So it is not surprising that the rumored names making the in-person interview round are mostly cheap first timers, and that Matt Lloyd is currently a rumored frontrunner because of his career ties to Paxson.

One of the highest-trafficked posts to BlogABull over the years was a fanpost1 extolling Lloyd’s role in Bulls drafts when he worked for the team as a scout from 2003-2012. Lloyd since worked for the Orlando Magic for ten seasons and now 2nd in command with the Minnesota Timberwolves.

Lloyd’s draft record with those teams is spotty because every teams’ is. And it’s important to remember that we have zero evidence of what influence - we know he wasn’t the ultimate decider - Lloyd had on these drafts, or other player evaluations. Do you remember who else was an underling for a successful team given credit for draft picks in particular that had every media member - local and national - ascribe the ‘highly regarded’ label to? Arturas Karnisovas.

Maybe the Bulls should be instead poaching the guy making the final decisions for Lloyd’s Timberwolves and Karnisovas’s Nuggets, Tim Connelly2. But we know they don’t operate that way. The Miami Heat talk about winning titles, whereas our mid-market team talks ‘sustainable success’3. The only rumored finalist who has actually had the job before is Dennis Lindsey, who called the shots for the Utah Jazz from 2019 to 20214.

If the Bulls hire Lindsey, we can further scrutinize his record. If it’s Lloyd or another first-timer, there really is no point. I will not pre-judge one way or the other, and instead wait for words and actions. I was quickly suspicious of Karnisovas after his initial mumble-fest and the inaction of ‘evaluating’ Jim Boylen. It turned out Karnisovas was a bad hire. Not because of how the Bulls got to hiring him, but because of Karnisovas being literally the worst at the job.

Surely they have to hire someone more competent this time by default, right?

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This is a move that has been weeks in the making, and even the jettisoning of the failed front office plus full-throated backing of Donovan by ownership in the aftermath wasn’t enough to have Donovan stay.

It was reported by Joe Cowley of the Sun-Times that Donovan met with the ‘dorf family last Tuesday, and instead of the ‘quick decision’ that both sides claimed was surely happening it lingered for several days. Certainly any delay only gave further fuel to the idea that Donovan was leaving. Maybe the days spent since have been logistics, we don’t know how much of his contract is being paid out and the fate of his staff (including his son).

The ultimate decision to stay or go was appearing obvious. Though the ‘dorfs were backing Billy to the point of suggesting the new lead executive search criteria would include ‘liking Billy Donovan’, it was clear that while objectively Billy is a good coach he is not the right coach at this time for the franchise.

No matter who they hire - and there was a candidate list leaked and search firm established and reported on over the weekend - the Bulls are staring at a huge talent deficit. While they have FLEXIBILITY instead of good players, there was no quick fix conceivable to where Donovan knew that, regardless of ownership’s possible AKME-level delusion. Perhaps after an alternative path last trade deadline where Coby White and Ayo Dosunmu are still in the fold and potentially re-signed, there are enough good players to where it would perhaps take a big ballsy/desperate trade (Zion?) to get the organization in alignment with Donovan: where winning the game in front of you is top priority.

But instead they are nowhere near Donovan’s desired competitiveness level. And as we saw many times over his tenure, Donovan was not going to take it upon himself - nor should he have been expected to - to steer organizational direction.

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The team on the floor next year is looking to be very young - the Blazers pick conveyed so the Bulls now have #15, #381 and their top-10 lottery pick plus Noa Essengue from last year’s draft - and thus very bad. While Reinsdorf explicitly conveyed the organization’s distrust towards tanking, this strategy is more ethical losing. With multiple major injury returnees coming to the Bulls’ quartile of the conference next year, even a lotto win and poaching in restricted free agency wasn’t going to be enough to make the playoffs.

It’s very likely the next Bulls coach will be worse than Donovan. But in this scenario - and it’s so blatantly a rebuild that I would consider it a major red flag in any exec candidate who didn’t see it that way - that’s fine. He’ll probably be similar to several caretaker (caretanker?) bozos like Will Hardy of the Jazz or Brian Keefe of the Wizards. Now those are guys who were doing more purposefully-losing in-game tactics, but that isn’t required to do this Bulls coaching job well. Heck, we don’t even know how much losing will impact the draft slot next year.

Donovan had some developmental successes while Bulls coach, but he had a philosophy - shared, or maybe simply deferred to, by AKME - of not giving out entitlement minutes. The next Bulls coach will do what Donovan didn’t, and play the young guys without constraint.

We don’t know who the Bulls will hire as a lead executive, but it’s likely going to be a cheap first-timer. They’ll probably get the same caliber of a coach, possibly technically-second-timer Wes Unseld Jr., as he’s already under contract. Donovan’s hiring was necessary at the time because the Bulls went so-insanely-unqualified in their hire of his predecessor Jim Boylen that projecting any ‘stature’ was a huge step up. And Donovan certainly gave the Bulls that, going above and beyond to be a shield from media/fans for AKME and simultaneously indulging one of his own favorite pastimes: talking.

He also was a pretty good coach. Just pretty good, not great, and we’ll never know if his teams would be at a tactical disadvantage in a playoffs series because he so rarely got the team there. Given that it’ll be likely several years before they need that question answered, bring on the empty suit athletic wear to Bulls sidelines next year.

And it also means that if something substantially good happens, like the Bulls obtaining a second first-round pick from the Portland TrailBlazers if they make it out of the Play-In Tournament this week, I don’t have to think: 1) how will AK dead-enders spin the Lauri Markkanen trade as actually good now^ and 2) how will AK screw up the additional draft selection

^Moved up from footnote since it got so long: In retrospect it looks worse, but that trade was far from the worst offense in the AKME era. Certainly one of the first of many self-scouting misses, in that AK quickly gave up on Lauri and his ability to play alongside ‘All-Star’ Nikola Vucevic. But it was a couple years and teams before Markkanen broke out. This is one of several moves where the Bulls get some credit for not being the worst participant, in this case that’s the Blazers for sending out this protected first round pick, and a pretty good role player in Derrick Jones Jr., for Larry Nance Jr.. They obviously had similar mindset to AK making that Vuc trade in thinking their team was good enough to where the pick conveyance wouldn’t matter. In their defense they had Damian Lillard, not Zach LaVine.

Fret no longer! Sure, ownership may lean on the wrong people and repeat the same mistakes in their new hire. But I certainly don’t want them to fail, and with perhaps the worst collection of assets in the league (pending lottery results) getting another mid-round first is something nice for the new hire. Whereas I was pretty much thinking any good thing that maybe kept AKME employed was a long-term negative thing.

The Blazers have two chances to make the playoffs and therefore convey that selection1 to the Bulls. Familiarize yourself with your new favorite team.

Tonight they’re in Phoenix as a slight underdog against the Suns, whose poor performance against the ‘not tanking, too proud to suck any way but genuinely’ Bulls really tugged at Michael Reinsdorf’s hoops heartstrings but for more legitimate purposes has me dubious of their chances in this game.

If they lose tonight, get another chance on Friday versus the Clippers/Warriors winner.

Man…a couple days later, and it still feels great to type that! This was a universally-lauded decision to finally shitcan these bozos, and here are some of my favorite postmortems:

• Stephen Noh

• Kelly Dwyer

• Tom Ziller

• John Hollinger

The expected damage control from the disposed executives came via Jamal Collier of ESPN, who had sourced1 some AKME whining about the ‘constraints’ they were under from ownership, namely the franchise’s motivations - and that aligning with head coach Billy Donovan - of not wanting to tank for better chances in the draft lottery.

That’s clearly a bullshit excuse coming from incompetents who were also voluminous bullshitters. But it does bring up the important point of ownership’s role.

And I am not fatalistic with that. As Dwyer put it:

Here's the part where I'm supposed to tell you this will never end, because Reinsdorf(s).

Chicago's problem is the owner, the owner's son, but that's the same problem with most NBA teams. Franchises can develop championships even under the meddlesome, which-team-did-you-scout-for, annoyance of an owner's grown-up kid.

I, of course, had low expectations for lil’ ‘dorf’s appearance: as the son of a billionaire, it was very likely going to get a bit weird.

