The Chicago Bulls 2012-2013 campaign has officially come to a close. Now that we are weeks removed from the end of the season and have had time to be reflective, it’s time to take a look back at the performances of the members of this Bulls squad and brief look ahead at the future. The following is the seventh part of a series of nine posts detailing this year’s squad. Each player is assigned a season grade based off of their performance on general preseason expectations.
Previous player capsules can be found here: Joakim Noah, Carlos Boozer, Luol Deng, Jimmy Butler, Kirk Hinrich, Taj Gibson
Name: Nate Robinson
Height/Weight: 5’9″ / 180 lbs
Age: 28
NBA Seasons: 8
Regular Season Stats: 82 games, 13.1 ppg, 2.2 rpg, 4.4 apg, 1.0 spg, 43.3 FG%, 79.9 FT%
Post-Season Stats: 12 games, 16.3 ppg, 2.7 rpg, 4.4 apg, 1.0 spg, 43.6 FG%, 75.6 FT%
Season Grade: A
Recap:
When the Chicago Bulls signed Nate Robinson to a veteran’s minimum deal to replace John Lucas III, I didn’t give the news a second thought. In my mind Robinson was nothing more than a slightly upgraded version of JL3 who would cause me to rip my hair out. How wrong was I?
As Chicago fans witnessed, in any given game Robinson can be the catalyst that pushes a team to victory or leads to their utter demise. Luckily for us all he happened to do the former more so than he did the latter, especially late in the season and in the playoffs. On offense Robinson’s endless hustle and boundless confidence provided a spark to one of the worst offenses in the league. Defensively, he wasn’t totally hopeless like I imagined he would be, though he was still definitely below average.
Most impressive to me is how effectively Robinson played while on the floor. He notched the second highest Player Efficiency Rating (PER) on the team at 17.4 and recorded a team best 31.4 assist percentage (percent of teammate field goals a player assisted). Robinson’s effective and efficient play also landed him in the top 5 of the team for almost every major advanced statistical category including: true shooting percentage, effective field goal percentage, offensive rebound percentage, steal percentage, offensive rating, offensive and defensive win shares, total win shares, and win shares per 48 minutes.
Perhaps I shouldn’t be shocked by his performance given that most of his per game and advanced statistical numbers are the same when compared to his 2011-2012 campaign with the Golden State Warriors, but I am. Overall it was a great year for Robinson that likely earned him a multimillion dollar deal.
Future:
Nate Robinson had only signed a one year, veteran’s minimum deal with the Chicago Bulls which makes him an unrestricted free agent this offseason. Based on his production from this past season, Robinson has essentially played himself out of Chicago’s price range as he has likely secured a multimillion dollar deal with another team in the league. Unless Nate Robinson is willing to once again take the veteran minimum to play in Chicago (unlikely), he’ll in a new uniform next season.
Overrated evaluation
I do not understand how you can give him an “A” based on his wildly erratic performance. His grade should be a “B” at best. The offense was far more efficient when Hinrich was playing.