Where does that leave Stewart? Is he not actually moving back to the 5?
I donât think it means thereâs a trade afoot. Or necessarily even a change in rotation. I think it just means Langdon is better at filling out a roster than Weaver.
The Pistons will winâŚ.
- 15-20 Games
- 21-25 games
- 26-30 games
- 31-35 games
- 36-40 games
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voters
So, I think I did this right.
I took each guy that I think matters even at all on the rosterâI remembered halfway thru that Sasser exists and, like, prove me wrong buddyâand projected their impact (think DARKO or BPM) and minutes played. Any minutes that didnât get projected just get dumped into the replev player bucket. I then converted all that to wins above replacement.
This was all using how b-r calculates wins from BPM.
Can see the sheet here and repurpose if you want.
Anyway, replacement level is like 10 wins a year? So these projections have them at like 27 wins. Feel like maybe Iâm at more like 25 due to org vibes, tho I think Iâm into what Langdon is doing so far.
I really didnât think too hard about the minutes projection, so thatâs probably where the big misses will come from. The impact stuff was whatever I figured BPM and DARKO would say about each guy but I didnât actually bother looking anybody up. But itâs not like I havenât checked a lot of these guys before; I do know they both dislike Fontecchio.
Our guy Ajay Mitchell is very good
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Wake up blessed everyday I donât root for a Micheal Jordan merchant franchise
Cade is leading to 60 wins 
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I was just thinking about this. Have the Bulls accomplished anything of note outside the Jordan years?
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Not much. An ECF with Derrick Rose but LeBron & co. were too much for him. Then he got hurt.
What counts as âof noteâ? 14 franchises since 1980 have won titles. That list goes down if you remove any team that rostered the best player on the most recent title team to the following franchises:
Lakers
Celtics
Pistons
Spurs
Heat
Iâd say building an ECF team is notable.
The real issue with the Bulls ofc is that Reinsdorf has declined from a good to great owner to one of the worst in sports. The Sox are an abomination and the Bulls are a bottom 3 franchise. And they got there in strikingly similar ways.
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huh?
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I think heâs saying that writing off the Bulls six titles as âwell they had the best playerâ elides the fact that the champion often/generally (I know itâs not true of the three Pistons titles) have one of the three best players in the NBA
If you eliminate all the titles won by Lebron, Steph, Jordan, Shaq, Duncan and the two by Giannis and Jokic youâre looking at a pretty short list in the modern era
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Basically that. Iâm just reiterating the original Q, which was what happens if you remove the Jordan era from the Bulls. If you take every franchiseâs best player on its most recent title teamâJordan for the Bulls, but Giannis, Steph, LeBron, etc.âand then look at what happened when they werenât playing for that team, youâre probably going to be underwhelmed.
Only 14 franchises have won a title since 1980. Remove the players that fit the above definition and only 5 have won a title without those players.
The Bulls had the Thibs era teams without Jordan. The Nuggets, Bucks, Warriors, Cavs, Raptors, Mavericks, Rockets, and Sixers have this Luka era, Embiid era, the Harden era Rockets? These all seem like the Thibulls to me in impressiveness.
EDIT: I counted the Spurs as one of the repeat winners bc I thiiiink Kawhi was the best player on their most recent title team? Or thatâs probably the consensus?
Iâm not sure if thatâs what heâs trying to say, since he still included the Lakers. And D-Rose was MVP the year they made it to the ECF.
Iâm still not fully understanding what youâre trying to say but i think I generally get what youâre aiming at. Most franchises have lacked sustainability or a prolonged period of success. Itâs really only the Lakers and the Celtics, and if you squint really hard, maybe you throw in the 76ers? I believe they made at least one NBA Finals in 4 different decades. But theyâre probably in the 2nd tier.
Thatâs where you have teams like the Pistons, Spurs, Heat, Warriors, who all won titles in different decades, some with entirely different rosters. The Bulls are only different because everything happened in the same decade. But, 6 titles, and with a fairly different roster (Jordan and Pippen being the only holdovers from their first 3 titles. Hey, they even felt the need to add 3 Bad Boys to get back to a championship level in '95-'96!) puts them in with this second tier.
Sorry if anyone is a Knicks fan. They have made 8 NBA Finals but havenât won one in 50+ years and itâs been 25 since their last appearance. Iâd put them in the clear third tier with the Bucks and Houston. Things are looking up, though! I could see a ECF run if they stay healthy.
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But, if youâre a Bulls fan and are under 30 years old, you donât have much in the memory bank. Same with Pistons fans who are under 25 years old. Thatâs even worse. Maybe you barely remember an ECF run or two and then all youâve got is one spectacular year of Blake Griffin that ended with his knee saying 
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Warriors as an example:
Their most recent title was 2022, Steph was their best player. If you look at every season since 1980 they played without Steph, their best team wasâŚthose 2 Run TMC years? Maybe? They have a handful of meh playoff teams. Obviously they never won a title without Steph.
Mavericks as an easy one:
Most recent title was 2011, Dirk was their best player. Remove the Dirk teams and this yearâs Luka-led team that made the finals is probably the best. But they donât have a Dirkless title.
Lakers to show a repeat:
Most recent title was 2020, Lebron was their best player. Remove the Lebron teams and you go all the way back to 2010 to find a title.
The Celtics, Spurs, Heat, and Pistons are the other franchises like the Lakers in this exercise.
Itâs hard to win a title in the NBA to begin withâmost franchises havenât won one since 1980âbut it gets toward mechanically impossible once you start pulling out great players. The Lakers and Celtics are all time great franchises bc they have had multiple eras as the best in the sport.
I would add the Bucks to the list of franchises with a good historical track record because of the Abdul-Jabbar years.
I break them up somewhere along these lines:
Gold Standard - Lakers, Celtics
Sporadic Success - Pistons, Bucks, whoever else you want to add
History Without Recent Success - Knicks, 76ers, whoever else you want to add
Tim Duncan and Michael Jordan merchants - Spurs, Bulls
So the Bucks get âsporadic successâ because they won 1 title each with two different top 2 in the NBA guys
and the Spurs get ____ merchant because their 1 guy got them 5
Obviously this is just a barstool conversation (I like it! Itâs fun! not complaining!)
but I think if you ignore the three Pistons titles, that weird period where the Sonics won with Dennis Johnson, the Wizards with Unseld, the Warriors with Barry (maybe toss in Mavs w/ Dirk and conceivably this years Celtics, both of whom obviously had really good players, but maybe not a top 5 guy)
basically every champion is a superstar merchant
I mean, those Celtics/Lakers teams were absolutely ____ merchant teams (Russell, Havlicek, Bird, Magic, West, Kareem, Shaq, Kobe), those franchises just happened to gets a number of those guys!
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Are we using 1980 as the cutoff? If not, the Warriors won titles in Philly, made it to a couple of finals in SF the 60âs, and won the title in '75 with Rick Barry.