Vuc comes in top 5!...

[PaKii94]

Of the LVP rankings. Carry on nothing to see here continuity as usual

Nikola Vucevic, Chicago: 34.3 minutes per game, +0.1 BPM

We're going to list players and their "box plus minus," an advanced stat that attempts to evaluate a player's impact per 100 possessions. It's not a perfect stat though and has some biases, including boosting rebounders like Nikola Vucevic. On paper, Vucevic's averages (18 points, 10 rebounds) shouldn't put him on this ballot, but user u/bullpaw channeled his inner Karl Rove and wrote a great campaign speech:

"Consistently takes the most shots on the team nightly with a blistering 52.8% TS. He shoots 27% from three on 5 attempts per game with by far the most wide open shots in the league because defenders don't respect his shot at all, and out of 131 bigs that qualify, he's bottom 30 in percentage around the rim. He's always had brick hands as a Bull, but it's been even more pronounced this year. He consistently fumbles at least 1-2 passes a night leading to a turnover."

"Putting his dreadful black hole offense aside, he's also one of the worst center defenders in the league, if not the worst starting center defender. He's statistically been the worst rim protecting center in the league for the past few years, and as a result we scheme our entire defense around keeping opponents out of the paint at all costs to protect Vooch. We overhelp any time someone tries to drive, and as a result we give up the most 3 pointers in the league.

As if that wasn't enough, he's also consistently the lowest effort player on the team and has multiple occasions over the past two seasons where he's complained to the coaching staff that he doesn't get enough touches."

"Joakim Noah is my favorite Bull of all time and Vooch is the complete antithesis of what I loved about Noah."

Vucevic actually boosted his numbers down the stretch after bullpaw called him out (rising up to 54.0% TS), but that's still a low mark for a big. In fact, you can argue that he was outplayed by backup Andre Drummond this year.

https://www.reddit.com/r/nba/comments/1caaegq/oc_and_the_results_are_in_for_lvp_least_valuable/

[League Circles]

By a substantial margin Vuc is our biggest problem. I really want to like the guy but he's really just bad on offense and defense. You feel like he should be good on offense but he really just isn't. Getting rid of him would be addition by subtraction and we would immediately improve I think even with Drummond and Sanogo as the centers.

[DuckIII]

At least he finally expires this summer so we can get younger, more athletic, and add multiple versatile interior defenders through the draft and free agency.

[sco]

By a substantial margin Vuc is our biggest problem. I really want to like the guy but he's really just bad on offense and defense. You feel like he should be good on offense but he really just isn't. Getting rid of him would be addition by subtraction and we would immediately improve I think even with Drummond and Sanogo as the centers.

I am 100% with you on this. I am probably the most forgiving of AK on his bad miss here. Vuc showed enough to temp a GM who was looking at replicating what he had in Denver. It wasn't crazy to assume a good 3pt shooting, good passing, good scoring big, coupled with 2 of the best perimeter defenders in the league would work again here. Honestly, if Vuc could just make his 3's, his stats wouldn't be so dreadful. But starting Drummond would really help us. Even if we can't dump him this season, just moving him to a bench role would be fine...Vuc is a very good bumslayer and, IMO, would thrive against bench C's.

[dougthonus]

At least he finally expires this summer so we can get younger, more athletic, and add multiple versatile interior defenders through the draft and free agency.

The more subtle the joke, the greater the sting.

[League Circles]

By a substantial margin Vuc is our biggest problem. I really want to like the guy but he's really just bad on offense and defense. You feel like he should be good on offense but he really just isn't. Getting rid of him would be addition by subtraction and we would immediately improve I think even with Drummond and Sanogo as the centers.

I am 100% with you on this. I am probably the most forgiving of AK on his bad miss here. Vuc showed enough to temp a GM who was looking at replicating what he had in Denver. It wasn't crazy to assume a good 3pt shooting, good passing, good scoring big, coupled with 2 of the best perimeter defenders in the league would work again here. Honestly, if Vuc could just make his 3's, his stats wouldn't be so dreadful. But starting Drummond would really help us. Even if we can't dump him this season, just moving him to a bench role would be fine...Vuc is a very good bumslayer and, IMO, would thrive against bench C's.

This is roughly my thinking too. I was never ever high on Vuc, but I also wasn't too high on what we gave up for him, but what matters now is that he's not starting caliber. He really brings nothing at all other than decent defensive rebounding.

[League Circles]

I would now say it's virtually impossible to argue he's better than Drummond.

[kodo]

Unfortunately we're the only team that thinks our LVP is part of our "big 3" and a foundational piece. Washington knows Poole is a bad player, they absorbed Poole's contract to get a 1st round pick. We gave away great 1st round picks to get Vuc. LA does not play around Cam Reddish the way we do Vuc, he gets more P&R shot attempts than any big man in the league (more than Embiid & Anthony Davis).

