Hoops Tonight - NBA Power Rankings: Chicago Bulls kick off top 15

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eight hundred gambler dot net in West Virginia. All right, welcome to hoops Tonight, presented by fan Duel here at the volume. Happy Wednesday, everybody. I hope all of you guys are having a great week so far. Real basketball is right around the corner, guys. Tomorrow is September one, and September the Golden State Warriors play the Washington Wizards in a preseason game in Japan. That is how close we are to real basketball. So with that in mind,

I'm ready to stop looking backwards. I'm ready to stop reminiscing, and I'm ready to start looking forward. So we're gonna be doing our season previews. We're gonna do the power Ranking style, covering the top fifteen teams in the league, starting with number fifteen today. I spent a lot of time in this series, had a lot of fun doing it. I really think you guys are going to enjoy it.

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Did you know every week, nearly forty million job seekers visit LinkedIn post your job for free at LinkedIn dot com slash timph that's LinkedIn dot com slash timph to post your job for free. Terms and conditions apply. And on that note, we could talk some basketball. So I want to give you guys a couple of just precursors to kind of let you know the format of this, uh this series, so that you're in the loop the

whole way through. So I split the teams into tears um and I considered seventeen teams, but I had to pick only fifteen for the sake of the series. So the two teams that got squeezed here are the Toronto Raptors and the Atlanta Hawks. So Raptors fans and Hawks fans, I apologize in advance we won't be doing deep dives for them before the season, but I do promise that we will get into those teams plenty and into great detail during the season. Also, don't pay to too much

attention to the rankings this far down. It's all splitting hairs, and I view them in a tier of what I would call non contenders. So I split them into four tiers, and the non contenders are the teams that I don't think have any chance to win the title regardless of what happens during the season. Obviously, I consider the Hawks and the Raptors in that group, as well as three other teams, including who we're talking about today. After that, the next tier up I have is punchers chance contenders.

These are teams that I don't think have enough talent necessarily to hang with the top teams in the league, but they've got a crazy talented superstar that could get hot and carry them through a series or maybe two superstars, or there's something with the team where if they get hot, they could potentially knock someone out of something's break right above that, I have the if things go right contenders.

These are teams that have tons of talent. When you look at the roster on paper, you're like, man, they're just as good as the top teams in the league. But there's tons of question marks to go with that. Whether that's health question marks, whether that's personality question marks, whether it's you don't like or I'm not a huge fan of the coach or the system, or what their basketball identity is. Those are teams that talents not the issue.

They just need things to break right for them within the locker room and on the court for them to win the title. And then, obviously, my top tier is gonna be top tier contenders. These are bona fide contenders. If anything goes their way during the season, they will absolutely be and play, probably playing in the conference finals. And these are the teams that i've you most likely to win the title. So we'll all kind of as we're working our way through the videos, I'll kind of

inform you which tier the team's landing. Today. We're starting with number fifteen, the Chicago Bulls, again a non contender in the non contender tier, but we are going to dive deep into them on both ends of the floor. To give you an idea of how these videos are gonna be structured. Will briefly touch on last season and what they accomplished, how things finished. We will go through their key offseason changes, so who they let go, who they signed, who they traded for, who they drafted, so on,

and so forth, changes to the roster um. Then we're gonna go into what they do as in terms of their basketball team's identity on both ends of the floor, so what they like to do on offense, what they like to do on defense. After that, we will go into what I believe is the best case scenario for this team during that season, and then after that we'll go into the worst case scenario for this season, and that at the end, we'll go through what I believe

is the biggest X factor for each team. So, as I said, we're gonna be going through all of those sections for each team, starting with the Chicago Bulls today. So the Chicago Bulls were in offense last year offensive rating again per one hundred possessions twenty three in defense the ugliest staff for Bulls fans, as they were two and twenty one in twenty three games versus the top four seeds in both conferences, so when they played the

best teams, they got handled pretty consistently. They did have a lot of health issues during the season, though, involving their backcourt with Alex Crusoe and Alonzo Ball. That is important context there. They were gentlemen. Swept by Milwaukee went exactly as I expected. This is the Chicago Bulls team that does not like to operate from the perimeter. They'd like to operate close to the basket, and the Bucks their defensive structure is built around taking away the paint

and giving up perimeter shots. This was the team that attempted the least threes versus the team that allows the most threes. So the Chicago Bulls were a really bad matchup for this specific Milwaukee Bucks team and they just got killed. And then on the other end of the floor, they just got destroyed by Milwaukee size. This is a small Chicago Bulls team that they attempted to address this offseason. Milwaukee.

