leadership left to speak of, an exceptionally talented albeit banged-up roster bummed its way to an uninspiring 42 win season, registering an awful 19-25 record after Joakim walked off hurt, in what may be his final game as a Bull, against Dallas on January 15^th. A team of such great initial promise failed to even make the post-season, let alone contend for the title as management had assured us they would.

Mere moments after the season concluded, GarPax decided to make a pre-emptive strike against all interested observers, addressing the team’s failings. They stressed that they would be “accountable” for the apparent shortcomings but then proceeded to blame the coach and the players, sometimes by name, and assuring the few who were listening that heads would roll. The press conference was deliberately scheduled amid what would otherwise have been a media blackout of sorts as several other, more important games, raged on: Kobe’s final game, the Golden State Warriors chasing down history in the form of 73 regular season wins, the Cubs, the Sox, AND the defending world champion Chicago Blackhawks opening the playoffs. It’s overwhelmingly clear they didn’t want anyone listening to what they had to say.

In the big picture, it is now apparent that not one individual outside the organization knows what, specifically, Gar contributes or what piece of the management puzzle he represents. K.C. Johnson, Bulls beat writer for the Chicago Tribune inquired during the aforementioned presser about just who is making the decisions upstairs. The response from John Paxson explained that it was a four-headed monster of Jerry and Michael Reinsdorf, himself, and Gar. Gar hired on as Bulls General Manager in 2009, having paid his dues in the organization for 11 years working his way up as a scout, director of player personnel, and special assistant to the executive vice-president of basketball operations (really). The Bulls organization is nothing if not loyal, despite the assertion of the capri-pant wearing douchebag, Dwyane Wade (http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2010-05-27/sports/ct-spt-0527-bulls-dwyane-wade-chicago20100526_1_bulls-don-t-measure-heat-s-dwyane-wade-free-agents ), and in the case of Gar Forman loyal to a fault.  There are former Bulls players and those close to them working at every level of the organization. They pay Scottie Pippen as a team ambassador to sit courtside and be a visible reminder of their former glory, and they pay Horace Grant and Toni Kukoc as ‘special advisors’ as well…. They even pay Horace Grant’s son, Horace Grant, Jr. as a ticket agent. I’m not saying it’s wrong to have these guys around. In Scottie’s case it’s restitution for having been screwed over for most of the 90’s as one of the league’s most underpaid players. The visible presence of so many former greats is fun for the fans and guys in those positions simply don’t impact the bottom line the way Gar Forman can. Filling the role of GM begs for more consideration than “Hey, that’s my man!” For a moment, let’s give Paxson and the Reinsdorfs the benefit of the doubt that they aren’t just retaining Gar because he’s “their guy.” Putting the ‘loyalty’ issue aside, we can assume that one of the following two scenarios must be true:

1) Gar has something close to full control of player personnel decisions.

2) Gar only has input on player personnel decisions and must clear everything through Paxson and/or the Reinsdorfs.

First, let’s assume the latter is true. A hierarchy where Paxson is the empowered decision maker, but not the front man would make a lot of sense given his history choking coaches and all (http://www.sbnation.com/nba/2011/3/9/2038527/john-paxson-bulls-vinny-del-negro ). In this way, he can distance himself from things just enough to keep his inner Hulk at bay. In such a situation, isn’t it a no-brainer to just dump Forman immediately since he would have to lie somewhere on a continuum of useless to incompetent? At this point it seems that the franchise would gain more PR value in firing him than they would making just about any other offseason move. If, however, we assume Gar really is empowered, we’ve got some deeper thinking to do on his performance, or lack thereof…