And it did get weird, but only a bit! Most egregious was the part where he denied that AKME received contract extensions last summer even though it was confirmed by their in-house ‘reporter’ and double-confirmed after they scrubbed it from their team-owned sites. There was also some concerning opinions on the value of lost regular seasons like this one, with both player development2 and arena patrons’ placation seen as important factors.

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That’s not great, but my important takeaway is that while Michael Reinsdorf himself may seem in over his head and not a compelling leader3, that is fine as long as he knows to look for those qualities in his lead basketball hire.

In 2020 he was in this same position and hired a total dud. But I was encouraged by a few quotes that there were some lessons learned:

1. Using a search firm this time

2. No in-person restrictions from Covid like in 2020

3. Acknowledged an important quality is communication, both internally and externally to the fanbase, and he admitted that Arturas Karnisovas was awful at that

4. Acknowledged that he needs to be less hands-off when something seems blatantly wrong

But since this is a Reinsdorf, and these are The Bulls, there were some troubling indications that they’d repeat past mistakes.

1. John Paxson is still hanging around and Reinsdorf cited him as an influence (gag), and also still around is Gar Forman’s former bag man Brian Hagen. Holdovers from the AKME regime include the lesser Connelly brother and JJ Polk

2. The deference to the incumbent head coach, Billy Donovan

The biggest winner in this newly-opened power vacuum is Donovan, who Reinsdorf lauded repeatedly and deferred any future decisions to his employment to Donovan himself. Not only did Michael expect to see Donovan exert more influence on personnel decisions, but said he’d see it as a character flaw in any front office candidate if they didn’t want Donovan to coach.

This is not a best practice. Ideally, the organization would be an entirely clean slate, and you can get a bigger name in the conversation of potential hires by trusting them to decide if Donovan should remain coach.

But, again grading on an NBA Owner curve, this is better than when the team told a newly-hired Karnisovas that he had to ‘evaluate’ Jim Boylen for months4 . Donovan is a good coach, a capable talent evaluator, is genuinely well-respected throughout the league, and perhaps most importantly the Reinsdorf family will listen to him.

While Donovan clearly exhibits a win-now mentality that befits coaches more than executives, I don’t believe he is ignorant of long-term planning towards building a sustainable winner. I can very easily see a scenario where Donovan helps find an executive, and that executive says they need to go young (and therefore bad) for a couple seasons, and Donovan agrees that makes sense but doesn’t want to be coach then.

I don’t worry so much about Donovan (or Paxson) steering the Bulls incorrectly as much as I worry about self-imposed financial constraints. Throughout the few-and-long-tenured front office administrations, one constant has been the lack of prior experience and support staff, two things that cost money (with no spending cap). Donovan is already a well-paid coach, and despite lil’ ‘dorf’s lies they are paying the fired executives on their way out.

I’ve seen rumors of candidates but nothing seems that concrete yet. There are three ways this can go, in order of my preference:

1. They hire an established big-name executive, who will entertain retaining Donovan to where all parties are satisfied, but ultimately be able to get what he wants (whether that’s keeping Donovan as head coach or not)

2. They keep Donovan as coach, and hire a relatively novice executive with Donovan as a shadow president

3. Donovan ascends to the front office - reportedly not what he wants to do, now - and picks a GM under him and a cheap first-timer coach

4. Donovan quits, Bulls hire another cheap first-timer executive who gets a cheap first-timer coach

Again, it’d be great if Michael Reinsdorf was, for lack of a better phrase, “his own man”, and had the humility/wisdom to know he doesn’t know, and therefore best this time to give up executive power to a proven success instead of giving it to Billy Donovan.

But he’s Jerry Reindsorf’s son, and Jerry is ::checks:: still alive. So we’re stuck with him, not a unique situation in sports fandom.

I don’t believe Arturas Karnisovas was destined to fail because of ownership constraints. But maybe he was destined to fail because Michael Reinsdorf’s process to hire him. Hopefully that process changes this time around.

Both Arturas Karnisovas and Marc Eversley have been fired.

I couldn’t help but mention this should’ve been done years ago. But I will give them credit: in the team’s statement from the owner’s son it’s mentioned how much they value the fans…and typically that’s all horseshit BUT in this case they actually did something that indicates they do care. Not that it should matter given their status in professional sports, but ownership is eating some money in terminating both AK and ME less than a year after they received secret contract extensions.

While shocking in the exact timing - I don’t even think it was leaked to Shams minutes before? - there had been some recent acceleration in speculation and rumor-ing that changes were finally going to happen. The latest debacle of a trade deadline, culminating in the release of Jaden Ivey last week, was apparently the final straw. I am perhaps most happy that this happened before the end of the season and we don’t have to hear from Karnisovas ever again.

No word yet on the future of other members of the front office - a lot of Bulls and Iowa State lifers still linger through multiple eras - or that of head coach Billy Donovan. It’s long been speculated that Donovan could stay and either help pick the front office or head upstairs himself. There was other news in the basketball world concerning Donovan as one of his rumored landing spots - the University of North Carolina - had just filled its open head coaching job.

I’m so very elated that the Bulls can start fresh. Of the awful things the AKME regime did over the past couple seasons in particular, they at least didn’t sell out the future. The cupboard is currently pretty bare, but very little ‘bad’ money has been committed, and the new boss will have a lot of cap space plus all of their own first round picks (with potentially one more coming from Portland) plus a freshly-stocked cache of second rounders.

Of course, given that this is The Bulls, there is reason to be skeptical that they will make a good hire. Judging by their history it’ll be some old time confidant of Reinsdorf or a new cheap hire. And some underlying limitations with ownership in how the team spends on payroll and in support staff (including front office!). But Arturas Karnisovas and Marc Eversley were not merely cheap first timers who were OK-to-bad at their jobs and hamstrung by ownership. They were uniquely poor at nearly every aspect of running a basketball team, including the ability to communicate to fans what they were doing. Since coming aboard before the 2020-21 season, they have been the worst not-fired front office in the entire league.

That qualifier ends now. The Bulls no longer have the absolute worst. AKME is gone.

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Then Ivey’s mental deterioration became too prolific to ignore. Being away from the team’s road trip while rehabbing, Ivey’s consistent and escalating Instagram rants broke Reddit containment and received mainstream media attention. First from the Chicago Sun-Times’s Joe Cowley, who reported that the Bulls had had enough - this was apparently just the latest and worst of Ivey’s behavior - and were ‘working on an exit strategy’. By the time I started openly wondering exactly what ‘work’ needed to be done2 when you could simply cut the guy loose, the Bulls did exactly that.

I don’t believe anywhere but the fringe of the internet thinks it wasn’t a proper cut-and-dry decision to cut Ivey immediately. Even before his latest rants (he has continued multiple times since, in case there was any benefit of the doubt not burned through yet), the physical and mental issues Ivey was exhibiting meant the Bulls weren’t going to re-sign him.

Would the decision be different if Ivey was contributing, or had a good chance of contributing in the future? Yes, of course, those are different circumstances. The NBA, and Chicago Bulls, have employed players who’ve done worse because of their performance.

It’s easy to let go of people who aren’t producing. The Bulls should take a similar approach to their front office, and fire Arturas Karnisovas immediately.

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I don’t need to lay out the multitude of reasons AK should be canned. He should’ve been replaced years ago, and instead received a secret contract extension over the summer with the message from ownership being that he succeeded once (?) and deserved another chance to shape the next iteration of the six-time world champions going for the sixth seed in the East.

This past trade deadline was the easiest, lowest-risk step in this next ‘stage’, as AK called it. And while Ivey was one of the more high-profile additions, it was only at the cost of Kevin Huerter. Perhaps, like so many times before, the draft pedigree of Ivey gave AK tunnel-vision in his ask, but the Pistons were not going to offer much different if not Ivey.

Given the cost, Ivey already looking like a bust was not an indictment in and of itself. It was the kind of low-risk swing at talent that the Bulls put themselves in position to have to attempt, and it always had a low likelihood of working out.

But we didn’t know just how much of a longshot that was, with the added problem of organizational embarrassment, given Ivey’s personality. And that Karnisovas either knew about Ivey’s behavior and went for it anyway, or didn’t perform proper due diligence (not the first time this very deadline!), is just the latest reason to fire this guy already.

The knives are out for Arturas Karnisovas. We recently saw Billy Donovan start to backchannel his own exit strategy, publically distancing himself from this mess. In the wake of cutting Ivey, Donovan was forced to face the media before a game and be the only person in the organization to address the issue beyond PR’s “conduct detrimental to the team”.

