To trade or not to trade: Thad is the question

With 30 games in the rearview and just over 30 days until the trade deadline, it’s a good time to reflect on this Bulls season and think about how Artūras Karnišovas should approach his first trade season as the lead decision maker for a team.

As of this writing, the Bulls’ 14-16 record is good enough for 9th in the bunched up Eastern Conference; they trail the 6th seeded Boston Celtics by a game in the loss column, and have a one game advantage on the 11th place Hawks. They are clearly a cut above the Pistons, Cavaliers, Wizards, and injury plagued Magic. They need to outplay just one of the Hawks, Heat, Knicks, or Hornets to finish within the top ten of the conference and secure a spot in the play-in tournament, which seems likely!

Likely that is, unless Karnišovas decides to trade away Thaddeus Young before the March 25 deadline.

Despite not making a start this year and averaging just 25 minutes per game, Young has been the second most important player on the Bulls after Zach LaVine. Young is second on the team in Win Shares and Box Score plus/minus (if you ignore Cristiano Felicio’s 38 minutes played). The Bulls have a positive net rating of +6.7 points/100 possessions when Thad is on the court, and a -6.8 net rating when he’s on the bench. Of the Bulls five man lineups that have logged at least ten minutes on the court together, Thad is a member of nine of the top ten in net rating.

It seemed like Young’s career was headed into its twilight phase a year ago, miscast as a shooter in Jim Boylen’s unimaginative offense. But with new responsibilities allotted to him by Billy Donovan, Young has proven he has plenty to contribute to winning basketball. Stephen Noh wrote before the season began about how Donovan’s system in OKC allowed Steven Adams and Nerlens Noel to operate from the high post and log assist numbers they hadn’t sniffed under other coaches. While the article’s intent was to hype up potential development in Wendell Carter’s game, the way it’s really manifested itself thus far has been through Young’s playmaking.

Young is averaging 4.3 assists per game, after never averaging more the 2.5 in his previous 13 NBA seasons. He is second on the Bulls in assist percentage at 25.4%, which is more than double what he’s ever finished with for a season. “THADGIC JOHNSON” is the fun thing to tweet this year after a sweet pass for a bucket, but the way Young has taken advantage of disadvantaged defenses should have people calling him Thraymond Green. When teams have tried to trap LaVine and force the ball out of his hands, Young has made them pay by catching near the foul line and picking out cutters and shooters as the Bulls operate with a 4-on-3 advantage.

If the Bulls were to trade Thadeus, not only would they be losing a fulcrum of their offense and one of their better defenders, they would also be forcing inferior players into roles they’ve not shown to be capable of handling. Daniel Gafford didn’t show much promise during his run as starting center while Carter was injured. Billy Donovan exhumed Luke Kornett for a few nights before being swiftly returned to the depths of the bench, where he belongs. Young is the Bulls’ best option at backup center on the roster, and has closed games well at the five even on nights Carter is available, giving the team a small-ball element that’s been sorely lacking in years past. Moving on from Young would shoehorn the Bulls into more traditional lineups who have traditionally put up poor results.

Having Young keeps the Bulls respectable. Solid. Not a joke. Is that really why we invest ourselves in a team? So they can hopefully rise to the ranks of “not that bad, I guess”? Yes, trading Young could cause the bottom to fall out on this season, but would that be the worst thing?

Young certainly has value as a trade target. The 32 year old has just one year left on his contract at $14 million, and could be bought out and waved for just $6 million. A team looking to free up $8 million in cap space could send the Bulls back $14 million worth of bad salary and some draft capitol, enjoy the fruits of his labor for the stretch run and save $8 million on their 2021-22 books.

What would the Brooklyn Nets be willing to part with to add a capable interior presence to their potent offensive group? Could Denver see Young as a serious upgrade over the production they’re getting from JayMychal Green? Does Milwaukee really want to count on Bobby Portis in the postseason?

All of those teams could offer up a mix of second round picks, or possibly a well protected first rounder in the future. Thad isn’t going to fetch a high caliber prospect, but it’s possible a team would be willing to part with somebody young they don’t consider a part of their core. These could be assets used to bulk up the Bulls when they eventually have a chance at contention, a time that will not happen before Young’s value on the court has dramatically diminished. Trading Young before the deadline would also do wonders for the Bulls’ own draft pick this season. Are all of these potential benefits to a trade really worth it to keep the dream of squeaking into the playoffs for the right to be sacrificed in the first round?

