Chicago Bulls: The Most Detailed Analysis of the 2-Guard Situation on the Web

Without question, the hottest topic for the Chicago Bulls offseason is who they will acquire at shooting guard. It’s clear that Keith Bogans is not the long term answer. They need someone who has more offensive game if they are going to get to the championship.

There have been a bevy of opinions and articles about who is the "best" shooting guard the Bulls can acquire. Opinions have ranged from wild and outrageous speculation to informed consideration.

What I haven’t seen is an objective side-by-side analysis of the players' various strengths and weaknesses.

I mention this in part because there are entrenched opinions on who the Bulls should try and get. Many of these opinions are based on reasoning that is in direct contradiction to what the research shows. For that reason I’ve decided to run the first several slides "blind."

Ten players are compared here. I’m not going to mention who those players are until later in the slideshow. The reason is that I want to be able to show them objectively, without preconceptions of who is best at what.

It may seem annoying at first to look at it this way, but I think the "clean slate" mentality will help in terms of being objective. It might even help to go through it once, find out who the players are, and then look through some of the slides again. 

After comparing the players, I will reveal who they are and have a little more discussion of who works best based on the research.

There are several things I considered in this comparison, from overall metrics to specific scoring tendencies. I feel the Bulls need a guard who can score both inside and outside, who can create his own shot and who can catch and shoot.

I did not pay much attention to defense because I didn’t include anyone who I don’t feel could at least learn to play it in Tom Thibodeau’s system provided they put forth the effort.

In other words, anyone who wasn’t a defensive option was eliminated. There’s just no way a bad defensive player (except Boozer) is going to log heavy minutes with the Bulls.  

Player Efficiency Rating

You’re thinking "Who is player J," right? See, that means it’s working.  Going "blind" has its advantages. If it makes you feel any better, I’m going blind too. Once I entered the data I hid the names from myself too, and I don’t have a photographic memory.

Three things stand out to me:

1. Player J is clearly the highest. 
2. Player B is clearly the lowest. 
3. Everyone else is pretty even.There are only 2.3 points between two and nine. That’s not a broad distinction. 

Of course this is just one number.  Let’s keep looking and see what else we can learn. 

Win Shares

Here are the estimated win shares each player would provide based on 36 minutes per game and an 82-game season.

We have a new stand-out with player C being the top dog and player F being the bottom. J still does fairly well, but B fares much better under the win-share model.  It’s also worth noting that H is fairly high up in both models.

Points Per 36 Minutes

Scoring is without question the most important thing that the Bulls need from their new two-guard, so the need to see how many points they score is self-evident.

Here are the players according to how much they score per 36 minutes.

Immediately obvious is that G is the best scorer followed by J, D and F. The worst are B and C. The rest fall somewhere in the middle.

Points Per Play

The next thing I wanted to take a look at is how many points per play they produced. Player A clearly produces the most points per play, but H is near the top again.  C, who was at the top of the win-share chart, is near the bottom now.

The thing to bear in mind here is that it does not reflect the number of plays run for the player. 

Points Per Play Allowed

Here we see the points per play against.

One thing that jumps out is J, for all his skill at scoring seems to have some issues with keeping the other guy from scoring.

Player C is on the other end of the spectrum.  While he didn’t do much on the offensive end, he’s a real stopper. Player F seems to be the best player on defense though, at least from this very cursory look.  

Points Per Play, Difference

One thing I thought could be helpful is to take a look at the difference between their points per play for and their points per play against. Player A scores .2 more points per play than he gives up, while J surrenders .03 points more than he scores.

To a point this can be misleading, as most players don’t have the exact same number of plays run at them as run for them (in fact, it’s probably safe to say that no one does). It does, however, give us a snapshot of the "balance" factor of their offense and defense.

That takes care of overall snapshot stats, so let's consider what we learned.

So far we’ve learned J is the best offensively, but weakest defensively.  It seems that A, C and H are well balanced. F is the best defensively.

Now let’s see what we can tell about how the players score. First, let’s look at who is best at creating their own offense. 

Isolation Points Per Play

The new shooting guard will need to be able to generate his own shots. That is the primary weakness that was exposed last season in the conference finals.

