Chicago Bulls news, draft reports, and analysis

Hendu0520 wrote:
I mean do you watch the games or just look at box scores and stat web sites?

Given that study after study has shown that people are a walking collection of conscious and subconscious biases, that eye witness testimony is completely unreliable, and that in my experience the average message board poster carries more agendas than Eddy Curry carries extra pounds on his gut, I'll take the imperfect but objective world of stats any day.

wjb1492 wrote:


I disagree - I don't think Derrick was all that great as a distributor this year, so I don't see Ben as having suddenly gone from playing with an OK to great distributor. He was OK for a rookie, and I certainly think he will improve with experience, but playmaking was not one of the things I was overly impressed with this season. I think this is another case of people seeing where Derrick's potential can take him than where he is.

Quite simply, I don't think that's the case at all. Derrick's versatily by default creates more opportunities for either himself or others. This is an area where Kirk will never be better than he currently is. Derrick is by far the better playmaker and playcreator. The fact that he scores at a higher rate than Kirk takes away some of the assists, but when you look at how Derrick gets his dimes, it's in more creative ways than Hinrich. Going forward, Derrick will surpass him quite easily.

On top of that, Ben's numbers weren't much better on a per minute basis this season than last, which was considered a down season team-wide (although Ben certainly had the best of the down seasons). And they're almost identical to the 06/07 season - the only difference is that he shot slightly worse from 3 this year than 2 seasons ago. So we're certainly not seeing an incredible jump in Ben's numbers as some sign of now playing with an amazing distributor.

A lot of this is by design. Under VDN, we didn't move the ball as much as under Skiles. Kirk's assists numbers were somewhat inflated because he handled the ball as much as he did, and both Luol and Ben were moving a lot without the ball.

This season we've seen Gordon go more into isolations. Given that John Salmons does the same, Derrick's assists numbers were definitely lowered. Also don't forget that Brad Miller had the ball in his hands a lot on top of the key, whereas Kirk had Ben Wallace to play with at that time. The ball just didn't go to Wallace unless it was for an open dunk. Kirk himself was a also a factor for Derrick not averaging more assists. Kirk came in and handled the ball A LOT. Even with Derrick on the floor.

And on top of that, if you check out the player-pair data at 82games.com, Ben shot .443 while playing with Derrick and .465 while playing with Kirk. Obviously with the 3 guard lineup there's going to be some noise in those stats, not to mention there's no control for what proportion of shots were assisted in each case - but not so much noise that you can just magically reverse the numbers and pretend Derrick helped Ben shoot better.

I assume you mean this season.

1. Kirk missed 31 games. That obviously carries a lot of weight in this. Had he played all 82, Gordon would not have maintained a FG-percentage of 46%.

2. Derrick was still a rookie. Ben had not played with Derrick before, so a gelling process has to be taken into consideration. As the year progressed, he and Rose became significantly better as a duo than he and Kirk.

Diddy1122 wrote:


Gotta agree with Wjb on this one. Kirk is not a guy who looks for his own shot. I don't even know where you got that from.

Kirk does look for his shot. Quite a bit actually. When he's dribbling around on the perimeter burning clock, he often ignores players coming off the screen, and instead tries to shoot off a pick himself. So I don't really know where you get the idea of him not being a shot-taker from. Because he is. He's still a PG, yes. I don't deny this. But let's not pretend he's the most unselfish player here. He's actively looking for shots, and takes bad ones due to lack of shot clock management. If he wasn't looking for his own shot, he'd give up the ball. Even Ben does that.

And don't take just this season as an example, because Vinny told Kirk to be aggressive and look for his shot because they needed a scoring punch off the bench.

Vinny also thought it'd be a good idea to put Derrick Rose on Paul Pierce at times during the series. But yes, he did ask Kirk to be more aggresive. Considering he came in with fresh legs and over the course of the first month took good shots, he was well in his right to say it. But good shots turned to mediocre shots. Mediocre shots turned to questionable. His assist rate per 36 minutes were at an all-time low (5.3) by a considerable margin. Despite the fact that he took over ballhandling duties even with Derrick in the game.

And there's really no comparison between Vinny's offensive style and Skiles', because Skiles actually has a style. Vinny has a freestyle system that relies heavily on pick-n-rolls, and iso situations, not particularly inducive to high assist totals. Skiles system revolves around constant moving and screening, with the ball swinging from one side to the other for an open shot, so it's not always the PG getting the assist on the play.

You're right and also wrong.

In Skiles' system, the PG was still the one with final say. Even with good ball-movement. Kirk often touched the ball last and sent it to Deng or Gordon coming off base-line screens. Because of that, his assist rate was inflated some. Duhon's too. Skiles focussed on PG play a lot, and incorporated this into a ball-movement offense. Even when Kirk and Chris played on the court together, they basically both played PG. Kirk didn't move much off the ball, and still dominated it at times.

I will agree that Derrick is far more creative, and is extremely unselfish, sometimes to a fault, but I in no way feel that Kirk is not a distributor. All the stats and everything I have seen him do the past 6 seasons tells me otherwise.

I just don't agree. Hinrich in my eyes is not someone who succesfully can go out there and deliver crisp passes. He just can't. Even if he wanted to. He makes some of the most simple assists in the world and is too conservative with the ball. He doesn't take chances, and would rather over-dribble or look for his own jumper than gamble on a play. Sometimes you need to gamble, and Derrick does this well.

