Yahoo Sports is Saying Stephen Jackson is Gone...

I used to think they were close to being good but it was a mirage. They did not have a team that could do more than contend for a low seed in the weak east.

I have read about their admiration for the way the Bulls are built. That would say to me they want to do a combination of draft picks and free agents. Boozer was the piece that put them over the top. Rose and Deng were good draft picks.

They are clearing out cap space along with acquiring draft picks. Hopefully this means they plan to bring in some solid free agents to compliment their draft picks. Dwight Howard is going to be a free agent before long.

 

you should look at the bulls playoff experience for the last 7 years....

04-05: 47-35 - lost 1st round
05-06: 41-41 - lost 1st round
06-07: 49-33 - lost 2nd round
07-08: 33-49 - missed playoffs (11th in east, 21st overall). got #1 pick from the #9th spot.
08-09: 41-41 - lost 1st round
09-10: 41-41 - lost 1st round
10-11: 66-16 - lost conf finals

that's a lot of 1 round exists, no? they had ONE YEAR where they missed the playoffs. i see this, and i think -- wow they kept plugging away until they got better. they had one lottery pick (of their own, anyway -- not sure what kinds of trades the made to get others, but that's not really the point). obviously getting the #1 pick was major.

ironically enough, they were a single game ahead of charlotte in the standings when they won the lottery in 2008. of course, charlotte probably would have taken beasely.


edit: what put them over the top this year was getting boozer and a new coach. you don't land a top-tier free agent if you keep rebuilding.

 

I would assume they wanted to emulate the recent success of Chicago not the last 7 years of Chicago.

If the draft picks we have added turn out to be solid players there is no reason to think a top free agent wont come here. It is mostly about money for them anyway.

 

how can you ignore the building process when looking to emulate how a team was built? noah was picked in 2007.

maybe jordan is trying to emulate the bulls from the immediate post jordan era.

they had nothing but crappy records and landed loads of high picks.

1999: #1, elton brand, #16 ron artest
2000: #4, marcus fizer, #7 chris mihm
2001: #4, eddy curry
2002: #2, jay williams
2003: #7, kirk heinrich
2004: #3, ben gordon
2005: no pick
2006: #2, lemarcus aldridge, #16 rodney carney
2007: #9, joakim noah
2008: #1, derrick rose
2009: #16, james johnson
2010: #17, kevin seraphin


if the "high picks yields success" model was an effective one, you'd think by 2004-2005 they'd be world champs. #1, #4, #7, #4, #2, #7, #3...

now of course, some of those were traded for other picks, but the point remains, 10 years of high draft picks and the only 2 on that list that are part of the bulls team to make the ecf are #9 and the lucky #1 they landed (when they were scheduled to pick #9)....

 

Yeah, they just got super fucking lucky. Rose basically is that team. Noah, Deng, etc are nice complementary players but wouldn't mean shit if Rose hadn't fallen into their laps. San Antonio was the same thing back when they got Duncan, and then Cleveland when they got LeBron. You can't count on lucking into that kind of pick (Minnesota has never had the #1 pick despite decades of sucking), so tanking is the wrong move, but playing young guys instead of taking on bad veteran contracts is the right direction. Admittedly I do not follow the Bobcats closely at all, but they've taken on a bunch of shit contracts like Nazr and Matt Caroll, etc, then didn't they give a max contract to Okafor? Really they should have blown it up a while ago and tried to assemble some young talent.

Do you even watch basketball? Boozer missed 33 games and wasn't good even when he did play. He was absolutely not what put them over the top. Thibodeau was a really good hire, but they were able to get him because they already had Rose.

 

Regardless of the Chicago analogies, I look for them to play a bunch of young guys this year hoping they will improve as the year goes on. Probably get another lottery pick and maybe a free agent after this upcoming season. Hoping to make a run in the season after this one.

Next year's draft is supposed to be stronger, maybe we land a good player. We have yet to draft a player who has become a star. Maybe that changes now.

 

i wouldn't count on young guys getting a ton of minutes. silas defaults to vets unless younger guys are simply much better. he famously considers sitting baron davis for his first year in the league as one of his best moves, so i doubt walker comes in and runs the show from day 1.

the mainstays on this team will be dj, henderson, maggette, thomas, diaw, and brown. cunningham and dj white will get their minutes. walker and biyombo will need to prove themselves first. diop will probably be given a chance before biyombo.

a high pick next year is a definite possibility.

 

yes, i watch plenty of basketball. boozer was solid for them. i think thibodeau did a good job and rose blossomed (ugh, no pun intended) to a legit mvp, but boozer provided a lot to that team. and he missed 23 games, not 33.

maybe "put them over the top" wasn't the right way to say it since they clearly aren't over any top since they lost in the ecf, but i think his addition to that team was significant to their improvement.

 

Henderson got a lot more minutes once Silas took over for Larry Brown. I am sure there will be a push from management to get the young guys some minutes. I doubt they will be in playoff contention very long next season so it should not be hard to get some minutes for those guys.

The plan is probably to take what we have now and get another high draft pick next season along with a free agent or two and see if we have a solid team in league year 2012-2013.

I would also expect them to try and move Diaw, Magette and Diop if possible.

 

It really wasn't, and plenty of analysts now say that they would undo that signing if they could.