Random NBA Observations 2019 - 2020
Geechiedan214
All Star
Shaq goofy dennahoe...smh
Jordan>>LeFrozen
It was written in the Bible
Fortunate Lee
Superstar
I remember that one
Lmao this fool Damon Jones lookin a Death Row employee reppin Piru
Jordan>>LeFrozen
It was written in the Bible
Would Michael Jordan and the Chicago Bulls have won their seventh NBA title in 1999?
What if Michael Jordan and the Chicago Bulls had returned after the NBA lockout to try for a fourth consecutive championship?
As detailed in ESPN's documentary series "The Last Dance," the Bulls never got a chance at that feat -- which only one team has accomplished, when the Boston Celtics won eight titles in a row from 1959 to 1966.
With general manager Jerry Krause insistent on replacing legendary coach Phil Jackson, reigning MVP Jordan announced his second retirement at age 35 and the bulk of the rotation departed through either free agency or trade. Ron Harper and Toni Kukoc were the primary holdovers on a 1998-99 Chicago team that went 13-37 under new coach Tim Floyd.
What if Krause had changed his mind or been overruled by owner Jerry Reinsdorf to bring back Jackson and as much of the Bulls' core as possible? How much of a toll might age and a series of extended playoff runs have taken? Let's take a stab at projecting the 1998-99 Bulls using advanced stats.
Projecting the players
Michael Jordan
Jordan presents the biggest challenge in this hypothetical because he didn't have a 1998-99 season.
We'll rely primarily on my SCHOENE projection system to fill in the missing season, something I once did for both of Jordan's retirements.
Michael Jordan: 1998-99 Projected Season
Stats via Basketball Prospectus' SCHOENE projection system
Season Win% WARP Usage TS% Reb% Ast% RPM
1997-98 .651 15.3 .341 .533 8.6 4.0 5.0
1998-99p .651 NA .318 .514 8.6 4.1 NA
Despite Jordan's age, SCHOENE projects him with identical effectiveness in 1998-99 as during the last of his five MVP seasons the year before. That unexpected symmetry is explained by Jordan's rapid decline in efficiency the season before (in 1997-98), which saw him post the lowest true shooting percentage (TS%) of his career by a wide margin. This was possibly because he carried a heavier offensive load with Scottie Pippen missing the first 35 games after back surgery. Although Jordan's TS% was projected to drop again, that's largely because of the leaguewide drop in efficiency after the 1998 lockout.
Now let's look at the rest of the rotation, using players' actual 1998-99 performance as a point of comparison:
Scottie Pippen
Scottie Pippen: 1998-99 Projected Season
Stats via Basketball Prospectus' SCHOENE projection system
Season Win% WARP Usage TS% Reb% Ast% RPM
1997-98 .659 8.2 .246 .533 7.9 7.0 3.7
1998-99p .644 NA .233 .506 8.7 6.5 NA
1998-99 .601 12.4 .199 .530 9.0 6.9 1.0
Pippen saw a substantial role change after Chicago sent him to the Houston Rockets in a sign-and-trade, going from the No. 2 option in the triangle to the Rockets' third scorer after fellow Hall of Famers Hakeem Olajuwon and Charles Barkley.
Although that helped offset a projected decline in efficiency, Pippen wasn't as valuable in the role and chafed in it, feuding with Barkley and spending just one season in Houston before another trade sent him to the Portland Trail Blazers.
Dennis Rodman
Dennis Rodman: 1998-99 Projected Season
Stats via Basketball Prospectus' SCHOENE projection system
Season Win% WARP Usage TS% Reb% Ast% RPM
1997-98 .504 4.9 .088 .459 24.1 3.6 -1.4
1998-99p .471 NA .082 .451 23.9 3.2 NA
1998-99 .380 -0.9 .065 .388 22.7 2.1 -3.2
One of the big questions about a hypothetical 1998-99 Bulls team is whether Rodman would have been able to avoid the enormous decline he experienced with the Los Angeles Lakers, who signed him two weeks into the season but waived him before the playoffs.
Rodman's already microscopic usage rate declined even further in L.A., and he shot a career-worst 36.4% from the field. It's possible Rodman would have been more focused and motivated with the Bulls. On the other hand, the extended time away from the structure of basketball during the lockout might have exacerbated the aging process for the 37-year-old veteran regardless.
Given that Rodman had already moved into a reserve role in the 1998 playoffs, it's nearly certain the younger Toni Kukoc would have started for the Bulls in 1998-99 rather than Rodman.
Toni Kukoc
Toni Kukoc: 1998-99 Projected Season
Stats via Basketball Prospectus' SCHOENE projection system
Season Win% WARP Usage TS% Reb% Ast% RPM
1997-98 .575 7.2 .221 .525 8.4 6.4 2.5
1998-99p .585 NA .207 .510 8.7 6.3 NA
1998-99 .584 9.2 .277 .490 11.4 6.7 1.5
In 1998-99, as a full-time starter for the first time in his career, Kukoc took over as the Bulls' go-to guy and thrived in the role, ranking 34th in the NBA in WARP (wins above replacement player). Notably, his defensive rebound percentage increased nearly 75% with Rodman no longer around as competition.
In this hypothetical situation, giving the 30-year-old Kukoc more responsibility would have been Chicago's best hope of staving off aging elsewhere on the roster.
