Remember how I almost pissed my pants (ok...did piss my pants) when the Bullsss signed Ben Wallace?
>> Wednesday
Well, I've come down more and more since that night (though incidentally have not found a solution for my bladder control issues).
I grew even more troubled last night after reading this analysis from Bill Simmons:
And Ben Wallace...went from being wildly underpaid and underrated to wildly overpaid and overrated in the blink of an eye. Just check his regular-season and playoff stats, for God's sake. He peaked two or three years ago.
(That reminds me, am I the only one who thought Chicago wasted much of its cap space for two extra rebounds per game, a mild defensive upgrade and the ongoing comedy of a Buckwheat-caliber afro? Congratulations, you get to play four-on-five for the next four years in a league where every rule adjustment favors teams that can score. Why not just keep Chandler for two-thirds the price? Instead, they overpaid for Wallace and gave away Chandler for a washed-up P.J. Brown and a draft bust that New Orleans was trying to dump? I don't get it. This is like Paramount Pictures signing William H. Macy to a four-picture, $60 million deal -- sure, he's a great actor, but that doesn't mean you pay him like a superstar. They will eventually regret this one almost as much as Wallace probably regrets filming that T-Mobile commercial that made him seem whipped.)
Lame-but-actually-sorta-apt pop culture reference aside, this opinion more or less reflects my own sentiments over the last week.
Yes, I know I wrote this when the deal first happened, but I also assumed (rather naively) at the time that the Bulls would keep Tyson Chandler. Now my short-term excitement of acquiring Wallace has given way to my long-view worry that the Bulls just gave up a future star.
Guys like Rick Morrissey can say all they want how Wallace is tough and proven while Chandler is soft and doomed to waste his potential, but I'll never believe it. Last I checked, Chandler is still only 21 or 22, and his "soft" reputation has never really been substantiated. (I mean, come on; he's from Compton. How soft can he be? NWA wouldn't lie to us like that.)
I've been a very big Tyson Chandler fan ever since he played his first game as a Chicago Bull, so I am admittedly a bit biased. Having said that, I'm pretty confident that the Bulls will ultimately get burned by giving up on Chandler way too early.
I still haven't gotten over the Artest + pretty good throw-ins for Jalen Rose + junk trade, and I never will. I only hope this Chandler trade won't turn out as badly.
(I apologize to non-Bulls fans. I try to keep these homer posts to a minimum. Maybe tomorrow I'll write something about the Washington Redskins or Roger Federer or something.)
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2 comments:
With statistical differences and intangibles like not getting posted up as Pat claims, what Wallace could in theory represent is a 10 point swing over Chandler.
(2 extra points, 2 extra rebounds (score on half of them), 1 extra block, an an increased presence in the paint.)
The Bulls lost 24 games last season by 10 points or less. Even if the Bulls' statistical output with Wallace instead of Chandler helps the Bulls win HALF of those games, all of a sudden a 41-41 team is a 53-29 team.
Last year that would have been good enough to finish with the second-best record in the East. Of course, it's all in theory, and we'll have to wait until preseason in mid-October to see how well he fits in Skiles' system
We feel completely different about Chandler obviously. I think it's poor to assume (as everyone has) that it was a boon to dump Chandler's salary.
Who's to say that within a year or two he wouldn't be earning every cent of that contract? Again, he's 22! He will still improve.
In two years, I guaran-damn-tee you that Chandler will be a better player than Ben Wallace.
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