A distributor in my eyes is one who is aggresively and active in looking to get the ball into the hands of scores. Kirk passes it around, but never seems to comprehend the fact that he has options around him. In this high-paced offense this year, he had a career-low assist rate. Even after he basically took over ball-handling duties over Rose when on the court together - Making Rose another offensive option, by the way!

Kirk, in my eyes at least, looks more and more like a half-court player to me. Someone who can't think on the go and make quick decisions. Because of this, he won't be succesful here in the long run.

The stats are somewhat flawed though. Derrick played 81 games at a 37 minute rate. Kirk played 51 at a 26 minute rate. The volume of extra minutes has an affect on the numbers, which obviously makes them only semi-accurate. Given that Kirk mostly matched up against second-units, he obviously had a higher succes rate.

I won't dismiss them entirely, but I also wouldn't use them in this aspect. Especially considering our bench improved significally with Brad Miller as well. You basically had two starting caliber players in Kirk and Brad playing against second stringers, whereas Derrick played against full-time starters.

Morten Jensen wrote:
I rarely see Kirk trying to set people up. No fault of his, as it's just not his game. His 6+ assists on his career does indicate otherwise, but he's always looked for his shot moreso than getting people in places where they can score. Keep in mind that Kirk handled the ball extremely much under Skiles and had a lot of his assists on simple passes to Ben or Luol on the wings and mid-range area. Derrick is far more creative and is aggresively trying to set up his teammates. Kirk is not that way.

I'd disagree with the assertion that Rose is really any better a distributor than Hinrich. I don't think either of them are great court vision guys, nor do I think either of them are selfish. Both look to get their teammates involved, but you don't see either setting up their teammates for lots of wide open shots.

Rose improved in that area as the season went on though. I think Hinrich makes lots of passes to guys in position for them to score without breaking down the defense though, he's good at getting Gordon coming off the back screen at just the right time and things like that more so than he is at driving and creating something in the lane.

Hinrich seemed better to me at getting the ball to guys on the team in positions they liked to start their offense than Rose did. While Rose had the advantage of drawing a buttload of defensive attention and then being able to find an open guy when the season went on.

I don't necessarily disagree with your view Doug, but I personally factor in aggresiveness more when it comes to valuing distribution. Rose simply lets go of the ball more often than Kirk and as a whole. He takes and creates more chances for himself and others than Hinrich as well.

Luol Deng, who is an excellent off-ball player in his own right, has pretty much always been available for Kirk. This season, Rose played a lot without him and instead had to settle for the chucking Larry Hughes and for a very isolation-oriented John Salmons. When I look at his assists numbers, I find them extremely low according to what I saw, especially after taking the personnel into consideration.

To sum it up. Rose averaged 6.3 assists in an offense where there was more focus on isolations than ball-movement. Kirk got his 6 assists a game in a high assists offense (compared to pace and offensive possesions) under Skiles and was somewhat exposed this year. There's a reason Kirk's assist rate dipped under 6 per36 for the first time in his career. He handled the ball a lot, but couldn't overcome the individual focus there was on this team. Derrick could, and averaged more assists than Kirk per 36.

Obviously, assists isn't the only key here. But I fail to see how Kirk is as good as Derrick in that regard. Derrick is actively looking to get the ball into the right hands, whereas Kirk's conservativeness (is that a word?) has him standing on the perimeter burning clock.

I still think Kirk is a top 15 PG in the NBA. But I don't feel he fits our new up-tempo schemes. Yes, he was injured and this was his first year playing in such a system. So I should give him the benefit of my doubt. But overall, I don't see him in the same light as before. Even when it comes to his on-court production. Something has changed, and a sign of this is him hanging onto the ball more and not giving up.

However, people call me out as this was some knock on Kirk. Why is that? Did I in any way make it sound like this was a huge problem? No. Kirk shot well this year, so I don't have a problem with him taking shots. I'm just pointing out that he's looking for his own jumper instead of the actual court and set-up. At the same time, I mention Derrick is simply better in terms of being a distributor. I don't see how that's inaccurate when taking all the factors into consideration.

In the playoffs for Kirk;

30 minutes a game - 2.9 assists. He shot the ball well and took 8.8 attempts a game, which is definitely not a high number considering the minutes. But he did look for his shot first all series long.

Again. I don't have a problem with it. Especially when he shot 43% from deep during the series. Hell, he could have shot more for all I cared when he's hitting at such a clip.

Morten Jensen wrote:
I don't necessarily disagree with your view Doug, but I personally factor in aggresiveness more when it comes to valuing distribution. Rose simply lets go of the ball more often than Kirk and as a whole. He takes and creates more chances for himself and others than Hinrich as well.

Derrick gives up the ball more than Kirk and he drives to create more than Kirk, but Kirk does a better job delivering the ball to players on cuts and off screens than Rose. Derrick giving up the ball doesn't make him a better distributor. His aggressiveness is more of a physical attribute than something related to his distribution skills.

Luol Deng, who is an excellent off-ball player in his own right, has pretty much always been available for Kirk. This season, Rose played a lot without him and instead had to settle for the chucking Larry Hughes and for a very isolation-oriented John Salmons. When I look at his assists numbers, I find them extremely low according to what I saw, especially after taking the personnel into consideration.

