Sixth Round Draft Justifications

Sorry for the delay between rounds. Moving and whatnot. Here are the full results.

Tristan- Devin Hester
Not to toot my own horn, but I feel like Devin Hester is an interesting pick. There are certainly players picked later in the draft who contribute more to their teams every game than Hester, who only gets to affect the outcome of games on a small number of plays, sometimes detrimentally. But I can say there is nobody picked after Devin, and very few players picked before, that have provided Chicago with more jump-out-of-your-seat highlights than Hester has. And I don't know if there's anyone else that was picked past the third round who you could make the case is the best player ever at their position. I'm just going to end my Hester argument with this:

You should watch all 10 minutes of that. It's pretty fun.

Katz- BJ Armstrong
I'm pretty sure Katz picked the first person in the draft who was ever left unprotected in an expansion draft. Also, if Stacey gets points for being good on television, then we need to dock BJ points for that. He tried his hand in front of the camera, and it was ugly. I wish I could find a clip of it, but he was awkward and stilted, and didn't last long. He makes a much better agent (which I suppose we can give him points for, but it's not like being Derrick's agent is hard. "My client is awesome and wants to play for you forever. Please give him as much money as possible. Thanks.")

Ethan- Mike Brown
Immediately after typing his name, Mike Brown just went on the Chitown Sports Fantasy Draft Injured List.

Sam- Derrek Lee
The only way I can explain Derrek Lee falling to the 6th round is to attribute it to the lack of die-hard Cubs fans involved in the draft. True, he has never led the Cubs to a World Series (though he was part of the Marlins team that robbed the Cubs of a title chance in 2003), but he is a 3-time gold glover (twice with the Cubs) and also received a silver slugger for his 2005 season (the year he had an insane 28 RBIs the first month of the season). And let us not forget his incredible 2009 when he had an impressive 90 RBIs and led the team to the league's best record. The Cubs did massively fail to impress that post season, dropping three straight to the Dodgers, but Derrek came back the next year resilient, tallying 111 RBIs and batting a .306 average on the season. (Ok, ok...I know they didn't even make the playoffs that year, but really, the Cubs are heartbreaking every year ok? He's still a great player and one of my favorites to ever wear Cubby blue...) He should also be awarded a point or two for finally losing his cool and telling Big Z to shove it in what is remembered as the second dugout altercation of Zambrano's illustrious Cubs career. Derrek would also fit in like a gem with TT's hard work mentality.

Editor's note: My only regret from the entire draft was letting Derrek fall to Sam here. I should have picked him over Ron Harper.

BJ- Fergie Jenkins
What is there not to like about Fergie? Admittedly this pick was based somewhat on reputation, and it's a bit harder now to recall exactly what I was thinking during the draft; the man was a beast. Since I never saw him play, the only real exposure I had to him growing up was listening to Santo talk about him, which he never failed to do when the topic of the best pitchers of that era came up. But here are some stats to chew on: First Canadian Hall of Famer, >3000 K's and <1000 walks, from 1967-72 he had >20 CG every year(in 1971 when he outdueled Seaver for the Cy Young he went the distance in 30 of his 37 starts) and then after he had one down the Cubs traded him for Bill Madlock and he came back in 1974 to throw another 29 CG and win 25 games for the freaking Rangers. Argh ok let's move on I'm getting frustrated.

Conall- Billy Williams
For most of my childhood, I knew Billy Williams as "the other guy who's had his number retired besides Ernie Banks." He was pretty good, I guess, but he's nothing special. Every franchise has a few Billy Williamses. But I suppose we're in the rounds where those guys get drafted. Whatever, congratulations on a boring pick.

Ron- Carlton Fisk
Ron had a great first few rounds, but then spent the next few picks taking players best known for exploits for other cities. Fisk played 10 seasons for the Red Sox and 13 seasons for the White Sox, but went in to the Hall of Fame in a Red Sox hat. And if I told you to name one moment from Pudge's career, you're naming him waving a home run fair at Fenway Park. What White Sox memory do you have?

