Gar Forman talks to a blogger (not this one, but I'll respond anyway)

…………by January 1st.

my question of “How do you feel about your so-called top priority to the offseason being a complete failure, or were you just full of it when you said that you wanted to re-sign Gordon?” would’ve ended the interview fairly quickly.

He had to have been full of it, right? I mean, they didn’t even make an attempt at trying to re-sign him. So, yeah, that was just one big lie? Eh?

They also made the Miller/Salmons trade knowing that doing so might cost them the flexibility to resign Ben.

the org knows why the “coach” they hired doesn’t even know the Captain’s first name.

than most Chicago media? The Score never talks Bulls.. I guess ESPN 1000 does but my question..is will there be a day when Blogs become more mainstream media? Or I guess have more influence on… where people get their information or view of organizations? I’m not very smart so I don’t know how to phrase my question..

I have to say I’m proud that I accurately interpreted the Tribune’s assertion that Thomas’s money would allow the Bulls to sign a “veteran big man” to mean “Aaron Gray”.

I think maybe we should put together a handy glossary translating Bull’s front office speak to reality.

The question of 2010 flexibility has a hot topic on this blog for some time. Still, I’m puzzled by the Bulls position on Tyrus Thomas. Doug wrote:

I asked him whether or not the Bulls were going to talk extension with Tyrus Thomas. My theory has long been that the Bulls wouldn’t offer an extension to Tyrus in order to save 2010 cap space. Gar couldn’t comment on any on going negotiations, but I still maintain Tyrus will likely wait a year.

If you are trying to gain/maintain 2010 flexibility, than you really have to move Hinrich or Deng. Than under that situation, it makes some sense not to offer Tyrus a contract. BUT, the Bulls don’t seem to be trying to move Deng or Hinrich (as far as I know). If they intend to keep both there is no excuse for not negotiating with Tyrus unless you just don’t want him long term. Because not signing Tyrus alone, in of itself, does not give the Bulls 2010 flexibility. At least not enough to be major players. Basically, I will believe the Bulls are serious about 2010, when Hinrich or Deng are off the team.

Unlike Doug, to me it doesn’t ‘depend’, Gordon’s the guy. And however you feel about them on the court, it certainly shouldn’t depend on their contract. That is unless the Bulls really are setting a hard tax limit (oh, of course they are…). Gordon will make pretty much exactly the same as Hinrich next season, so Doug advocates keeping Hinrich because it’d help the Bulls stay under the tax for the end of the 2012-13 season. What the hell?

Seriously? The contract would make no difference to you at all? You’d keep Gordon at any price?

That’s not serious. That’s how you end up in New York Knicks territory. I may not know much about the NBA, but I know you have to judge players on how much they give you versus how much they cost. Hell, that’s true of any sport. And it’s especially true if the guy isn’t a franchise-determining superstar.

hahahaha; I’m guessing someone likes to here him self talk “I said something cool and I have to let everyone know”, lol

Thanks for all the responses on the interview, since I’m on the worst internet connection of all time. I’m going to try to respond to the majority of things I can respond to here, rather than tot he threaded points:

The format of the interview (conversation rather than Q&A ended up being that way because I wasn’t recording the conversation. I literally just sat by Gar and talked to him for around a half hour. He knew I was writing a piece about it as I told him I was. If I had done a formal interview, the direct quotes to direct questions wouldn’t have given me nearly as much information as what I got by doing an informal sit around and talk to him for awhile session.

The downside is that from a writing perspective, I don’t think the answers I got coudl be stated quite as clearly because he wasn’t answering exact points, we were both just going back and forth about our theories on the team and why things were done or how things could be done. That’s partially why my theories are mixed in there, because there were points I made that Gar simply said he agreed with. I thought it useful to say he agreed with this, but I couldn’t say Gar said it himself.

As to bloggers replacing overall media. I think sports radio guys don’t really care about the Bulls that much. Carmen and Silvy seem to be the only ones who ever watch on ESPN 1000, and neither guy is a Bulls guy first. On the score, they talk Bulls on Boers and Bernstein, but I can’t stand to listen to the because of their style of attacking everyone. I guess my point is that either station would be improved considerably in their Bulls coverage by getting a real Bulls guy on there. I’d love to the the equivalent of Bruce Levine for the Bulls, but I don’t have the chops to do a full radio host gig.

The print media I think does a nice job overall. I think they have a much harder job to do interviewing and talking to people all the time. The reporters aren’t really editorializing much as that’s not their role which is fundamentally what Matt and I spend 95% of our time doing. They really fill a different void, and it’s a difficult void to fill in my opinion. I can see why there is often bitterness between bloggers and reporters.

Overall, it’s tough doing an interview like this with the GM when you don’t get the chance to do so frequently or build real strong relationships with the people. You don’t want to challenge the guy so hard right away that you end up blogging about a two minute conversation with Gar Forman and never speak to the man again. At the same time, you want to get something different out of the conversation than Gar’s typically given other people.

To be quite honest, I’m sure K.C. Johnson could talk to Gar for 30 minutes and come out of it with far more than I did, but K.C.‘s been doing this a really long time. I’m not at all ashamed to say that I’m not a great interviewer / writer / media guy nor do I view myself as such and am not offended when people point that out. I kind of fell into this thing by accident, and anyone who doesn’t know me from the online world would laugh their ass off at the possibility of me being a writer / media guy because it’s SO far off my personality and skillset.

Gar’s framing things back in the form of questions to an inexperienced interviewer (no offense, Doug… that’s not a slam, just a recognition) is already the sliest thing a Bulls GM has ever done in an interview.

I don’t think it was intentionally evasive either. It was just a sharp way to make for a favorable interview. And I approve of that. But after reading through things, it still doesn’t seem to me that Gar has much underlying plan of action besides "well, we’ll have more flexibility in 2010.

With time to think about it, it would have been nice had Doug responded to the “you choose, Kirk or Ben?” question with something along the lines of:

“Well, that’s an interesting and tough question. I’m glad I’m not in your shoes having to make that decision, but I look at Gordon as an exceptional shooter who can command a double team. When I look at who to keep, I try to picture an outcome where the team fits together into a cohesive plan. And I can see a team with Rose finding guys, scoring and getting into the lane at will, Gordon spacing the floor for everyone else, and creating a bailout option, and then a big guy (in the Bosh, Amare, Boozer, Brand) mold who can balance those guards with a true inside scoring threat that also requires a double team. If you have three guys who require a double team, you can routinely beat a defense that only has five guys on the floor.”

So I’d try to keep Ben, and clear out Kirk and Salmons, and then look for an inside threat leading up to 2010. But I can see Kirk’s value as well. The big picture question is how do you see his value within the big picture context, Mr. Forman? What kind of team are you trying to build, and how does Kirk fit into it and Ben doesn’t? Or do neither fit into it in the long run?

It’s not that Gordon is the greatest thing since sliced bread or the worst ever, it’s that he was a valuable asset that was lost for nothing.

While I think he was a good fit going forward, the ridiculous thing is that the Bulls decided pretty much a full season in advance to let him walk, made a further trade in February to cement the fact they were going to let him walk, and still completely failed to get so much as a second rounder in compensation for a guy 17 team called and asked about on July 1st as a free agent.

Even with the Jordan memories in tow. (Or, maybe that makes the masochism that much easier to embrace. Meh.)