Luc Longley
Luc Longley: 1998-99 Projected Season
Stats via Basketball Prospectus' SCHOENE projection system
Season Win% WARP Usage TS% Reb% Ast% RPM
1997-98 .425 0.2 .214 .492 11.5 4.3 -1.3
1998-99p .381 NA .192 .472 11.6 3.6 NA
1998-99 .401 -0.6 .187 .524 13.9 2.2 -1.3
In reality, Longley probably saw his role change the most, due to the transition from the triangle to a more conventional NBA offense playing for coach Danny Ainge with the Phoenix Suns. Longley's usage and assist rates declined, the latter by nearly half from 1997-98, but he offset that with improved efficiency and rebounding.
Ron Harper
Ron Harper: 1998-99 Projected Season
Stats via Basketball Prospectus' SCHOENE projection system
Season Win% WARP Usage TS% Reb% Ast% RPM
1997-98 .508 4.2 .169 .503 7.3 4.8 1.8
1998-99p .492 NA .143 .486 6.7 4.6 NA
1998-99 .536 4.4 .214 .451 9.8 4.9 0.8
Like Kukoc, Harper shouldered a much larger role with the weakened 1998-99 Chicago team, posting easily the highest usage rate of his five seasons with the Bulls and beating both his projection and his value in 1997-98 before sliding back into a supporting role under Jackson with the Lakers the following year.
Steve Kerr
Steve Kerr: 1998-99 Projected Season
Stats via Basketball Prospectus' SCHOENE projection system
Season Win% WARP Usage TS% Reb% Ast% RPM
1997-98 .475 1.3 .142 .581 3.9 3.9 -0.1
1998-99p .467 NA .126 .543 3.7 3.9 NA
1998-99 .415 -0.1 .135 .507 3.2 3.1 -0.8
Although he became the first player since the 1960s Celtics to win four consecutive championships, Kerr had something of a disappointing first season with the San Antonio Spurs in 1998-99, shooting just 31% on 3s. Kerr was never quite as automatic from the current 3-point line as he was during the three seasons it moved in to 22 feet from 1994-95 through 1996-97 (when he shot a combined 50%), but he'd go on to make 42% in limited action over his remaining four NBA campaigns.
Projecting the team
Within the confines of this hypothetical, it's reasonable to assume the 1998-99 Bulls would have looked similar to their predecessors. Because of Jordan's massive cap hold (even with the newly introduced maximum salary, he would have been eligible to sign for up to $35 million, 105% of his salary in 1997-98), Chicago wouldn't have had cap space. As a result, any changes would have had to come via trade or additions at the veteran's minimum, which tended to yield fringe contributors for the Bulls at best.
The new luxury tax didn't kick in until 2001-02, so the only issue for Reinsdorf would have been an elevated payroll created by the jump in Pippen's salary -- which in real life went from $2.8 million in the last year of his troublesome extension to $11 million on his new deal with the Rockets. Even if Jordan had made the maximum possible, the Bulls' payroll would have been in the neighborhood of $68 million -- less than the New York Knicks' actual $69 million-plus salary bill before prorating for the lockout, per Patricia Bender.
Because Pippen was healthy, unlike in the previous season, the Chicago players who returned produced about as much value (a combined 24.3 WARP) in 1998-99 as they did in 1997-98 (25.9) despite Rodman's steep decline. As a result, the biggest question for the Bulls would actually have been Jordan. The week before announcing his retirement, Jordan sliced the tendon in his right index finger while cutting a cigar on vacation in the Bahamas. At the news conference, he told reporters that "the doctors said I couldn't play for about two months."
Although Chicago did win 55 games during the lone full season Jordan missed during the Bulls' run (1993-94), that was with a much younger Pippen as a centerpiece -- and the product of some good fortune. The Bulls' point differential that season was more typical of a 50-win team, and after Horace Grant's departure, they were mired around .500 (34-31) when Jordan returned midway through the following season (1994-95). Realistically, a Chicago team that got a half-season from Jordan would have been competing just to secure home-court advantage in the opening round over the 31-19 Atlanta Hawks.
At the same time, Jordan also told reporters his decision to retire had been made before the injury. If Jordan had planned to return, it's unlikely he would have been on vacation while negotiations to save the season were ongoing. Instead, Jordan would surely have been in the gym training. With a healthy Jordan, the Bulls could realistically have won somewhere in the neighborhood of 35 games during the shortened, 50-game regular season -- good enough to claim the East's top seed again.
Come playoff time, Chicago would have benefited from a substantially weakened Eastern Conference. No East team had a point differential better than the No. 1-seeded Miami Heat (plus-5.0 ppg), and the Heat were upset in the first round by the eighth-seeded New York Knicks as part of New York's unlikely journey to the NBA Finals. The Knicks got there by beating the Indiana Pacers in the conference finals. The Pacers took a step back after taking the Bulls the distance the previous year, seeing their point differential fall from plus-6.1 ppg in 1997-98 to plus-3.7 despite good health.
Had Chicago reached the Finals for the seventh time in nine seasons, the San Antonio Spurs might have presented a greater obstacle. San Antonio's plus-8.1 point differential was surpassed only by the 1996-97 Utah Jazz (plus-8.8) among all the teams the Bulls faced during their championship runs.
An aging Chicago team likely would have been a statistical underdog against the Spurs. Still, after Jordan and the Bulls had gone 6-0 in the Finals and never even faced a Game 7, who would have bet against them in the 1999 Finals?
Jordan>>LeFrozen
It was written in the Bible
Wargames
One Of The Last Real Ones To Do It
If they bring the season back with no crowds they better add this angle for at least replays.
Dude never knows if he should yam on someone or go for a finger roll or layup.