Vucci Mane's First Good Team

Nikola Vučević is in his 15th NBA season, and this afternoon, he was reportedly traded to the Boston Celtics. My immediate reaction, and what I saw both on BlueSky and in my text messages was one of disappointment. A lot of that had to do with Anfernee Simons, who Celtics fans have really come to love. I myself recently said it would be a mistake to trade him. Brad Stevens is a lot smarter than I am though, and he usually has a plan. I can see that plan coming into focus, so long as Jayson Tatum comes back soon (or unless the team plans to re-sign Vučević in the offseason). However, since I'm seeing reports that the C's will remain active up to Thursday's 3 pm ET trade deadline, I am going to hold off on writing about that fit right now. What I would like to do instead is to focus on Vučević, who is also known as Vooch or – my personal favorite – Vucci Mane.

Specifically, what's intriguing to me is that Vucci Mane is about to be on his first good NBA team (or his second, depending on how you view the 2021-2022 Bulls). That's pretty incredible, given that he's in his 15th season. Let's take a quick looksie:

Did you know Vooch was actually drafted by the 76ers, and played for a single season there? I did not remember him there. The Sixers were decent in his one season there, and he got some starts down the stretch of that rookie season, but he didn't play in the playoffs. He played two minutes and fifty one seconds total in the playoffs that year, in garbage time of Boston's Game 3 win over Philly (the C's would win the series in seven games).

The Sixers, impetuous and impatient as always, sent Vooch out that offseason in a convoluted four-team trade that landed them Andrew Bynum and Jason Richardson. That trade was a gigantic disaster for them, as Bynum literally never played a game for the Sixers, and it helped jumpstart The Process.

Thankfully, Vooch would be spared the drama that has been Philly's last 14-15 seasons, and he would go on to establish himself down in Orlando. He would make two All-Star teams there, and average a double-double in his nine Orlando seasons. But as you can see, the Magic were never good in his time there. They only had a winning record once, and then only by the very strictest definition. They even made the playoffs once with a losing record, which I think may have even been part of the impetus for the creation of the Play-In tournament.

His second All-Star nod was in the 2020-2021 season, and the Magic used the momentum from his second All-Star nod to trade him to the Bulls in the deal that landed them Wendell Carter Jr. and the draft picks in which they took Franz Wagner and Jett Howard. Howard hasn't really panned out, but that was still a disastrous trade for the Bulls (somehow, the guy who made that trade, Artūras Karnišovas, is still their head of basketball operations, and he also made today's trade).

After Vučević landed in Chicago, things did not demonstrably improve. The Bulls were under-.500 down the stretch of that 2020-2021 season. But then they re-tooled heading into the 2021-2022 season. They traded Lauri Markkanen away, which was seen as a positive step at the time, as he had been disappointing in Chicago (go figure). They drafted Ayo Dosunmu, and acquired DeMar DeRozan, Lonzo Ball, Alex Caruso, and Derrick Jones Jr. The Bulls seemed poised to compete with a core of Vooch, DeRozan, Ball, and Zach LaVine, with Caruso, Jones, and Coby White filling out that core (Dosunmu would come on quickly as well). And for a minute, it was all sunshine and roses.

After Thanksgiving that season, the Bulls would go on a run where they would win 13 of 15, including a nine-game winning streak that started before Christmas and carried through New Year's. But four games later, Ball would get hurt in a blowout loss to the Warriors and then not play again for two and a half seasons. The Bulls would fight on bravely for another month or so, and would win six straight from Feb. 9th through 24th. And then the bottom dropped out. At that point, they were 39-21, but they would then lose five straight and eight of 10, and finish the season just 7-15, and that rosy .650 winning percentage would slide all the way back to .561. They would draw the Bucks in the first round, and after playing close in a Game 1 loss and squeaking out a win in Game 2, they lost the final three games by 30, 24, and 16 points, respectively. My memory of that series was feeling like the Bulls had no chance in the games I watched, which must have been the final three.

That season was technically a winning team, but it ended up being a massive disappointment, especially given the trajectory of the season. And the Bulls have been on the treadmill of mediocrity ever since. The crucial question of course is was Vucci Mane the reason (or one of the main reasons) that his teams have performed ... suboptimally ... or has he repeatedly been an innocent victim of circumstance. On the one hand, bigs are not shy about telling you that they can't pass themselves the ball, so they're more dependent on their teammates for offensive success.

On the other hand, bigs are supposed to be the defensive anchor for their team, and Vučević has often been very criticized for not only his defensive performance, but also his defensive effort. Has that been a fair criticism? Maybe. Maybe not. One thing I will say is that his on-court demeanor is very similar to the player he was just traded for, Anfernee Simons. Simons and Vučević do have the same low-key, business-like, even-keel approach, and when Simons was traded here, there was a lot of teeth gnashing about how Simons was going to be a huge minus defensively. Perhaps that reputation was unearned, or perhaps the Celtics coaching staff was better at reaching him or putting him in a role where he could succeed defensively, or maybe he was excited about playing for a winning team after several rebuilding years in Portland, or maybe Simons' contract year spurred him to greater effort, but Simons' defensive effort was exemplary in his time as a Celtic.

Will the same be true for Vučević? Only time will tell. He is also in a contract year, for what it's worth. One thing I do know is that he cares. Chicago's December 27th game vs. the Bucks was Giannis Antetokounmpo's first game back after missing eight games due to injury, and at the end of the game, when everyone was running out the clock, Giannis – like a jackass (if you're new here, I don't like Giannis at all) – decided that he was going to run the length of the court and throw down a windmill dunk (he landed really heavily after this dunk, and surprise, surprise, he was injured again less than a month later...maybe take it easy smart guy). And Vucci Mane was not having it. He got right in Giannis' face, and a little dustup ensued.

To be clear, the dustup ensued because the Bucks have a lot of crazy people on their team (watch how Bobby Portis reacts...just...wow). Vooch said his peace, and then it got out of hand because of others, and Vooch maintained his own composure. And then after the game, he still had bars, as he told reporters that he assumed Giannis was mad about the report that the Bulls didn't want to trade for him. Which, frankly, that's hilarious. So, it's not like Vooch is apathetic out there.

Will he be able to pull out that want to and have the next great cameo appearance as a Celtic? Again, time will tell. But he's a guy who historically has done three things really well:

• He hits three's: Vooch is one of nine players all-time who Basketball-Reference lists as a center who has attempted at least 1,000 three pointers in his career. You don't get to take that many three's if you can't hit them.
• He rebounds: Vooch is one of 45 players all-time who has compiled at least 10,000 rebounds, and one of just 12 do so this century.
• He takes care of the ball: Vooch is one of just 16 players Basketball-Reference lists as a center who throughout his career has averaged 30 minutes per game and also averaged two or fewer turnovers per game.

Again, I don't want to get too much into fit here in this piece, but one player who pops up on two of those three lists is Al Horford, and it's very possible that Vooch ends up in the Big Al role. And like Big Al, Vooch was born in a foreign country and has taken umbrage with Giannis' bullshit. You know what? Maybe this is meant to be! Maybe Vucci Mane, in what is possibly his very (first?) best chance to be on a winner, is meant to put a shimmery shine on his All-Star career here in Boston.