Besides, all this is moot until we seen the team on the court.
[/quote]


That is exactly my point. I was stating that Duhon, Sweetney, Deng/Nocioni (whichever) are good bench players. Sefolsha hasn't played yet but from what we both saw I think he will be a great bench contributor (if not eventually take Gordon's spot.). If that were to ever happen then we would for sure have a better bench the those Kings. But I hope that doesn't happen.

Gordon
Nocioni
Sweetney
Duhon

Anyway, you have your opinion and I have mine. We can agree to disagree but we don't need to use words like asinine. Both benchs had great players on them and both fit their team. I think our bench this year is deeper only because we have a good replacement at each position.

All in all I think your breakdown is pretty accurate. I think on any night Sefolosha may get 30 minutes and the next night get only 10. Same thing with any players other then Hinrich and Wallace. I can see Nocioni and Deng battling for minutes but if there is anyone who needs to play extended minutes it is Deng. We need to play him as much as possible to develop him as much as possible. I agree that Brown will likely have his minutes dropped somewhat and I think we could also drop Wallace down to about 33 minutes. Other then that the Bulls have questions to answer about who gets what minutes. But either way I think we will still see a very good bench that contributes whether it be on the offensive or defensive end of the floor.

here's how i see the minutes breaking down....

PG
hinrich-35 mins
duhon-10 mins
sef-3 mins

SG
Gordon-30 mins
sef-12 mins
Griffin-6 mins

SF
Deng-28 mins
Noc-16 mins
sef-4 mins

PF
Brown-12 mins
Noc- 14 mins
Sweets- 11 mins
tyrus- 11 mins

C
Wallace- 33 mins
PJ- 10 mins
Sweets- 5 mins

ACTIVE ROSTER
hinrich-35 mins
Wallace-33 mins
Gordon-30 mins
Noc-30 mins
Deng-28 mins
Brown-22 mins
Sef-19 mins
sweets-16 mins
Tyrus-11 mins
Duhon-10 mins
Griffin- 6 mins
Malik-Irregular mins based on other's struggles or foul trouble

ANALYSIS
Looking at these numbers, I am happy with mins for everyone except duhon, malik and griffin. The problem is that most teams consistently play 9 or 10 guys. We are too deep not to play 11 or 12 guys, but all three of those guys deserve more mins, but who do you take them away from? A couple guys are gonna have to get used to getting less minutes than last year, or we will have a problem.

hinrich, gordon, and noc should paly the most mins, along with deng. PJ has been a 30 mpg player, but at 37 i think 22 mins is enough to make him happy and get an impact from him while giving some of his normal 30 to younger guys.

Sef at 19 mpg is great. It's not a ton of mins, but enough to make an impact at every position he plays.
I wish there were a few more mins available for sweets and tyrus, but 16 and 11 I think is enough unless either come on real strong this year.

Griffin can come in for 6 mpg to be a defensive stopper, but he deserves probably 15mpg. I love both, but duhon or griffin really needs to end up at the end of the bench with irregular mins. They both deserve more mins, but until we can play 6 on 5 that won't happen. Playing sef more at pg helps griff gets his mins or getting rid of griffs mins means duhon gets more pg mins and sef will be 3rd sf.

The only thing I would change on my list is maybe take thabo's sf mins and give them to griff, but I stand by what i wrote.

The truth is, just like with guys like sweets and pargo last year, some games a guy like griff or sef or duhon will play 25 mins, some games 7 mins, and it will vary every game depending on matchups and who's hot. But I think these will be people's averages.

[quote name='sport1016' date='Jul 26 2006, 09:20 AM' post='16863']
here's how i see the minutes breaking down....


SF
Deng-28 mins

I like your analysis except for the fact that Deng only gets 28 minutes. If that happens the coach and the organization is stupid. You have to develop your're best prospect as much as possible and give him as much confidence as possible.

Niether one of us included Khryapa who is in my opinion a good reserve and who might be better then the offensively challenged Griffin. Below is a comparison if their stats (khryapa on top Dal on bottom)

05-06 POR 21.6 min .462 fg .333 3pt 4.4 reb (the kid is only 24.)
05-06 DAL 23.9 min .480 fg 000 3pt 4.4 reb (and he is 35)

Pretty similar stats except Khryapa can shoot the 3 and he is 6'9" as opposed to Griffin at 6-5"


Everyone keeps talking about the Bulls maybe using a lineup of 3 small guards but I could see them using a lineup occassionally with 4 SF's. The four SF's could be a mixture of Deng 6-9, Nocioni 6-7, Khryapa 6-9, Griffin 6-5, Sefolosha 6-6?, Thomas 6-9 with Sefolosha running the point. There are a lot of possibilities out there and I think that it would be extremely hard for any team to match up with such a lineup. Most of those guys can run and each adds a different dimension on the floor. Nocioini and Khryapa are good shooters and can hit the three (and I think Deng will prove he has improved in that area as well). Sefolosha is an uptempo player and can drive and kick it out. Both Deng and Nocioni can drive and Deng can play without the ball. Thomas can grab the boards.