When he had Luol Deng, he really struggled to get Deng the ball in positions that Deng could score though which is one of the the things Kirk does a better job at.

To sum it up. Rose averaged 6.3 assists in an offense where there was more focus on isolations than ball-movement. Kirk got his 6 assists a game in a high assists offense (compared to pace and offensive possesions) under Skiles and was somewhat exposed this year. There's a reason Kirk's assist rate dipped under 6 per36 for the first time in his career.

Kirk played off the ball an absolute crapload this year and still had nearly the same assist rate as Derrick Rose while having the ball in his hands a much lower percentage of his on court minutes. I think that's an entirely unfair statement.

Derrick Rose's assist percentage this year was lower than any year of Hinrich's on the Bulls except this season where Hinrich spent the majority of his minutes off the ball. The bulls did have a slightly higher assist friendly offense in the past relative to this year which could account for the difference. If you adjust upwards by the percentage difference in team assists, then Rose's assist rate would go up to around 30% which would be about Kirk's career rate.

Given Rose's large natural advantages in ability to break down the defense and create double teams, I really have a hard time believing that his vision is any better than Kirk's and in fact, I'd say it's likely worse, given that he was generating roughly the same adjusted amount of assists while being able to generate far more due to sheer athleticism.

I still think Kirk is a top 15 PG in the NBA. But I don't feel he fits our new up-tempo schemes. Yes, he was injured and this was his first year playing in such a system. So I should give him the benefit of my doubt. But overall, I don't see him in the same light as before. Even when it comes to his on-court production. Something has changed, and a sign of this is him hanging onto the ball more and not giving up.

I don't think he really holds onto the ball more now. I think he's always held the ball a decent amount. I also don't think he does it more than any of our guards, and I think it was what our offense called for. As you yourself said, it's a more isolation oriented offense than we had previously.

dougthonus wrote:


Derrick gives up the ball more than Kirk and he drives to create more than Kirk, but Kirk does a better job delivering the ball to players on cuts and off screens than Rose. Derrick giving up the ball doesn't make him a better distributor. His aggressiveness is more of a physical attribute than something related to his distribution skills.

I disagree. If Kirk does a better job at delivering the ball to players off screens and cuts, why is his assist rate that low? Rose is perfectly capable, and has proven this, of finding players in a crowd as well as players coming off screens. Though neither Kirk nor Derrick has had the opportunity to really assert themselves as passer due to our offense.

When he had Luol Deng, he really struggled to get Deng the ball in positions that Deng could score though which is one of the the things Kirk does a better job at.

This is where the lack of longetivity comes into play, IMO. Kirk has played with Deng for five yeears. As it were, Derrick did a fine job getting the ball to Deng. The problem was Deng being injured and in a slump at the same time. Not that this should excuse Rose and label Hinrich as poor. Because no one could really get Luol going. But I think it's inaccurate to say Rose 'struggled' with it. He had some issues to begin with, sure. But who didn't see that coming? They began clicking some time before Luol finally went down permanent.

Kirk played off the ball an absolute crapload this year and still had nearly the same assist rate as Derrick Rose while having the ball in his hands a much lower percentage of his on court minutes. I think that's an entirely unfair statement.

Derrick Rose's assist percentage this year was lower than any year of Hinrich's on the Bulls except this season where Hinrich spent the majority of his minutes off the ball. The bulls did have a slightly higher assist friendly offense in the past relative to this year which could account for the difference. If you adjust upwards by the percentage difference in team assists, then Rose's assist rate would go up to around 30% which would be about Kirk's career rate.

Given Rose's large natural advantages in ability to break down the defense and create double teams, I really have a hard time believing that his vision is any better than Kirk's and in fact, I'd say it's likely worse, given that he was generating roughly the same adjusted amount of assists while being able to generate far more due to sheer athleticism.

I quite simply disagree. Athleticism gives Derrick an advantage, but passing out of a collapsing defense has nothing to do with athleticism. Derrick's passes has a higher degree of difficulty than Kirk. This should be undeniable.

Kirk handled the ball a lot this year. I don't see this as him handling the ball considerably less. For his amount of minutes, he took over ball-handling duties too mcuh and tried to set up an offense instead of Rose.

The assist number, as I said, weren't necessarily key. It's the way Derrick gets his dimes that makes him a better distributor. So what if it's based off athleticism? He still does a better job at collapsing the defense and adjusting himself to finish the score or find a teammate. Kirk can't. Given all the reasons I stated earlier (Rose having a chucking Hughes, Gooden and an injured Luol), it makes zero sense why we shouldn't apply that into the conversation.

I don't think he really holds onto the ball more now. I think he's always held the ball a decent amount. I also don't think he does it more than any of our guards, and I think it was what our offense called for. As you yourself said, it's a more isolation oriented offense than we had previously.

Regarding Hinrich, I wasn't being exclusive about this year. He's always had a tendency to hold the ball a lot. Even in our Skiles days where the ball moved somewhat smoothly. IMO, when Derrick Rose is on the court, you make him handle the ball unless you've got a white-hot Ben Gordon. I'm not trying to say every play should go through the hands of Rose, but the 2nd PG on the roster sure as hell shouldn't be doing it when Rose is on the floor. Especially when he does not produce even remotely close as much as the starting unit.