With only one player who could consistently generate his own offense, the team floundered when the opponent was able to suffocate him.

In order to look at who is best at that, I’ll be looking at several things, beginning with points per play in isolation.  Isolation is probably the best pure measure of a player’s ball-handling ability.

Right off the start the most obvious thing is that B is purely awful in running the isolation play. The .17 points per play speaks of an almost complete and total lack of ability for the player to create offense for himself.  C isn’t doing much either.

On the other end of the spectrum we have a new high, player G. Player D is also a new peak performer, and is second in iso plays. Seeing as how we haven’t noticed them before, we’ll just flag that and keep it in mind. 

Player H is again holding up well. J is doing well as we’d expect from his earlier numbers. 

Points Per Play Pick and Roll

Once again we notice right away that B's best dribbling spills out on his pillow while he sleeps. Players J and D stand out.  Player G is also near the top again.

So far it looks like there are a couple of things that seem apparent. Players J, D and G are the best ball-handlers. It also appears that B rarely puts the ball on the floor, and when he does, doesn’t do it very well. 

Points Created off Dribble Per 36 Minutes

While looking at "per play" has its advantages, it’s also helpful to see what they might do in a per 36 minute situation.

Here are how many points the player creates out of isolation and the pick and roll, combined per 36 minutes.  In other words, it is an estimate of how many points a player might create off the dribble for himself.

Here we can see that D is absolutely the most productive with J being a clear second. G again holds his own.  As for B, it looks like the B is for "bad."  C is once again weak here too.

H is looking pretty low for the first time. The question for him then becomes, would he be more productive if his role were increased? We won’t know until we know who he is.

What we have learned is that in the "creating shots" department, the best players are J, D and G. We know that B is definitively not the answer, and C doesn’t look like it either.  F and H are still interesting.  

Unassisted Points Per 36 Minutes

There are other ways of creating shots though than just pick and roll and isolation, so I also went and looked at the number of unassisted points per 36 minutes each player scores.

Here the usual suspects remain the same. D and J are still at the top of the ladder. B and C are still at the bottom of it. G once again fares fairly well. H and I are the next step down.

Being able to create off the dribble is only half the battle though. There’s also the matter of being able to knock down the jump shot. 

Spot-Up Points Per 36 Minutes

Now that we’re looking at the spot-up there’s a bit of a change, but not as much as you might expect. B does a little better but J is still on top. Players G, and D also still do well.

The main difference is that now we see some other players join the party. Player A particularly seems to do exceptionally well here.  The same goes with player I who does well in the spot-up but not elsewhere.

What we’ve learned so far is that we have four categories of players.

The first category includes players D, F, G, H and J who are able to score off the dribble and have a jump shot.

The second category includes players A and E who score well off the jump shot but don't create well.

The third category consists of players F and I who are marginal at both, being neither exceptional nor particularly good at either.  

The last category is players B and C who just don’t score well at all.

That’s a look at how the players score, but I wondered if it would change things if I looked at where they score from. For the purpose of that, I looked at three general areas of the court: the paint, long twos—which consist of shots between the paint—and the three-point line, and three. 

First, let’s look at the scoring inside. 

Inside Points Per 36 Minutes

Inside scoring is essential. It suggests a player who can penetrate and break down defenses. It means that pressure would be taken off of Derrick Rose. 

This should be taken with a caveat. Some players might score inside, but not really be creating their own shots. 

Player C is a good example, as he is one of our "doesn't score" players yet he is the top scorer inside.  He easily has the highest percentage of his points coming from inside the paint. This indicates a player who is good at getting open inside for easy baskets at the rim. 

Aside from that we also see that D and G, two of our shot creators, don’t score inside as much as I would have thought. Players, A, H, I and J all seem to be about even.

Good old B is holding steady as the worst offensive player on the board though. 

Long Twos Per 36 Minutes

These numbers aren’t going to be perfect estimates. I didn’t have whole numbers to work with, so I had to take the fractions provided by hoopsdata.

The relative differences though shouldn’t be overly dramatic. However, if you’re trying to go up and get the totals to work together, you’ll find some problems.