Gomez- Steve Kerr
Gomez shores up the all-important "players-punched-by-Michael-Jordan" position. Did Danny Ferry ever play for a Chicago team?

Will- Paul Konerko
If I had to rate the speed of every player taken so far, here would be the top 5:
1. Devin Hester
2. Lou Brock
3. Derrick Rose
4. Kenny Lofton
5. Walter Payton

And here would be the bottom 5:
50. Carlton Fisk
51. Joel Quennville
52. Tom Thibodeau
53. George Halas
54. Paul Konerko

But maybe I'm underrating TT a little bit. I bet he can run a decent wind sprint. Maybe replace him with Maddux. Konerko is still last, though.

Would the Bulls Have Beaten Hakeem and the Rockets in the 94 and 95 Finals if Jordan Never Retired?

So around here, when I ask this question, the answer is invariably something along the lines of "Of course, duh, why would you even ask that?"

Here's why. Over the course of the Bulls championship run, they never really had to face an elite center in the finals. The full list:

1991- Vlade Divac (season ppg: 11.2, finals ppg 18.2, mostly against Bill Cartwright, who averaged 32 mpg)
1992- Kevin Duckworth and Cliff Robinson (combined season ppg: 23.1, finals ppg: 20.6, split between Cartwright and Scott Williams)
1993- Mark West and Oliver Miller (combined season ppg: 10.9, finals ppg: 10.7, more Williams than Cartwright. Also, the Suns really liked to put Tom Chambers at the 5 in this series since the Bulls couldn't really make them pay on the defensive end)
1996- Sam Perkins (season ppg: 11.8, finals ppg: 11.2, mostly against Luc Longley. I'm aware either Ervin Johnson or Frank Brickowski started, but Sam averaged about 30 minutes a game at the 5.)
1997- The three-headed monster of Greg Ostertag, Antoine Carr, and Greg Foster (combined season ppg: 18.2, finals ppg: 12.8, although Foster memorably dropped 17 in game 3.)
1998- The three above plus Adam Keefe (season ppg: 23.9, finals ppg: 9.6, although both teams basically played without a center for quarters at a time in this series. The Jazz had a lot of Stockton-Hornacek-Russell-Chris Morris/Shandon Anderson-Malone looks, against the Bulls' Ron Harper/Steve Kerr, Jordan, Pippen, Kukoc, Rodman.)

So in most cases, the data shows opposing centers scored less than they averaged in the regular season, but on the other hand, that ain't exactly a murderer's row of centers up there. Total All-Star Games? 4 (Duckworth '89 and '91, Robinson '94, and Divac '01, which barely counts since it's 10 years after the finals in question.) So the conclusion I'm jumping to, which should be backed up by anyone who watched those series, is that the center position was largely irrelevant (Divac dropped 24 in game 3 of '91, and that's the only time a center scored 20 points in any of those games.)

Enter Hakeem. Hakeem dominated the finals in 94 and 95, never scoring under 20 points in any of the 11 games. By game, he scored 28, 25, 21, 32, 27, 30, 25, 31, 34, 31, 35. The first 7 against Patrick Ewing, the last 4 against Shaquille O'Neal, who were both excellent post defenders at the time. What would he have done to Bill Wennington (played the most minutes at center for the 93-94 Bulls) and Will Perdue (most minutes in 95)?

Of course, the counter-argument was made most succinctly by my friend Ben Saper the other night: "Well...we had Jordan."

An excellent point. I'm not going to wax poetic about MJ right now, there's plenty of time for that later. But while imagining what one of the most best centers of all time would have done to our pasty-white centers is fair, it's also fair to imagine what the most competitive player ever would have done with Vernon Maxwell and an aging Clyde Drexler.

I decided to use whatifsports.com. I used the 93-94 Bulls with 92-93 MJ in Pete Myers' place (I'm sure with MJ that year the Bulls would look entirely different roster-wise, but I'm not trying to figure out exactly how all the dominoes would fall.) and simulated a 7 game series. Whatifsports uses statistical analysis to figure out what would happen, so if you're one of those Joe Morgan types who doesn't trust machines, you might quibble with the results. Here's what I got, however.

