The other day I downloaded 82Games detailed player shooting stats and started filtering guys that had similar games to Deng in terms of their percentages inside and outside, and also their percentages of assisted buckets.

One guy that came out pretty similar was David West
Deng
2 point Jumpers: 58% of total, 40% shooting, 74% assisted
Inside Shots: 39% of total, 60.6% shooting, 60% assisted

West
2 point Jumpers: 62% of total, 43.7% shooting, 61% assisted
Inside Shots: 35% of total, 57.6% shooting, 49% assisted

Chris Bosh
2 point Jumpers: 55% of total, 40.6% shooting, 65% assisted
Inside Shots: 42% of total, 61.4% shooting, 56% assisted

Marvin Williams and LaMarcus Aldridge were also pretty similar as far as what they did.

I thought West was especially interesting because West and Deng weren’t that much different in size coming into the league:
West 6’8.25” (barefoot) and 226lbs. 7’4.25” wingspan, 9’0.5” standing reach. 31.5” vertical.
Deng 6’7” (barefoot) and 220lbs. 7’0.5” wingspan, 9’ standing reach. 31.5” vertical.

I'd say no unless they get something really good. Ultimately they've got middling players who are going to end up being expensive. A fairly good draft pick is an opportunity to get a cheaper player who can do the same thing.

A middling player, by definition, is a guy that's probably not really worth what he gets when he signs a second contract in the NBA. Rookie contracts undervalue players, follow on contracts overvalue them. That's the trick to the salary cap. If you re-sign your own guys, you end up with a capped out middling team.

Obviously, if you're going to be successful, you can't let everyone go when they're off their rookie deal. But you have to be judicious in who you're going to give follow on contracts to. Or any FA contracts for that matter. The "going rate" is simply a lot higher for those guys and teams can't afford to make mistakes.

Bringing it back to "stockpiling", I think that means a team needs to be judicious. It can't be piling guys up, it needs to be thinking ahead. When a team sees it's got a middling player who's going to be expensive (more expensive than he's likely worth), it should try to move him while it can. Nocioni would be the example of this situation. If a team is interested in overpaying for them, get a protected pick from them, if that's all you can get, and move on. You've already got a less expensive guy flowing into your system, Thabo, to replace him.

That's what you want to do with middling guys... keep the flow moving and keep your supporting cast inexpensive.

We need to hang onto this pick because time is already running out on Thabo he's more than middling. He'll be an RFA in two summers, and if we play our cards right we'll have cap room then. Unless he's really worth it, we'd be much better of with a guy like Douglas-Roberts or Budinger for less than $2M than we would with Thabo for two or three times that.

Or alternatively, we might be better with Thabo at $6M and a rookie contract at $2M than with Tyrus, Deng or Gordon at $8M or $9M.

Any way you cut it, having young and cheap middling players on rookie deals seems the only alternative to managing the cap and keeping your supporting players cheap.

Also, it probably goes without saying, but I'm not saying that's the only thing a team needs to do. Ultimately it just has to be right in evaluating talent. Simply not paying $15M/yr contracts to old, fading stars goes a long way. But still, the draft seems like a good deal. It's really the only way NBA teams get a shot at cheap talent.

What do you all think happened to our "willingness to play as a team" that Pax is asking about? Why were the same guys who did it for a couple years not doing it all of a sudden?

How would you answer that question if Pax put it to you as an outside observer?

One answer I'd give is that Ben Gordon was, given the circumstances, pretty darn good. You, Pax, publicly stated there were problems with him starting (ever) simply because of his height. Um, every season up to this one, Pax, he's performed better as a starter and your team has performed better with him as a starter. Pax, I don't see how telling a guys who's clearly one of your five best players 'he's too short to start' makes him very willing to take one for the team. How are the 30 minutes a game he played as coming from the bench any different from the 30 minutes a game he'd play as a starter?