[HomoSapien]

Who gave that Noah quote?

But he has become a big problem and that’s exacerbated by how Donovan uses him. Drummond is the better player, and I wish we could swap their roles.

[HomoSapien]

At least he finally expires this summer so we can get younger, more athletic, and add multiple versatile interior defenders through the draft and free agency.

Oh damn you laughter that instantly morphs into deep sadness.

[League Circles]

I don't even know if he can bum slay at this point.

Would it be insane to consider stretch waiving Vuc? I know it probably won't happen no matter what, but man oh man.

The guys is a carbon copy of late career Carlos Boozer now. Bad on both ends, doesn't contest shots, but looks a bit "skilled" so he can trick a coach/FO to allocate opportunities to him. Taj was obviously always a wildly better defender, but when he also emerged as a better OFFENSIVE player it was especially damaging to start Boozer.

The Bulls org really loves these fake scoring big men who are utter trash on defense smfh. Curry, Fizer, Boozer, Gasol, Vuc......

[MrSparkle]

I don't even know if he can bum slay at this point.

Would it be insane to consider stretch waiving Vuc? I know it probably won't happen no matter what, but man oh man.

The guys is a carbon copy of late career Carlos Boozer now. Bad on both ends, doesn't contest shots, but looks a bit "skilled" so he can trick a coach/FO to allocate opportunities to him. Taj was obviously always a wildly better defender, but when he also emerged as a better OFFENSIVE player it was especially damaging to start Boozer.

The Bulls org really loves these fake scoring big men who are utter trash on defense smfh. Curry, Fizer, Boozer, Gasol, Vuc......

Hey- it’s insulting comparing MLE Pau, who made 2 all-star games and helped carried us as a #2 option with ailing Noah and Rose.

Vuc is arguably the worst Bull of all-time to average more than 32 mpg. Honestly… It’s between him, Justin Holiday, Boozer, Ben Wallace, Ron Mercer and Jalen Rose. I think Boozer gets an automatic pass for atleast helping keep things together in some 2nd round series runs. Really hard to crucify Holiday seeing as he made $2M and happened to be the oldest (and healthiest) player on a 99% tank job. So I think Wallace, Vuc, Mercer and Rose are the finalists. But a fair debate, either way.

[dougthonus]

By a substantial margin Vuc is our biggest problem. I really want to like the guy but he's really just bad on offense and defense. You feel like he should be good on offense but he really just isn't. Getting rid of him would be addition by subtraction and we would immediately improve I think even with Drummond and Sanogo as the centers.

I am 100% with you on this. I am probably the most forgiving of AK on his bad miss here. Vuc showed enough to temp a GM who was looking at replicating what he had in Denver. It wasn't crazy to assume a good 3pt shooting, good passing, good scoring big, coupled with 2 of the best perimeter defenders in the league would work again here. Honestly, if Vuc could just make his 3's, his stats wouldn't be so dreadful. But starting Drummond would really help us. Even if we can't dump him this season, just moving him to a bench role would be fine...Vuc is a very good bumslayer and, IMO, would thrive against bench C's.

Any time you can trade for an old center that can't defend and has a history of 2/3rds of a season as a good 3 point shooter which occurs in the only COVID season where there are no fans, and your team is presently a mid 30s win squad that is no where near contending for anything, but you get to give up multiple 1sts, a former lottery pick on a similar career trajectory, and take on 28 million of bad salary, you've got to do it.

This move was dumb as hell the second it was made when viewing the full context. The reason it was made is that people were so pissed at the previous regime that they just wanted to do anything. I completely get why fans felt that way and had lost patience, but anyone paid millions of dollars to know what they are doing damn well should have known better.

AK is one of the few GMs where I look at the way he acts and think "I 100% without a shadow of a doubt could do better than this guy".

[League Circles]

I don't even know if he can bum slay at this point.

Would it be insane to consider stretch waiving Vuc? I know it probably won't happen no matter what, but man oh man.

The guys is a carbon copy of late career Carlos Boozer now. Bad on both ends, doesn't contest shots, but looks a bit "skilled" so he can trick a coach/FO to allocate opportunities to him. Taj was obviously always a wildly better defender, but when he also emerged as a better OFFENSIVE player it was especially damaging to start Boozer.

The Bulls org really loves these fake scoring big men who are utter trash on defense smfh. Curry, Fizer, Boozer, Gasol, Vuc......

Hey- it’s insulting comparing MLE Pau, who made 2 all-star games and helped carried us as a #2 option with ailing Noah and Rose.