We can look back to May of 2011 when Gar won the NBA Executive of the year award, sharing honors with LeBron James Pat Riley of the Miami Heat.  What is it that Gar did to deserve this award, other than walking in the door a moment after his boss had literally just won the lottery on a 1.7% shot at obtaining Derrick Rose? He signed Carlos Boozer, otherwise known as the summer-of-2010-free-agency booby prize and ‘man most likely to spew expletives into the rim-mounted microphone’ (GRAB DAT SHIT, JO!!!) However, he did construct what would be known affectionately by fans as ‘The Bench Mob’, bringing in Kyle Korver and Ronnie Brewer from Utah along with backup point guard C.J. Watson and defensive stalwarts Omer Asik and Kurt Thomas. This group of reserves was the right mix for the Bulls: Two tough rebounder/defenders, an elite shooter, a lengthy wing defender, and a point guard that could get his own shot and competently run an offense. This group routinely overwhelmed the reserves of the opposition and in so doing contributed strongly to the bottom line on a 60-win team. Moreover, any of these guys could be plugged in at crunch time should foul trouble arise for the starters, or in cases where individual matchups or ‘the hot hand’ dictated their use. In short, Gar gave Tom Thibodeau exactly what he needed and indeed what he wanted to make his system work.

Over the next few seasons, the bulls bench saw guys come and go, but generally utilized this same formula….until the last two years where they clearly started to go another direction in an effort to bring in more shooting/scoring. Here’s a list of the bench guys that played significant minutes year by year:

2010-2011 = Asik/Gibson/Brewer/Korver/Watson

2011-2012 = Asik/Gibson/Brewer/Korver/Watson/Lucas

2012-2013 = Mohammed/Gibson/Belinelli/Butler/Robinson

2013-2014 = Gibson/Snell/Hinrich/Augustin

2014-2015 = Gibson/Mirotic/Snell/Hinrich/Brooks

2015-2016 = Felicio/Portis/Mirotic/Snell/McDermott/Moore/Holiday/Brooks

Just looking at these groupings of names, it’s clear the bench got progressively worse in terms of defense and rebounding from year to year. And, it’s worth noting they became less efficient on offense as well. Part of that is Butler and Gibson graduating to the starting lineup and Asik and Korver moving on to big money in free agency. The fact remains, Gar simply was not able to bring in the same caliber of free agent nor draft the type of talent that we saw during his tenure through 2012. Drafting/Scouting is a story of its own as the Bulls lost their most talented scout in Matt Lloyd to Orlando in 2012 (http://www.blogabull.com/2015/5/18/8610703/why-the-bulls-no-longer-draft-successfully-the-loss-of-matt-lloyd-and ). Here are the draft choices made with Lloyd’s influence:

Noah 2007 – 9^th overall

Rose 2008 – 1^st overall

Gibson 2009 – 26^th overall

James Johnson 2010 – 16^th overall

Jimmy Butler 2011– 30^th overall

Contrast that with what they’ve done since:

Marquis Teague 2012 – 29^th overall

Tony Snell 2013 – 20^th overall

Doug McDermott 2014 – 16^th and 19^th overall traded up to 11^th overall

Bobby Portis 2015 – 22^nd overall

Acquiring players through free agency is the one area where we can see that not all of this team’s failings are Gar’s fault. In my last piece (https://generalsorenessblog.wordpress.com/2016/04/14/one-man-is-to-blame-for-your-pain-as-a-bulls-fan/ ) I argued that the unwillingness/inability of Derrick Rose to make a meaningful contribution the last two years was the main reason that the Bulls have fallen on hard times. As Dan Bernstein (670AM “The Score” Radio Host) is wont to say: “They can’t get past their best player becoming their worst player.” Here’s a more quantitative look at the impact of Derrick’s contract on the quality of the Bulls’ depth:

Thibs was able to hold things together, even though the trend was clearly down from 2012 through 2015. In 2016, under Hoiberg, the situation came to a head and the Bulls got negative VORP (Value-over-replacement-player) seasons from several bench players including Brooks, Snell, McDermott and Portis.  While I’d concede Portis and McDermott made strides this year, you’re talking about the Bulls last FOUR first round draft picks with that pair plus Snell since they really turned two mid-first-rounders into the 11^th overall pick that became McDermott. FOUR first round picks have to bring you more value than minus 1.6 VORP and we might as well make that five picks adding Teague who was a pure bust from jump has already been cast off by the franchise.