A few years ago, I would have emphatically said yes. Winning is a Process, and there are clear steps to follow. But after three years of dreck and drudgery, I’m starting to sing a new tune. I’m actually enjoying Bulls basketball! There is value in not being a dumpster fire, building a competitive culture throughout the organization, and staking out the Bulls as a rising team that appeals to future free agents.

Young’s impact is easily quantifiable on the court, and he seems to be making an equally large one off of it. Is whoever the 48th pick of the 2023 NBA draft going to contribute more than Thad is to the growth of Carter, LaVine and the rest of the young team? I’m skeptical!

The Bulls have a lot of big decisions ahead of them. LaVine’s next contract will be a defining moment for this team, and what the front office thinks of the long term upside of Markkanen, Carter and White are all decisions I’m glad I don’t have to make. But the choice for whether or not to hold onto Thaddeus Young for the remainder of the season looks much simpler.

An Announcement From DRaT’s Founders

Hello friends, we’ve got some important news to share with everybody about the future of (D)Roses and Thorns and some exciting professional news for Jake Weiner and myself.

Jake and I have accepted offers to write for SBNation’s Blog a Bull for the upcoming season. We are incredibly excited for this opportunity to write for a website we’ve been such huge fans of for so long and work alongside writers we’ve come to admire and respect. We’d like to offer a big thank you to Your Friendly BullsBlogger for this chance.

Making this decision was not an easy for us at it signifies the end of our time writing  here. Building (D)Roses and Thorns together has been an incredible journey that has been far more rewarding than we ever could have imagined when I wrote the inaugural post back in May of 2013. In the last three and a half years, we’ve made tremendous development both as writers and observers of basketball. Through trial and error we’ve built the blog into something we’re incredibly proud of. And we’ve had a ton of fun.

The site would not be what it is today without huge contributions from Steven Kerstein, Drew Hackman, Jared Wyllys, Jason Schwartz, Jeff Berest and Tyler Geocaris. We’d like to express our gratitude to all the other contributors we’ve had over the years as well.

Steven’s meteoric rise to YouTube stardom brought a ton of exposure to the site that we all greatly benefited from. While most of his writing here was related to gambling, Steve penned probably my favorite player profile we’ve ever ran on this website.

Geo hasn’t written often here, but he was an important member in our founding and is always a great person to bounce ideas off of. He also wrote the most viewed article in the history of DRaT.

Drew, Jared, Jeff and Jason came onboard later and gave us the stability to really turn this website into a consistent source for news and analysis. We proudly wrote game recaps after all 82 Bulls games last season and provided frequent deep dives into specific players and team-wide trends.

I want to extend my sincerest gratitude to all of you reading this post. We greatly appreciate all of our friends who have read, liked, shared and told others about any of the articles we’ve ran on the site. There’s no better feeling than when an acquaintance comes up to me to let me know they’ve enjoyed something I wrote.

While Jake and I will be moving on from the website, we want to make sure you know that this site is not going to vanish from the Internet. We are going to leave the site in the hands of Jason Schwartz, who’s expressed great excitement about the chance to build upon the foundation we’ve created. Jason, who wrote for the Daily Illini before graduating this past May, most recently covered a wild draft night for the Bulls organization. Jason has been a friend of mine for several years and I know he will deliver the type of thoughtful analysis you’ve come to expect from (D)Roses and Thorns.

-Jacob Bikshorn, founder of (D)Roses and Thorns

It’s been an absolute honor editing and writing at (D)Roses and Thorns these last three and a half years. I can’t imagine finding a better or more consistently fun environment for me to grow both as a writer and editor. DRaT would’ve been nothing without the support of all our friends and readers, so again we want to sincerely thank everyone who’s ever read even one post at our blog.

As most of you hopefully already know, DRaT namesake Derrick Rose is currently embroiled in a civil case alleging that he gang raped a former girlfriend. Regardless of who is running this website, it will be committed to the human aspect of life as more important than basketball or fandom. As such, we have no choice but to change the name of the blog.

Even if Rose has been falsely accused (a conclusion that far too many are reaching without carefully considering a lot of seemingly relevant and gut-wrenching evidence against the former Bull), the situation has taught us at the blog an important lesson. We don’t know the athletes we root for. They are not our friends.

With that being said, we are taking name suggestions for the next incarnation of this blog. As hopefully made clear above, we are going to avoid using the name of another player, as amusing as many of your suggestions have been. So please, reach out to any of us individually or on Facebook and Twitter with any ideas.

