The Only Way The Bulls Can Compete
There has been a lot of chatter about how the Chicago Bulls can compete in a star driven league, when their stars don’t seem to get along or be able to play together. There have also been serious questions on new head coach, Fred Hoiberg, and his ability to coach in the NBA. Lastly, there are questions on how Derrick Rose really fits into Hoiberg’s offensive system.
How can those questions be answered? With games like Thursday night’s game.
While we were treated with Jimmy Butler’s insane scoring output with Rose out of the lineup, he is much more dangerous when he plays a game like he did against the Boston Celtics Thursday night. Scoring 19-points is a drop off from the 42 and 32 point outputs the two games prior. While impressive (scoring 32 and 42) Butler can be much more dangerous when he is both scoring AND passing the ball.
While there was talk earlier this week asking if Butler was the best shooting guard in the NBA, he very well could he if he distributes the ball like he’s done over his last two games (10-assists in each). With Butler being able to find his shot is a great asset to this Bulls team, especially once the playoffs start, but his ability to incorporate Rose and Pau Gasol and the rest of the Bulls will make the team incredibly tough to defend.
This also solves the Butler and Rose issue of them not being able to co-exist.
While most would say, and rightfully so, Rose needs to find ways to incorporate Butler and Co. in the offensive game, the Bulls could be much more dangerous with Butler distributing than Derrick dishing the ball. In the last four games that Rose and Butler played together in, Jimmy has an edge in assists (33 to 17) and the Bulls are 4-0 in that stretch.
Why does this matter?
Derrick Rose is averaging 19.6 points on 49.4% shooting in his last 5 games. #Bulls pic.twitter.com/bbbwLrs3QG
— ✶ Sports Mockery ✶ (@sportsmockery) January 8, 2016
It is not a mistake that Rose has been playing much better offensively. It is not a mistake that Rose has been shooting better either.
It is due to the Bulls offense funneling through Butler, instead of Rose.
Any basketball player will admit, it is 1,000 times easier to catch a ball and score, than it is to create a shot off the dribble. Rose shooting near 50% is a direct outcome of receiving the ball and shooting, as opposed to dribble-driving and trying to create a shot.
This isn’t to say Rose isn’t capable of creating any longer, quite the contrary, at the moment Butler is superior and a more feared scorer, which makes it even more important to have Butler control the offense. When he does, you get stat lines like this:
- Derrick Rose 18 points 56% shooting
- Jimmy Butler 19 points 10 assists
- Pau Gasol 17 points 42% shooting
When The Bulls are able to distribute the ball, others will have the ability to step their games up and make it difficult for their opponents to compete. How do I know this? The Bulls starting five were a combined +56 on the night.
Not sure what a basketball plus/minus is? Well, Sporting Charts explains it like this.
Plus/minus began as a hockey metric, and has been kept as an official NHL statistic since 1968. Around 2003, Roland Beech of 82games.com brought this concept to NBA basketball…and a few years after that, the league made +/- a part of it’s official boxscore statistics.
Interestingly, this metric is much more meaningful in basketball than it is in hockey, even though it took much longer for the NBA to begin using it. The more scoring there is in a game, the more useful this statistic becomes. Plus/minus is a useful way to determine a player’s value to his team, because it encompasses everything a player does on the basketball floor, even things the NBA doesn’t keep official statistics on.
An example of Plus/minus is as follows: let’s say a player’s team was 7.5 points better than their opponents when he was in the game (+7.5). When our player was not in the game, however, the team was 3.3 points worse than their opponents (-3.3). To find this player’s +/- rating, you simply take the difference of the two numbers, which yields a rating of +10.8.
If the Bulls starters can yield a +/- of 56 on a daily basis, this team will do major damage in the league, and Jimmy Butler will be a leader in that effort.