Vuc is arguably the worst Bull of all-time to average more than 32 mpg. Honestly… It’s between him, Justin Holiday, Boozer, Ben Wallace, Ron Mercer and Jalen Rose. I think Boozer gets an automatic pass for atleast helping keep things together in some 2nd round series runs. Really hard to crucify Holiday seeing as he made $2M and happened to be the oldest (and healthiest) player on a 99% tank job. So I think Wallace, Vuc, Mercer and Rose are the finalists. But a fair debate, either way.

Gasol was bad IMO, despite the "all star" appearances (historically a bad guide to good players IMO, see Vuc, Boozer, Drummond, etc lol). Gasol was also very inefficient for a big man and was an equally atrocious defender, frankly if not worse.

[sco]

By a substantial margin Vuc is our biggest problem. I really want to like the guy but he's really just bad on offense and defense. You feel like he should be good on offense but he really just isn't. Getting rid of him would be addition by subtraction and we would immediately improve I think even with Drummond and Sanogo as the centers.

I am 100% with you on this. I am probably the most forgiving of AK on his bad miss here. Vuc showed enough to temp a GM who was looking at replicating what he had in Denver. It wasn't crazy to assume a good 3pt shooting, good passing, good scoring big, coupled with 2 of the best perimeter defenders in the league would work again here. Honestly, if Vuc could just make his 3's, his stats wouldn't be so dreadful. But starting Drummond would really help us. Even if we can't dump him this season, just moving him to a bench role would be fine...Vuc is a very good bumslayer and, IMO, would thrive against bench C's.

Any time you can trade for an old center that can't defend and has a history of 2/3rds of a season as a good 3 point shooter which occurs in the only COVID season where there are no fans, and your team is presently a mid 30s win squad that is no where near contending for anything, but you get to give up multiple 1sts, a former lottery pick on a similar career trajectory, and take on 28 million of bad salary, you've got to do it.

This move was dumb as hell the second it was made when viewing the full context. The reason it was made is that people were so pissed at the previous regime that they just wanted to do anything. I completely get why fans felt that way and had lost patience, but anyone paid millions of dollars to know what they are doing damn well should have known better.

AK is one of the few GMs where I look at the way he acts and think "I 100% without a shadow of a doubt could do better than this guy".

Doug, I remember that you aren't suffering from hindsight bias as you have been vocal about it, and hey, you were right. I'm just saying that he had a plan that, on the surface, was based on something - and because of that, I'm a little more forgiving.

BTW, I would LOVE it if you became our GM!

[League Circles]

Dozens of us would be better than most nba gms. It's an extremely closed club to be even remotely considered for such jobs.

[dougthonus]

Gasol was bad IMO, despite the "all star" appearances (historically a bad guide to good players IMO, see Vuc, Boozer, Drummond, etc lol). Gasol was also very inefficient for a big man and was an equally atrocious defender, frankly if not worse.

Gasol was a dramatically better defender than Vuc. He had a similar lack of mobility, but in his era he wasn't expected to do as much on the perimeter so it mattered less, and he was just taller and was a dramatically better shot blocker / deterrent at the rim. Not saying Gasol was great at that end, but he wasn't in the same ball park as Vuc in terms of ineptitude.

He was slightly less efficient than Vuc, but league efficiency was also much less at that moment in time, so relative to the league he was actually slightly better.

He also cost less, even accounting for change in salary cap.

[MrSparkle]

I don't even know if he can bum slay at this point.

Would it be insane to consider stretch waiving Vuc? I know it probably won't happen no matter what, but man oh man.

The guys is a carbon copy of late career Carlos Boozer now. Bad on both ends, doesn't contest shots, but looks a bit "skilled" so he can trick a coach/FO to allocate opportunities to him. Taj was obviously always a wildly better defender, but when he also emerged as a better OFFENSIVE player it was especially damaging to start Boozer.

The Bulls org really loves these fake scoring big men who are utter trash on defense smfh. Curry, Fizer, Boozer, Gasol, Vuc......

Hey- it’s insulting comparing MLE Pau, who made 2 all-star games and helped carried us as a #2 option with ailing Noah and Rose.

Vuc is arguably the worst Bull of all-time to average more than 32 mpg. Honestly… It’s between him, Justin Holiday, Boozer, Ben Wallace, Ron Mercer and Jalen Rose. I think Boozer gets an automatic pass for atleast helping keep things together in some 2nd round series runs. Really hard to crucify Holiday seeing as he made $2M and happened to be the oldest (and healthiest) player on a 99% tank job. So I think Wallace, Vuc, Mercer and Rose are the finalists. But a fair debate, either way.

Gasol was bad IMO, despite the "all star" appearances (historically a bad guide to good players IMO, see Vuc, Boozer, Drummond, etc lol). Gasol was also very inefficient for a big man and was an equally atrocious defender, frankly if not worse.

This is just plainly wrong. 22.7 PER, 4.9 BPM... on a $7M contract?