It’s undoubtedly bittersweet leaving this website we’ve spent the last few years building up, but I know that Jason is the right person to continue providing the high quality Bulls goods that you all crave. Furthermore, I couldn’t be more excited about the opportunity to join the Blog a Bull team that we’ve long respected.

Jacob (@OldManBikshorn) and I (@JakeWeinerNBA) will be as active as ever on Twitter, and I’ll probably still hack into the @DRosesandThorns account from time to time as well (name change pending, of course). Thank you so much for joining us on this journey, and for coming along with both us and this blog as we venture out into an unknown future. Hey, the outlook has to be brighter than the Bulls’, right?

-Jake Weiner, co-founder and editor of (D)Roses and Thorns

Original DRaT founders Jacob Bikshorn, Steven Kerstein, and Jake Weiner.

Isaiah Canaan’s a one trick pony, but it’s the trick Chicago needs

Nobody seems excited about new Bulls point guard Isaiah Canaan. This is not a huge surprise, as most citizens have simply never heard of the guy. Those who are familiar with his work in Philadelphia the past two seasons were underwhelmed with Canaan’s defense, decision making, and inability to expand upon his only good skill: shooting.

Most of Bulls Twittersphere arrived at their bummed out conclusion about Canaan based on this grim profile by Jake Pavorsky from SBNation’s Liberty Ballers. The well-researched article goes deep on Canaan’s limitations as a point guard: he’s a bad floor general; he can’t finish near the basket; his defense just plain sucks, especially when forced to defend shooting guards.

Canaan’s shortcomings in Philly were amplified by the context around him. The 76ers were not a team built to win basketball games, and Canaan was forced to do things well outside of his comfort zone. It’s a bad sign that the opportunity to run the show did not result in much progress for Canaan, but do not let his failures in one facet of the game obscure the value he brings elsewhere.

Coming to Chicago presents Canaan with the opportunity to fit into a role that better suits his abilities. Between Rajon Rondo, Dwyane Wade and Jimmy Butler, the Bulls do not need any more ball dominant guards on the roster. Between the #ThreeAlphas, there will be no shortage of guys comfortable pounding the air out of the ball. What this team desperately does need is shooting, and shooting is what Canaan can do.

Isaiah Canaan averaged 25.5 minutes over the 77 games he appeared in last season and jacked an unconscionable 6.3 threes per game. Despite the high volume. the Murray State product managed to connect on 36.3% of those attempts. According to NBA.com, 2.5 of Canaan’s triple attempts per game – about half – were pull up shots off the dribble. On pull ups, Canaan managed to shoot just 32% from three. But when Canaan fired away off the catch, which he did 3.9 times per game last year, he connected on 40.1% of his attempts, an excellent rate that warrants off ball attention from opposing defenses.

Canaan simply will not have the ball in his hands enough to come close to approaching the number of pull up threes he took last season. And if a few of those low efficiency attempts are shaved down and replaced by shots Canaan has shown a consistent ability to make, it’s not crazy to think his overall percentage could creep up to 38% or 39%.

Canaan will continue to be a crappy defender. It’s unlikely he will grow a few inches and improve his inside finishing. He’ll never sniff the assist totals of a guy like Rondo. But, on a team completely devoid of guards who can shoot, Isaiah Canaan will make an impact. Regardless of which of the alphas he shares the court with, Canaan will afford an extra sliver of driving space for his backcourt mate. Canaan was stretched far beyond his capabilities in Philadelphia, but as a member of the Chicago Bulls I believe he can settle into a role that maximizes his value to the team.

The Lineup Laboratory: Let’s Make Space

We know who is going to be playing for the Bulls. A flurry of moves this offseason resulted in one point guard being shipped out and another high profile one being signed on. The Bulls followed up the Rondo signing with the (second) most surprising move of the summer by luring Dwyane Wade from the Heat on a two year deal.

In a vacuum, both of these signings are very justifiable. After the Rose trade, the Bulls were able to get a proven veteran coming off a very good season on what is basically a one year deal. Compared to some of the supersized contracts that were handed out the first week in July, Rondo is almost a bargain, and fills a clear positional need.

Wade, coming off his healthiest season in years, absolutely has gas left in the tank. The Bulls are more than a wing short of being able to contend with the Warriors and Cavaliers of the league, and adding Wade, despite the high cost, bolsters what is generally a shallow position across all 30 teams. While Wade has never figured out how to shoot threes, his herky-jerky “dad at Lifetime wearing a knee brace” game figures to age well.

