I actually am kinda curious if casual fan sentiment will start to crater after trading popular players like Coby and Ayo for crap. totally anecdotal, but my dad, who is definitely a very casual Bulls fan at this point, even asked me what the hell they were doing with these trades. my in-laws were doing the same. if they don't get lottery luck and the offseason doesn't bring anything interesting, wouldn't surprise me if the UC is a bit more empty next season and that could actually be a problem for AK's job security.
I at times tried to take the optimistic position they had done some things (despite being overall BAD) that could be built on this trade deadline...but by tearing it almost all the way down THEY crashed out that narrative themselves, eliminating any even stretch good will you might give them. Five years left them with almost nothing they thought had any value or they had positioned to be valuable and secured. Dumping it ALL is an even more damning indictment then all those middling finishes.
Their best move was getting rid of Zach’s contract, but you can’t give them too much credit since they were the ones who gave it to him in the first place. ESPN had the Bulls 28th in their future power rankings from September. They probably won’t be much higher next year. They lack high end talent and excess first round picks. The only positive is that they haven’t traded away their own first round picks.
Agreed of course. But they could have put some of what they traded and all those picks and swaps to get in play for JJJ or even Zion and kept building. Their total (LATE) tear down shows they pursued a midbuild they had no idea how to execute. They didn't tear down or tank correctly either.
They traded their expiring contracts for different expiring contracts along with some second round picks that have little value. They could have used those expiring contracts to take on longer contracts and got some draft picks. I guess that they’re going to use their cap space this offseason to resign Ivey, but I’m not sure what else they can do with it.
The thing with the Zach contract situation was even though I was never a huge fan, NOT offering him the max would have just fed into their reputation of being cheap. Really they should have done a S&T then (though they still would have likely been seen as not wanting to pay) where they could have gotten something of value. Even trading him earlier would have gotten more back... but of course you can say that about pretty much all of these trades.
As you point out, the trade just highlights the broader point of playing injured players when the stakes are meaningless. The Bulls have not had any real strategy in years.
As a corollary, I'm pretty done with Billy Donovan. Even if mangemet dictates that he should play these guys, and try to win games - Billy controls the times and subs. There is no one more accountable for this than him.
He came in with a sterling reputation for being a players coach and a developer of talent. I haven't seen any of it in his tenure here. I'd say he's good tactically in games but doesn't come across as top tier and never built a long term strategy to win games. Coaches like Ott already look superior to him. It's hard for me to consider him in the top half of NBA coaches anymore.
For a guy that walked away from the Thunder to avoid a rebuild, it's amazing the degree to which he's accepted mediocrity with the Bulls. He's pretty checked out and it's crazy to me that an NBA team would accept that, when there's an endless line of hungry coaches who'd go all in for this type of chance.
I think he's in lockstep with AK, and given how insecure (deserved) AK is Billy may be in fact driving the strategy
playing injured guys, playing veterans when they're not injured (we'll see how Dillingham and Ivey factor in when Giddey and Jones return, and not before), the very public philosophizing of 'playing to win' driving player development, they both are doing this
the guard rotation is probably what I'm most interested to watch the rest of the season besides Matas' development. How hard will they push Giddey (and to a lesser extent Jones) coming off these injury problems? And as you mentioned, how much will Ivey and Dillingham play? If Giddey is playing he's obviously going to start (or maybe not since he was coming off the bench a bit? I dunno) but Ivey should be starting next to him and Dillingham should be getting some legitimate backup PG minutes. I'm fine playing Simons some but I truly don't understand why Sexton is here. he's totally fine but just no reason for him to be on this team and he could help a contender off the bench.
yes I'm interested as well, and it's really not worth going into while Billy still has the out of injury. I maintain he never would've played Matas last season if not for injuries.
If everyone is healthy, guard rotation (Okoro is a SF I guess) should be Giddey+Ivey start, then Dillingham first off the bench followed by Jones.
I have a feeling Ivey will be coming off the bench and Dillingham won't play at all. I suppose since Dillingham is only 21 and under team control that's relatively* fine. But they need to learn more about Ivey.
