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OK, let's just try
go back 25 months-Bulls capture #1 seed behind open court, fun play and reckless/high flying defense. What would have happened if?

1. We stay healthy, and the roster goes into the 2nd half of the season in tact?

2. We deal PWill for JGrant-that deal was discussed MANY times.
Ball/Lavine/DDR/Grant/Vuc
bench of JGreen, Caruso, White, Ayo, Bradley, DJJ (I think he had to go in a PWill-Grant deal but not sure)

So, what would have happened to that team, if healthy and they made a positive addition in Grant?

I think they would have had a good chance at the ECF, and might have snuck into the Finals and lost. That was a fun team for 50 games

L in ECF too small

I think that we'd need the Grant from 5 years ago to have done anything. This version of him isn't nearly the defender he used to be.

I looked forward in time. I saw 14,000,605 futures.

In none of those Lonzo was healthy.

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7, unrealistic

Maybe you were blowing it up and had the Bulls trading Williams for Grant. I don't think PORT was ever on board with that. Doesn't matter, once they had DeRozan, Ball, Vuc, and Zach signed with Lavine's max contract on the horizon and if they looked to still retain Vuc they weren't going to add Grant and end up over the cap and into the luxury tax. Caruso was signed long term, Coby wasn't going to make many gains if Caruso and Green were there to play guard and not PF and without injuries Ayo was just waving towels the last 2 years.

The finals? I don't see it.

I think people overrate the 35 games Lonzo Ball played for the Bulls. Yes, they were winning, and exciting to watch, but some of it was the schedule and some of it was DDR hitting a few games winning shots. Those shots bounce out and the record changes.

I think that Bulls team would beat the Raptors and the Hawks, but not the Celtics, Sixers, or the Heat. Maybe they beat Brooklyn.

2nd round at best if not a 1st round exit

pipfan wrote:OK, let's just try
go back 25 months-Bulls capture #1 seed behind open court, fun play and reckless/high flying defense. What would have happened if?

1. We stay healthy, and the roster goes into the 2nd half of the season in tact?

2. We deal PWill for JGrant-that deal was discussed MANY times.
Ball/Lavine/DDR/Grant/Vuc
bench of JGreen, Caruso, White, Ayo, Bradley, DJJ (I think he had to go in a PWill-Grant deal but not sure)

So, what would have happened to that team, if healthy and they made a positive addition in Grant?

I think they would have had a good chance at the ECF, and might have snuck into the Finals and lost. That was a fun team for 50 games

I agree that team could've made some noise in the playoffs. It's just hard to imagine Donovan outcoaching someone else.

Dan Z wrote:The finals? I don't see it.

I think people overrate the 35 games Lonzo Ball played for the Bulls. Yes, they were winning, and exciting to watch, but some of it was the schedule and some of it was DDR hitting a few games winning shots. Those shots bounce out and the record changes.

I think that Bulls team would beat the Raptors and the Hawks, but not the Celtics, Sixers, or the Heat. Maybe they beat Brooklyn.

That season we owned the Celtics

ChettheJet wrote:7, unrealistic

Maybe you were blowing it up and had the Bulls trading Williams for Grant. I don't think PORT was ever on board with that. Doesn't matter, once they had DeRozan, Ball, Vuc, and Zach signed with Lavine's max contract on the horizon and if they looked to still retain Vuc they weren't going to add Grant and end up over the cap and into the luxury tax. Caruso was signed long term, Coby wasn't going to make many gains if Caruso and Green were there to play guard and not PF and without injuries Ayo was just waving towels the last 2 years.

Jerami Grant was still in Detroit 2 years ago and they had an unhealthy boner for Williams. But so did AK.

SimonFish wrote:I looked forward in time. I saw 14,000,605 futures.

In none of those Lonzo was healthy.

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Do we defeat Thanos in any of those futures...

If everyone stayed healthy and you swapped Grant for Pat, you'd have probably lost in the 1st or 2nd round and you'd already have had to have broken up that team because it'd be more expensive and in the tax.

nekorajo wrote:

pipfan wrote:OK, let's just try
go back 25 months-Bulls capture #1 seed behind open court, fun play and reckless/high flying defense. What would have happened if?