Having said that, the first thing we see is that player G is confirmed as primarily an outside scorer. While he is the highest scorer on the market is he the best fit for the Bulls?

While it’s true that we need an outside shooter, we also need someone who can penetrate and get to the rim. Player G has a serious red flag.

Players D and J are more intriguing as being consistent. Player I is also starting to be more interesting as he’s been popping up consistently in the top half, though never at the top. He might be the most diverse offensive performer. 

Three Points Shots Per 36 Minutes and Summation

Wow. Player C is pathetic from the three!  Player B is again just plain bad.

Player H is the best again. Player G is very high as well. Players D, J and A are also pretty good.

So what have we learned from all of this?

A is a good outside scorer, but not as good at penetration or getting inside.

B is the worst offensively, period.

C is happy that B is there because if it weren’t for B he would be the worst.

D is really worth considering. He’s a balanced scorer who can create his own shot.

E is a good scorer but doesn’t create a lot of points for himself.

F is pretty decent but apparently doesn’t get inside as well.

G is the highest scorer but most of his points come from the outside. When he does create his own shots, they appear to be jump shots, not points at the rim.

H tends to be pretty good at most things, but he struggles with the long twos, which could be important as far as getting good floor spacing. Those aren’t the shots you want to be taking a lot, but you want to be able to make them. Look at Kobe Bryant.

I is interesting simply because he seems to be in the top half of everything. He doesn’t appear to have any deep flaws, but he isn’t a great strength anywhere either.

J is the best scorer overall but the defense is horrid. Still, you figure that someone who has the athleticism to generate a ton of shots has the athleticism to be a defender in Thibs’ system.

So are you ready to find out who the players are now?

Players Revealed and Rankings

The number listed by each of the players is their average ranking among all the various stats considered, along with a few others like effective field-goal percentage. The lower the number the better the fit based on the criteria considered.

Isn’t it enlightening when you see the names attached? Here are some brief comments for each player.

J.R. Smith is not at all surprising. He’s clearly the best offensive player but has a history of not showing defensive effort. He would be worth considering if A) he doesn’t go to China and B) he is willing to commit to defense.

Jason Richardson would be a really nice fit but his age is an issue. I’m also somewhat surprised and concerned with his lack of creating his own shot.

Jamal Crawford is much further up than I expected. He is a streaky shooter and, honestly, it’s hard to get over the "been there done that" factor with him. I’m just not feeling it, especially at the cost.

Nick Young, if he doesn’t go to China, would be a great pick-up. He is an outstanding scorer and brings effort on defense. I could see him fitting in very well next to Derrick Rose.

Aaron Afflalo is moot. He’s going back to Denver. I only included him because people were going to ask, "What about Arron Afflalo?" if I didn’t. With Wilson Chandler in China (which is why he’s not here) Denver will certainly re-sign him at whatever cost they need to.

Ronnie Brewer is not the answer, but we knew that anyway. It is interesting that he places better than some of the "upgrades" that people are arguing for. If he could develop an outside shot he would make a serviceable starter. He is by far the best defender on the board.

O.J. Mayo may have more than his numbers reflect, but he is looking more and more like he could be a player who is not going to live up to the hype. The other thing is that you can’t just get Mayo for a contract, it’s going to cost players. Is he worth Brewer and Omer Asik or Taj Gibson? I sure don’t think so.

Shannon Brown could come cheap and 88 inches of vertical in the backcourt would be a show if nothing else.

Courtney Lee has gotten more out of not starting than if he was starting. You would think that he’s an All-Star in the making. He’s not. He’s a role player off the bench. Maybe he can still develop. He’s only 23. I’m not ready to send bigs for smalls on a player who hasn’t established that he can start though. He’d be better than Bogans, but I’m not sure that it’s that much of an upgrade and the numbers show that.

Keith Bogans sucks. He’s a nice guy. He’s a leader. He sucks though. I don’t mean that in a mean way, it’s just an honest assessment. He’s not just last here, he’s a distant last. He got lapped by the field. They were done with their snacks by the time he crossed the finish line. If he improved, he would still be the worst. 'Nuff said?