These would be great signings if basketball was baseball. Baseball is a game of one on one battles, and the team that has more talent in their lineup tends to win. In basketball, simply acquiring talent is not enough. In basketball, a player’s ability to succeed is impacted as much by who he shares the court with as how good skilled he may be as a shooter or driver. Rajon Rondo, Dwyane Wade and Jimmy Butler would make a killer 3-4-5 in a batting order. But as a 1-2-3 on the basketball court, these undeniably talented players add up to less than the sum of their parts.

The projected Bulls starting lineup – Rondo, Wade, Butler, Nikola Mirotic and Robin Lopez – features just one above average three point shooter. The streaky Montenegrin is going to need to improve his consistency from beyond the arc if the Bulls starting group hopes to have any space to operate on offense.

The severe shooting deficit in the Bulls backcourt will ultimately limit one of the few strengths of this roster. Between Mirotic, Lopez, Taj Gibson, Bobby Portis and Cristiano Felicio, the Bulls have a very deep PF/C rotation. Unfortunately, it will be spacing suicide anytime two of these players share the floor and one is not Niko. To cover up the flaws of the roster’s architecture, Chicago is going to need to get creative and find a way to squeeze 48 minutes of outside shooting from the power forward spot.

Already we are hearing about Fred Hoiberg‘s plan to have Doug McDermott play power forward. The 6’8″ McDermott is far too weak a rebounder to hold up at the position for long stretches. But against some of the other stretch fours in the league, McDermott may be able to provide valuable spacing on offense while avoiding his biggest weakness: perimeter defense.

I expect the Bulls will also use Jimmy Butler at the 4 at times during the season. Butler is strong enough to hold up in the post against most big men (including LeBron James). Butler has the quickness to torture other power forwards on the perimeter, and his less than great three point shooting upgrades to average when he’s considered a four. Lineups with Wade, Tony Snell and Butler will give the Bulls the flexibility to switch often on defense, the strategy used by the Thunder and Heat to stop the Warriors in the playoffs.

I imagine Taj Gibson, who has played 89% of his career minutes at power forward, will see most of his playing time come as the backup center. A Taj and Lopez pairing, which should be superb on defense, is just not going to result in a functioning offense with the spacing issues across the roster.

The real losers in this roster shakeup are Portis and Felicio, two players who desperately need on court experience to improve their feel for the NBA game. There are just not going to be enough minutes for these guys on a consistent basis. Both players showed they are not afraid to take a perimeter jumper last season, but until defenses start respecting Portis and Felicio outside the paint, their presence will only further clog the dirty drain that is the Bulls offense.

We still have a long time between now and the start of the regular season and the Bulls may not be done tinkering with the roster. Just a few hours ago it was announced the Bulls signed Isaiah Canaan, who instantly becomes the best shooter in the Bulls backcourt and will provide value off the bench and off the ball. The team could also shake things up by trading Taj Gibson, making $9 million in the last year of his contract, for a three point marksman. Should the Bulls stand pat with this group, Fred Hoiberg is going to have to get very creative with his rotations.

Rond’oh!

In a strange way, it’s been nice to see a flurry of activity from the Bulls front office in the point guard market. I was not alone in my frustration a season ago when the Bulls trotted out  the oft injured Derrick Rose, diminutive Aaron Brooks, and local real estate owner Kirk Hinrich to hold down the fort for a second consecutive season.

The swap of Cameron Bairstow for Spencer Dinwiddie was a low-risk move with the tiny potential for a nice payout. The big trade that sent Rose to the Knicks was judged to be a positive one by this writer, mostly because of the addition of the (suddenly) cheap Robin Lopez, but also because of the potential upside Jerian Grant brings to the table. And while Jose Calderon is nothing more than a shooter at this point in his career, I could envision him carving out a successful role next to Butler as a floor spacer.

All of these small moves were nice, but the Bulls were still clearly lacking someone they felt confident could soak up the majority of minutes at the one, a feeling that motivated the team to award Rajon Rando a two year, $28 million contract that reportedly has a partially guaranteed second year.

The Rondo signing appears to make sense on the surface. With a roster lacking any proven point guard talent, why not take a one year flier on the guy who lead the league in assists a season ago, averaged two steals a game and hit a career best 36% of his threes?

As anyone who watched Pau Gasol loaf through the past two seasons in Chicago knows, the box score does not tell the whole story. A closer examination combined with a careful eye can sometimes paint a different picture than some counting stats in the newspaper.