1. We stay healthy, and the roster goes into the 2nd half of the season in tact?

2. We deal PWill for JGrant-that deal was discussed MANY times.
Ball/Lavine/DDR/Grant/Vuc
bench of JGreen, Caruso, White, Ayo, Bradley, DJJ (I think he had to go in a PWill-Grant deal but not sure)

So, what would have happened to that team, if healthy and they made a positive addition in Grant?

I think they would have had a good chance at the ECF, and might have snuck into the Finals and lost. That was a fun team for 50 games

I agree that team could've made some noise in the playoffs. It's just hard to imagine Donovan outcoaching someone else.

This is the correct answer

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dougthonus wrote:If everyone stayed healthy and you swapped Grant for Pat, you'd have probably lost in the 1st or 2nd round and you'd already have had to have broken up that team because it'd be more expensive and in the tax.

Well, the only objective facts we have to go on are that the Bulls were the #1 seed with Lonzo.

A person can give opinions that it wouldn't have lasted, but they can't really give any reasons why.

It is rare that a number one seed loses in the first round of the playoffs against a number 8 seed.

I don't think it happens that often that they lose in the 2nd round.

But yeah... who knows, right?

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Stratmaster wrote:Well, the only objective facts we have to go on are that the Bulls were the #1 seed with Lonzo.

A person can give opinions that it wouldn't have lasted, but they can't really give any reasons why.

It is rare that a number one seed loses in the first round of the playoffs against a number 8 seed.

I don't think it happens that often that they lose in the 2nd round.

But yeah... who knows, right?

If your level of analysis is:
We were a 1 seed team, so we were a dominant NBA franchise, so we would have done what other dominant NBA franchises did, then sure.

If your analysis was all advanced predictive metrics around net-rating and win margin that are vastly more accurate predictors of future success were used instead, then we projected as a 4th/5th seed quality team.

Lonzo Ball is not the caliber of player that changes a team from a .500 team to a dominant franchise, which if you think about it, most people would probably recognize and agree with if they're honest with themselves.

We played an extremely weak schedule and had a net rating of +2 when we were the #1 seed, and were basically within a game or two of a bunch of teams. Our winning percentage with Lonzo projected out at 51 wins, but the advanced metrics with Lonzo projected out 46 wins (ignoring the weak schedule which projected out an even lower number).

If we assume we'd have performed at the "advanced metric range" the rest of the season, we'd have won 48 games (due to banking some extras at the start) and finished 5th and been a slight underdog in the 1st round. All of the numbers would show our good record was significantly inflated due to luck and that while Lonzo being out definitely hurt us, the impact of him being out was considerably inflated in the heads of people due also to luck shifting.

At any rate, it's still an intellectual exercise in just guessing / speculating with no real way to be certain one way or the other, but the record based analysis that overly emphasized our brief stay as the top seed is extremely shallow analysis even with Ball. A deeper analysis shows our team probably coming down to Earth either way.

dougthonus wrote:

Stratmaster wrote:Well, the only objective facts we have to go on are that the Bulls were the #1 seed with Lonzo.

A person can give opinions that it wouldn't have lasted, but they can't really give any reasons why.

It is rare that a number one seed loses in the first round of the playoffs against a number 8 seed.

I don't think it happens that often that they lose in the 2nd round.

But yeah... who knows, right?

If your level of analysis is:
We were a 1 seed team, so we were a dominant NBA franchise, so we would have done what other dominant NBA franchises did, then sure.

If your analysis was all advanced predictive metrics around net-rating and win margin that are vastly more accurate predictors of future success were used instead, then we projected as a 4th/5th seed quality team.

Lonzo Ball is not the caliber of player that changes a team from a .500 team to a dominant franchise, which if you think about it, most people would probably recognize and agree with if they're honest with themselves.

We played an extremely weak schedule and had a net rating of +2 when we were the #1 seed, and were basically within a game or two of a bunch of teams. Our winning percentage with Lonzo projected out at 51 wins, but the advanced metrics with Lonzo projected out 46 wins (ignoring the weak schedule which projected out an even lower number).