It was just again a really bad matchup. Aside from a hot shooting Damara Rosen game in Milwaukee Game two. They didn't really have a chance to compete in any of the games, so it's a rough matchup. But at the same time, two versus the top seeds thirteenth in offense defense, they just weren't good enough to really do any damage in that postseason. Key offseason changes they signed

Andre Drummond to the Mini mid level exception. This was a predictable response to them getting destroyed on the interior by Milwaukee. They drafted day and Terry, a guy I really like. Again. You guys know, I'm born and raised in Tussons, still live in Tusson to this day, although I've lived in other places. Um day and Terry came through the University of Arizona, so obviously watched him a

lot while he was here. Lanky wing, really good physical tools, especially on the defensive Endy six ft seven with a seven foot one wing span, he actually made the All Defense team this past year for the Pac twelve. He's also really really good at making reads with the basketball in his hands. He was one of the best assist to turnover guys in college this year. That kind of all means he will project to a good role player wing in the NBA, a guy who can defend multiple

position asians and can attack close outs. Well. Obviously he's gonna have to put on some muscle and become a better shooter. He's got a little bit of a hitch and his jump shot at this point. But I do think he'll be a really interesting player in the future on the wing in the NBA. And then they lost Tristan Thompson and Troy Brown Jr. Those were the two primary rotation guys from their playoff run that that aren't around anymore. If you look at the depth chart and

I'll put it up on the screen here for you guys. Uh, these are just guys that I predict will be in the rotation. Obviously the roster is deeper than this, but Lonzo Ball as a guard, Alex Caruso as a guard, Kobe White as a guard and I had assume to soon move if I'm pronouncing that correctly. As a guard. On the wing, they have Zach Levine, DeMar de Rosen, Pat Williams Dale and Terry and Derrick Jones Jr. And then the bigs Niko Lavusovic and Andre Drummond in the

place of Trisian Thompson. So if you look at what they do on the offensive end of the floor, this is a team that wants Zach Levine and DeMar dear Rose and attack, acking with an advantage. This is an important detail of offensive structure in the NBA really on all levels, that the best teams always do really, really well. And uh Billy Donovan has done a good job of building an offense that is designed to get their best

players with an advantage. One of the biggest complaints I had with the Lakers last year when because again for those of guys who don't know, I covered the Lakers for two seasons before I started working for the Volume. Obviously, now we covered the entire league. But when I was covering the Lakers, they were a bad team in this regard. It was not Frank Vogel strength. They did not put Russell Westbrook, Lebron James, Anthony Davis, Dennis shrid Er, whoever

it was during those during that era. They did not put them in positions where they had an advantage. They were too frequently stagnant and attacking a set defense. Again, guys, if if I'm guarding you and I'm up on you and I'm in your handle pocket and I'm disrupting you, and you try to attack me, It's gonna be a lot harder for you to score on me then if I'm closing our at you, or if I'm chasing you over the top of a screen, so that when you first get the basketball, I'm out of position and you

have an advantage. And basically, the Bulls weaponized Vosovich through ball screens, dribble handoffs, and off ball screens to get DeMar de Rosen and Zach Lavin coming off of curls, primarily so that they can work into the lane and get to the shots that they like off the dribble, but with an advantage against their defender. Nick Nick Vussevich in particular, his skill set makes that work because he's a he's perceived as a shooter. Perception is everything in

