Mathematical GM Analysis (Bulls)

[EGarrett]

Let's look at why the Chicago Bulls are horrible. Over the last few years...they've made a few key trades. Awful key trades. They include (roughly)

Brad Miller
Ron Artest
Ron Mercer
for
Jalen Rose

Elton Brand
for
Tyson Chandler

Jalen Rose and Donyell Marshall
for
Antonio Davis and Jerome Williams

Taking those into account...their net trades have been.

Elton Brand
Brad Miller
Ron Artest
Donyell Marshall
Ron Mercer
for
Antonio Davis
Jerome Williams
Tyson Chandler

Taking into account each players age, and numbers this season. That's equivalent to...

Five guys with an average age of 26.4...and averaging 14.7 points, 7.7 rebounds and 2.8 assists...

In exchange for three guys with an average age of 28.6, and averaging 7.8 points, 8.2 rebounds and 1.2 assists per game.

If you cut Ron Mercer from the equation (like I cut Travis Best because he left for free agency shortly after the trade)...it just gets disgusting.

4 guys, 26.25 years old...17.1 points, 9.2 rebounds, 3.4 assists...for three 28.6-year-olds averaging 7.8 points, 8.2 rebounds and 1.2 assists. That's about 4 Pau Gasol's for 3 Jerome Williamses...

They also exchanged 4 All-Star selections for 1.

Hopefully that clears up just how horrible their trading has been for the last few years.

You can actually do this with a number of teams in the NBA right now...I'm sure Ben would love to. I'd like to see the Pistons and the Celtics done for one. You could even boil the age and average exchanges down to a single +/- number in efficiency and see just what team has made the worst trades over the past 4 years or so.

[air gordon]

even if these trades were crappy, it's wildy inaccurate and naive to only factor in stats and age

you have to take into account much other things...

does brand resign after another 20 win season? what brad miller is doing now with the kings is same thing he did with the bulls. the difference is peja, bibby, divac instead ruffin, mercer, el amin. artest's temper tantrums were a big problem right away- just no one outside of chicago payed attention. it was very unlikely these 2 were to be resigned as well as krause was positioning the payroll to resign chandler/curry when their contracts came up. the frontline of miller-brand-artest wasn't racking up the wins when they were in chicago btw

mercer just got dumped by the spurs and he's been getting paid a lot of money for a while to do nothing. it was a great move to get rid of his contract

i'll continue some other time, my ride is here

[EGarrett]

even if these trades were crappy, it's wildy inaccurate and naive to only factor in stats and age

No...it's wildly time-consuming to factor in other things. I never said it was the be-all end-all. Everyone is welcome to make their own analysis.

BTW...if you're not willing to pay your players...you will almost never have a good team. Being cheap is no excuse.

[Andrew]

Even though there were other factors involved and some of those players might have left anyway, it's sad to see the talent that the Bulls haven't been able to hold on to the last few seasons. And even though some of that talent wasn't working out, it would have been nice to get a little more in return.

Still, what's done is done. I'm just hoping Pax won't make the same mistakes, nor gain a reputation that scares away free agents. And if he does, I hope the Bulls will recognise the problem and let him go before the team has to endure another 4 or 5 years struggling to assemble a good roster.

[air gordon]

may as well talk about lakers basketball then