Go look at his advanced stats: https://www.basketball-reference.com/players/g/gasolpa01.html They even sometimes beat Vuc's career-high prime seasons.

In 2015/16, there were 3 exceptionally awful players playing big rotation minutes:

1. Rose - Hate to say it, but there's a reason he was traded for an overpaid Robin Lopez and Jerian Grant.

2. McDermott - He got way more burn with Iowa bud Fred, and all that was concluded was that he should be dumped with beloved-Bull Taj the next season for one of the Bulls' worst returns ever (and yet the team still performed better via addition by subtraction).

3. Snell - 6.4 PER, 47% TS, -4.0 BPM while being blessed with 24 MPG.

Noah, Dunleavy and Hinrich played 1/3rd of the season, and when they did, they were crippled versions of their prior selves.

They missed the playoffs with a 42-40 record, but it wasn't Jimmy's nor Pau's fault. Bad coach, terrible PG, awful bench, rough chemistry.

[Red8911]

I don't even know if he can bum slay at this point.

Would it be insane to consider stretch waiving Vuc? I know it probably won't happen no matter what, but man oh man.

The guys is a carbon copy of late career Carlos Boozer now. Bad on both ends, doesn't contest shots, but looks a bit "skilled" so he can trick a coach/FO to allocate opportunities to him. Taj was obviously always a wildly better defender, but when he also emerged as a better OFFENSIVE player it was especially damaging to start Boozer.

The Bulls org really loves these fake scoring big men who are utter trash on defense smfh. Curry, Fizer, Boozer, Gasol, Vuc......

Hey- it’s insulting comparing MLE Pau, who made 2 all-star games and helped carried us as a #2 option with ailing Noah and Rose.

Vuc is arguably the worst Bull of all-time to average more than 32 mpg. Honestly… It’s between him, Justin Holiday, Boozer, Ben Wallace, Ron Mercer and Jalen Rose. I think Boozer gets an automatic pass for atleast helping keep things together in some 2nd round series runs. Really hard to crucify Holiday seeing as he made $2M and happened to be the oldest (and healthiest) player on a 99% tank job. So I think Wallace, Vuc, Mercer and Rose are the finalists. But a fair debate, either way.

You guys need to chill. Vuc may have his weaknesses and I do agree he should probably be replaced in the offseason but he’s no scrub either. No reason to try and diminish him just because you don’t like him.

Guy still averaged 18 ppg and 10.5 RPG despite him having stretches where he struggled this season . Also played 76 games. Past 3 years as a Bull he’s only missed 15 games out of 246 games. That’s very good especially for a center.

[MrSparkle]

I don't even know if he can bum slay at this point.

Would it be insane to consider stretch waiving Vuc? I know it probably won't happen no matter what, but man oh man.

The guys is a carbon copy of late career Carlos Boozer now. Bad on both ends, doesn't contest shots, but looks a bit "skilled" so he can trick a coach/FO to allocate opportunities to him. Taj was obviously always a wildly better defender, but when he also emerged as a better OFFENSIVE player it was especially damaging to start Boozer.

The Bulls org really loves these fake scoring big men who are utter trash on defense smfh. Curry, Fizer, Boozer, Gasol, Vuc......

Hey- it’s insulting comparing MLE Pau, who made 2 all-star games and helped carried us as a #2 option with ailing Noah and Rose.

Vuc is arguably the worst Bull of all-time to average more than 32 mpg. Honestly… It’s between him, Justin Holiday, Boozer, Ben Wallace, Ron Mercer and Jalen Rose. I think Boozer gets an automatic pass for atleast helping keep things together in some 2nd round series runs. Really hard to crucify Holiday seeing as he made $2M and happened to be the oldest (and healthiest) player on a 99% tank job. So I think Wallace, Vuc, Mercer and Rose are the finalists. But a fair debate, either way.

You guys need to chill. Vuc may have his weaknesses and I do agree he should probably be replaced in the offseason but he’s no scrub either. No reason to try and diminish him just because you don’t like him.

Guy still averaged 18 ppg and 10.5 RPG despite him having stretches where he struggled this season . Also played 76 games. Past 3 years as a Bull he’s only missed 15 games out of 246 games. That’s very good especially for a center.

The big point of the discussion is that his high usage, defensive liabilities, poor OPEN shooting - they compile to make the team drastically worse than a lower-usage replacement C.

He can take the 18 and 10 and frame it in his bedroom. But it's a sham- his minutes, role, salary, and trade-cost, it's a negative return.

If he gave us 24 PPG and 5 APG and 37% 3P, then we could all stomach his defensive inadequacies. But he's a terrible weight on the team.

I 100% believe he should be dumped or coming off the bench. It's been my honest take for 1.5 years now. I was high on him coming in from the trade, and I couldn't have been any more wrong.