the NBA. He actually wasn't a great perimeter shooter. Last year. He only shot thirty one from three, just undert on catch and shoot three, so in the results it wasn't showing up. But he was attempting almost five threes per game. So he's a high volume guy and the league perceived him and guarded him like he was a shooter. Again, I've talked to you about this on the show, but

that matters way more than actual shot result. For years there region Rondo was hitting close to from his three from the three point line, but nobody was guarding him out there, so all it was really manifesting as is on these wide open threes that would disrupt the flow of an offense. Kyle Kuzma, on the other end, always shot in the low thirties until his last year with

the Lakers, but he was aggressive, He looked confident. His perception around the league was that of a shooter, and so teams would guard him as though he was a shooter. Nikola Useovich just guarded as a shooter, and that makes it really difficult to guard those screening actions. So let's just look at off ball screens for instance, because we've we spent a ton of time talking about on ball actions on this show. But let's say that I've got zach Lavine in the left corner and Voussovich is gonna

go down and set a screen for him. Alex Caruso's got the top at the ball at the top of the key, and he's gonna hit Zach Lvin coming off of that screen. So typically what a screen defender will do is they will either hedge, so they will come out from the screen to force Zach Levine to come further out rather than curling around, or they'll drop to stop the curl so that when Zach Levine curls around, he's curling right into a defender. That's what you want

to do in that situation. But nik Lavusevitch will frequently slip those screening actions to the three point line and the Bulls will hit him in those spots because he's a high volume three point shooter. As a result, it makes it harder for that screen defender to hedge or to drop as the guy's curling around, because he's leaving

nick Luseovitch wide open for a jump shot. So as a result, Levine and de Rozan are frequently coming off of these pin downs and dribble handoffs and things like that with a lot of space to operate that if you watch the Bulls on offense, that's their primary attack, whether it's Lonzo when he's healthier, Alex Crusoe ran point for most of the end of the season, he'd bring the ball up the floor and basically hit DeRozan or Levine off of a screening action. That would be how

things would start. And then as the defense would collapse they and get into rotation, they would attack closeouts around that to get what they want. The strength of this roster, this roster has well, I'll go after we ripped through these all kind of briefly um summarize what their strengths and weaknesses are. But one of the strengths of this roster is with Lonzo Ball, with Alex Crusoe, with Kobe White, with Pat Williams, with the Marda Rose and with Zach Levine.

They have a lot of guys who are really skilled from the perimeter. You know, Alex Crusoe is a fantastic cutter, and he's a very good passer for the position at this point, and he's got good size a Lonzo Ball is an excellent passer in open space situations. Kobe White skilled, Pat Pat Williams is showing a lot of Polish. I've been really interested watching him this summer. That puts them in a position where they have a lot of players who can extend the advantage. So you can imagine Zach

Levine comes comes off of that curl. The big doesn't help because he's staying home with Vosovic. Levine gets into the lane, the team helps, Levine will kick to the corner. Now, all of a sudden, you've got three, four or five guys on the floor that are great at extending the advantage, attacking that close out, further compromising the defense to get

an extremely high quality shot. You know, uh Alonso. One of the reasons why I think it's so important for him to get back is when you look at this team, they should be a better fast break team. They should be a team that plays with more pace. They were fourteenth and pace this year in thirteen and fast breakpoints

scored per one hundred possessions. When you look at their roster construction, they're not a big team, right like Vussovitch last year was their only competent big They played Tristan Thompson, but he wasn't great. Drummond changes that a little bit. But what they are is a fast and athletic team. You know, Alonso is a good athlete. Alex Cruso is a great athlete for the position. Zach Levine is one of the best athletes we have in the league. Demard

Rose an excellent athlete. This is a team that should get out in transition. More Lonzo Ball coming back will help that a lot, because he's not a traditional point guard in the sense that he's not the kind of guy that's going to break you down against the set defense to get to the looks that you want. But he's great in space, so he's one of the best guards in the league. Yet pushing the break, he doesn't uh.

