Wooly Bully: Win Profiling the 2007-08 Chicago Bulls

I'm not trying to step on the toes of my friend Matt Bernhardt at the outstanding team Bulls team site Blog-a-Bull, but today I've done and offensive and defensive "Win Profile" breakdown of the 2007-08 Chicago Bulls. I'm going to try to do one on every team, and I decided to go in the order of the draft, so up came the Bulls (plus I always like Vinnie Del Negro).

Click Here for my breakdown of the 2007-08 Chicago Bulls

Remember when reading it, "Opposition Win Score" is "good" when its a negative number, but "Defensive Win Contribution" is "good" when its a positive number. That's because Oppo Win Score is just the player's counterpart's collective Win Scores, while "Defensive Win Contribution" is the effect those Oppo Win Scores had on the Bulls... projected through the player.

By my numbers, the Bulls lack the truly big "Win Producer" you need to move into a higher echelon (obviously since they won only 34 games), but Luol Deng leads the way with 4.3 wins (I think by my calculations, Dwight Howard led the league with something like 19 Wins Produced, but I'm just going off memory).

By "Overall" Win Contribution, the player who made the biggest positive impact in his given amount of playing time was, surprisingly, Joakim Noah, but his overall Win Contribution was only +0.073 (+0.000 is a .500 level player, ie he's dead average).

The player who made the greatest "Offensive" Win Contribution was Luol Deng with a +0.122. The player who made the greatest "Defensive" Win Contribution was Tyrus Thomas with a +0.141. Pretty good, but those kind of contributions should be made by your rank-and-file, not your leaders. (NOTE: For those following my NBA Finals Win Contribution Charts, those are purely "Offensive" Win Contributions. When you are just comparing two teams, you can just take each team's offensive win contributions and basically compare them and in that way you can assess the defense that was played. Plus, 82games.com doesn't breakdown "Counterpart" statistics by the game!)

On the negative side, the Bulls backcourt stunk. It appears then that Derrick Rose would be the sound choice for Chicago. The highest "Overall" negative Win Contribution was made by Ben Gordon. He was below average on offense, and on defense, his counterparts were allowed to produce the kind of Win Score statistics that strongly correlate with victory for the opposition, and defeat for the Bulls. Thus, I contend Gordon made the highest negative "Defensive" Win Contribution, which I calculate at a staggeringly bad -0.368. Kirk Hinrich was not very good last season either, recording about equally bad Offensive and Defensive Win Contributions, both being <-0.100.

The worst pure "Offensive" Win Contribution was made by Andres Nocioni, though. He stunk on the offensive end, recording a terrible -0.275. Since those 3 were amongst the core of the Bulls previous playoff runs, its no wonder they went on a slide this last season.

I have to get to bed now, I'm bushed. If any Bulls fans or others have questions for me as to what the numbers mean, please email me at bucks_diary@yahoo.com. Please, however, do not put "Immediate Response Requested" on the subject line, or "Need a Response" or I will assume its one of those annoying faux emails I seem to get every day from people I've never heard of offering investments no fool would ever want.

If it says hardcore NBA fan on the other hand... I always open those emails!

Correction: I did this post last night when I was exhausted. Thus, as you can see, the player with the best "Offensive Win Contribution" is Joakim Noah, not Luol Deng. Deng produced the most Offensive Half Wins, but thats only because he received more playing time. Noah's position adjusted Win Score per 48 minutes was +2.0. Deng's was +1.2. Because Deng received 10.2% of the Bulls overall playing time, that translates into an offensive Win Contribution of +0.122. Noah received 7.7% of the playing time, so his +2.0 translates into a WC of +0.154. What is their minutes had been reversed and both had the same paWSper48? Then Deng's Offensive Win Contribution would have been +0.092. Noah, with Deng's minutes, would have made an Offensive Win Contribution of +0.200.