Rondo spent the past season on a typically dysfunctional Kings team that failed to crack .500 for the 37th consecutive season. The Kings scored a lot of points in George Karl‘s high paced system but surrendered even more on defense, posting a net -3 for the season. Rondo’s presence on the floor did nothing to help matters, as the team was more than a point better per 100 possessions when Rondo was on the bench.

Plus/minus can be a misleading stat at times. Starting players on talent-deficient teams can have artificially low net ratings compared to their teammates who are able to feast on opposing bench units. But when you consider that Rondo played 70% of his minutes alongside DeMarcus Cousins, who was exactly even in net rating, Rondo’s statistics begin to look more damning.

Despite his gaudy assist totals, Rondo does very little to improve his team’s offense. Rondo is a terrible shooter who is reluctant to even attempt long jump shots. A career 29% three point shooter, Rajon’s poor stroke is made even worse by the fact that defenses completely ignore him on the perimeter. Rondo absolutely needs to have the ball in his hands on offense to be remotely effective. When he doesn’t space becomes tight for all of his teammates. Look at what happened on this play against the well-coached Charlotte Hornets:

As DeMarcus Cousins runs to set a pick for Rudy Gay, Kemba Walker, Rondo’s defender, turns his head completely away from Rondo and begins to focus his attention on stopping the pick and roll.

As soon as Cousins receives the pass from Gay, Walker has completely committed to clogging the lane for any potential drive from the big man. Rondo is left totally alone, a complete afterthought for the defense. Rondo ended up making the wide open three after the ensuing pass from Cousins, but he has been unable to connect on those shots at a high enough rate to force defenses to re-calibrate their strategy.

This is the biggest reason I hate the Rondo signing. After struggling through last season with a starting back court that couldn’t make a three, the Bulls are doubling down by signing the worst shooting point guard in basketball.

For all of the dynamic things Butler can do on a court, attracting attention off the ball is not something he does. As we saw quite a bit last season, Butler felt most comfortable with the ball in his hands running the offense. To compliment that, the Bulls need to pair him with a point guard who is going to keep help defenders occupied far away from the paint. Rajon Rondo could not be further from fitting that description.

I just cannot comprehend what Gar Forman and John Paxson were thinking  when they signed Rondo. Do they expect him and Butler to play well off each other? Unless Butler is spending his summer turning himself into a 40% three point shooter, I struggle to imagine a scenario where these two are able to power the Bulls to a half decent offense.

If Rondo’s outside shooting was his only issue, it would be bad enough. But there are several other aspects of offense the newest Bull struggles at. Rondo was arguably the single worst transition player in the NBA last season. According to NBA.com, of players to handle the ball on at least 200 transition possessions, nobody scored less frequently, and turned the ball over more frequently than Rajon Rondo. Only Jordan Clarkson and Klay Thompson (who took a lot of transition threes) shot free throws less often in transition than Rondo.

All of which brings me to my final complaint about Rondo’s offensive game: his utter fear of the charity stripe. Rondo has failed to crack 60% from the line in four of the last six seasons. And as his percentages have dropped, so have the attempts. Rondo got to the line just twice a game last season, a shockingly low number for the player who finished tenth in the league in drives to the basket. People complain about Rondo hunting for assists to boost his stats, but I think a lot of his hunted dimes are the result of his unwillingness to draw contact in the paint for fear of embarrassing himself shooting free throws.

This was a particularly poor market for free agent point guards, but the Bulls somehow managed to overpay for a low upside rental who makes no sense from a roster construction standpoint. Michael Wonsover looked at some of the other point guards the Bulls could have potentially signed for less money who may have also fit better alongside Butler. Allow me to add rookie Wade Baldwin to the list. The Bulls passed on Baldwin to take Denzel Valentine, another old college player with legitimate red flags. Baldwin projects to be a capable defender and a good shooter who does not need the ball in his hands to make an impact. Sort of like an ideal partner for Jimmy. Sort of like the opposite of Rondo.

The frustrating thing about the GarPax regime is they have the ability to make smart moves along the margins, but completely botch their bigger decisions. Grabbing Dinwiddie for free? Smart. Getting Justin Holiday back for washed up Hinrich? Savvy! Signing Felicio out of training camp for less than $1 million? Potentially franchise-altering!

But between the Gasol signing, the all-in Doug McDermott trade, the Thibs firing/Hoiberg hiring, and now the signing of Rajon Rondo, this front office has proven that they are incapable of making the decisions that count.