*they of course should be doing all tanking under the guise of young tryouts, like Olbrich should be backup center, but they won't.
Nah, it's an evaluation, not tanking. The Bulls went for 2nd rounders at the deadline and happened to collect players as well. Now they have to see what they got, just in case ^^
AK blocking Billy from interviewing with the Knicks was deeply offensive -- not as a Bulls fan but as a basketball fan. He was the perfect guy for that job, a good-cop Thibs w/ years of Vuc experience to make defensive lemonade w/ KAT lemons, and he was obviously wrong for the Bulls.
That should have been a cosmic wool-from-the-eyes moment for AK -- a sign to change the team's direction, trade Coby while his value was higher, etc. I came into that offseason believing AK was a fool, and I left it believing he also doesn't like basketball.
“It never ceases to frustrate me that the Bulls have a superpower in that their irrelevance keeps them from scrutiny.”
This is why AK is still employed. He keeps ticket sales relatively high, he gives Jerry a home play-in game every now and then, he avoids the local media as much as he possibly can, and he builds teams that win just enough to avoid national scrutiny.
AK is not running an NBA team. He’s running Jerry’s entertainment business that happens to feature an NBA team.
The Bulls escape scrutiny because nobody in polite company is just willing to repeatedly and loudly attack anyone. It's like beating up or making fun of a handicapped kid. He's got it bad enough already, and pointing it out just mean's you're an asshole.
I thought this paragraph from a Ringers piece about winners and losers from the NBA trade deadline (this is from Vucevic being a winner by exiting the unserious Bulls franchise) was good:
"This is pretty simple. Vucevic is exiting an organization that’s completely indifferent to success, has no identifiable team-building strategy beyond a sudden obsession with second-round picks, and isn’t very good. He’s joining an organization that’s committed to winning the championship every single year, boasts a rock-solid culture that’s based on accountability, and is very good. The Bulls are asleep. The Celtics are awake. The Bulls are unserious. The Celtics are shrewd."
nothing wrong in that quote about how the Bulls are operating
But I think the Celtics are SO shrewd that they are dodging what was a potentially risky and bad trade for them. They made their trades to get out of the luxury tax. Vuc stinks, he'll likely be of less help than Simons would've been, but there's enough still there to where they can say they made a trade based on position and size.
The answer was a lot of pontificating over how calf and hamstring injuries are effecting the whole league and every player is different. Coby wasn't feeling symptoms - might have even been implication that he wouldn't reveal them even if he had them - so he played. Didn't really answer the question of why their standards are different than Charlotte, especially with the Bulls being a trade deadline seller.
It does sound like this is all at Billy's direction, but it shouldn't be, and AK should have to address that.
I think we’ve reached the point where Billy’s insistence on doing whatever he can to win every regular season game is bordering on obnoxious. There is zero reason why Collin Sexton should be getting more minutes than Rob Dillingham for a team in the Bulls’ position.
But this isn’t even Billy’s fault. He’s always been a coach who will heavily lean on vets and prioritize wins over everything.
He’s just no longer a good fit for where the Bulls are and AK needs to accept that.
I don’t think AK has any wants from a roster perspective at this point. I subscribe to the theory that he has no clue what he wants to do next. His only concrete goal is to stay employed.
Obviously, that’s the main problem. If your team president has no plan, of course your coach is then just going to manage the lineup and minutes however he wants.
When Billy was hired, AKME bragged about him coming to the Bulls because Billy didn't want to be part of a rebuild in OKC, so this is part of his personal plan to coach as if he's not part of a rebuild or something?
The Nets first round draftees pretty soundly beat the Bulls 'youth with experience' on Monday night. Billy Donovan went all-out to try and get the win with a closing lineup of Sexton/Simons/Okoro/Buzelis/Richards (at least he didn't pull Matas?), but the Nets did not do egregious in-game tanking like pulling their starters in the 4th so they were able to hold on and win
Calculated the weighted minutes age of both non-playoff teams:
Simons could be good enough that they workout a sign and trade with him this off season? Maybe that's galaxy-brained, I dunno. Sexton on the other hand has the nickname 'Young Bull' and thus they are legally obligated to play him at least 20 minutes a game the rest of the season.
after - for some reason? - Isaac Okoro played 36 and a half minutes in their latest (meaningless) game, he's on the injury report with knee soreness for tonight
I tried to tamper expectations of (other) 76ers fans on LibertyBallers about Dalen Terry, to no avail I'm afraid. They seem (way too) excited about getting him.