Every time that he sees an outlet pass up the floor, a wing running on the left side or on the right side, or a big running the floor, he lets it fly, knowing that he can get it back to run offense if the defense does get back and shut down the break. But getting him back in there to help them push the break more will help them actually take advantage of the strengths of their roster in terms of speed and athleticism. Alex Crusoe excellent cutting without the

basketball um. That was another really interesting thing that showed up to me on film, and I remember that a lot with the Lakers. He had amazing chemistry with Lebron James as a cutter. Again, when it comes to spacing, Spacing isn't just about shooting. Spacing isn't just about being a threat from the perimeter. Spacing is about being a

threat so that your defender has to stay attentive to you. Obviously, even if you are a great shooter, a good defender that has a good amount of athleticism to close out can position himself far enough off of you that he

feels comfortable recovering in case of a pass. But if you stay in motion, moving without the basketball, whether that's relocating as a shooter or in the case of Alex Crudiso, cutting into the basket, it forces the defender to be more attentive to you and makes it harder for him

to be available as a help defender. They the biggest weakness of this particular team on the offensive end of the floor is they were the only team in the league last year that attempted fewer than thirty threes per game. That um specifically was the weakness that costs them against Milwaukee. But really it's just a it's a it's an inefficiency in the analytics of basketball. You guys know how I

feel about analytics. I don't like catch all metrics. I don't like trying to simplify multiply multiple complicated basketball concepts into one number. Not only do I think that's blasphemous, I think it's impossible, right, But I do believe in analytics in isolated situations. So, for instance, if I can tell a player like, hey, when you post up on the left block, you typically get this amount of points per possession versus when you post up on the right block,

that's helpful analytics. Shot value is helpful analytics. It's a simple matter of math. A three point shot is worth one and a half times as many points as a two point shot. They should, naturally, as a result of that, be a consistent part of your diet offensively. For them to be last in the NBA and three point attempts uh in um uh in three point attempts, that shows that they they're they're not taking advantage of the math

advantage that they should be able to have. And they've got they've got enough guys on the team that can shoot that they should be taking more than they take. What are they take instead? A ton of mid range pull up jump shots. They attempted twenty two point six mid range shot per game, which led the NBA last year, so they attempted more even than the Brooklyn Nets, Kyrie Irving and Kevin Durant, without being nearly as good as

those two players at that particular type of shot. Derosan takes ten midrange shots per game, Zach Lavine and nicolabus Fitch combined to take an additional seven per game, So just between their stars, they're taking seventeen mid range jump shots per game, So they take almost as many mid range jump shots as they do threes per game. That's

not that that that's just not good offensive process. With that particular type of shot profile, it's going to be difficult, difficult to succeed unless you're Kevin Freakin Durant and Kyrie Irving, two of the best offensive players that have ever played in the NBA. So that's just kind of a brief look at what they do on the offensive end of the four. They're not good enough defensively to cover for

those types of offensive limitations. They need to push the ball in transition more, they need to hunt more three point shots. On the defensive end of the four, they are a hard help and recover team. They do this because they have physical mismatches at almost every position. Their wings that they like to play zac Lavine and Demard Rosen are either thin or small. Patrick Williams is an interesting player. Will get into him a little bit more later,

But Nikolavusevich is completely overmatched on the interior. The only place where they match up well with teams defensively is on the perimeter with Lonzo Ball and Alex Caruso. So as a result, they have to offer a ton of help, which is fine. They do a good job in rotation because they've got good athletes. They rotate well. The problem is is when you live in rotation, when you're constantly in rotation, the defense will eventually break you down, and

they do. That's why they were twenty three defense this year. They double team the opponent of the opposing star almost every single time. They defend the pick and roll with three players. What that What that means is the vast majority of pick and roll coverages are designed to try to defend two on two so that you don't have to offer help. The problem is is nick Lusevich is not a great pick and roll defender, so as a result, he's just not capable of bring enough ground on the interior.