The presence of Brooks among this group of detractors is also quite irritating. Going into the season it was obvious that Rose couldn’t be relied upon to play all 82 games, nor anywhere close to it. You need a guy that’s going to be a plus-player as a backup, and a serviceable, spot starter. You also know based on a significant sampling of Brooks-as-a-starter in ’14-’15 that he’s not that guy. Brooks was NOT under contract for ’15-’16 and had to be re-upped last summer, so even in evidence of his shortcomings, Gar decided he was the man for the job.  The Bulls needed to do better in that slot and there were some comparably priced, yet superior options in Brooks’ $2M salary range (Lin 2.139M à +0.5 VORP, Dellevedova 1.2M à +0.2 VORP, etc.) In the end, Gar did what Gar does and stood pat, content that the inadequate player he knew was better than the potentially adequate player he didn’t know.

The succession of bench-mobbery was replaced by a revolving door of mismatched parts that simply never won battles – While these guys were in the game, the other team scored more points than did the Bulls, period. I did some calculations for the Bulls bench adjusting for minutes played by each player on ORtg (offensive rating) and DRtg (defensive rating), which are estimates of how many points per 100 possessions are scored/yielded while a given player is on the floor. The 2015-2016 Bulls bench was outscored by more than 3 points per 100 possessions, where between 2010-2011 and 2011-2012, that figure was closer to plus 7.5 points per 100 possessions.

The reason I have asserted that the bench production isn’t strictly the fault of Gar is that the team’s cap spend on rotation players took a hit, necessitated by Rose’s monstrous, albatross of a contract:

The above graph shows dollars spent on depth players 6 through 9, a standard NBA rotation. This amount is off considerably from 2011/2012 levels despite a salary cap increase of approximately 20% over that span. Spending has flattened at around 16% of the cap after hovering around 25% before Rose’s extension kicked in for 2012-2013. The Bulls can no longer afford to bring in the kind of guys that help win games and with the compounded effect of a substitute teacher installed as head coach ( http://www.chicagotribune.com/sports/rosenblog/ct-bulls-quit-against-hornets-rosenbloom-20151104-column.html ) and an incompetent GM, the Bulls depth has gone from one of its greatest strengths to one of its largest liabilities. Obviously, the worst part is since signing that contract, Rose has actually COST the Bulls wins, even if you generously assume a VORP of zero for 2012-2013 where he sat out the entire season despite being medically cleared to play the last 20 games.  You’ll recall, as you slam your head against the nearest hard surface, that his ‘reasoning’ at the time was that he needed to be able to dunk on a one-foot take off of the surgically repaired leg (http://www.chicagotribune.com/sports/rosenblog/ct-bulls-quit-against-hornets-rosenbloom-20151104-column.html ). Had he held to that criteria, he still wouldn’t be playing. His precipitous drop-off in production looks like something you’d see for a guy in his mid-to-late 30’s… Derrick Rose is still only 27.

D.Rose VORP By Season
2011	6
2012	2.4
2013	0
2014	-0.2
2015	0.3
2016	-0.7

Rather than turn this into a full-on 2^nd round of Rose bashing, lets re-focus on Gar, who for his part, hired a coach that was woefully unprepared for the task at hand: leading a supposed contender to the conference finals and beyond. There’s no way around it… Hoiberg was a bad hire. He was billed as the solution to at least two of the Bulls’ perceived problems:

• The team can’t score efficiently.
• Thibs is a raging asshole.