Now, if you think Gordon simply isn't good enough to be on your team, then by all means, get rid of him. He obviously is limited by his height, no disagreement there. But limited or not, he's going to be just as limited coming off the bench or starting. But by publicly pigeon holeing him, you've damaged his value around the league and artificially set a barrier for him. What sort of incentive does he have to work hard for you if it'll never get him in the starting lineup, or vis-a-vis that decision, will never get him to the all-star game or recognition as more than a "good sixth man". Nobody wants to have their boss talk about you the way you've talked about Ben Gordon, Pax. So don't be surprised if he wants to go somewhere where he feels he at least has an honest chance to get as far as his talents will take him.

Coincidentally, Gordon actually shot less per 36 minutes than he did last year, turned the ball over less as well, and saw his usage rate decline. If you're looking for people who've been selfish, you probably shouldn't look in the direction of the guy you jerked around but who, despite that, shut up and did what he was asked.

What should the Bulls be prepared to offer Luol Deng?

I'm more than willing to have him back but don't overpay.

What I'm curious about is what people think overpaying would be.

Let's start with Deng. To me, Deng is a lot harder to figure out than Gordon. Sam Smith effectively said in a mailbag that he never got to the bottom of what the discrepancy between what the Bulls say they offered Deng and what he says he was offer. If Smith's not going to do it, I doubt we will. At a minimum, we know that Deng turned down $50M over 5 years.

That's a contract that pays out:
Yr 1 8.26
Yr 2 9.13
Yr 3 10.00
Yr 4 10.87
Yr 5 11.74

I think the fair comparison to make is with what similar guys who have signed long-term deals will be making (No use comparing to guys still on rookie contracts), and of course, what this year's similar FAs make (Josh Smith, Iggy, Josh Childress, etc)

Gerald Wallace $8.31M
Josh Howard $9.95M
Carmelo Anthony $13.76M
Tayshaun Prince $8.76M
Shane Battier $6.37M
Mike Dunleavy $9M
Corey Maggette $7M
Lamar Odom $14.28M
Mike Miller $9.13M
Richard Jefferson $13.2M
Peja $12.53M
David West $9.86M
Rashard Lewis $16.45M
Hedo Turkoglu $6.86M
Boris Diaw $9M
Ron Artest $7.4M
John Salmons $5.1M
Manu Ginobili $9.91M
AK-47 $15.1M
Matt Harpring $6M
Caron Butler $9M

When I look through that list, it's hard for me to say Deng is going to be significantly overpaid at $8.25M or whatever the exact amount would be.

On the other hand, how do we view those deals. Which ones are good and movable, and which aren't?
I'd say Manu, Howard, Melo, Prince, Battier, West and Butler would be considered easily movable.

I'd pay their cost and not think twice about it. Wallace, Dunleavy and Miller are more questionable. I don't think they're good at that rate, but they're not completely godawful (Dunleavy was until this year when he sort of broke out).

How do I feel about Deng? Well, he'd be making less than most of those guys at what he was offered last year, but not a lot less.

Mostly I think the "going rate" for decent small forwards on the free agent market is so high that it'll be hard do the sort of team building we need to do with him on board.

To me, the only workable plan I see is to keep as much talent as possible, that's reasonably priced, and then plan for the summer of 2010. The keeping talent dictate means we should try to keep Deng. Reasonably priced, unfortunately, is a relative term. The "reasonable" price for a good young SF is something on the order of $9M or more. If we're paying Deng less than that, it's reasonable in an objective sense.

At the same time, I think there's very little chance you can keep a player happy by offering him quite a bit less than he turned down. Without getting into the fairness aspects, that's a lot of face to lose. So something has to be done to give Deng an out in this regard.

So I'd try to offer Deng a contract that minimizes his cap impact then (in Summer 2010) but still enables him to say he "won" by turning down the Bulls initial offer. I think to keep Deng you probably have to offer something like $59.5M over six years. He can say he "won" because he's getting an offer approaching $60M and a longer deal instead of $50M (never mind he's getting less per year, we'll ignore that- remember, it's about saving face).