To cover a rollman and a guard coming over the top of a screen, so they almost always have to bring that third defender out of the week side corner to help to tag on the roller so that Vosovic can be up against the ball handler coming over the top of the screen. That just puts them in a rotation even more frequently. That's the uh that that just as a lack of strong front court defensive personnel, they had better front court defenders, they wouldn't have to do

that as often. Milwaukee in particular, use this to frequently generate size mismatches. That was why they were punishing him so much on the interior on defense. The one thing that I really appreciate about Billy Donovan's scheme is he knows that they don't have a strong interior defense. So what Analytically the two most valuable shots in basketball are

layups in threes. So if you're not going to succeed guarding the basket, where would be the next best place for you to devote your energy and attention the three point line. The Chicago Bulls only allowed thirty two point three three point attempts per one possessions, which was best in the league. Last year, so that's where they make

up for their week interior defense. They allowed fifty point three points in the paint per one hundred possessions, which was twenty four in the league this year, So they do defend the three point line well at least, which is something that's a good foundational piece. They'll need to learn to defend the interior or better if they're ever going to be a team that can contend, but at

least that's a decent foundation. The interesting part about this Chicago Bulls defense is it's not really fair necessarily to evaluate them based on last year's results without long zoo ball, because the whole construct of that team was designed to make up for Nick Lussovic's problems as an interior defender by defending at the point of attack better. So if you lack interior size, if you don't have a great rim per hector, you can still have an elite defense

by being a great perimeter contained team. The best example of this is the Los Angeles Clippers, a team that has never had a dominant interior UH presidents during this Kawhi Leonard Era I like a Vika zoobas He's just not that guy. He's a good defensive big, but he's not a shutdown defensive big, and he doesn't play enough minutes for it to matter. They just contain on the perimeter.

Paul George Kawhi, Leonard Marcus Morris, you know, Reggie Jackson, these guys, Nick Patome, these guys sit down in a stance and they contain their man and make it difficult for them to get to the basket. So the lack of a rim protector doesn't actually matter. That was what this Bulls team was supposed to be a Lonzo Ball is one of the best defensive guards in the league. Alex Caruso is one of the best defensive guards in

the league. With the two of them on the floor, they can limit dribble penetration, defend pick and roll really well, and make things easier on Vussovitch. And when the two of them were on the floor, they did that. They had a one oh two point two defensive rating with those two on the floor only in four D fifty nine minutes, but that's a significant sample size. Where they were an excellent defensive team, one or two point two would be one of it would be among the better

defensive lineups. In the league. That's the value of point of attack defense. But watch how it drops. Take just Lonzo out of the picture, their defensive rating goes from one or two point two to one fifteen point one. Take Alex Caruso and Lonzo Ball out of the picture, and it rises to one seven team point one. So they can't defend without both of those two guys on

the floor. That's concerning because Lonzo Ball has had a lot of health issues over the years, and who knows if that's something that's going to be chronic or something that he can get over. The other big thing that holds them back on the defensive end of the floor is all three of their stars are not defensive minded players. DeRozan and Levin are very good athletes, but they they're

not They're not staunch defensive players. Now, I wanted to get into this just for a minute, because there are a lot of good athletes in the league that don't translate to great defense of players. The best example of this was Andrew Wiggetts early in his career, and now I think he's one of the better perimeter defenders in the entire game, and it's because he's learned the delicate balance of of being physical on the defensive end without fouling.

If you're a good athlete, you can be a good defensive player, but you won't be unless you're willing to get physical. And so many offensive minded players they shy away from contact on the defensive end of the floor for good reason. They have big offensive responsibilities. They don't want to waste energy getting into a physical melee. Sixty possessions a game on the defense and a defensive end of the floor. I get that, but that's the difference

between the greats and the goods. The great stars in the NBA, they are willing to devote resources in that direction. They're willing to be physically imposing defensive players, and as a result, they help their teams on that end, even though they have less energy for the offensive end. It helps the team and aggregate. You know, zac Lavine is very thin, but he can be a little bit more physical than he's been. Demarta Rosen is a good, strong athlete.

