2015-16 NBA Preview: Chicago Bulls

CHICAGO BULLS

There’s something frustrating about the Chicago Bulls as an NBA fan. Derrick Rose can never stay healthy, the frontcourt is a mess, the minutes balance is out of whack, and they haven’t been good enough to strongly challenge great teams. But they keep plugging along, year-after-year, and now that Tom Thibodeau’s totalitarian regime has ended it’ll be intriguing to see how the team responds.

2015 in review:

For a season where they introduced Pau Gasol, Rose played over 1500 minutes, and Jimmy Butler emerged as an all-star, it was pretty disappointing. They hit 50 wins and looked like, roughly, the 10th best team in the league, depending on how one adjusts for playoff rotations. Their defense was the worst it’s been in the Thibodeau era, but thanks to Butler and Pau the offense kept them high in the eastern conference rankings. The season ended with a series against LeBron, naturally, and with Thibodeau making a blanket fort in the arena as he held out against the front office, but alas, he was eventually sent packing.

Rotation players in: Bobby Portis.

Rotation players out: Ghost of Tom Thibodeau.

Chicago is actually bringing back the entire rotation, and save for a coaching change it looks like the same team. Bobby Portis is a rookie and probably won’t play much — but I felt I had to include someone. He’s already making a name for himself, however, and might have a shot at a few stretches on the court provided he can get through Chicago’s deep frontcourt.

2016 Projected

Unfortunately, there are some valid reasons to be pessimistic about the Bulls going forward. The first one, simply, is age, as they got Pau’s best seasons in years with heavy minutes and they’re relying on a few veterans, including key contributors like Mike Dunleavy and Taj Gibson. Taj is surprisingly already in his 30’s, and Dunleavy is moving deep into his mid-30’s. The latter has been one of the NBA’s unheralded role players. He’s a good team defender and knows where to position himself, and he regularly draws a large number of offensive fouls, including a season with 63 in Golden State and as many as 34 as recently as 2014. But there’s a concern he’s on the verge of breaking down[1. Especially as he starts the season on the shelf with a back injury.] and the Bulls can’t afford to lose his combination of steady outside shooting and defensive acumen.

Joakim Noah will likely have a better season, but his offense was just plain sad last season and he doesn’t have a skillset that ages well. He’s been the backbone for Chicago for a long time, but the new Chicago staff should start planning now on how you preserve him for games that matter.

Of course, here comes the discussion about their frontcourt rotation: given their depth, it’s only natural to use it for an advantage and let players rest and recover when necessary. Noah clearly wasn’t right for a large chunk of the season, and Chicago had enough talent to get by with him on the sidelines. Factoring in how awkward the Pau/Noah fit was with both most effective as centers, and it should be an easy move.

The other major age concern is with Chicago’s backup guards: Aaron Brooks is a short point guard now into his 30’s and his defense was already atrocious even in his prime. Kirk Hinrich is 34 and people openly wonder why he’s still in the league. Tony Snell, fortunately, offers some young legs and some 3/D potential.

Injuries are a concern for most of their players, but it hits one key guy: Rose, obviously. Now that we’ve seen post-injury Rose in a few games, you can see a pattern. He’s not letting go on being a star, as his usage rate remains the same as it was during his MVP season. But his efficiency has plummeted in predictable ways. His free throw rate has declined by around 50% and his field-goal percentage has slipped as well. He’s taking a few more outside jumpers, but he’s not capitalizing on them. With his turnovers ballooning and a few of his soft skills like passing failing to progress, he rates as a below average player in a few respects. He needs a major overhaul, and it’s related to his body. He needs a combination of drastically remodeling his game based on fewer shots and picking his spots as well as a Ginobili treatment of heavily reduced minutes and skipping a game during a back-to-back set. Others have noted how much better he plays with more rest.

Jimmy Butler, a player still in his 20’s without major injury issues, doesn’t get ignored here: he’s a regression to the mean candidate because his season was significantly better than his last and he’s not super young. Based on similar players, one would expect a modest decline, and my own system agrees. More specifically, last year he had the unusual combination of increasing both his usage and efficiency significantly at the same time. It’s reasonable to expect some regression in his shooting stats as he’s forced into tougher shots and drawing more adjustments in terms of opponent’s defending him.

The one guy without warts is shiny new toy Nikola Mirotic, who long ago was considered an international stud prospect and finally came to the states and delivered on his potential. Even though he didn’t shoot well from outside, he was still an efficient scorer based on his shot selection.

Chicago played much better with him on the court. He had defensive question marks, but they’re probably overstated and with a good partner at center it’s workable. The problem is that Noah may never be “that guy” again and Pau Gasol had defensive issues whenever he was outside of the paint while being routinely pushed around for offensive rebounds. The Bulls actually rebounded better when he was off the court, contrary to his per game averages. How Fred Hoiberg, their new coach, finds a remedy for the frontcourt swamp might determine the team’s fate.

Quick statistic/graph

Mirotic is being tagged with the “smallball floor spacer” designation, but he’s much more than that. He’s fantastic at drawing fouls, and he’s one of a rare breed of players who combine a large free throw rate with high volume three-point shooting. To illustrate this, I compiled a stat called the “Morey index”[1. To create this stat, I add free throw attempts per field goal attempt and three-point attempts per field goal attempts. Last season, Mirotic led the league with an index near the hallowed mark of 1.000. Kyle Korver was second — he’s not the only player who’s that three-point reliant but he’s good enough at other parts of the game that he’ll rate well in various other measures. James Harden, a Morey target, is an annual member of this club. DeAndre Jordan shows up too, and a few big men rate well simply because of their free throw rate. Tweaking the measure, I created a geometric mean Morey Index, which simply means it’s better to have balanced FT/3PT rates.]

Table: Morey Index leaders 2015, min. 1500 MP

Summary

Most projection systems are down on the Bulls this season for some of the reasons discussed above, primarily age and general regression. There’s a chance a new set of rotations and a different coach will jumpstart the team with Mirotic and Butler leading on offense and better frontcourt health keying a decent defensive. But for all his quirks, Thibodeau is a defensive mastermind, and it would surprise no one if Chicago got worse on that end. And sadly, the Bulls should plan their future without Rose because even if they can get him to play well, it’ll probably be in reduced minutes.

PBP-Metric[2. This is the initial version of my own metric, which uses a full range of stats collected from play-by-play logs and tested extensively to avoid overfitting.]: 44.0

PT-PM: 47

Nick‘s[3. For a short description, the predictions use regression models and neural networks to apply various stats like BPM, RAPM, and Win Shares to 10,000 simulations of the season game-by-game to select the “best” result.]: 49

Nathan Walker’s[1. Methodology coming on Friday!]: 46