If we’re all being honest, the Stacey King phrase that emerged during the 378 regular-season games of former Chicago Bulls center Nikola Vucevic’s Bulls tenure, “it’s a simple game”, polarized the Bulls fan base.
However, King articulated clear basketball principles in the phrase - when the matchup dictates it, use the post to create basketball advantages. Those advantages didn’t necessarily default to shot attempts.
Agreed!!! https://t.co/MTw7T2dIHh
— Stacey King (@Stacey21King) December 10, 2022
Stacey King, specifically with Vucevic, and I suspect, his entire basketball worldview valued passing from the post, even though post touches have been in rapid decline over the last decade of NBA basketball.
According to NBA Stats, five players who played at least 50 NBA games in the 2015-16 NBA season averaged double-digit post touches per game that season: Marc Gasol of the Memphis Grizzlies, Zach Randolph of the Memphis Grizzlies, Brook Lopez in his Brooklyn Nets days, Vucevic during his Orlando Magic days, and Jahil Okafor of the Philadelphia 76ers.
Fast forward to the 2025-26 NBA season, and there are no NBA players who average double-digit post touches per game anymore, with Nikola Jokic leading the NBA in post touches per game (7.2) for the 2025-26 NBA regular season. The likely contributing factors to this trend center on the proliferation of high-volume three-point shooting, typically paired with a hyper-focus on rim field-goal attempts.
The commonly held perception about today's NBA game is that threes and rim attempts are the only good shots because of their efficiency, however that wasn't a universal basketball truth in Stacey King's eyes.
The simple game was held back by difficult roster designs
In a better-constructed Bulls roster, Vucevic's post touches would have delivered on the obvious advantages Stacey King admonished the Bulls to seek on a nightly basis during his television broadcasts of Bulls games.
The Bulls rarely put heavy emphasis on cutting or off-ball movement that could serve as effective outlets for Vucevic’s passing, as the Bulls were consistently ranked at the bottom of cutting frequency in all four of Vucevic’s full Chicago Bulls seasons.
Even worse, the majority of Vucevic’s tenure lacked credible catch-and-shoot roster depth to punish opposing defenses with a Vucevic pass out of the post for an open catch-and-shoot three-point attempt.
The best collection of catch-and-shoot talent Vucevic shared the floor with for the Bulls, unsurprisingly, occurred during the 2021-22 NBA season when he played with a guard rotation that included three 40+% catch-and-shoot three-point shooters: Zach LaVine, Lonzo Ball, and Coby White, per NBA Stats.
Stacey King saw the pure basketball possibilities in the Chicago Bulls for the last six seasons, despite flawed roster constructions, and that is a beautiful memory among the multitude of memories the iconic voice of Bulls television broadcasts will forever imprint in the franchise history of the Chicago Bulls.
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