Unfortunately he was unable to resonate with the players well enough for them to even make a modest effort on his behalf, let alone make any meaningful progress implementing the complexities of his offense. Bench players aside, Hoiberg never did figure out how to tap into the emotional reservoir of the key players be they starters or reserves, and never established a firm rotation. Although he had to contend with the usual litany of Bulls injuries, he was in some part responsible for it, following in Thibs’ footsteps by placing a crushing minute load on Jimmy Butler. Hoiberg also never found any group of players that could thrive on the floor together, but it wasn’t for a lack of guessing trying. He often had lineups that were mismatched to the situation at hand. For instance, not having McDermott on the floor against Detroit when they had reverted to an intentional fouling strategy to exploit a sub-40% foul shooter (a.k.a. – the hack-a-Drummond) where Doug’s lack of defensive prowess wouldn’t matter and they could have essentially had a free-roll with his offense. And, it wasn’t just in-game decision making. The lack of sensitivity to Noah’s ego in benching him to start the season was compounded when Hoiberg followed it up with a lie to the media about the move having been Jo’s idea. This damaged his credibility with the rest of the team, and he was effectively neutered after being publicly called out by Jimmy Butler for ‘not coaching hard enough’ (http://www.chicagotribune.com/sports/basketball/bulls/ct-butler-criticizes-coach-bulls-lose-report-spt-1220-20151219-story.html ). The failings of Hoiberg are 100% on Gar Forman. Joakim Noah was quoted this past December saying of Hoiberg, “He’s the complete opposite of Thibs.” In that sense, the hire of Hoiberg was a classic over-adjustment. Where an even-keeled tactician was needed to replace the overbearing dictator, they went with the easy-going pushover. Unlike the Bears to Dennis Green, (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SWmQbk5h86w ) He was not what they thought he was.

Circling back a bit to Butler’s minutes load. This is an area where you’d expect someone from the front office to intercede. They just dropped $95 million on the guy, and now you want to run him into the ground with a league-leading minute load? Where is Gar to step in and tell his guy to dial it back a bit? It’s Gar’s job to look at the bigger picture. This issue is especially galling as it was among the stated reasons for the firing of Tom Thibodeau in the first place. This type of laissez-faire attitude toward a buddy’s inability to do his job lends weight to the argument that Gar cares little about the Bulls’ situation save for self-preservation. He can break Butler or Luol Deng or Noah to win a few extra games every year and hope to keep his job, which of course is easier than doing the right thing and planning for the long-term future of the club.

Beyond this common sense approach to managing a guy’s minutes, the Bulls somehow don’t have an analytics department full of guys sounding alarm bells and telling them “Hey – he’s in the danger zone! He’s significantly more likely to get hurt!!” It’s well known that the Bulls have been more about scouting than statistics (http://www.blogabull.com/2015/6/8/8743607/the-bulls-are-into-analytics-now ) having an analytics “team” of just TWO people….no shit (http://www.nba.com/bulls/chicago-bulls-staff-directory ) I don’t know anything about the capabilities of these two guys, but it seems safe to assume that in a high stakes business such as the NBA there would be more than enough work to supply a dozen quants, or more. The Bulls are lagging in their approach to making data-driven decisions and it’s showing on the court. For years now the top teams in the league, including the very best like San Antonio and Golden State have intentionally limited regular-season minutes, especially for their star players. This is just another way in which GarPax is smugly brushing off compelling evidence of their failures as if they know something everyone else doesn’t.

