During the course of an 82-game NBA season, there are few regular season games I look forward to. It’s a slog being an NBA fan. Yes, I know the players have to actually play through the 82 games, but as a fan, it’s a lot to ask to pay attention throughout the course of a 7 month season. However, tonight’s game between my hometown Chicago Bulls and the San Antonio Spurs is one of those games I look forward to with relish. My childhood (and adulthood) team against the team playing in the city I now live in. An opportunity to talk smack to all my friends here in San Antonio who are die-hard, ride or die Spurs fans still living large off of Tim Duncan, Manu Ginobli and Tony Parker. But haven’t Bulls fans been living large off of MJ, Scottie and Rodman the last 20+ years, too?
Anyway — we’re only 10 days into the season but the Spurs have been one of the early season surprises so far. Even if their coach wouldn’t have put money on them to do well this season, the Spurs have jumped out to a 3–2 start, playing an exciting brand of basketball that’s been fueled by their young core of talent. Meanwhile, the Bulls are sitting at 3–2 and the biggest storyline of the season so far is the health of Zach Lavine’s knee. He missed the first 2 games of this season and is questionable for tonight’s match-up against the Spurs for knee management, an ongoing plan by Bull’s management to ensure his health throughout the season and, hopefully, into the post-season.
When I say that the Spurs have jumped out to a 3–2 start, it’s because nobody really expected the Spurs to be that good. Keldon Johnson is averaging almost 22 points a game, Jakob Poetl is pulling down almost 11 rebounds per game and has a player efficiency rating of 21.8 (per ESPN) and Devin Vassell is dishing 4.5 assists a night and averaging 20 points per game. Using the RAPTOR metrics created by 538, this young Spurs team is pretty solid. The major week spot is the young Josh Primo, with a pretty miserable RAPTOR total. Devin Vassell is negative across the board on the RAPTOR metrics but still manages to contribute enough that he’s still worth almost 2 wins more than an average replacement player. The vet of this group, Poeltl, stands out with a WAR of almost 7.
Last year, the Bulls were the surprise of the Eastern Conference the first half the season, before dramatically dropping off after Lonzo Ball’s injury. The Bulls were hit with other significant injuries last season, but Ball’s ability to run the offense, play lock-down defense and hit his 3’s were badly missed. The Bulls offensive efficiency was all over the place last year, but they really hit their stride 30 games into the season with their full complement of players. Once Ball got hurt, the Bulls were too easily bogged down in half-court set pieces (Caruso getting hurt didn’t help the offense much either).
On defense, the injuries to Ball and Caruso arguably hurt the Bulls more than the missing offense those players provided. Caruso and Ball are both lock-down defenders that were able to really cover up the defensive liabilities of Lavine, DeRozan and Vucevic. With Caruso and Ball out of the lineup for most of the second half of the season, the Bulls really struggled defensively. Their inability to stop teams dropped them from the #1 seed in the Eastern Conference and into their match-up with the Milwaukee Bucks in the first round of the playoffs, who handled the Bulls fairly easily.
It’s early in the season, but this Bulls v Spurs matchup should be an entertaining game. While the Spurs aren’t expected to make much noise this season, I think it’s still early enough that they’ll continue to surprise some of the bigger teams they go up against.