Julia Poe of the Chicago Tribune had a fantastic column about how that public-facing dynamic is reason to fire Karnisovas:

It’s impossible to extend this grace, however, to an executive too cowardly to face any public acknowledgment of his error. Karnišovas offered nothing — not a public statement, not a private comment — in the wake of Ivey’s tirades. Instead, he placed that burden once again on the shoulders of Donovan, who handled Monday’s meltdown with a stoic professionalism that has become his standard over the many, many times he has been asked to answer for another man’s actions.

How many more times will the Reinsdorfs allow this loop to be repeated? Karnišovas made a mistake. The Bulls paid the price. The man in charge ducked responsibility. It’s a dull, exhausting, pointless pattern.

Poe follows with further rationale that the Bulls used with Ivey: It’s not as if AK is doing a good job!

Cowley also had a column calling for AK’s head, speculating that if he stays Donovan is walking. The only reason there aren’t more publications like this is because, sadly, the third biggest media market (with one team) has no other full-time independent coverage.

When finally relieving Bulls fans from GarPax’s multi-decade reign of terror, it was cited that the national embarrassment was the final straw. Ownership performed an actual outside-the-organization search to hire Karnisovas, whose first action was bringing in Billy Donovan at a high price for ‘stability’ to clean up after Jim Boylen’s clown show.

It didn’t work. But like with Ivey, wiping your hands of Karnisovas has no downside. The only better time than doing it now would’ve been doing it earlier.

We have also began the now-yearly tradition of media no longer paying attention to the 3rd biggest media market team. The smaller independent sites don’t send people on the road, and so we just have beat writers from the Chicago Tribune (Julia Poe) and Chicago Sun-Times (Joe Cowley) to be fan advocates in Philadelphia1 this week as questions swirl the future of head coach Billy Donovan.

Joe Cowley shit-stirred-in-passive-voice (Cowley’s janky version of ‘reporting’) earlier in the week saying “There has been growing speculation that Donovan might step away from the mess and take a season to reevaluate what he wants from the profession.” Mentioning the personal life struggles Donovan has been through recently as eloquently detailed by Poe.

As we know, Billy has been given zero direction from the front office and is in control of the team for the rest of this year. While that’s a working culture Donovan desires, it can’t be too pleasant of an experience right now. His team sucks, and is consistently further sabotaged by injury and the front office not bolstering the back-end of the roster. Billy is doing what he knows, playing veterans a lot (no mystery why players love praising him even after leaving) and maybe win more games. But with his bosses going into hiding, it’s on Billy to face questions derogatory of the franchise whether they lose (“you guys stink, huh”) or win (“you guys are going to continue to stink if you keep picking 10th, huh”).

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And that’s just the day-to-day, there’s the existential crisis that Billy is facing in how he wants his career to conclude. Sure there’s the money, and his son being employed, and the money, also the security from and trust in ownership money , but there is also money in the newly-opened job at University of North Carolina, and as College Hoops insider Jeff Goodman hilariously put things: “there are a ton of people in Billy Donovan’s circle right now who have told him: get the hell out of there, you can’t win”

When asked about it in Philadelphia, Donovan did not deny the speculation. It was pretty telling in that he still doesn’t know of any plan from Arturas Karnisovas:

“We’re pivoting right now. A lot of it’s going to be me sitting down with ownership, with Arturas, just to find out — OK, what’s the next step? How are we all looking at going through this? What do we need to do to continue to improve and to get better?”

“I wanted to get into coaching to win. How are we going to work to get into a place where we’re really competing? And how do we build this out going forward? Those are the things I think we need to talk about. Because, yeah — selfishly, competitively, I want us to be in that situation where we’re playing in real, legitimate (games). … I want to be in that situation. I understand that that doesn’t happen overnight or in a blink of an eye. It takes a lot of hard work and diligence.”

It’s looking like the situation stands where Billy Donovan is just as in the dark as us fans are. Does Donovan really believe in AK after the dogshit rosters he’s been given and, like what us fans hear, vague platitudes about ‘patience’ with any plan simply listing off ways to acquire players?

Donovan, unlike Karnisovas, is smart and accomplished. So I find it pretty obvious that the answer is ‘no’: It’s very hard to think of ways how to get out of this hole in the first place - even winning the lottery, and/or poaching a restricted free agent, then requires a lot of smart decisions - and we know even if there is a plan, there’s no way AK can effectively articulate it.

Like I said 2 years ago when Billy was rumored to be gone to Kentucky, an NBA team - especially a ‘glamor franchise’ - losing a head coach to the college ranks is an embarrassment. I would think it is so much of an embarrassment that ownership would finally pull the plug on the AKME regime. Maybe when that decision is made, Donovan really more needs the time off and will settle in a cushier front-office role? Or ownership will remain stubborn and give AK yet another chance, they’ll hire some Will Hardy or Brian Keefe esque bozo on the cheap (Billy III?) to run this rebuild ‘stage’ for another year, and then like all things Bulls they’ll do the correct thing way too late and mass firings in 2027.

There was genuine interest in speculating and then confirming that Billy Donovan runs the team, at least during the season. But after understanding that the front office doesn’t care enough about these games to try and extract any utility towards planning for the future, where they are not telling Billy anything, let alone who to play (even the ones that are hurt), there’s no real incentive for fans to care about what’s happening on the court.

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Reminder that this is March, and the Bulls are themselves a garbage injury-riddled squad going up against similar rosters with more forward-thinking (aka sabotaging) management. I forgot to put up the Memphis Grizzlies roster snapshot before the game on Monday, but it can better illustrate this point:

One very minor exception to this wasteland of useless information, maybe, is Leonard Miller. Unlike a lot of the new additions, Miller is young (22.3 years old), not damaged goods1, and signed through next season (team option at the minimum). And, in a pleasant surprise, Donovan played him 20+ minutes even after the return of some frontcourt veterans. Miller may not be any good, or signaling here that he is any good, but he is putting up box score stats in these garbage games which is more than what can be said for a lot of Bulls of recent vintage (the most high-profile example being Patrick Williams).

More examples of “not meaningful, but better than the opposite” production in these Mickey Mouse March times is coming from Josh Giddey and Matas Buzelis. But no matter how many times I’m informed that Giddey got a triple-double, or Matas breaks his personal career scoring record, I know enough to not even attempt to extrapolate what they can do in meaningful games on an actually-good team.

While we know how it’s manifesting in the playing rotation, I’d still like to know after the season if Arturas Karnisovas either totally cedes power to Billy during the year2 or agrees with the philosophy himself. We’ve only heard in his few public appearances that AK does profess to believe in “winning mentality” (I’d hate to see how bad his team would be if he didn’t!), so perhaps this is me grasping at straws to believe anything different.

Though Billy wouldn’t play them anyway, AK doesn’t even follow through on his stated desire to get more ‘youth with experience’ on the roster. They whiffed on waiving veterans before they could be picked up for the playoffs. Zach Collins is out for the season but still occupies an active roster spot. They have two 2-way contracts occupied by non-prospects at guard positions. Teams like the Grizzlies have expressed their desire to lose games, but also try to churn some fringe roster spots with cheap team-controlled contracts and maybe you unearth something for the next, not-hopeless, season.

So after being told that the organization doesn’t care about anything, the fans once again in a regular season by default has to root for outcomes3 that take the ball out of their hands: more lottery balls.

With the victory over Memphis, the Bulls are now pretty firmly out of reach over their #8 slot that has a 26.3% chance at a top-4 pick. The only remaining question is whether they ‘catch’ the Bucks - who may be shutting Giannis down soon - and go from their current 20.3% chance to a 13.9% chance.

Even last year I didn’t think the difference in percentage points meant that much, or at least not enough to advocate for sabotage that wasn’t going to happen. But at least that team was a bit better and had more long-term pieces getting playing time. This team has extremely little to offer in even providing hope, and the front office is telling us they don’t care to try and provide more hope.

In the meantime, the games keep coming. I will still read Donovan’s opaque injury updates and see team PR provided stat graphics, but it’d be better if there was a ‘sim rest of season’ option than the alternative of actually watching.