I disagree. If Kirk does a better job at delivering the ball to players off screens and cuts, why is his assist rate that low? Rose is perfectly capable, and has proven this, of finding players in a crowd as well as players coming off screens. Though neither Kirk nor Derrick has had the opportunity to really assert themselves as passer due to our offense.

Why is his assist rate not better than? Even adjusting for the offense, he has basically the same assist rate as Hinrich (Rose is slightly worse) while having far greater penetration ability and ability to draw double teams and create openings for other players. Even with his natural gifts and greater ball usage, he's generating less assists AFTER you up his assist rate due to the offense as a whole generating less assists.

If he has better vision than Hinrich AND better creation ability due to his athleticism AND you upgrade his assist rate to account for the offense, then how is his assist rate still worse? Where is Hinrich making up the difference, and what do you quantify Kirk as being better at to account for the difference? It has to be something, because otherwise you're saying Derrick is better at everything passing wise, but still generates less assists for his teammates. That simply doesn't make sense.

You're saying Derrick > Kirk in every area passing wise and then ignoring that Kirk generates more assists per minute than Derrick even after you up Derrick's assist rate to account for the offense (which is a pretty dubious thing to do if you ask me, since the difference in the offense's overall assist rate could simply be that Rose isn't as good at generating assists as Duhon/Kirk were, an assertion supported by the assist rates of the players in question).

Rerisen wrote:
The Bulls highest player pair this year was Hinrich/Gordon, +170 overall and +12.9 per 48.

Since Ben is our leading scorer this stat no doubt impacts positively on Kirk's own +/- and the team's performance with him on the floor vs Derrick.

I think you're attributing that backwards in this case, actually - Ben's numbers went up significantly when playing with Kirk, and down when playing with Derrick. If I'm reading your post right, it sounds like you're crediting Ben with carrying Kirk. Thing is, +/- relies just as much on not letting the other team score as scoring, so how much of it was Ben's offense and how much was Kirk's defense? Ben with Kirk is +7 on offense compared to Ben with Derrick, and +9 on defense.

There are plenty of reasons to attribute this to - familiarity between the two compared with Derrick, as you suggest, and everybody's favorite "Kirk played against backups!" argument. There's certainly validity to both, and I'm not suggesting that it all should be credited to Kirk. I'm just surprised at the number of people who want to give Kirk little to no credit for the season. (It doesn't even mean you have to like him or want him back next season.)

I think Kirk was better than Rose this year as a PG. I think the team did better when he played because he was much better on defense and similar on offense. While he didn't create as much opportunity for others with his ability as Derrick, he could feed off of Gordon's creation ability better by hitting 3s. His overall offensive efficiency was much higher while his scoring rate was only a little lower.

The shot creation ability is really important for a player's overall value to the team and the pressure it puts on the defense, but when a guy needs the ball to be a threat, and there are other players on the court who can do the same thing with the ball, then that ability is less valuable.

Kirk was a good threat off the ball this year with his shooting. Derrick was a good threat on the ball with his penetration ability. Gordon was a good threat on the ball or off the ball this year and was able to complement either player leaving you largely with Derrick Rose vs Kirk Hinrich defensively as the difference maker between how successful they were in the lineup.

Morten Jensen wrote:
wjb1492 wrote:


I disagree - I don't think Derrick was all that great as a distributor this year, so I don't see Ben as having suddenly gone from playing with an OK to great distributor. He was OK for a rookie, and I certainly think he will improve with experience, but playmaking was not one of the things I was overly impressed with this season. I think this is another case of people seeing where Derrick's potential can take him than where he is.

Quite simply, I don't think that's the case at all. Derrick's versatily by default creates more opportunities for either himself or others. This is an area where Kirk will never be better than he currently is. Derrick is by far the better playmaker and playcreator. The fact that he scores at a higher rate than Kirk takes away some of the assists, but when you look at how Derrick gets his dimes, it's in more creative ways than Hinrich. Going forward, Derrick will surpass him quite easily.

On top of that, Ben's numbers weren't much better on a per minute basis this season than last, which was considered a down season team-wide (although Ben certainly had the best of the down seasons). And they're almost identical to the 06/07 season - the only difference is that he shot slightly worse from 3 this year than 2 seasons ago. So we're certainly not seeing an incredible jump in Ben's numbers as some sign of now playing with an amazing distributor.

A lot of this is by design. Under VDN, we didn't move the ball as much as under Skiles. Kirk's assists numbers were somewhat inflated because he handled the ball as much as he did, and both Luol and Ben were moving a lot without the ball.

This season we've seen Gordon go more into isolations. Given that John Salmons does the same, Derrick's assists numbers were definitely lowered. Also don't forget that Brad Miller had the ball in his hands a lot on top of the key, whereas Kirk had Ben Wallace to play with at that time. The ball just didn't go to Wallace unless it was for an open dunk. Kirk himself was a also a factor for Derrick not averaging more assists. Kirk came in and handled the ball A LOT. Even with Derrick on the floor.

And on top of that, if you check out the player-pair data at 82games.com, Ben shot .443 while playing with Derrick and .465 while playing with Kirk. Obviously with the 3 guard lineup there's going to be some noise in those stats, not to mention there's no control for what proportion of shots were assisted in each case - but not so much noise that you can just magically reverse the numbers and pretend Derrick helped Ben shoot better.