If we assume we'd have performed at the "advanced metric range" the rest of the season, we'd have won 48 games (due to banking some extras at the start) and finished 5th and been a slight underdog in the 1st round. All of the numbers would show our good record was significantly inflated due to luck and that while Lonzo being out definitely hurt us, the impact of him being out was considerably inflated in the heads of people due also to luck shifting.

At any rate, it's still an intellectual exercise in just guessing / speculating with no real way to be certain one way or the other, but the record based analysis that overly emphasized our brief stay as the top seed is extremely shallow analysis even with Ball. A deeper analysis shows our team probably coming down to Earth either way.

But my idea is also adding Grant, a HUGE upgrade to an injured PWill. That starting 5 would be solid, and some nice bench pieces. MAYBE they could have even added a backup center

pipfan wrote:But my idea is also adding Grant, a HUGE upgrade to an injured PWill. That starting 5 would be solid, and some nice bench pieces. MAYBE they could have even added a backup center

Grant was a high volume, low/mediocre efficiency scorer that was a league average 3 point shooter and solid but not elite defender. It's unlikely that would have really added all that much to us vs playing hustle/energy players at the 4. His scoring / shot attempts would have probably upset the balance of the roster and his efficiency would have lowered the overall efficiency of the team not increased it.

Maybe he's a more consistent defender than DJJ / Javonte, but not really sure he does all that much for you there compared to those guys, and his increased added offensive value would have been meaningless on a team with a crap ton of volume scoring already.

dougthonus wrote:

Stratmaster wrote:Well, the only objective facts we have to go on are that the Bulls were the #1 seed with Lonzo.

A person can give opinions that it wouldn't have lasted, but they can't really give any reasons why.

It is rare that a number one seed loses in the first round of the playoffs against a number 8 seed.

I don't think it happens that often that they lose in the 2nd round.

But yeah... who knows, right?

If your level of analysis is:
We were a 1 seed team, so we were a dominant NBA franchise, so we would have done what other dominant NBA franchises did, then sure.

If your analysis was all advanced predictive metrics around net-rating and win margin that are vastly more accurate predictors of future success were used instead, then we projected as a 4th/5th seed quality team.

Lonzo Ball is not the caliber of player that changes a team from a .500 team to a dominant franchise, which if you think about it, most people would probably recognize and agree with if they're honest with themselves.

We played an extremely weak schedule and had a net rating of +2 when we were the #1 seed, and were basically within a game or two of a bunch of teams. Our winning percentage with Lonzo projected out at 51 wins, but the advanced metrics with Lonzo projected out 46 wins (ignoring the weak schedule which projected out an even lower number).

If we assume we'd have performed at the "advanced metric range" the rest of the season, we'd have won 48 games (due to banking some extras at the start) and finished 5th and been a slight underdog in the 1st round. All of the numbers would show our good record was significantly inflated due to luck and that while Lonzo being out definitely hurt us, the impact of him being out was considerably inflated in the heads of people due also to luck shifting.

At any rate, it's still an intellectual exercise in just guessing / speculating with no real way to be certain one way or the other, but the record based analysis that overly emphasized our brief stay as the top seed is extremely shallow analysis even with Ball. A deeper analysis shows our team probably coming down to Earth either way.

Why are you looking deeper into it with a more advanced analysis? We were the 1 seed for a quarter of the season which obviously means we would have been #1 seed for the rest of lonzos contract if he remained healthy. that's that. You can't take away from it

I don't think grant would have helped much with the roster maybe even hurt it. The mid 3 still would need the ball and grant wasn't really a lock down defender or a sharpshooter which is both things we would need at the forward position to complement the mid 3.

PaKii94 wrote:I don't think grant would have helped much with the roster maybe even hurt it. The mid 3 still would need the ball and grant wasn't really a lock down defender or a sharpshooter which is both things we would need at the forward position to complement the mid 3.

I think he would've helped, but not enough to make a big difference. At best the Bulls win one more playoff game...? I say that and think I'm being generous.

That's why I thought it was better to bet on Patrick Willams development.