One thing about this team is that if there should happen to be an injury or two we are set up in a way where it shouldn't affect us too much.

However, with all of these possibilities I think Deng needs his 30+ minutes and preferably around 35 per game. I think Paxson will realize we have to many players and I expect that before the season starts are few players will be dealt for 1 player and possible another pick down the road.

I agree Deng should get 35 mpg, but we have too much depth and he is one of the few players on the team that is best suited to play only one position. We are too deep at sf.

Khryapa would be a good reserve, but I was working on a 12 man active roster, and included malik instead of khrapa bc malik can play center, our thinnest position IF PJ starts at PF, which I believe he will though Noc will get more mins there.

The difference between khryapa and griffin is one is a combo 3/4 (which we seem to have like 15 of) and one is a 2/3. While we are stacked at the 3, but it is finally nice to have 3 SGs instead of none. Griff for his D will make the 12 man active roster over Khryapa bc of that. If Khryapa is active, and I'm completely fine with that as he appears to be a quality role player, it will be at the expense of malik's roster spot, and not griff.

Spreading the minutes between the Bulls players is tough. I think injuries is gonna play a big part on how much people will avereage. But one thing is for sure, outside of Wallace and Hinrich, whoever gets injured shouldnt really mest up the Bulls from playing at a high level.

-I think the best part about having such a deep rotation is that we will have a lot of guys coming from the bench with a lot of energy. Every night we should out hustle other teams because guys will be bringging it every single night. If they dont, then Skiles will bench you and you wont see playing time.

-On the other hand, i would love to see our young players get more minutes out there and develop sooner than later, but o well.

From what ive read, i think most of you guys got the minutes pretty accurate. And well, im bored, so im gonna post up mine. So if i copy you in some numbers or something, dont take it as im copying you, but more like we just agree and stuff like that.

Im gonna post up numbers as how i see mostly every game being played out... Not by averages of the whole season....

PG- Hinrich/34 mins. Duhon/14 mins. Sefolosha/0 mins.
SG- Gordon/32 mins. Sefolosha/12 mins. Griffin/4 minutes.
SF- Deng/30 mins. Noc/12mins. Thomas/ 6 mins.
PF- Brown/15 mins. Noc/14 mins. Allen/Sweets/Thomas 19 mins.
C- Wallace/34 mins. Brown/ 10 mins. Sweets/Allen 4 mins.

There you guys have it.... I think this is how the minutes will be played out early into the season... In case of a injury and stuff like that, then the numbers obviously will change. Garbage time also will determine some of our rookies getting more playing time. Foul trouble will also change the numbers.
-Also, i know PJ is old, but the guy can still play and is in very good shape for his age. He can still do a lot out there and thats why i have him playing about 25 mins a game. Any questions or concerns,

Yeah, that might be a bit high, I was just going off what he did last year. I still expect at least 25 minutes a game though. Sweetney will not get more minutes than him.

Yes we do have a lot of depth, this is y i think Paxson is not done dealing yet. I think he is done for now but i think another trade might come n around 3 months or so.

The question i have is y would Paxon get Viktor Khryapa who is capable of starting (which he did do n Portland) knowing that its going to be hard for Nocioni to get minutes and he is our 1st SF backup. I dont know but i think Michael Sweetney, Viktor Khryapa, Malik Allen, and our 4 picks next year (including the option to swipe the Knicks pick) might be involved n a trade for a post-player. To me i think getting a post-player was our biggest need going into the off-season more than getting a true center and Paxson has not solve that problem yet. I know Micheal Sweetney is a post-player but im not sure if Skiles/Paxson really wants to keep him. I could be wrong tho but this is just my opinion.

That's unlikely because we can't really trade the 1st round picks. We don't technically own the Knicks' pick, and if we trade ours we can't make the swap. We'd basically be getting late-first value for a lottery pick if we did that.

thanx 4 informing me about that. i did not know that.