Finally we come to Pau Gasol. It’s difficult to criticize Pau directly since he made the all-star team both seasons he’s been here doing essentially the same things he’s done throughout his career. He’s also at least tried to make adjustments to his game, adding the 3-point shot to his arsenal. He attempted more threes this past season (69) than he had in the last three seasons prior to that combined (68), and made a respectable 35% of them. This is undoubtedly an attempt to “fix” the inherent problem in his offensive game which is that he’s far too reliant on long, two-point-field-goal attempts, which are just inefficient plays. Rarely will a player even crack 45% on such shots: Think Dirk Nowitzki in his prime. Obviously, 35% on threes makes more points in the long run than even a very efficient shooter would make shooting 45% from 15-22 feet. At the age of 35, Pau has lost the ability to put the ball on the floor and drive past less agile big men and for some reason he rarely posts up on the low block. The result is far fewer layups and dunks than a man standing 7 feet tall should earn. Most importantly, his lack of agility is a kill-shot for Bulls pick and roll defense, a key in slowing down any opposing offense and an area where the Bulls were once the envy of the league mostly due to Joakim Noah’s elite play. Pick and roll “D”, particularly the ‘isolation’ method, where the defensive team attempts to make either the screener or ball-handler take a contested shot rather than giving up a cross-court pass and subsequent open shot, was the cornerstone of the Tom Thibodeau system. Last season we saw Thibs stick with a lineup including both Joakim and Pau, much to the chagrin of anybody remotely interesting in this team winning anything. It almost seemed like management intentionally sabotaged Thibs by filling the roster with players that could not fit his defensive scheme and that he responded by stubbornly sticking with the same flawed approach as if to say to GarPax: “Fuck you, look at what you gave me to work with!” These observations of Pau during his tenure as a Bull should have been things Forman understood and anticipated as potential pitfalls.

Looking back now to the end of season press conference I referenced earlier, GarPax sat glibly before the media and stressed that they would be “accountable” and were anything but, using a predictable rash of injuries as a crutch and blaming the players for not caring enough. The problem is…Gar put this group of guys together and it was Gar who hired a coach ill-equipped for dealing with the egos of NBA players. Hoiberg is in over his head but unfortunately GarPax know they are bulletproof in the eyes of ownership. We’re heading into year 8 under Gar’s watch and the franchise is floundering.  Paxson promised that changes will be made and Gar should be first up at the guillotine….Sadly, we’re probably in for another year of trying to figure out just what the hell it is he does here. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m4OvQIGDg4I )Where are the ‘Bobs’ when you need them?

One Man is to Blame for Your Pain as a Bulls Fan:

If you’ve taken even a passing interest in Chicago Bulls basketball during the last decade, you know that Derrick Rose was once a dynamic scorer and playmaker, among the very best players in the world…and the youngest MVP in NBA history. If you happen to have taken more than just a passing interest…if you’re a fan, and by ‘fan’, I mean that you base a disproportionate amount of your self-worth on the fortune of this Bulls team, then the saga of Derrick Rose, with his inexplicable no-shows and stupefying press conferences, is slowly eviscerating you…

Our problem as stake-holders in the future of the Bulls organization, is that it is as apparent as ever that the fate of Derrick Rose, with his fragile body and flaccid mind…is still the determining factor for success or failure of the Bulls franchise over the next half decade (at least). While much has been made of individual agendas, Rose-Butler beefs, front office failings, and a substitute teacher of a head coach ( http://www.chicagotribune.com/sports/rosenblog/ct-bulls-quit-against-hornets-rosenbloom-20151104-column.html ).  The failure of this team starts not at the top, but in the middle… where Rose was once the engine powering the upward arc of the franchise, he is now just a ‘Yield’ sign, if not the brake pedal.  Herein, we will evaluate the myriad potential paths to the end of the Rose era, their relative likelihood and the consequential feeling we’ll be left with when this is all over.

First, a few things have become abundantly clear…

• Derrick simply isn’t willing to take a reasonable degree of risk with his health.

Unfortunately, competitive athletics rewards risk taking. The one that is able to walk the line between reckless and aggressive often comes out on top. Derrick Rose once danced all over that line, blazing around, over, and through most opponents in the process. Now, while he occasionally flashes his characteristic explosiveness, he’s simply not playing at top speed….ever. (Don’t believe me? Check out this youtube compilation from 2011, and try not to throw up in your own mouth: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2v0g4nyveP8 ) Derrick’s best nights these days are perhaps 75% of what he might have done on any given night 4 years ago. Moreover, even that hollowed out version of him only shows up about 1 in every 4 games.  Here’s my purely empirical breakdown of his performance this year, which admittedly was skewed by an awful (even by his current standards) first 2 months:

4% – Plays with a chip on his shoulder and is engaged at both ends of the court. See OKC game early in the season (more on this later)

21% – Is assertive and aggressive, looking to attack on offense. Will have widely varied levels of effectiveness here….but it’s apparent that he’s decided on that given night, that he gives a shit.