I assume you mean this season.

1. Kirk missed 31 games. That obviously carries a lot of weight in this. Had he played all 82, Gordon would not have maintained a FG-percentage of 46%.

2. Derrick was still a rookie. Ben had not played with Derrick before, so a gelling process has to be taken into consideration. As the year progressed, he and Rose became significantly better as a duo than he and Kirk.

Well, I had spent time typing out a nice long reply, but apparently it's lost in cyberspace. That's probably a good thing - I'll be much shorter.

1. My entire response was based on this past year. In your article you said Derrick is a distributor and Kirk is not. I disagree. Kirk is a distributor. Derrick may be a much better distributor in the future, but I don't think he was there this year. It's not all about creative passing, it's about effective passing. Creative and effective passing is awesome, but the creativity and drawing double teams and all only adds up to great distributor when Derrick learns to get the ball to teammates where they can score easily.

2. I specifically used Ben's stats instead of comparing Derrick's assists to Kirk's assists for a reason. With your "Derrick=distributor, Kirk=/= distributor," the strong implication was that Ben benefited greatly by getting to play with Derrick instead of having to play with Kirk. Ben's stats refute this claim. You have a point with the number of games Kirk missed, but not for the reason I think you're giving. It has less to do with Kirk only playing 51 games than with the fact that Ben shot .463 overall during those 51 games, very close to the .465 he shot with Kirk on the floor. However, this still only gets you to Ben shooting equally well with Kirk or Derrick - so if Derrick were distributing the ball in such a manner that Ben was getting easier/more open shots this season, it's simply not reflected in the stats. And this being a one-on-one offensive design also doesn't support your point. Ben creating his own shot is at best very tenuous to how good of a distributor Derrick is - Derrick drawing double teams doesn't mean he's getting the ball to his teammates for an easy score, and Ben creating on his own speaks to him creating on his own.

3. None of this has anything to do with who should be the point going forward, or whether Kirk has a place on the team, or how much potential Derrick has. I know I tend to be partial to and overly protective of Kirk, and I try to take a step back, be objective, see if the stats support or contradict what I think I'm seeing when I watch games. I just think Kirk is getting a raw deal this year around these parts - now that he's expendable, suddenly there are a lot of people who think he sucks. In his own right, he's a good NBA player and PG. A lot of what gets pointed to as evidence that Kirk sucks as a PG I don't think is fair - look what a "real" PG did for Tyson Chandler (only he looks a lot like the Tyson that played with Kirk since that one career year when he first got away from Skiles); or imagine what Tyrus and Joakim will look like with a "real" PG (only they're still works in progress and I think fairly most of the improvement should be attributed to individual improvement over a change in PG, and Tyrus shot better with Kirk than Derrick just like Ben did); or here, look how great Ben was with a "real" PG (only his stats were the same). So even though it seems to be making me a little unpopular around here, where there's a post slamming Kirk and the stats back my opinion that it's unfair I'm going to keep defending Kirk even if it's making me a little unpopular around here. Both Ben and Derrick are good enough in their own right to build them up without tearing Kirk down.

I think the situation of the Bulls has really made the Gordon/Hinrich issue something it's not.

People reach and reach for their arguments in order to protect their side IMO.

I like gordon more than Hinrich for the future of the Bulls if he's willing to sign a deal around 9 million per, but Hinrich had a very effective year in his own right this season, and there are a lot of reasons to like Kirk going forward as well as I summed up on my case for Kirk podcast.

I think I'd take Gordon given a choice, but I don't think it's time to abandon ship if Gordon is gone next year, and there are a lot of advantages to keeping Kirk. It could work out really well depending what our other moves are.

dougthonus wrote:
I think the situation of the Bulls has really made the Gordon/Hinrich issue something it's not.

People reach and reach for their arguments in order to protect their side IMO.

I like gordon more than Hinrich for the future of the Bulls if he's willing to sign a deal around 9 million per, but Hinrich had a very effective year in his own right this season, and there are a lot of reasons to like Kirk going forward as well as I summed up on my case for Kirk podcast.

I think I'd take Gordon given a choice, but I don't think it's time to abandon ship if Gordon is gone next year, and there are a lot of advantages to keeping Kirk. It could work out really well depending what our other moves are.

I agree with that, including the part about keeping Ben if it can be worked out.

And I apologize if (that?) I've worn out my welcome trying to defend Kirk. I'm not trying to say that Ben and Derrick aren't really good to great or trash their games, just that Kirk is good, too.

I don't think you've worn out your welcome at all. At least not to me, I think your points have all been well stated.

wjb1492 wrote:
Rerisen wrote:
The Bulls highest player pair this year was Hinrich/Gordon, +170 overall and +12.9 per 48.

Since Ben is our leading scorer this stat no doubt impacts positively on Kirk's own +/- and the team's performance with him on the floor vs Derrick.

I think you're attributing that backwards in this case, actually - Ben's numbers went up significantly when playing with Kirk, and down when playing with Derrick. If I'm reading your post right, it sounds like you're crediting Ben with carrying Kirk. Thing is, +/- relies just as much on not letting the other team score as scoring, so how much of it was Ben's offense and how much was Kirk's defense? Ben with Kirk is +7 on offense compared to Ben with Derrick, and +9 on defense.