Game 1: Rockets 103, Bulls 100. The Bulls hold Hakeem to a pedestrian 22 points, but the Rockets get a total team effort, with every starter in double figures (which wasn't unusual for them, they very nearly averaged that in the regular season, with Horry's 9.9 being the only exception.) Jordan drops 26, but Pippen has an off night with 12 points on 5-12 from the field, and 2-6 from behind the arc. Curious stat of the game here, Jordan and Pippen only play 37 minutes, BJ Armstrong led the way with 45. 93-94 theoretical Phil Jackson is kind of a moron.

Game 2: Bulls 98, Rockets 88. Scottie bounces back with a nice 20pts/14 rebs/5 steals(!) line. Jordan puts in 26, Grant and Armstrong chip in 13 and 12 respectively. Hakeem puts in 22 again, but doesn't get the help from his supporting cast as he did in Game 1 (17 for Maxwell, and 11 for Kenny Smith. Nothing else to speak of.) BJ plays 46 minutes again. Jeez, theoretical Phil, give Steve Kerr some minutes.

Game 3: Bulls 107, Rockets 95. OK, Phil, I stand corrected. BJ drops 22 on 3-4 from downtown and 5-6 from the line. MJ scores 23 (I don't think What if sports takes "absolutely taking over big games" into consideration when they come up with the stats.) Scottie with 19, Horace 16. Hakeem has 20, but the Bulls then do a good job shutting everyone else down. Apparently theoretical Phil knows something real Phil didn't and Bill Wennington only plays 2 minutes, with Cartwright and Longley splitting most of the minutes at center. (Also: Stacey King gets a minute off the bench! But doesn't record any meaningful stats.)

Game 4: Bulls 111, Rockets 91. There we go. 30 for MJ, BJ with 21 (I don't remember 93-94 BJ Armstrong being the dominant force he is in this series, but I think we're kind of cheating a little with having his 93-94 stats in here. His usage rate of 19.8% was the highest of his career, which I'm sure had no small part to do with MJ not being there.) Hakeem scores 22 again on 10-22 from the field. He only gets to the line 3 times, and he's been getting to the line a lot less in this series than he did during the year. Cartwright and Longley are apparently doing an excellent job playing straight up D without fouling him. (Stacey King watch: 1 minute, 1 assist, 1 steal, 0 points. Come on Phil, you won by 20, give Stacey some garbage time minutes.)

Game 5: Rockets 118, Bulls 110. Facing elimination, Hakeem finally takes over. The Dream drops 42 on 13-23 from the field, and 16-18(!) from the line (apparently I jinxed our center combo in the Game 4 recap.) The Rockets hold MJ to 19 on 9-20 from the field. Scottie drops 32 in the losing effort, although Grant shoots them out of the game with a 4-13 effort. (No Stacey King action in Game 5). The series goes back to Chicago Stadium for Game 6.

Game 6: Bulls 109, Rockets 102. The Bulls were down 13 after 3 quarters, then had a 4th for the ages (or at least very-92 like.) Maybe I gave whatifsports too little credit, as MJ has 35, 17 in the 4th quarter. Scottie has 12pts/14 boards (and is the Bulls leading rebounder in the series.) Steve Kerr finally gets a little action and drops 10. Hakeem has 31, but the Bulls once again focus on shutting down everyone else, and only Kenny Smith and Mario Elie score in double figures besides Olajuwon for the Rockets. Stacey King gets no love in Game 6. MJ wins his 4th consecutive Finals MVP, with 26.5 ppg in the series.

Hakeem averages 26.5 as well, both of them scoring 159 total. It came down to the supporting cast, and those Bulls were as deep as any. A little disappointingly, only Game 1 was close, but the series itself plays out in a very familiar fashion, with the Bulls toying with their opponents before closing out Game 6.

So I guess Bulls fans were robbed of an 8-peat. Hopefully Derrick Rose and company can find a way to make up for those 2 championships in the future.