He should be a much much better defensive player than he is. The best example to kind of give you guys an idea is like you drive to the basket at me, I can either slide with you, and then when you really start to get aggressive, just give ground and get into rotation. Or I can choose to hold my ground, meaning maybe I stick my hand out there and hand check you a little bit. Sometimes they will get called a foul A lot of times. It won't

when you hit my shoulder. Maybe instead of giving ground with my shoulder, I hold my ground with my shoulder. Sometimes I'll get a foul call. Most of the time I won't. Being more willing to hold your ground on the perimeter will be so much again, like they're the

twenty third ranked defense. Alonzo is coming back, but this team will never be as good as they need to be on the defensive end of the floor until Demarta, Rosen and zach Lavin take defensive perimeter, contain more seriously on the defensive end of the floor, and then Nick Vusovic, it's not really a technique. He's just bad. He's just completely overmatched physically at the position. He's not as big as the biggest bigs, and he's not as athletic as

the most athletic bigs. So on a night in, night out basis, he's just completely overmatched physically. Andre Drummond look, I covered him with the Lakers, I've covered him throughout the league over the last few years. He's he has his moments defensively, but for the most part, he's not a guy you can count on in that regard. The only you know, the interesting guy to watch, uh for Chicago's development is gonna be Pat Williams. He's there only

really physically imposing, athletic defensive forward. Now, Janice obliterated him in that first round playoff series, but he also was toying with Jayson Tatum and Jalen Brown in in those matchups in the conference semi, so I don't look too much into that. But he's the He's the guy to watch looking forward. If he can put on a little bit more muscle and become the defensive player that he's capable of, that will go a long way towards helping them.

But the bottom line is on the defensive end of the or with Nick Vusevic in your lineup, you cannot allow dribble penetration. If you do, they will score in the paint consistently. You have to be a team that embraces dribble contain. Getting Alonzo back will help that, but Zach Levine and Demarta Rosen have to embrace that to

a certain extent so quickly instammation. If I had to rip off their strengths and weaknesses, their strengths are they have a lot of guys who can dribble, pass and shoot, so they could be a great drive and kicked team. They have an excellent defensive backcourt. There are a good defensive rebounding team by percentage, and that should get even better with a Lonzo Ball and Andre Drummond when they come back. Their weaknesses their stars don't play any defense.

They hunt inefficient shots. They shoot way too many midrange jump shots for being a team that's not great at shooting midrange jump shots. And their best lineup so when they play Alex Caruso at the point, guard Vussovich at the center, and Demarta Rosen, all three of those guys are if he shooters. For one reason or another, Caruso's percentages can be inconsistent. He's streaky. Vossovich is a willing shooter, he's guarded like a shooter, but he shot a really

low percentage last year only from three. And then Demarta Rosen just doesn't like to take them. So somebody in that group, whether it's Alex Crusoe and Vossovic, I think that's the most realistic outcome. If Caruso and Vussovitch can just shoot better from three, that will go a long

way towards helping them. Alright, best case scenario, so if Demarta, Rosen and zach Lavine make slight alterations to their shot profile, hunts more off the dribble threes rather than off the dribble, mid range jump shots um and embrace driving and kicking rather than driving and pulling up in the mid range, so that they can start their driving kick attack with all of their skilled perimeter players that they have. That should go a long way towards helping them on the

offensive end of the floor. They need Alonzo Ball and Pat Williams to stay healthy. Pat Williams had an injury last year. Alonzo Ball has consistently been hurt. I hope that's not a consistent thing with him. Uh. Alex Crusoe, Nicola Vuseovich had better shooting seasons. Alex Crusoe was thirty three percent from three last year. Russovich was they need to push a lot more in transition. That will actually

play towards the strengths of their roster composition. They need to become a team that embraces containing the dribble drive so that they're less reliant on help with Nick Vussovitch on the back line. They need Pat Williams to take a leap, particularly on the offensive end of the floor. I was watching a lot of footage of him this summer. He's got a lot of fluidity. Um he could be a scoring wing if he continues to work at it.

