My Favorite part of "The Jordan Rules" By Sam Smith

Grantland on Joakim Noah

Grantland is a sports/pop culture website started by Bill Simmons. You already knew this if you weren't an idiot. Topics range from ridiculous/awful/stupid shit nobody gives a shit about (looking at you Molly Lambert), to extremely interesting (Yay, Sebastian Pruiti!).

Joakim Noah has popped up a few different posts this week, which is obviously awesome.

First, Bill Simmons left him on the bubble for his annual NBA Trade Value column saying:

The bad news: Making $60 million through 2016 … and we have no idea if the Bulls can survive offensively playing Noah in crunch time in June. The good news: He's played better after a botched attempt to sabotage his own trade value in the Dwight Howard talks. The great news: It's really fun to Photoshop his hair on other NBA players. As we're going to prove in Part 2 of this column.

Three things:

1. Surviving in the playoffs with Noah on offense largely depends on how well Rip, Deng, and Boozer are playing. Noah should be our last option on offense if everything goes according to plan. He will get his points on offensive rebounds, hustle plays, and the occasional "left so wide open I have to shoot this" tornado jumpshot which leads to tha fingagunz.
2. Anyone who thinks Noah tried to "sabotage" his own trade value by not playing up to par at the beginning of this year is an idiot. Bill Simmons is an idiot sometimes.
3. The photoshops of his hair on other players is pretty great. I'll throw the pictures at the end of this post.

What's the Difference Between C.J. Watson and John Lucas III?

The Bulls just lost to the Magic, it's after 11pm, and I'm drunk. Let's look up some fucking stats.

John Lucas III hasn't been awful this season. I've always just assumed he was just a shitty, undersized chucker, but this season he has filled his position relatively well in a time of need with Rose and C.J. missing sizable chunks of the season. In the random arbitrary number of 20 minutes played (6 games), JLIII has averaged 13.2 PPG on 48% eFG%. Pretty okay, right? The Bulls are 4-2 in those games, which is also pretty okay. But how much better is C.J.?

The easiest way to compare the two is just a straight head to head comparison of the two. Lucas has actually played in two more games than Watson this year (29-27, Lucas starting 2 games and Watson starting 8), but Watson has played 237 more minutes.

The per game comparison looks like this:

Player	G	GS	MP	FG	FGA	FG%	3P	3PA	3P%	FT	FTA	FT%	ORB	DRB	TRB	AST	STL	BLK	TOV	PF	PTS
John Lucas	29	2	11.9	2.1	5.6	.383	0.8	1.8	.431	0.5	0.6	.824	0.4	0.9	1.3	1.7	0.3	0.0	0.8	0.8	5.5
C.J. Watson	27	8	21.5	3.4	8.5	.400	1.4	3.3	.432	1.6	2.0	.796	0.4	1.5	2.0	3.9	1.0	0.1	1.7	1.9	9.8

Provided by Basketball-Reference.com: View Original Table


C.J. looks like the obvious favorite here. This doesn't exactly tell the whole picture though. C.J.'s higher minutes per game yield higher per game numbers (obviously). Yes I think C.J. is the better player thus justifying him getting more minutes, but let's take a look at each player's per-36 numbers.

A Statistical Look at the Bulls with Rip Hamilton in the Lineup

Rip Hamilton is injured again.

I'll pause for a few seconds to let everyone finish gasping and questioning their god.

Okay, good. Shocking right? Not really. I WAS BEING SARCASTIC. Anyways, I thought I would take a look at the statistical impact Rip has had on the Bulls when he's played with the full starting lineup. Join me on this magical journey.

For this, I will be using the awesome Play Index+ and, more specifically, the Lineup Finder.

Now before I look up these numbers let me just say that with the "eye test", Rip seems to provide a whole different dimension to the offense. He draws attention from multiple defenders coming off screens and takes much needed pressure to score off of Rose. If Rip was healthy, I think the Bulls would have a decent shot to take down the Heat. On to the numb3rz!

The two lineups the Bulls have used the most this season and the lineups that I will be comparing:

• Rose, Brewer, Deng, Boozer, Noah
• 235 minutes played in 18 games
• 13.05 minutes per game

• Rose, Hamilton, Deng, Boozer, Noah
• 164.9 minutes played in 9 games
• 18.32 minutes per game

These lineups will be compared per 100 possessions.

Fun with Basketball-Reference: Chicago Bulls Part 1

I like to poke around Basketball Reference to pass the time when I'm bored, so I might as well post about it every now and then. Here are some interesting things I've found this season.

• Kyle Korver
• Assisted on .913 of his shots
• Only 17 FGM in losses (8 losses this year)
• .403 3PT% (32nd in the league)

• Ronnie Brewer
• eFG% is 5% better on the road
• Assisted on 5% more of his shots on the road
• Shooting 1/9 3PT in losses this year
• .384 eFG% on jump shots
• eFG% breakdown of each quarter
• 1st - 39/75 - 56.7%
• 2nd - 27/63 - 42.9%
• No 3PM in 2nd Quarter this year
• 3rd - 27/79 - 35.4%
• 4th - 15/36 - 47.2%
• Career worst .460 eFG%
• His eFG% has been on a steady decline since 2008
• 08-09 .522
• 09-10 .497
• 10-11 .487
• 11-12 .460
• Career worst TOV% of 10.4% (career avg 9.7)