“all you want to learn as tanking team that has aspirations to be good next year is: ‘is someone showing me something that carries over onto a good team’ “

That’s outside of the main goal, which is losing and improving lottery odds of course. In this past weekend’s episode, Lowe grouped in the Bulls as a tanking team even though it was too late to meaningfully improve lottery odds and they may not even be intentional with how bad they are. Losing 11 straight games somewhat renders the intent meaningless, I suppose.

I think Lowe’s take is a good and smart philosophy, so of course the Bulls are not adhering to it.

I posited a couple weeks ago how these games will indicate whether Billy Donovan continues to run the show: Donovan believes in structure and responsibility as the best environment for player development, and will only give out ‘entitlement minutes’ to young players if absolutely necessary due to injury. The Front Office, led by Arturas Karnisovas, not only condones this but endorses it as their philosophy too.

In the time since the trade deadline, it’s been confirmed that even in the wake of the front office at least deciding they were no longer committed to winning games this season, Billy is operating like they’re going for the Play-In yet again. He’s said as much that there is no organizational philosophy overriding his coaching purview:

There has been no indication from ownership or the front office of, ‘Hey, listen, if we finish here, here or here’ or ‘Listen, don’t worry about playing those guys; just play these guys.’ There’s been none of that at all.

Furthermore, Donovan has said he doesn’t even know what the team philosophy or direction is right now, and will sort that out after the season. In the meantime, try to win, with new addition evaluations waiting behind first impressions1 and ‘Billy’s guys’.

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Starting with Jaden Ivey, which was a fairly odd (yet typically Bullsian) situation that’s resulted in Ivey being on the shelf for a couple weeks. Even the Bulls front office knew that Ivey was damaged goods but worth a shot to get in their building, especially since the only cost was Kevin Huerter. But whether it was because Donovan himself didn’t know, or that the initial surge in minutes and pace with the Bulls caused injury, it was quickly determined by Donovan that Ivey was not looking right. Then there was a weird communication through the media where it appears the Bulls wanted Ivey to play fewer minutes, Ivey said he had knee soreness, and then the Bulls said OK you play zero minutes then.

Anfernee Simons was apparently also damaged goods when he arrived, though this was not known. Simons has been playing all season through a small fracture in his wrist, and while he missed ten games for Boston earlier this year it was determined that he’d play through it. Simons suffered another hit on that wrist that has knocked him out of the lineup for rest. As the Bulls also delegate injury news to Donovan, it was he who said they were ‘not discussing surgery’. Why not? Bad teams like the Bulls are shutting guys down and getting surgeries, some for even more dubious reasons than a wrist fracture.

Between Simons, Ivey, Giddey, and Coby White, it sure appears that the Chicago Bulls have more of a “play through injury” mindset than their NBA peers, even ones that are actual contenders.

Even with Simons and Ivey on the shelf, Rob Dillingham is still seeing sporadic minutes, already behind Collin Sexton on the depth chart and then pushed further back after the full-fledged return of Tre Jones and Josh Giddey (who is gaining minutes in his return after his hamstring injury absence even when suffering sprained ankles in games, truly mad stuff). It’s not that hard to rationalize and certainly wouldn’t garner interest from The League to simply play Dillingham a lot. In the minutes he has received, Dillingham looks pretty bad, and Donovan has been openly dubious of Dillingham’s ability to contribute right away. But of course that shouldn’t matter for the rest of this season.

In the frontcourt, the Bulls have just as many injuries but fewer mainstays to supplant, so 22 year old Leonard Miller is getting some playing time. It would be nice to think this was an organizational philosophy, but like Matas Buzelis last year it is only out of necessity. Billy all but confirmed Miller would be back on the bench if Jalen Smith and Patrick Williams were healthy. It’s universally considered bad news from Tuesday’s game that Matas Buzelis also suffered an ankle injury, so maybe Billy won’t get the chance to bury Miller after all.

This brings to mind Lachlan Olbrich, who is only months younger than Miller and on a two-way contract. In his rookie season Olbrich has looked to be not an NBA player. But if this was truly a ‘pivot’ to a new ‘stage’ of ‘transition’ or whatever Arturas Karnisovas wants to spin, Olbrich would at least be out there instead of fringe-level veterans. The objective is to use these games to gain information. You can reason that in Olbrich’s case that isn’t necessary: Billy has seen enough. Fine, but I don’t want to hear this offseason from AK that we still don’t know what we have.

And it’s yet another example of the Bulls being awful with 2-ways2 and end-of-active-roster spots. If Olbrich can’t get minutes now, release him for someone who can, or alternatively a high-upside prospect. The Bulls - again, in a rebuild - have the other two 2-way spots occupied by non-prospect guards who function more as minor league circus acts than any near or long-term contributor to the big club. Zach Collins is out for the season, yet remains on the roster. It’s not only an opportunity to bring in someone younger, but someone on a very low contract with team control for next season.

Yes, this is all sounding like a lot of work! And the Bulls, as we know, are not merely bad at what they do try but simply do not try very hard.

I was thinking, especially after the loss to an undermanned and average-even-when-healthy Portland team, that Billy Donovan may quit before the season is over simply to avoid piling up losses on his career coaching record. But thinking about it another way: Donovan is getting to do what he wants and what he asked for when parting ways with Oklahoma City: complete control over playing time and player development, plus influence over the roster decision-making.

After this season, I find it extremely unlikely that his nominal bosses will be able to articulate a plan let alone execute it. So Billy will quit then. But until then, the organization is truly just throwing away the rest of this season, and if nobody notices that’s even better.

Games still have to be played, unfortunately. In the wake of the trade deadline, the Bulls got pummeled with their hodgepodge of 6’2” acquisitions. This lead to the stories from those covering the team about how the team is finally rebuilding, and even possibly tanking. Even if too little and too late, it was a declaration of a direction.

I’m here to remind everyone that you do not, under any circumstances, have to give Arturas Karnisovas credit.

Seeing this only has me feel I didn’t give enough shit to Arturas Karnisovas for his latest press conference. That was because it was repetitive of the same crap we’ve been hearing for years. How is it that they were interpreted as a change? It was a very changed roster, but I received little to sense it was a change in philosophy:

1. There’s a core (it always changes, this time it’s Giddey and Matas and a few role players plus the totally unproven Noa Essengue)

2. Want to acquire young players with experience

3. It’s of highest importance to have structure, thus why it actually wasn’t a mistake to keep Coby White and Ayo Dosunmu last year.

4. Head coach Billy Donovan is in charge of player development, and who he plays in the regular season is part of that process.

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One of AK’s consistent axioms that he is correct on is that the trade deadline can disrupt the team. In the wake of trading Zach LaVine for three rotation players the year prior, the team got absolutely waxed in back-to-back contests against the Pistons before heading into the All-Star break.

Then we saw what happened after the break: an above-.500 stretch to end the season culminating in a 15-5 finish, that AK clearly bought into as a sign his team was progressing even though he says now that he knew they’d be mediocre…but also didn’t want to be mediocre…yet didn’t make moves before the season…

…it’s tough to discern the biggest item of bullshit that AK says in the giant pile of it. But I’ll try, and think the biggest turd is that their rebuild-don’t-call-it-that “stage” is “not skipping steps”.

Their player acquisition and roster construction philosophy is exactly what skipping steps is! The steps they are skipping include losing to improve your own pick quality, trading guys earlier, and pursuing more long-term (and riskier) assets like future firsts versus ‘youth with experience’ that need new contracts soon.

This past trade deadline they didn’t even fully commit to that!

• I don’t think they actually wanted Anfernee Simons and Collin Sexton but they were the contracts that were required. And they aren’t “good at their jobs” so didn’t flip them before deadline hour

• The best confluence of youth/experience resides within Rob Dillingham, who just turned 21 and is in his only second season

• Jaden Ivey is 2 years younger than Coby/Ayo, which isn’t nothing, but there is no commitment: they only gave up Kevin Huerter to acquire him, and his free agent market is likely so light plus Qualifying Offer (and cap hold) is so high that they may waive their matching rights and/or sign him quickly to a low figure (but still risky given his injuries) new contract.

• On the fringes, they acquired 22 year old Leonard Miller but sent out the same-aged Julian Phillips. Dalen Terry1 (23) was traded for a veteran, and Ousmane Dieng (22) was re-routed immediately - and had two productive games for the Bucks already - for another veteran.