The fact that we have more then 12 legit players once again leads me to believe that Paxson isn't done working his magic. Maybe he can package a few players to get us a better back-up center, or maybe he will still try and get the Bulls a quality low post scoring power forward. I just don't see how having Khryapa on the unactive roster would be doing anyone any good. The kid is 24 years old and I am sure there are several teams in the league that would like to have him on their bench. I didn't like the fact that we went after Adrian Griffin again. Yes he has experience but did we really need him. Gordon should get a chunck of the minutes at SG and Sefolosha should get the rest. There really was no need for Griffin. We are too stacked at SF for him to get minutes there. Barring a major injury we really don't need his services.

Wouldn't surprise me. I thought all along that Sweetney would be one of the first traded. I also think the same thing about Duhon. Why would they go and get Griffin again? He is not a point guard but he really wasn't needed. Maybe they want Sefolosha to play backup point guard. So if Sweetney, Khryapa and Duhon leave that clears up about $6.9 million in cap space for whoever comes back our way.

Here is a list of PF's that make around that next year

Drew Gooden $5.3 million (even though he will likely resign for more then the qualifying offer)
Juwan Howard $6.93
Jeff Foster $5.25
Udonis Haslem $5.52
Darko Milicic $5.2
Chris Wilcox? If he signs the a 1yr extension.
Donyell Marshall 5.2
McDyess $5.8
Stromile Swift 5.4 million
Kenny Thomas 6.7 million
Shareef Abdur Rahim $5.4

The best fit for the Bulls would be Shareef Abdur-Rahim, Chris Wilcox, or Gooden because they are the best scorers on the list. Both would provide the low post presence offensively that the Bulls need. Shareef would also be able to contend as an all-star in the east and he makes significantly less then he is worth. He is also locked into a 5 year contract. Thomas 6.7 million. He just turned 30. The way Kenny Thomas played last year I don't think it would be that big a loss for Sacramento. And Rahim's value is low because of his injury last year.


Younger PF's

Al Jefferson $1.7 million
Kendrick Perkins $1.6 million
Sean May $1.7 million
Ike Diogu $2.1 million

Or they could get a center

Zaza Pachulia $4 million
Primo Brezec $2.7 million
Mutombo 2.2 million
Jeff Foster 5.2 million
Chris Mihm 4.2 million
Mark Blount 6.1 million
Eddy Curry $8 million

(the Bobcats have tons of room under the cap to absorb some contracts)

Why didn't we trade for Charlie Villanueva? T.J. Ford is not the greatest point guard. I am sure we could have offered a little more. The guy is locked down for 3 more years and he is young and inexpensive. Could you imagine him backing up P.J. Brown? (I know I am just rambling but think about what it would have taken for the Bulls to pull that off) (Duhon, Khryapa and 2 second rounders?)(I would even throw in Sweetney)

Does anyone know how much Griffin got? One of my friends said it was 3 yr. $9million.

(I know this post is all over the place but I just wanted to throw names out there and their salaries of potential people the Bulls could still target. I understand that most of the names listed likely have no chance to be a Bull)

I disagree heartily on this one. Sweets pushed PJ in every stat category while playing out of shape and 13 minutes less a game. Sweets in better condition is a no brainer to me, to get the most PT at PF. Ill say this again, all of PJ athleticism is gone, he cant make up for that with savvy and heart alone. Sweets is a younger, more capable scorer than PJ, and putting him out there for 20+ a game is a must. Anyone who sees him getting less than the 18 he played last year is going to be wrong, you can quote me on that.

Sweetney didn't play all that much last year despite our lack of talent there. He could actually score and yet he still spent an awful lot of time on the bench. Sweetney is clearly in Skiles' doghouse, and I doubt that's changed. Now that we've upgraded our frontcourt, I don't see how he's suddenly going to play more. Brown is a better rebounder and defender, and he brings a veteran presence. He's a Skiles type of player, which is why he'll get more minutes.

He didnt play much last year because of the terrible shape he was in. Not only did Skiles hate that, but i doubt he was capable of standing out there more than 20 a game. You dont see how he's sudeenly gonna play more? How about the fact that he has dedicated himself to getting in better shape giving Skiles the option of running him out there more. Pj is nothing more than a bench contributor on a good team anymore, he is not nearly the same player anymore, especially on D where he used to be a stud. He pulled down a whole 2 boards more a game in 13 more minutes than Sweets, and blocked less shots in those 13 minutes.