30% – Does just enough to NOT be a complete liability, but is clearly taking possessions off, and can’t self-motivate even when it’s overwhelmingly clear the team needs somebody to take charge. A typical stat line here would reveal inefficiency with field goals attempted approximately equal to points scored and maybe a few assists, all of which were passes from the perimeter….i.e. he’s not breaking down the defense off the dribble.

25% – He participates in the game, but makes no attempt to be productive at all… as if he believes the team should be better just because he’s graced them with his presence. Such games are typified by the following sequence: Rose brings the ball up the court, passes to someone else, then trots off and stands still in the corner, where of course the team would be better off bringing a middle-aged, high-heeled, leather-tanned trophy wife out of the front row to take a shot should the ball find its way over there.

10% – He has injured or reinjured himself and sits on the bench in a suit looking like he’d rather be somewhere else. Not every guy needs to be a cheerleader, but ‘hurt’ does not have to imply non-participation.

10% – He just “doesn’t feel right” and sits out because he’s ‘listening to his body’. (As a fan, I listen to my own ass attentively, and it’s constantly bitching about being pained by all things Derrick Rose.)

Rose will finish this season with 66 games ‘played’… but only a handful where he was really in it to win it. If you put this in a pie chart and took a slice of 2015-16 D.Rose, at least 75% of the time you’d end up with a mouthful of his shit.

• The differences between his current-day ceiling and that of the ‘old D.Rose’ are subtle, and they all boil down to fear and by extension, a lack of confidence:

On the right night, he will still explode into the paint from the perimeter, but it is here where the similarity to old-Derrick ends. He no longer makes the abrupt changes of direction that once allowed him to exploit holes in the defense that few, if any other players would find. Tack on the fact that he now never makes plays above the rim, and it cripples his ability to finish in traffic. Where the old Derrick would slash through defenders leaving carnage in his wake, the new Derrick is taking a tough, contested shot moving at ¾ speed and at ½ the elevation. The lack of suddenness in his movement also prevents him from creating many of the passing angles he once did.  His assist numbers are off by around 30% (give or take) from before the injuries, as are his scoring numbers. These days, when he does drive with a sense of purpose, he is essentially locked in to the chosen initial vector and must complete a layup or a pass before going out of bounds. Slamming on the brakes, or radically changing direction in response to the positioning of defensive players are no longer options. Too often, he carries through with a pre-determined plan of attack rather than simply seeing and reacting as he once did. As we’ve seen both on and off the court: In Derrick’s case… thinking is very, very bad. He fears the high speed change-of-direction moves that once defined his game, and has chosen to live with the outcome of a more measured approach, no matter how poor the results. Derrick is being stuffed a far greater percentage of the time in the restricted area, and commits many more damaging turnovers when his drives happen to run wide of the lane, and are thus far more likely to result in a pass back to the perimeter. These often result in a fast-break with numbers for the opponent, and my palm striking my forehead at startling velocity.

Even though he was never much of a shooter, he has declined noticeably here as well, despite having had nearly a YEAR in the gym, healthy after the first surgery, to work on this less taxing aspect of the game. As Vince Lombardi once quipped: “Perfect practice makes perfect”. While I have no doubt Derrick was in the gym all day chucking up threes, he did nothing to move the meter on his effectiveness. His form leaves a LOT to be desired. When he misses a jump shot, he misses it short a staggering percentage of the time. The ball comes out in a flat arc, usually having been released after he’s passed the apex of his jump: No rhythm, no touch, and no confidence. Again, you can practically see the gears turning as he raises up at the 3-point line. Rather than staying square and trusting his release, you can see his body torqueing to favor his shooting arm…He knows before he releases it that it’s coming up short. In his prime, he’d routinely get in a zone where he’d will himself into a hot shooting streak. Even on his worst night, he was at least a threat to shoot. Now, defenses disregard him when he doesn’t have the ball, which is crushing for the Bulls’ offense. Much has been made of the ‘success’ of his mid-range game, but the data-revolution the NBA has undergone the last 5 years has pointed to a greatly decreased value for such a skill. Guys get to the rim, or they can shoot threes. In an ideal world, they can do both. Right now, Derrick does neither… a crippling inefficiency.