There are plenty of reasons to attribute this to - familiarity between the two compared with Derrick, as you suggest, and everybody's favorite "Kirk played against backups!" argument. There's certainly validity to both, and I'm not suggesting that it all should be credited to Kirk. I'm just surprised at the number of people who want to give Kirk little to no credit for the season. (It doesn't even mean you have to like him or want him back next season.)

That's fair. I didn't mean it as if Ben was carrying him. Kirk just knows how to get the best out of BG more perhaps, and of course can take the best offensive player on defense and this helps the bigs too. Both deserve credit.

dougthonus wrote:
I think the situation of the Bulls has really made the Gordon/Hinrich issue something it's not.

People reach and reach for their arguments in order to protect their side IMO.

I like gordon more than Hinrich for the future of the Bulls if he's willing to sign a deal around 9 million per, but Hinrich had a very effective year in his own right this season, and there are a lot of reasons to like Kirk going forward as well as I summed up on my case for Kirk podcast.

I think I'd take Gordon given a choice, but I don't think it's time to abandon ship if Gordon is gone next year, and there are a lot of advantages to keeping Kirk. It could work out really well depending what our other moves are.

I agree. Ben and Kirk are both good basketball players. People who want to defend one often find themselves ripping on the other because it makes sense for the other to leave in order for the one to stay. They're both good fits for the team and both are vital to the success of the team. Yes Gordon is a more of an offensive threat than Kirk, and yes Kirk is a better defender than Ben is. But it's not like Ben plays garbage defense and Kirk can't shoot to save his life. Ben has improved to be an ok defender and Kirk is actually a decent shooter. People find themselves complaining about Kirk's FG% because Ben is much better and same goes for why people complain about Ben's defense. If one leaves the team will not crash and burn, it will have an effect, but it won't destroy the team.

In response to WBJ:

I'm a little late here but oh well, first of all if you were right then Kirk would have started at the Point Guard, why would we run Derrick 37mpg then? We would have dropped that to 30 atleast or ran him more at the 2 when he was in.

Ok let me explain, those stats are just +/-. Derrick played the point whenever he was in Kirk did not. A lot of Kirk's minutes were with Derrick on the court as well, so your stats are fine but they are not good for this arguement.

Also in regards to what Shakes said, yes most people are not accurate just watching and are biased watching their own team so you have to have stats. But I find that most of the times the trends that you notice while watching and then run to the stats most of the time they will back you up. Also most of the time people miss use stats because they don't understand or twist them for their means.

Stats to see if the offense ran better under Derrick Rose is almost impossible to quantify. All I know is that drawing double teams is a big part of creating opportunities on offense in the NBA. Derrick was an automatic double team everytime. The little time that Kirk did run the point it was obvious that we had no penetration and had to do our pass it around and chuck it up shots. Gordon, Deng are comfortable with that so we weren't horrible and I think Kirk is an efficient PG, but Rose brought another level or dynamic to our team whenever he was on the court and I'm surprised some of you can't see that.

Now getting in to Doug and Morten's arguement I think that Hinrich is a more experienced passer so when a simple pass is there he is great at getting the guy the ball. Derrick tries harder passes and messes up some easy ones because he is young.

But there is no question that Derrick creates more opportunities and higher percentage shots when he is in the game.

Oh and Derrick's vision is imo superior to Hinrich's, there were 3 or 4 whip passes down low this year that Rose made that we have never seen in a Bull's uniform. Kirk might be a more efficient passer right now but Rose is already a more talented passer if that makes sense to anyone that's the best I could explain my opinion.

We're going to have to agree to disagree on this Hendu, because I think you just aren't willing to admit that Derrick's not there yet. In the future I expect he will create higher percentage shots, but at best the stats show he was even this year. I'm sure familiarity has a big part to do with it, as does learning what you can and can't get away with in the NBA against bigger, faster opponents. And I never said Derrick didn't show flashes of what is to come. He's not fully developed yet, and I don't think anyone reasonable thought he was going to be in his first season.

I'm fine with you liking the offense better when Derrick runs it than when Kirk does - what's better statistically doesn't have to correlate with what people like to watch. And there are issues with +/- numbers. However, the on/off court stuff is more reliable than just the raw stuff, and over an entire season of games it gets pretty hard to ignore. Every player on the team that Kirk played with had a higher +/- when playing with Kirk compared to their overall number. No one did playing with Derrick except for Larry Hughes. The offense scored more per possession without Derrick than with him. (That's leaving defense out, since it has little to do with the offense obviously, but the gap on defense was much bigger). The offense also had a higher % of assisted field goals without Derrick than with - but here's one for you, the team shot .1% higher efg with Derrick than without. I've already offered Kirk's on and off court numbers for offense per possession, and the offense scored better per possession with than without him. Efg% and assisted field goals were also higher with than without Kirk, and were higher with Kirk than with Derrick.

There are factors that play into this - there is some noise from the time they played together, and there is a benefit to Kirk of playing against backups for part of his minutes. I seriously question whether that explains the total difference - Kirk would have to be the luckiest guy in the world to be out there whenever the team is playing great and not when they aren't, yet have nothing to do with it, especially when he's handling the ball a good part of the time. He and Derrick do play together with Derrick handling the ball, but it's Derrick's numbers that go up above his average playing with Kirk. I've already agreed with you in previous posts that their styles are different - you're using theoretical statements about why Derrick's style should be more effective, but numbers-wise it has not been this year.