2008 $10.4
2009 $9.3
2010 $8.2
2011 $9.3
2012 $10.4
2013 $11.5
Total $59.1

I won't be totally happy paying Deng that much, but I think that's the going rate and I don't see it as likely he'd be happy here for less. If you look at all then and just think "screw it, he's not worth that", then I think your only alternative is to let him walk (or sign and trade him- for what?) and hope to play Thabo as our full time 3. I expect that leads to another trip to the lottery next year, which is why, other things being equal, I guess we should move forward with Deng.

I'm sure this will go over well here, but when I was thinking about the Bulls today, it occurred to me that our major problems seemed to start with resigning Nocioni and our solutions probably start with getting rid of him.

If they'd simply let Noc go to Memphis, or better yet, managed to get a future pick, they would have:

1. Made finances less of an issue when it comes to re-signing Ben and Lou, and thus, even if they hadn't signed extensions, there wouldn't be quite the same context there is now (arguing about a rapidly diminishing fund pool when Noc is sitting there with more than he deserves).

Our current players aren't morons. I think they saw the bad decisions of the past couple years themselves, saw the implications for themselves, and became distracted. At this point, you've got a situation that's feeding on itself. Everyone looks around and wonders if they're going to be here or even what their role is. That's understandable, but at the same time it has to be distracting, even for players that are pros who work hard.

And resigning Nocioni was a big part of that. We paid him way too much and that's figured into everyone else's expectations of what they're worth(if "Noc is worth that much, I must be worth even more") and what's available to go around (everyone knows there's less).

2. Moving him would have forced us to sink or swim with Thabo and Tyrus. The prevailing sentiment, I think, is that they would have gotten their feet under them quite a bit earlier, and we might have pulled out of our early season funk. Obviously no sure thing, but still...

3. It would have left enough luxury tax maneuvering room to consider something like the Gasol trade. In short, more flexibility.

In short, if we'd simply let Noc walk, or (better yet) managed something like wrangling a conditional pick or young player on a cheap contract (like Kyle Lowry) from Memphis when they wanted Noc, we'd likely be in a better position with respect to this past disaster of a season.

Likewise, I think our solutions for the future begin with getting Nocioni off the books.

Consider our overpaid guys. Nocioni, Hinrich and Hughes all, to some extent, are pretty obviously overpaid. While I "like" him better than Hughes out of these guys, Nocioni is clearly the most expendable. If he goes then you've cleared up the problem of Thabo and Tyrus' playing time to a large degree. We'd be left with

1- Hinrich, Gordon
2- Hughes, Gordon, Thabo
3- Deng, Thabo
4- Gooden, Tyrus
5- Noah Gooden

Which is a somewhat workable looking rotation. What's more important is that Noc and Kirk's contracts are a lot longer than Hughes'. We're in a position to simply wait Hughes out. Even if we re-sign Gordon and Deng, we'll be under the cap by a pretty significant amount in 2010 if we can move Kirk or Noc. Thus, why expend an asset (like a draft pick) to move Hughes off the books? If we're going to use a draft pick to move someone, it ought to be Nocioni or Hinrich.

Now, would it be better to move Nocioni or Hinrich? Well, look again at the rotation. While Kirk has been downright awful this year, the truth of the matter is he's still the best PG material we've got. In fact, he's the only PG material we've got. Move him and we're looking at Gordon, Thabo, Hughes, and a rookie? That's not good. Plus you've still got the frontcourt logjam issue.

So bottom line is Nocioni should be the top priority to be traded. He's a higher priority than Hughes because his contract is longer and thus screws up the potential for cap space, and he's a higher priority than Hinrich because he's simply much more replaceable.

A problem is the Bulls players are all fairly good. There's not many obvious upgrades except at PF and C, but those positions are manned by guys we expect significant improvement from anyway.

I've been looking around and trying to figure out any conceivable means of turning some of our extras into long-term piece somewhere and I'm not seeing a lot of obvious ways to do it.

