John Salmons played a critical role sparking the turn around last season. He put together the best season of his career with perhaps his best third of a season ever in Chicago. He flashed the ability to be a dominant scorer at times hitting from the outside or slashing to the basket while playing almost exclusively at the SF position.
The Bulls will again rely on Salmons to provide a major role for this team, but this time he's expected to contribute as a SG rather than a SF.
The most obvious question with Salmons is simply "Can he do it again?". He shot 41.7% from the three point line last season. His career high prior to last season was 35.7% while his average was 33%. My gut tells me, that he mostly keeps up the three point shooting percentage. It likely drops a few points as teams will mix up their scouting reports and do a better job defending him out there, but I don't think you forget how to shoot after learning.
It's important to realize that despite low percentages in the past, he also had a very low volume of attempts. In one season, he raises his career average up to 36.2% from the three point line which is higher than any other year he's had except last year. I'm expecting Salmons to shoot around 38-39% from the three point line and continue to be a threat.
As far as his slashing goes, that's another matter altogether. Salmons ability to get to the basket seems inflated. For his career, he's only averaging 3.3 FTA per 36 minutes. To put it in perspective, people frequently complain that Gordon doesn't draw fouls, and his career low in FTA per 36 is 3.9 and his career average is 4.6. Salmons had a career high here last year as well putting up a 4.2.
The problem with expecting a repeat performance there is the amount of time he's going to be spending at the SG position rather than the SF position. He'll have a greater size advantage, but he'll be one of the slower players in the league at SG. We'll have to wait and see if the Bulls can take advantage of Salmons size at SG, since they played undersized all last year we didn't see any post options for the SG position. We did see Derrick Rose post up occasionally.
Overall, the NBA strikes me as being more of a speed game than a size game these days. I think the Bulls are better with Salmons at SF than SG, but personnel dictates that he plays his minutes as a two unless Deng's unable to stay healthy.
Defensively, I found Salmons to be an average defender. Most people tend to look at that as a bad thing. It's like the old rating scale where people are scared to use the numbers 1-5 when rating something on a 1-10 for fear of insulting someone. In our starting five, last season, Salmons may have been the best defender on the floor, and was clearly the best perimeter defender on the floor.
If Salmons can put forth that effort again at SG then Bulls fans should rejoice. However, much like I stated when discussing his slashing ability, the fact that he'll be defending smaller quicker players will work against him. I think you're better off faster than bigger when playing on the perimeter on either side of the ball, so he'll have to prove his fundamentals in order to funnel faster players to the appropriate spots on the court if he can't stay in front of them.
For the most part, I don't think Bulls fans are hoping Salmons improves significantly over last season. Rather we're merely hoping last season wasn't fool's gold. However, their are two areas I'm hoping Salmons can improve upon.
The first is moving the ball around. For a player who had a fair assist rate for a non PG in the past, he became a black hole on the Bulls. I have to think this is somewhat indicative of the offense rather than Salmons himself, but either way, the Bulls need to see better ball movement out of him in the future.
Next, Salmons needs to rebound the ball better. He put forth one of the worst rebounding seasons of his career while playing exclusively at SF, a position the Bulls have typically had strong rebounding from. People view our big men as getting toasted in the playoffs for not rebounding, but our 4/5 positions held their own on the glass. It was our 1-3 positions that got absolutely annihilated on the glass. With a size advantage at SG, I'd expect his rebounding should improve from where it was last season.
Of course, no John Salmons article would be complete without a reference to the John Salmons move. If you've never seen it, watch for it this year. John Salmons gets the ball on a kick out and is open at the three point line. Instead of shooting, he lowers into a triple threat stance and waits for his defender to close out. Just as his defender arrives and begins to lower into a defensive stance, Salmons rises up and shoots over him.
One final note, we need Salmons to stay healthy. He didn't miss any
playing time last year, but he played through a serious groin injury
much of his time with the Bulls. I don't know how bad the groin injury
was, but they take a very long time to heal and can be tweaked easily.
It's the type of injury that could rear it's ugly head again if it
didn't heal completely over the off-season.
So what do I expect from Salmons overall? I expect a dip on his offensive and defensive numbers. I don't see it as a decline in his ability, but the Bulls using him in a position where he's less effective as a scorere. Hopefully, he proves me wrong or makes up the difference on the glass and by improving his ball movement. Two areas where he had considerable room to improve from last season.
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Tags: chicago bulls, john salmons, salmon's move, what to expect
Excellent realistic review of the smart hustling Salmons. Let's hope that Salmons plays every minute he can, the alternative is the short Pargo! Or Capt. Klank Hinrich the slow clock eating circle dribbler who besides being a career inconsistent streak shooter had 1.71 turnovers and 3.9 assists per game which is a net of 2.11 assist per game.
Very accurate review. Keep in mind that Salmons this year will probably see the opponent's best perimeter defender, contrary to last year when Ben G got the best defender and Salmon's got a second best defender. I expect this will decrease Salmon's numbers and will impact his "move".
Doug we will see Salmons post up and I think that's something the Bulls like. Salmons is a very good post player for a guard and having him at SG, we will be able to use him in the post.
You'll enjoy Salmons in the post. He is no Jordan/Kobe there but who is? I think Salmons at the SG spot can turn out to be pretty good
I a very short time we will be able to see how much Gordon's presence will be missed. He could get his own shot,it will not be easy to replace his clutch shooting.
My gut also tells me that Salmons is a better small forward than he is a shooting guard. That doesn't mean that I still won't prefer him to Gordon.
I was very surprised by Salmons ability to put the ball on the floor and get to the rim and finish last season, lack of free throw attempts not-with-standing. Hopefully, he can continue to display this ability as a 2 guard.
He is a much better driver than Gordon, who drew most of his foul calls because he is incapable of standing up while dribbling or driving.
I see no reason for his shooting percentage to drop significantly, and he had higher shooting percentages last season than Gordon, both overall and 3 point.
It will be interesting to see if he has the athleticism to guard 2's, Doug, as you often say, in the NBA you are what you can guard. Of course he isn't exactly replacing an all NBA defender.
Although, he obviously has to get the bulk of his minutes at 2 guard, he will still play some minutes at small forward as I believe that Rose, Hinrich, Salmons and Deng will form a 4 man rotation at the 1,2 and 3 spots, with Hinrich getting backup minutes at 1 & 2, and Salmons getting starter minutes at 2, and backup minutes at the 3.
I am only mildly concerned about Salmons this upcoming season, Dengs return to health and form and Tyrus Thomas's head are far bigger concerns and will likely determine whether we underperform or exceed expectations.
Let's that Tyrus mentally wakes up and stays that way. Maybe the "trainee" Vinnie will fire him up?
Deng is a very big question mark!! We don't know if Deng is healthy? We do know that he is fragile with a bad back & leg and that he did not fit into Vinnie's offense.
The rookies Johnson & Gibson are two unknowns and we can hope that we will contribute.
If these four guys can't do it the Bulls are a lottery team. Someone has to step up and replace Gordon's points.
Which big name free agent wants to play with a lottery team??????? That free agent suff is just Bull's PR.