And you know Derrick's minutes had nothing to do with whether he was effective or not. This season was all about Derrick - and when Vinny did reduce Derrick's minutes in the 4th Pax stopped it. That kind of interference comes about when the org has a primary goal of getting Derrick experience, regardless of who would be better to play on any given night. And that's OK with me, because the fastest way for the Bulls to get better long-term is to sacrifice a little short-term for the kid to get experience. But this was not an open competition for the PG job - once Derrick showed he was good enough not to blow it, the job was handed to him to grow into.

If you think I'm twisting stats to make an argument, please point out the stats that support your opinion that the offense ran better with Derrick this year. You've worked really hard to dismiss all the stats that contradict your opinion, and you've suggested that I either don't understand stats or am twisting them for my own purpose. But you haven't offered anything other than your own opinion to bolster your argument. You say it's almost impossible to quantify - yet all the quantifications of it contradict your argument. Theoretically, Derrick's style and ability should produce better looks eventually, when he's adjusted to the NBA and his teammates to him. I just strongly believe that didn't happen this year.

I'd say the best analogy is Tiger's swing - he's decided to tweak it several times, sometimes significantly, to make long-term improvements. Every time in the short term his golf game was worse than if he'd just stuck with the old swing - but every time so far it's paid huge dividends down the road when it all came together. The Bulls this season were in that immediate post-tweak period and it wasn't quite all there, and that's reflected in the offensive stats with Derrick running the team.

wjb1492 wrote:
We're going to have to agree to disagree on this Hendu, because I think you just aren't willing to admit that Derrick's not there yet. In the future I expect he will create higher percentage shots, but at best the stats show he was even this year. I'm sure familiarity has a big part to do with it, as does learning what you can and can't get away with in the NBA against bigger, faster opponents. And I never said Derrick didn't show flashes of what is to come. He's not fully developed yet, and I don't think anyone reasonable thought he was going to be in his first season.

I'm fine with you liking the offense better when Derrick runs it than when Kirk does - what's better statistically doesn't have to correlate with what people like to watch. And there are issues with +/- numbers. However, the on/off court stuff is more reliable than just the raw stuff, and over an entire season of games it gets pretty hard to ignore. Every player on the team that Kirk played with had a higher +/- when playing with Kirk compared to their overall number. No one did playing with Derrick except for Larry Hughes. The offense scored more per possession without Derrick than with him. (That's leaving defense out, since it has little to do with the offense obviously, but the gap on defense was much bigger). The offense also had a higher % of assisted field goals without Derrick than with - but here's one for you, the team shot .1% higher efg with Derrick than without. I've already offered Kirk's on and off court numbers for offense per possession, and the offense scored better per possession with than without him. Efg% and assisted field goals were also higher with than without Kirk, and were higher with Kirk than with Derrick.

There are factors that play into this - there is some noise from the time they played together, and there is a benefit to Kirk of playing against backups for part of his minutes. I seriously question whether that explains the total difference - Kirk would have to be the luckiest guy in the world to be out there whenever the team is playing great and not when they aren't, yet have nothing to do with it, especially when he's handling the ball a good part of the time. He and Derrick do play together with Derrick handling the ball, but it's Derrick's numbers that go up above his average playing with Kirk. I've already agreed with you in previous posts that their styles are different - you're using theoretical statements about why Derrick's style should be more effective, but numbers-wise it has not been this year.

And you know Derrick's minutes had nothing to do with whether he was effective or not. This season was all about Derrick - and when Vinny did reduce Derrick's minutes in the 4th Pax stopped it. That kind of interference comes about when the org has a primary goal of getting Derrick experience, regardless of who would be better to play on any given night. And that's OK with me, because the fastest way for the Bulls to get better long-term is to sacrifice a little short-term for the kid to get experience. But this was not an open competition for the PG job - once Derrick showed he was good enough not to blow it, the job was handed to him to grow into.

If you think I'm twisting stats to make an argument, please point out the stats that support your opinion that the offense ran better with Derrick this year. You've worked really hard to dismiss all the stats that contradict your opinion, and you've suggested that I either don't understand stats or am twisting them for my own purpose. But you haven't offered anything other than your own opinion to bolster your argument. You say it's almost impossible to quantify - yet all the quantifications of it contradict your argument. Theoretically, Derrick's style and ability should produce better looks eventually, when he's adjusted to the NBA and his teammates to him. I just strongly believe that didn't happen this year.

I'd say the best analogy is Tiger's swing - he's decided to tweak it several times, sometimes significantly, to make long-term improvements. Every time in the short term his golf game was worse than if he'd just stuck with the old swing - but every time so far it's paid huge dividends down the road when it all came together. The Bulls this season were in that immediate post-tweak period and it wasn't quite all there, and that's reflected in the offensive stats with Derrick running the team.

Its cool I like the argument. We can agree to disagree, and wasn't saying you were twisting stats that was just an overall argument on what Shakes had said about using stats. I just think that those stats you used don't show the true reality. And you had a rebutal or a factor in favor of my view that explained all of those stats in your own argument.