• Simply needing bodies, they signed Mac McClung, a 27-year-old guard, to a 2-way contract. The bodies are back, and he’s still around for some reason.

The Bulls - and this is Donovan and his bosses - have a philosophy of player development where they emphasize structure over opportunity. So while it’s true that the Bulls did get younger at the deadline, they didn’t fully embrace it to use these final 27 (oh god, so many) games as a laboratory environment. Plus if the result is losing some games along the way, that’s not the worst thing2.

If they were embracing a rebuild and not skipping steps, they wouldn’t state concerns about cohesion, or find it necessary to get veteran frontcourt players when they could have kept Dieng and/or sign younger players off the street3 to play with Lachlan Olbrich (22).

And if this was a rebuild, AK wouldn’t abdicate the playing time decisions to his head coach, a nominal subordinate. In the Bulls’ case, Billy Donovan has outsized influence, receiving only agreement and praise from AK and ownership. Part of it is a relative insecurity - well earned! - to their own acumen, but it’s important to remember also that AK doesn’t have a different philosophy than Billy, even though they should have different perspectives given their jobs. They all want to win, and as soon as possible.

Thus why we get these differing quotes regarding Dillingham. He did receive significant minutes since his arrival and has said how he appreciates the opportunity versus the contending Timberwolves, playing with freedom and not worrying too much about mistakes.

But then Donovan said not so fast(via):

The games heading into the break can be junked. What is far more significant is how Donovan4 will figure his playing rotation with ‘his guys’ Josh Giddey, Tre Jones, and Jalen Smith all returning to action.

Will Dillingham and Ivey even play? Miller hasn’t. The veteran bigs in Guerschon Yabusele and Nick Richards have. While there is more disruption than last year, remember how quickly Jones, Huerter, and Zach Collins made their way into Billy’s heart. I still maintain that Buzelis only played so much after the break last year because of injury. It is very possible that Simons and Sexton continue to receive minutes because Billy likes veterans and wants to do right by them (both heading into contract years) and in turn those veterans will play hard for him and maybe even win some games.

That’d be different than a rebuild, and far different from a tank. But it’d be the same old Bulls.

I’ll let HoopsRumors summarize:

The Bulls and Hornets have amended the terms of the trade that sent Coby White to Charlotte after a physical revealed the seventh-year guard had a left calf injury

White, who turns 26 years old later this month, had played in 11 of Chicago’s last 12 games before being traded to Charlotte, but Hornets president of basketball operations Jeff Peterson suggested White would likely be held out through the All-Star break because of his calf injury.

The Hornets originally agreed to send three second-round picks, now will retain the 2029 pick (least favorable Hornets/Nuggets) and will still send Chicago the two second-rounders in 2031 (Nuggets, Knicks)

That’s what I mean by ‘minor’, a 9th second round pick from the deadline is not that big of a deal.

But what this news implies…heck, it all but confirms, is damning for this front office. They can’t get big things - like acquiring star talent - right. With this, the tampering punishment1 after signing Lonzo Ball, not recognizing cap trade rules in Lonzo’s (pointlessly signed) extension… they also screw up little things.

As mentioned above, Coby White had a calf injury recurrence but returned to play in many of the Bulls games: which are, by definition, meaningless, and even moreso heading into this trade deadline. This included both nights of a back-to-back on January 28+29, and then most egregiously playing 30 minutes after you had already made a sell trade in a game they were blown out of.

It’s clearly one of two things, or perhaps both:

1. Coby White, in a contract year no less, had the Bulls approve him playing while injured. Either/or (or both):

   1. they didn’t think the injury was as severe as the Hornets did

   2. they thought winning games these past couple weeks were more important than the Hornets did, a team that was not selling players and winning a lot more

2. Coby White, in trade rumors all year and on a team that indicated they were selling off players that very week, re-injured his calf in the especially-meaningless Bucks game that the Bulls played him in for no reason whatsoever. It was a pointless risk that backfired.

As HoopsRumors said in their post, this has happened before recently but slightly different. The very same Hornets had a trade of Mark Williams get voided after a failed physical, but that was more about a difference of concern over a potential long-term injury. The Sixers did this amended-second-rounder thing with Caleb Martin a year ago, but Martin wasn’t playing leading up to the deadline.

The Bulls’ Coby White trade was amended before the deadline (it had to be, else it would’ve been voided), yet it was not reported until after, and it went unmentioned by Arturas Karnisovas in his post-deadline remarks.

I believe it’s something that needs to be addressed. Have Karnisovas - or if he punts like usual, especially surrounding injuries - then instead Billy Donovan justify their injury clearance process and how much of a priority they put on the regular season in these directionally adrift near-.500 campaigns.

The Bulls had a home game on Saturday this all came out. I was passive-aggressively and even directed-aggressively trying to get acknowledgement from any reporter (and KC Johnson) that someone would ask the question. It never ceases to frustrate me that the Bulls have a superpower in that their irrelevance keeps them from scrutiny.

And sure enough, per Will Gottlieb of CHGO2, neither he nor anybody else asked Donovan about it.

They even had an open opportunity - not that one was required - when playing their usual role of pregame Donovan stenographer: Jalen Smith was held out due to his own calf injury, even though he also played in that Bucks game like White did though he was on the injury report like White was. Easy question: did Smith re-injure himself too? or are they being more cautious with him than White?

These little things matter more when they overall suck so badly at everything3. The big things are at the top of fireable offenses, but a little thing like this - especially surrounding player health, and to a lesser extent perpetuates already shaky trust from other front offices - should give ownership cover to clean house.

The best time to fire AK and Mark Eversley is today, the next best time is tomorrow. It’s easy to do, and there’s no downside.

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I will admit that the Bulls were unexpectedly active this deadline, and credit to the Chicago media for their 4 years of predicting such a thing becoming eventually correct. This demolition was so thorough that it brought to mind some new regime clearing out past mistakes. But since it was haphazard and incongruous at points one could quickly recognize it as the AKME method.

Out are Coby White, Ayo Dosunmu, VUC, Kevin Huerter, Dalen Terry, Julian Phillips, Jevon Carter, and 2-Way contract player Emmanuel Miller4.

In are a whole lot - nine - 2nd round picks, most notably this year’s Pelicans early-30s-overall-ish selection. And as for players, here’s what you’ve all been waiting for: my updated roster snapshot

It’s an unassailable opinion that AKME exhibited poor asset management in trading away all these guys as they were about to hit free agency.

But did they do OK given they don’t have a time machine? Again, no. No they did not. I say this often: you do not, under any circumstances, have to give these guys the benefit of the doubt by thinking “they took the best deal they could, and the market’s the market”

1. They are bad at evaluating talent

2. They covet experience over upside, the known versus the unknown (because of #1 reason above)

What I can give them credit for during this transaction period is that they didn’t do nothing. And they didn’t eschew ‘sell’ trades, even if they just got 2nd round picks, in a pursuit of the playoffs via losers bracket and luck, and as a result have more assets for this summer than they would have with expiring veteran contracts.

But they didn’t do as well as they could, not even close:

• No premium assets were acquired, because they refused taking on longer-term money that would dip into 2026 cap space5 or deal a player signed long-term

• They acquired playable veterans for the frontcourt in Richards and Yabusele, instead of younger players or truly dead salary with more attached picks

• They acquired (and in a surprise to me, kept) rotation-level guards in Simons and Sexton, both of whom Billy Donovan is absolutely going to play over the younger auditioning players. This doesn’t matter too much because I don’t think any ‘young player with experience’ they received is going to be an unearthed diamond, but they should be giving themselves the best chance at it

• They’re not tanking the rest of this season to better their lottery odds. This isn’t that significant to me as - due to their own actions - they are locked in to somewhere between 9th and 12th best odds

I could get into what I think is their plan heading into the offseason, but in truth there really isn’t one. Their plans, in so much they ever even have one, is entirely reactive6. They have mostly failed at player acquisition and development: how can we trust they’ll hit on these second-draft guys when they missed on so many first-draft ones? And when this next round of team building fails, they will say that wasn’t actually the plan, and this new plan has been the plan all along and they’re executing it. Just think of who has been designated 'our young core’ year over year.

Fewer and fewer people are buying it anymore, and this latest trade deadline is just another demerit. It just takes one special business boy to realize it and convince his dad. I don’t think that time is coming soon enough, but these last couple of days has picked up the momentum in my fantasy? opinion. That is the only positive momentum I can feel surrounding this team.