If we want to get a player who's a clear upgrade to what we have, we have to find another team that has a bad situation they want to escape from. Memphis with Gasol was an example there. Or Seattle with Ray Allen last year. Not that I think Allen would have been a perfect fit for the Bulls; my point is that the Sonics wanted to go in a different (money-saving, youth) direction.

So step one is to find a team that wants to change.

Step two is to find a player on that team that could help us.

Step three is to see if any of our players would fit what they're trying to do.

So look at the potentials:
Atlanta: Their ownership issues are still a mess and they'll have several free agents. If they somehow miss out on the playoffs, or they just look obviously outclassed, it seems to me they might consider big changes. Joe Johnson would be interesting, as would Josh Smith.

Dallas: Is going nowhere fast and paying a zillion dollars to do it. They've got $79M in guaranteed salary next year already, and the luxury tax will be something like $70M If they miss the playoffs or get bounced early, they might look to cut costs. Perhaps they'll auction off their lottery pick the way Phoenix did when we got Deng, or be willing to make some sort of salary saving trade to get depth (they'll only have 6 players under contract next year and last time I checked you need 14). They'll need to make some kind of move

Denver: Somewhat like Dallas but not quite as bad, they project to pay about $7M in luxury tax for a team that's barely making the playoffs.

Charlotte: Has lots of guys locked into long-term deals, including Jason Richardson and Gerald Wallace, but again, they aren't going anywhere.

Milwaukee: Ditto. Michael Redd might be overpaid, but I'd still prefer him to Gordon or Hughes.

Anyway, you get the idea.... if we're going to make a move, we're going to have to find a team that wants to shake things up themselves.

In general, it seems like a good idea.

1999 Draft
#5 pick Jon Bender acquired for Antonio Davis. Bender was a walking injury who never panned out, but the #5 pick could also have gotten the Pacers Shawn Marion, Andre Miller, Rip Hamilton, Andrei Kirilenko or Ron Artest.
2001 Draft
#2 Tyson Chandler for Elton Brand. #3 (Pau Gasol) for Shareef Abdur-Rahim. Also on the board were Richard Jefferson, Zach Randolph and Joe Johnson.
2002 Draft#8 Nene (and Marcus Camby!) for Antonio McDyess. Amare, Caron Butler, and Tayshaun Prince are taken later. Carlos Boozer lasts until round 2.
2004 Draft#7 Luol Deng for 2005 1st round pick (#21) and $3M cash. Andre Iguodala, Andris Biedrins, Al Jefferson, Josh Smith follow.
2005 Draft#3 Deron Williams for #6 Martell Webster, #27Linas Kleiza and a protected 2006 pick. Chris Paul went #4, Andrew Bynum went #10.
2006 Draft#7 Randy Foye (traded with cash in another pre-arranged deal with Minnesota for #6, Brandon Roy) to Portland for Theo Ratliff and Sebastian Telfair, and for taking Raef LaFrentz and Dan Dickau's worse contracts.
#8 Rudy Gay to Memphis with Stromile Swift for Shane Battier. Still on the board are Thabo Sefolosha, Ronnie Brewer and Rajon Rondo.
2007 Draft#5 Jeff Green acquired by Seattle with Delonte West and Wally Sczerbiak for Ray Allen and 2nd round pick. Yi Jianlan, Joakim Noah, Thaddeus Young, etc still on the board.

When I look at that list, I think
1. You have to know who the good players in the draft are going to be.
2. If you know that, and someone is willing to trade you a high pick for your existing player, or for some sort of future consideration, you ought to move on it.

The only trades I see somewhat working out in favor of the team that traded for the existing player were the Clippers for Brand and the Celtics for Allen. Allen is old, but combined with KG his immediate impact makes some sense. Brand was just good, whereas Chandler came along very slowly. But that's sort of a different consideration. On the prospective talent side of things, I'm pretty confident a bad team would be better going forward with a young player. Trading Brand for Gasol wouldn't have looked awful at all. The issue there, at worst, was bad use of the pick once it was gotten.

So I say, if you can trade up, do it. Chances are the other team is overrating the guy you're giving up and underrating what's available in the draft.