Finally, we don’t really have to look further than the words that come out of Derrick’s own mouth to illustrate the transformation in his approach and lack of faith in his own ability. He’s gone from ‘Why not me?’ and ‘I want to be the best player in the world’ to ‘I’m stringing some games together’. The desire to be great just isn’t there, and his baseline for success went from becoming the best player possible to simply surviving from game to game.

• Bulls management understands that they won’t win a title without an elite star, so they’ve chosen to coddle Rose every step of the way no matter how counterproductive it’s been for him and the team.

While the likelihood of Rose finding his way back to being himself fades with every passing day,  the organization has allowed him to dictate in which games he will play, to what extent he plays, and how much of himself he’s willing to give from moment to moment. GarPax knows that even a small chance of Derrick returning to form carries a higher probability than the Bulls bringing in a superstar free agent or drafting another such talent. In short, they’re all in, or at least ‘pot-committed’ with Rose…

There is direct evidence which seems to point to Derrick’s problems being more mental than physical. My earlier breakdown of his level of commitment to games in 2015-2016 argues that the explosiveness is still there, but if there’s any reason in his mind NOT to cut loose with 100% of his ability, he takes that opportunity (along with a little piece of my sanity) and dials it back into his comfort zone. For the entire 2015-2016 season, Rose was among the very WORST point guards in the NBA by any of the advanced metrics, posting a NEGATIVE ‘real-plus-minus’ total, good for 81^st in the league out of 85 point guards measured (http://espn.go.com/nba/statistics/rpm/_/page/3/sort/RPM/position/1 ).  While some might give him a pass as he slogged on the first half of the season through reported double-vision from the orbital bone fracture he suffered in training camp, I cannot ignore the few games during that stretch where he felt compelled to go harder.  Take the aforementioned OKC game in November where Derrick not only knew his energy was needed against a strong opponent, but took the game personally because of his off-court relationship with Russell Westbrook. The two work out together in the off-seasons, and for once Derrick’s pride kicked in, and he decided he wasn’t going to let his friend embarrass him in his own arena. The implication here is that he’s letting some combination of his own fear, along with the chorus of assholes that have his ear (including his brother and his agent), run the prime of his career into the ground.  These influencers in his life obviously have misplaced incentive, as they benefit from incremental increases in his wealth while for Derrick, the difference of $100 million cherry on top of the shit sundae he’s concocted these last four years won’t make a lick of difference. At the ripe old age of 27, and having banked well into nine figures in salary and endorsements, Rose has had the gall to state publicly that he’s looking to cash in again when his contract is up in 2017, and until he gets there, he’s protecting himself like every malady down to day-to-day bumps and bruises is career-threatening. For good measure, he throws a jab to the junk of average-Joe-Bulls-fan when he says his next contract is to insure the future for his son, who apparently was not accounted for in Derrick’s first 3 to 4 hundred million dollars in professional income.

Which is more likely…That he doesn’t understand the magnitude of the difference in his play now versus that of his ‘pre-injuries’ self? Or… that he KNOWS he’ll play well when he needs to lock up that next big contract? The problem of course, is that he’s holding the entire Bulls franchise hostage in the mean-time. If you assumed he was holding back his best for a contract-year run in 2016-2017, you can’t trade him for 20 cents on the dollar today, right? If you assumed he was holding back as he adjusts to his first complete year without a knee surgery and significant rehab period you wouldn’t trade him…right??