I know they have a long term goal with Derrick and that is why he got minutes but he also would not have gotten that many if he wasn't flat out better. If they were better with Kirk they would have shaded it down more towards 30 min.

I just think that Rose made more mistakes and that is another reason those stats favor Hinrich. Rose created much better opportunities whether they were successful or not is another issue,that is what will improve over time. Like you said Hinrich and the others have played together longer and a lot of the plays that Rose made people weren't expecting or don't know how to catch them yet. Not blaming it on the other players but it is not Rose's fault that our players are better at shooting 3's than finishing around the basket. So imo I would rather want those openings to be there rather than hoping on a jump shot. It is a big difference playing with player that can do things no one else can do, it takes a while to get used to it because they do things you didn't know could happen so you aren't ready for it.

And the beginning of the games would kill Rose in your stats, that's when I would count the most missed opportunities for a Rose assist. That's when he passed the ball to a wide open player who simply missed a jumper. We are slow starters and jump shooters usually have to get a feel for the rim and then start heating up. Kirk never got dinged by starting the games when we were at our worst most games.

Lastly it is very hard to quantify based on all of the stats that you had to bring out. But I'm sure if I go and spend time looking like you found that the FG% was better with Rose, I would find some more that could go in Rose's favor.

And Kirk just didn't run the team enough it isnt even fair that we are going on 11 minutes of someone running the team vs 37min. Those are great arguments but your right there is no way that you can show me a stat that will convince me that our offense was better with Hinrich.

Oh if you remember when VDN took Rose out for those games what happened? We lost so Vinny did it again and we lost again. So thank god someone stepped in that just helps my point, that was driving me crazy. And I'm sure BG would say he saw a lot less hands in his face with Rose this year than ever.

dougthonus wrote:


Why is his assist rate not better than? Even adjusting for the offense, he has basically the same assist rate as Hinrich (Rose is slightly worse) while having far greater penetration ability and ability to draw double teams and create openings for other players. Even with his natural gifts and greater ball usage, he's generating less assists AFTER you up his assist rate due to the offense as a whole generating less assists.

Sorry for the late reply. I couldn't enter the site for some reason. Today, it works fine.

Derrick's assist rate IS higher. 6.1 per 36 to 5.3 per 36.

The slight difference can be made up by two things;

1. Rookie mistakes
2. Kirk matching up against second-stringers

Kirk this year played a lot against bench players, which is also a reason for him using that advantage to shoot the ball and try to establish himself offensively. Switch Kirk and Derrick, and Rose would probably have had an easy time racking up dimes against opposing benches.

If he has better vision than Hinrich AND better creation ability due to his athleticism AND you upgrade his assist rate to account for the offense, then how is his assist rate still worse? Where is Hinrich making up the difference, and what do you quantify Kirk as being better at to account for the difference? It has to be something, because otherwise you're saying Derrick is better at everything passing wise, but still generates less assists for his teammates. That simply doesn't make sense.

Considering Derrick did have a higher assist rate, I feel my stance does make sense. Plus, you seem to overlook several on court aspects. Derrick had stretches where he could hit the mid-range jumper, which led to teams closing off the paint. Thus lowering his drive and kick opportunities. Then there's the on and off passiveness that he shows on occasion, where he drifts through a game and ends up with bad looking numbers.

An active Derrick Rose looks, is and shows that he's a superior passer. But passing isn't everything. Kirk, due to his age and experience, is the better PG leader. Not necessarily the better PG. Kirk can calm things down and set the pace better than Derrick at this point. But honestly.. That's about it.

You're saying Derrick > Kirk in every area passing wise and then ignoring that Kirk generates more assists per minute than Derrick even after you up Derrick's assist rate to account for the offense (which is a pretty dubious thing to do if you ask me, since the difference in the offense's overall assist rate could simply be that Rose isn't as good at generating assists as Duhon/Kirk were, an assertion supported by the assist rates of the players in question).

Over his career, Hinrich has benefitted from an assists inflated system. The year he didn't, his assist rate declined by a lot. So it makes no point in comparing Kirk's career numbers to Derrick's, as they were played in totally different systems. Rose in a Skiles offense could have had 8-9 assists a game for all we know.

dougthonus wrote:
I think the situation of the Bulls has really made the Gordon/Hinrich issue something it's not.

People reach and reach for their arguments in order to protect their side IMO.

If that was directed at me, I have a problem with it. When making an article, I do not try to push agendas or 'reach' for arguments. I argument things I believe in, and not something that needs to fit the bill.

I did not see Kirk as a distributor this season, and I do not see him being an equal passer to Rose in any way, shape or form. This has nothing to do with Ben Gordon, and this has nothing to do with lowering the abilities of Kirk Hinrich. This has something to do with me seing something, and judging from an individual perspective what I feel is right.

Disagree? Fine. But don't make it out to be me reaching or twisting facts. I have never done that, and I never will.

D Rose is a good distributor, so he averaged 6.3 assists or so a game, he has great court vision and the only reason he isnt getting more assists is because the bulls usually go for the extra dribble. He is a dedicated player and will get better, and even though Kirk Hinrich and Ben Gordon have a better +/- together, that doesnt really mean anything +/- is a pointless stat and as if u can comapre D rose with hinrich.