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The Bulls have been one of the most active participants in this season’s trade deadline. On the one hand: the Bulls! On the other hand, we shouldn’t mistake activity for achievement.

On Wednesday, 24 hours before the deadline, the Bulls traded Coby White to his hometown team - and the team directly below them in the standings - in the Charlotte Hornets.

It was a very underwhelming return:

• Collin Sexton, another small guard who just turned 27 and is an unrestricted free agent this summer

• Ousmane Dieng, a big PF (or small C) who turns 23 in May and will be a restricted free agent this summer if the Bulls even want to risk the qualifying offer ($8.7M) on someone who’s shown nothing in the NBA in four seasons

• 3 second round picks: least favorable of Hornets/Nuggets in 2029; Knicks 2031; Nuggets 2031

I understand the league context depressing Coby’s value as Coby has been injured much of the year, and is approaching unrestricted free agency this summer. And I understand the Bulls context to where it’s possible there were better offers out there but Arturas Karnisovas really wanted to give another chance to two former lottery picks, in addition to his Jaden Ivey acquisition the day before.

But all that said…I think many playoff teams in either conference dropped the ball not beating that offer for White.

That’s on them, they are trying to win playoff series and that is a totally different strata than whatever the Bulls are trying to do.

What are the Bulls trying to do, again? Will Gottlieb said it well at Chuggo:

White represents the kind of player every team should build around. The former seventh overall pick and the final holdover from the Gar Forman, John Paxson regime, he turned himself into a fringe All-Star talent, navigating whatever role changes were thrown his way as the Bulls iterated year-to-year.

If the Bulls had built a better team over the last few seasons, it’s possible White would be getting ready to re-sign in Chicago. Alas, it’s best the Bulls move on.

As I said the day before, the Bulls should have had an idea of what they were willing to pay Coby this summer, and if they thought it was unrealistic then fine, trade him to the highest bidder.

But even that should be said with the caveat that the Bulls can’t evaluate anything correctly, so they may have underestimated Coby’s value AND overestimated the cap-space-having teams1 ambitions to sign him. Any team that traded for him gained his Bird Rights, and I expect Charlotte to re-sign Coby this summer.

And then you have to add more waitaminute, here, because a better-managed team would’ve come to this decision a year ago. They held on to White for that going-nowhere season, and then publicly2 and through rumors have made it known that he was likely going to be kept.

It is likely true that it no longer made sense for Coby White to remain a Bull. Coby White is a good player who can fit on any serious team. The Bulls are not serious.

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The Bulls followed up their minor transaction Saturday night with two more on Tuesday afternoon. And unlike that first deal these next ones actually removed players from Billy Donovan’s playing rotation.

Altogether, since the Sunday deal fed into the later ones1:

Outgoing: Nikola Vucevic (!!!!!!!), Kevin Huerter, Jevon Carter, Emmanuel Miller

Incoming: Jaden Ivey, Anfernee Simons, Mike Conley, 2026 2nd Round Pick (Pelicans slot, currently #32 overall), 2029 2nd Round Pick (least favorable between Pistons/Knicks/Bucks slot)

The Huerter trade came first, and while that was technically what I was asking the Bulls to do, it was the least significant version: Huerter is the least significant member of the rotation, and Jaden Ivey - as he’s about to hit free agency - is the least significant kind of asset.

Then they traded Vuc. I still cannot believe I get to write those words.

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Based on actions and words of the past 5 years, I thought Vuc was here to stay indefinitely. AK finally sucked it up and recognized ‘our constant’ was overpaid and not going to fetch great return on the trade market. That the Bulls even got a pretty good second round pick (while having to give up a worse one) is more due to them significantly helping the Celtics out of their payroll crunch than whatever Vuc can provide Boston in the playoffs2.

What the Vucevic trade signified more was that, for the first time, it is not a goal this season to try to wring out the most wins possible. There thankfully will be no ‘we owe it to this group’ talk, or a fraudulent late season run, or the unlikely-but-still-possible confluence of good health and a dogshit conference allowing them to actually make the playoffs.

Though one could argue: Vuc is not that good, and they could get some playable bigs in the next couple of days, Billy will Thibs it up3, and the East is still dogshit…they could still make some bogus push. But at least we know that in pursuit of that, they aren’t eschewing every opportunity to gain assets.

They didn’t accumulate much, yet. A first look at a reclamation project in Ivey, and a second round pick. Earlier on Monday, the Utah Jazz were able to acquire Jaren Jackson Jr. because they had a surplus of first rounders. But having even what little they’ve acquired so far is literally better than the absolute nothing that expiring veteran contracts would have provided them.

Especially now that they’ve signaled they don’t care as much about this season, the Bulls should continue to be in asset accumulation mode. But that mode, nor the acquisition of more guards this week (Conley already reportedly is temporary, and there’s no reason to assume Simons can’t be quickly traded), does not mean they need to trade Coby White and Ayo Dosunmu4. Those are players who can still be an asset if re-signed to the right contracts.

The thing is, a normal base-level-competent front office should already know what that contract range is, and have a solid assessment of whether they can retain either player in that range. If they think they can’t, then absolutely trade them before the deadline to the highest bidder. If dreaming this was a different front office, that they acquired possible replacements means they already have a trade lined up. I’m worried they are doing it in the reverse way.

But given who is running the show here, it is entirely possible they don’t have any idea. And based on their history, they’ll admit as much5!

That all remains concerning. As is the critical issue of not having a star nor a future star nor the wherewithal (compared to other bottom-dwellers) to get one. There is still no good plan to be seen, if the idea is to have cap space for a paltry (and mostly restricted) free agent class, that’s a doomed plan. If this is all maneuvering to have mostly the same team going forward, but with a worse version of Coby White on a lower contract than what White will get, that’s kind of bullshit. Even if I’m still basking in the glow of a Vucevic departure.

But what gives me at least slight alleviation of that concern is that they don’t appear to care how this deadline effects the stretch run of this season. In prior years, that was all they cared about.

Big picture goals, ranked:

1. Acquire a superstar, even a busted-ass one

2. Acquire assets that better position you to acquire a superstar this summer using the following trade chips:

   1. Coby White and Ayo Dosunmu - Bulls should know what it will take to re-sign both. If it’s not a number you think is team-friendly and tradeable in the future, then trade them now.

   2. Tre Jones and/or Jalen Smith, if you can get a not-backend first rounder, trade them now.

   3. Other expiring salary (and Isaac Okoro) - these aren’t worth a first rounder on their own, but if you take another team’s multi-year salary, you can get draft picks attached.

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In their facilitation of a Dario Saric salary dump over the weekend, the Bulls actually utilized one of their other trade chips: current breathing room under the 2025-26 luxury tax. Joel Lorenzi of The Athletic reported today that they still plan on using the room they have left (~$8M).

multiple league sources indicated to The Athletic that the Bulls have signaled to teams that they’re available as a hub to facilitate money for apron and tax-paying teams, which they helped Cleveland do in this deal.

Teams looking to get under tax line/aprons or maybe just save on their end of season payroll bill include Dallas, Boston, Magic, Sixers, Raptors, Nuggets, plus some teams that may want to get farther below to acquire players for the stretch run like OKC, Portland, Miami.

On the other end of the payroll spectrum are teams ‘competing’ as a salary dumping ground with even more capacity than the Bulls, like Milwaukee, Charlotte, Washington, Utah, and Brooklyn.

What the Bulls have that these other teams lack is rotation-quality players on expiring contracts. So, if trading with the Bulls: instead of merely saving money they wouldn’t be adversely affecting their team and perhaps even improve it. That should get the Bulls a better return!

But this brings to mind the fundamental problem: the Bulls, openly delusional, see themselves also as a team looking to be as good as possible in the short-term.

This Saric acquisition was a no-downside move. Heck, Billy Donovan was talking like Saric would be in the current injury-riddled frontcourt rotation2. The Zach LaVine trade a year ago was a solid move as well, and they may have actually been smart in figuring LaVine’s loser vortex meant any replacement - they didn’t scout or seek the players in that return, they were merely the matching salary - would not harm their short-term goals.