Him taking a leap would go a long way towards moving them from a non contender to uh if things go right, type of contender. The other thing with Pat Williams that will be interesting is by virtue of the roster construction. With de Maarda Rosen and Zach Levin on

the roster, he'll catch a lot of favorable matchups. He's gonna get your third best perimeter defender on most nights, so if he could figure out some more stuff on the offensive end of the floor to be a really really interesting match up there and Dree Rummond gives them more ability to hang with the massive front lines around the league, particularly a Janice team or an MBID team, or if they ever ran into uh another big, huge

front line that can expose their lack of size. But even with all of that, even if all of that breaks right, in my opinion that they're absolute ceiling is a team that, if they stayed healthy, would hang around that five or six seed and upset one of the better East teams in the first round. But let's let's say, for instance, they get the five seed and the Sixers, you know, James Harden doesn't take the leap that I expect them to, and they fall back to the four seed.

And I could see the Bulls having a really good season where they upset somebody like that, but then they would just lose to the Celtics or the Bucks or whoever the one seed was. So like, at the end of the day, they're absolute ceiling. Is a team that wins one playoff series. Their worst case scenario is that their shop profile stays the same. They continue to hunt mid range shots, and they have an age offense and a defense that's nowhere near good enough to cover for it.

Guys get hurt again, Alex Crusoe, uh Alonzo Ball, Pat Williams. Injury issues creep up again, maybe Andre Drummond fixes their interior size issues but disrupts their offensive flow. We talked earlier about how much their offense depends on Vossovitch's shooting threat as a screener to open things up for Levine

and de Rosen. That goes away with Andre Drummond. He's a little bit more of a lob threat, but he has bad hands, he doesn't catch the ball well, and he's one of the worst rim finishing bigs that we have in the league. So I think that he could cause some problems on the offensive end of the floor. Um And then all of a sudden, you have another team that wins forty five games and loses in the first round ugly, and has no realistic pathway towards improving

the roster. That's the That's the worst case scenario for this team. If you had to ask me which is more likely, I lean closer to the worst case scenario. And that's a big part of why they're down at fifteen. The biggest X factor for this team, the biggest swing factor, the thing that will lead to the largest UH differential between one outcome to the next is Lonzo Ball. When

he's healthy, He's an immensely valuable role player. He's an excellent three point shooter in every single way, off the catch, coming off of screens, you know, in spot up situations, on the move, in transition. He's just a great three point shooter, which is really impressive if you think about what he looked like as a shooter coming into the league. He's also one of the better point of attack defenders

in the league. He's disruptive. He's in one of those aggressive forward facing defenders that tries to disrupt your handle and make you feel uncomfortable. He also plays passing lanes really well and forces a lot of turnovers on the offensive end of the floor. Beyond shooting, he's a good playmaker in space, so he's great at starting fast breaks with outlet passes. When he's attacking close outs, he makes reads really really well. He's just not the guy who

can create against the set defense. But all of that amounts to a really good role player who's struggled to stay healthy over the years. He even takes longer to recover and abnormally long time to recover from injuries that he should come back from faster. It's like, oh, he sprained his ankle, with the Lakers. He should be back in a month. No, no, no, he's gone two months. You know, here's this knee injury. We expect him back in six months. Oh here comes you know, or to

two months or whatever it is. And then the report comes out like, oh, well, you know, things are healing slower than expected and we're going to reevaluate him in two months. Like that kind of thing comes out a lot, which scares me in terms of whether or not this could be a degenerative health issue. Just it is what it is. I don't know what the deal is. Some people just struggle more with this than others. I don't know the physiology behind it. Alonzo might just be one

of those guys. Um And so as a result, there's a huge variation between what he might bring to the Bulls this year and what might happen if things go wrong. And that makes him a huge X factor because, like we talked about earlier, a hundred and two defensive rating with him on the floor, with Alonzo and just taking him out of the picture bumps that defensive rating up

to up to one. So having him on the floor to help them be a better fast break team, to have them be a better defensive team would go a long way towards helping the Bulls reach their actual ceiling. All right, that's all I have for the Bulls. We'll be back tomorrow with number fourteen. As always, I sincerely appreciate your guys a support, and I'll see you tomorrow. The volume