Much has been made of ‘personal agendas’ and this Bulls team not being able to ‘find its identity’. For the latter, it’s another way of saying that the Bulls don’t know what they can do well. When push comes to shove, they don’t have a clearly defined strength on which they can lean to put them over the top to a win. In the past, Derrick was most of that identity. While the team also relied on a suffocating defense, the likes of which we haven’t seen this season, they leaned most heavily on Derrick’s play-making ability down the stretch in every important game. Defense kept them in games, and Derrick’s MVP-level play was the winning margin. But, speaking to the notion of ‘personal agenda’…Why the hell would any of the other players be motivated to do what’s best for the team, when the most talented and highly paid among them does whatever the fuck he wants with no repercussions?

This brings us back to the consideration of the many possible paths that the Rose saga might follow over the next 16 months. Does he stay or does he go? And, by what mechanism will he reach his next contract/team? To say that there isn’t a suitable market into which the franchise might make a trade involving Rose is meaningless if you assumed his ceiling to be something like the full body of work we’ve seen in 2015-2016.  If you believed that to be the case, you trade him for an order of nachos and a jalapeno to be named later, and be done with it.  His value relative to that of a replacement level player, inclusive of all games played (and not played) this season is ZERO! It’s also reasonable to assume that no matter how poorly he performs the remainder of this year and next, that as long as he’s reasonably healthy over that span, that someone will take a (likely very expensive) gamble on him next summer. After all, there are financial considerations beyond the court for teams willing to pony up the cash. Rose is a guy that might spur season ticket sales and optimism from a fan-base less beaten down by the ongoing charade that is his career. In any such case, he’s out of your hair…and someone else’s problem. But, what are the chances the team would pull the trigger on a trade? They’ve done nothing but stand pat the last 5 years never having made a meaningful trade, with the lone exception of dealing a washed-up Luol Deng at the deadline 2 seasons ago. However, this only adds evidence that the franchise knows when a player’s useful life has passed, and that they do NOT believe Derrick has reached that point. We’ll get another insight on that this summer when the team is forced to make a decision on re-signing Joakim Noah.

Anyway, here’s my take on the likelihood of a pleasing outcome (spoiler alert: If you care about this team, you’re probably hosed) for Bulls fans vis a vis Rose. I give you… the D.Rose decision tree:

For those that responded to my informal survey on Derrick’s future, I used the percentages you provided, weighted by your estimated level of Bulls fandom to come up with these numbers. (I will accept no criticism whatsoever for this level of spit-balling… fuck you and the sufficiently-large-sample horse you rode in on!)

I then rated each possible path with a ‘happiness score’ on a scale of 0-10. For example: “Stays + Signs New Contract + Max Contract + Underperforms Expectation” is among the worst possible cases and earns a score of 0, as it not only implies long-term suckage for the Bulls, but that all the ancillary bullshit that comes with Derrick’s presence… the press conferences, the accusations of gang-rape, etc. continue for the next half decade.

I built upon this, formulating a ‘duration of pain’ score which is the product of the likelihood of a given path and the years that path will take to unfold. So, if he re-ups, we’re in for 6+ years potential pain, whereas if he’s dealt this summer, it all comes to an end in about 0.25 years.

Running all the numbers, I get an expected ‘happiness score’ of 3.36/10, and an expected pain duration of 3.74 years, or 1,368 days, 5 hours, 5 minutes, and 42 seconds.

Anyway, by our estimation, no one path seems highly likely.. but not surprisingly, the sum of all paths adds up to a firm boot to the ass:

Happiness	Likelihood
>=8	0.082728146
6 to 8	0.151488903
4 to 6	0.310057917
2 to 4	0.203942508
0 to 2	0.25230001

 

Or, if you prefer a more binary look:

Happiness	Likelihood
>=5	0.254858762
< 5	0.745658721

In summation: The Bulls suck, and are very likely to continue to suck for the foreseeable future…AND, Derrick Rose is the primary cause.