But I’m not convinced they have really changed their self-assessment. Remember two deadlines ago when Andre Drummond - a useful rotation player on an expiring contract - was kept past the deadline in lieu of receiving multiple second round picks.

In Lorenzi’s report it’s already being implied that the Bulls will pursue a path with their cap flexibility that is not changing direction: they will do next to nothing at the deadline, and try to acquire a free agent this summer.

This is believable because it is typical Bulls strategy:

1. kicks the can down the road

2. has built-in excuses for when it doesn’t work, in this case the good free agents will be retained by their incumbent teams

I think there is a market for Coby and Ayo currently to where they can get a first rounder, and even more if they package another rotation player and long-term salary relief.

My favorite of my own trade ideas3 is a deal with Portland, who owe a first rounder to the Bulls that conveys if they make the playoffs. The Blazers are currently in the Western Conference version of play-in purgatory (so, drastically more difficult competition than the East), and want to make the playoffs not only as a positive step for their own player development, but to extinguish the obligation and free up future picks to be traded.

The Blazers have some near-dead expiring salary in Matisse Thybulle ($11.5M), and barely enough room under the tax to take White but would gain several million in breathing room if taking Ayo or Jones. This would help their playoff push, and they could give the Bulls a little extra by reducing pick protection from lottery to top-4. This way, the pick is extremely-likely conveyed this summer and the Bulls will have two mid-round selections in a purportedly talent-rich draft.

This is a no-brainer type of move for the Bulls, except: they would get worse immediately. They’ve yet to demonstrate they’re willing to do this.

If they were true to their longstanding goal of competitive being unassuming and non-embarrassing enough to stay employed, well, their team is fighting for 10th with or without Coby/Ayo/Tre. But they have instead been more in alignment with the partially-contradictory goal of never taking a step back, and trying to give themselves the best chance at making the real4 playoffs.

Instead of Jevon Carter, if the Bulls instead dealt any of “Billy’s guys”5, that would be an actual indicator that they’re changing direction. Any other reporting suggesting change is not to be believed, especially after their ‘laying groundwork’ fiasco last year.

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But the front office getting involved with the rest of the league, helping facilitate a trade between the Kings and Cavaliers. The framework for this Cavs-Kings deal was first reported by Michael Scotto of HoopsHype earlier on Saturday, mentioning the need for a third team to take Saric (as Cavaliers are deep into 2nd apron).

This was another example of me seeing dozens of these ‘facilitations’ happen all year and I always say to myself ‘Bulls could’ve gotten in on this’, the Bulls actually got in on it: for taking Dario Saric and the remainder of his $5.4M expiring salary, the Bulls received two second round picks.

• a 2027 second-rounder from the Cavs that originally belonged to Denver

• a 2029 second-rounder from the Kings that will be the least favorable of picks among Detroit, Milwaukee and New York

These are not very valuable picks, even for second rounders. But that’s not a complaint, it’s actually a commendation! Second round picks have been treated as completely useless by this front office, so them actually recognizing their utility for future moves, if not taking a chance on a prospect, is improvement.

(now watch, they’ll sell them for cash considerations…)

While a lot of attention has been given to the many expiring contracts for solid contributors, highlighted by Coby White and Ayo Dosunmu, the Bulls have always had another asset heading into this trade season: their payroll room under the luxury tax.

They also had a more subjective asset in open roster space. Technically, as KC Johnson always reminds us every summer, the roster was ‘full’. But only technically, as there are several players who could be easily cut without jeopardizing the ‘competitive’ mission statement of this regular season.

You need to cut the players before doing the trade, and in this case Jevon Carter was waived. Carter was a bust of a relatively-praised free agent signing three summers ago, never cracking Billy Donovan’s rotation2. Ironically, the Bulls had so many players missing that Carter had a necessary contribution to that win on the night he was waived.

Is this a sign that the front office and coaching staff is willing to do any move that’s not focused towards winning the most games possible this season?

Maybe? This move with Carter is the literally smallest degree of forward thinking. Heck, with Saric being a big, this trade has a ‘win-now’ component of balancing the roster in the wake of so many injuries to Donovan’s frontcourt deployment.

Whether they’d make a move with one of their rotation players would be a much more glaring indicator. They have until Thursday to see if they can do this again, and dare to dream it’ll be more impactful.

This is an important distinction: whether they’re merely trying to be ‘competitive’, or actually trying to make the playoffs. As is the case in a conference where nobody is that good and several teams aren’t even trying, there is nothing they can do to no longer be In The Hunt. But if they are deluding themselves into thinking their postseason seed matters more than how good - and any closer to relevance - they are, Bulls management may be getting antsy.

Because the Charlotte Hornets are on their own small sample size run of a 5 game winning streak to bring them within 2.5 games of Chicago (who have fallen to tenth place behind Atlanta after 3 losses this week). When zooming out they have almost a Bulls-in-March2025-esque run:

I believe it’s pretty clear that since changing ownership2 , The Charlotte Hornets may not have as much banal sub-averageness as the Bulls but look to be the smarter team with a better foundation of young talent. When all three of LaMelo Ball (24.5 years old), Brandon Miller (23.2) and Kon Knueppel (20.5) play, they are legit good. So perhaps merely sitting one of them - LaMelo and Miller get injured a lot - is enough for them to strategically lose and get another piece in this summer’s draft. But if they want to see where this goes, they can overtake the Bulls.

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Because the Bulls ‘depth’ is once again being exposed as only a certain kind: while the Bulls do have depth to where unlike the Hornets they don’t have 3 must-have players3, they cannot withstand injury to 3-4 members of their rotation. Or to put it in the inverse way: they absolutely cannot have Patrick Williams, Dalen Terry, and Julian Phillips getting heavy minutes.

The Bulls are extremely vulnerable in the frontcourt, especially with Billy Donovan employing, and having success with, 2-big lineups to help with rebounding. Zach Collins is currently out with turf toe, that injury and Collins’s injury history has me skeptical he’ll contribute the rest of the year.

I feel a need to break paragraphs to emphasize how important Jalen Smith has been. This year’s advanced metrics MVP (AMMVP) has especially blossomed after Donovan has played him at power forward. Before Thursday’s game (a loss where it took another collapse by an opponent to bring it to a single possession) he was listed on the injury report with a calf injury, and then left that game after halftime with that same injury…that is potentially a HUGE problem.

Combine that with 2 (not just 1, they can handle that) of their guards being out of that Miami game with hamstring issues, and the Bulls could be in for a very rough stretch.

A not-useless front office would perhaps be looking for a fringe move to get a playable big. Getting a replacement-level option who maybe goes on a hot streak could make potentially a huge difference (insomuch as any of these games matter) as it’d mean not playing all their draft busts.

But, again: even if they do their usual (nothing), and faceplant it will mean little in the grand scheme of things. They will always be within striking distance of a technically-it’s-the-postseason berth. They will always be in discussion over their standing versus Charlotte, Atlanta, and Miami instead of real contention, and at least a couple of those other teams are in Giannis trade rumors. It should have no influence over their trade deadline motivations. But we know not to assume that.

And now it’s harder than ever to get a read on what the Bulls may be thinking, because they historically have talked and acted counter to common sense which makes their motivations inscrutable.

All the more reason to be skeptical of any reporting, especially when it comes from dubious-to-fake outlets, or anybody local reporting after the ‘laying groundwork’ lie of 12 months ago.

But more legit reporters include Marc Stein and Eric Pincus, and their recent reports only emphasize how difficult the Bulls are to read:

Stein:

The Bulls are widely expected participate in some sort of in-season trade for the second winter in a row. Rumbles persist this winter that the Bulls are eager to make a move by capitalizing on some of their expiring contracts … with both Coby White and Ayo Dosunmu most frequently mentioned as potential outgoings.

Pincus:

The NBA’s February 5 trade deadline is approaching, and the Chicago Bulls are believed to be among the league’s more active teams seeking a deal.

Per multiple league and agent sources, Chicago is looking to improve postseason chances this season while adding young, athletic players to complement its core duo of Josh Giddey and Matas Buzelis.

The Bulls should have leverage heading into negotiations, with plentiful expiring contracts, draft picks and marginal pressure to rush for a bad deal, since the franchise can reach nearly $70 million in cap room this July.

Pincus goes on to propose a fake trade where the Bulls send out a future first rounder and the Portland first rounder (lotto-protected).

This is the fundamental paradox that has paralyzed Arturas Karnisovas and Marc Eversley for years: they cannot ‘capitalize’ in a seller’s market because they don’t want to be sellers. They refuse to make any move that would potentially see them take a step back in the short term, because they have no confidence in their roster depth1 allowing them to still achieve their goals.

And the biggest flaw of all: that goal is simply that they keep their jobs. They believe mediocrity (whether 6th or 10th seed, in this conference and this year) is not a step in the journey towards contention, but it is the destination. And therefore they are not, actually, that far away, and in fact are too close to risk a smaller move mean taking a short term step back.

It’s worse, or at least more complicated, than a refusal to tank-and-rebuild. Counter AK’s public attitude towards their standing in the league versus that of his counterpart on the Washington Wizards.

Yes, the Wizards have been tanking2. But they also have also been aggressive in trades to accumulate assets, even (gasp) second-round picks.

Not every transaction window has to have one big move, and I think AKME’s lack of demonstrated aptitude in trades only further reduces expectations that they could at least make sensible-if-smaller moves that would help their asset base going forward to then make a big move.

And that’s all I’m hoping for3: that after this deadline, the Bulls are better positioned for a big move later. It is not important to me if they are better positioned for this March to ‘make a run and see what this group can do when healthy’.

The thing is, the former attitude would be in congruence with their training camp goal of “competitive, while building”! Due to the conference they play in, the Bulls are going to be ‘competitive’ no matter what rotation players they part with. And their young-and-developing players (uh…so just Matas? who has kind of plateaued4) will be part of ‘competitive’ games, where maybe they don’t have to sit down the stretch because the actual win total is immaterial.

Most importantly, while I doubt their ability to communicate this verbally, their actions would reveal that they do accurately see where their team is: nowhere near close to good enough.

(actual ideas to be contained within next post!)

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But let’s push that out of our minds and think happier thoughts of a team accurately assessing themselves and showing ambition and execution. Way back in mid-December, there was confirmation from Sam Amick at The Athletic that the Minnesota Timberwolves - tonight’s opponent - have interest in Coby White.

It makes sense from the TWolves perspective. They are a contender with a huge payroll2 so they could use low-cost rotation pieces.

Here’s my roster snapshot for them, updated for tonight’s game. They typically only play 8 guys meaningful minutes:

Coby (~$13M) would be a good on-court fit with them, as would Ayo Dosunmu ($7.5M). Tre Jones ($8M) would perhaps be less useful in a deep playoff run due to his lack of height/shooting3, but could have added value in that he’s signed for 2 more seasons and the Wolves do not have many cap exceptions to add talent otherwise in the offseason.

The holy trinity of NBA trade valuations is 1) players 2) money 3) picks , and the TWolves have zero future first-rounders that at trade eligible, and cannot take on money. And for a caliber of player the Bulls can offer, the Wolves won’t trade out of their current playing rotation (DiVincenzo). And my understanding is that they’d rather not even want to include Mike Conley due to his veteran vibes, which is a dilemma for them as he is their most flexible contract ($10.7M, expiring).

The Timberwolves do have a couple ‘young players with experience’, the kind of asset that Arturas Karnisovas has historically welcomed at the expense of other kinds.

Nobody is that exciting to me, however:

• Rob Dillingham has the draft pedigree and is legitimately young (21, not AK’s arbitrary 25) but has been a bust so far and as a short guard who struggles to shoot may be out of favor in the league and specifically with this Bulls team.

• Joan Beringer is an even-younger prospect (19) with legitimate Center height. That’s not nothing, but he is the least productive first rounder this side of Noa Essengue, which is not a good indicator.

• Terrence Shannon is a Chicago Guy (and Illini guy) but though under his rookie contract is only months younger than Coby. Plus, he didn’t step into the role left by the departed Nickeil Alexander-Walker first due to ineffectiveness then suffering multiple foot injuries.

• Leonard Miller I know nothing about. Has identical age and contract (extremely cheap team option as a 2nd round pick) as Julian Phillips, and they play similar positions. So the question is if Miller is better than Phillips, and the Bulls don’t have pro scouts who would update their draft priors, so they wouldn’t know the answer to that question.

Nobody that exciting, but the Bulls legitimately could point to their recent history for a few examples of proven improving the value of young players with experience because they have minutes and shots to give, being a team free from ambitions to contend or develop prospects4.

It would take several of these players to match salary 100%, if indeed the Wolves do not want to include Conley. If it’s Coby White outgoing, Dillingham+Beringer+Miller works if the Bulls waive two players5 , and other combinations can get to Ayo or Jones.

That is all secondary to the question of: are any of those players in any combination good enough value? I would perhaps trade Jones away for that kind of ‘3 chances at a rotation player’ package, but it wouldn’t be enough for me to part with Coby or Ayo, if offers weren’t better elsewhere would rather extend Ayo and re-sign Coby with Bird Rights6 in the offseason.

I hope we get more legitimate trade slop in the next couple weeks, where teams with actual picks (or better YPWE) start to drive up bidding. Right now it’s just Minnesota and they can only literally offer so much.

Plus the actual games are incredibly inconsequential relative to the trade deadline. We need something to look forward to.

I have been pretty checked out on the ‘competitive’ on-court product lately in early anticipation for the trade deadline. I can’t be disappointed if I don’t expect anything, but I can be annoyed.

I will likely still do an overall primer on where the Bulls find themselves, but it has way less utility than how the Bulls front office finds themselves. Based on past comments and inaction at prior deadlines, I figure the Bulls themselves believe they have an interesting, progressing team that just needs better health to really inform how good they are. They will completely abandon their preseason stated ethos of “competitive, while building” to just go full-bore for the 9th seed, which means they cannot and will not take a even a slight step back in a trade, whether getting back a future asset (likely requiring to take on bad money, something they seem mostly incapable of1) or even simply freeing up minutes and shots.

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It’s also some kind of self-care to personally reduce expectations for what the Bulls could get asset-wise in a trade for any of their expiring contracts. I’m not saying what a good or even replacement-level front office could get, but what the Bulls could get. Even if Coby White had a trade market percolating, by virtue of his current salary being so low that even actual contenders with high payrolls could fit it in, AK would not know how to generate or use leverage.

Ayo would be more tradeable on an extension. Vuc is never leaving.

I will give the Bulls credit for something though: they have seemed to have some success in role player showcasing. I think a lot of it has to do with their unique standing in the league, where nearly all other teams have better players or younger players, whereas the Bulls are in that middle void so a decent, young-ish player can get a lot of opportunity in a low pressure environment. The Bulls have also done a good job signing these players to relatively low contracts, which is another unique lane for them as most teams have stars and rookie deals on their books.

Specifically this year, through opportunity and contract-signing they have raised the trade value of Jalen Smith and Tre Jones.

Smith had a disappointing first season here but has been much better this year. Perhaps helped by the trend of the league (and in typical late fashion, the Bulls) playing more bigs. It’s not very useful, but it is interesting to know: the Bulls are 18-14 when Smith plays, and 0-7 when he’s out.

In the backcourt, Jones has been consistently good with sporadic nights of elite point guard play, especially needed for the many games White and Josh Giddey have missed this year. Jones capped off a career-night in Houston on Tuesday with a garbage-time three2 to set his best ever mark from distance:

Coincidentally, the Rockets are a team in desperate need of guard help. I am not quite as sure a contender like them would value Jones that much, as I’m not sure he makes any playoff rotation on a team with aspirations for a deep run.

But Jones, and Smith could be an innings-eating regular season player, and a depth injury replacement who won’t mean a huge drop off.

And more importantly, and this distinguishes them from Coby and Ayo, both Jones and Smith are under contract for future seasons, at $8M and ~$9M respectively, and Jones has a team option for 2027-28.

That factor is looking like it carries value in this trade market, though even with both playing well I am not sure it means first-rounder value in and of itself. But it’s positive value! Unfortunately, AK’s Bulls are dreadful at the mere concept of ‘value’, to the point where they’re offended that their guys are being discussed like assets and not more cherished as essential cogs of their 39-win program3.

And with the Bulls true organizational ethos being “please sir, let us keep our jobs”, AK will only sell high in the sense that he’ll sell to ownership his success stories of signing role players to cheap contracts while remaining In The Hunt for being one of the 10 best teams in the by-far-worst conference.