Is there anything the Bulls front office has done well the past five years?
Go ask bulls reddit. Big fans of AK there apparently.
i took a brief look after the deadline and I think even they have turned on this regime after trading away Ayo
I actually am kinda curious if casual fan sentiment will start to crater after trading popular players like Coby and Ayo for crap. totally anecdotal, but my dad, who is definitely a very casual Bulls fan at this point, even asked me what the hell they were doing with these trades. my in-laws were doing the same. if they don't get lottery luck and the offseason doesn't bring anything interesting, wouldn't surprise me if the UC is a bit more empty next season and that could actually be a problem for AK's job security.
I at times tried to take the optimistic position they had done some things (despite being overall BAD) that could be built on this trade deadline...but by tearing it almost all the way down THEY crashed out that narrative themselves, eliminating any even stretch good will you might give them. Five years left them with almost nothing they thought had any value or they had positioned to be valuable and secured. Dumping it ALL is an even more damning indictment then all those middling finishes.
Their best move was getting rid of Zach’s contract, but you can’t give them too much credit since they were the ones who gave it to him in the first place. ESPN had the Bulls 28th in their future power rankings from September. They probably won’t be much higher next year. They lack high end talent and excess first round picks. The only positive is that they haven’t traded away their own first round picks.
Agreed of course. But they could have put some of what they traded and all those picks and swaps to get in play for JJJ or even Zion and kept building. Their total (LATE) tear down shows they pursued a midbuild they had no idea how to execute. They didn't tear down or tank correctly either.
They traded their expiring contracts for different expiring contracts along with some second round picks that have little value. They could have used those expiring contracts to take on longer contracts and got some draft picks. I guess that they’re going to use their cap space this offseason to resign Ivey, but I’m not sure what else they can do with it.
this is my issue with what happened. It seemed like it was supposed to coalesce into one final move that didn't happen. Very odd.
The thing with the Zach contract situation was even though I was never a huge fan, NOT offering him the max would have just fed into their reputation of being cheap. Really they should have done a S&T then (though they still would have likely been seen as not wanting to pay) where they could have gotten something of value. Even trading him earlier would have gotten more back... but of course you can say that about pretty much all of these trades.
As you point out, the trade just highlights the broader point of playing injured players when the stakes are meaningless. The Bulls have not had any real strategy in years.
As a corollary, I'm pretty done with Billy Donovan. Even if mangemet dictates that he should play these guys, and try to win games - Billy controls the times and subs. There is no one more accountable for this than him.
He came in with a sterling reputation for being a players coach and a developer of talent. I haven't seen any of it in his tenure here. I'd say he's good tactically in games but doesn't come across as top tier and never built a long term strategy to win games. Coaches like Ott already look superior to him. It's hard for me to consider him in the top half of NBA coaches anymore.
For a guy that walked away from the Thunder to avoid a rebuild, it's amazing the degree to which he's accepted mediocrity with the Bulls. He's pretty checked out and it's crazy to me that an NBA team would accept that, when there's an endless line of hungry coaches who'd go all in for this type of chance.
yes Billy can go too
I think he's in lockstep with AK, and given how insecure (deserved) AK is Billy may be in fact driving the strategy
playing injured guys, playing veterans when they're not injured (we'll see how Dillingham and Ivey factor in when Giddey and Jones return, and not before), the very public philosophizing of 'playing to win' driving player development, they both are doing this
the guard rotation is probably what I'm most interested to watch the rest of the season besides Matas' development. How hard will they push Giddey (and to a lesser extent Jones) coming off these injury problems? And as you mentioned, how much will Ivey and Dillingham play? If Giddey is playing he's obviously going to start (or maybe not since he was coming off the bench a bit? I dunno) but Ivey should be starting next to him and Dillingham should be getting some legitimate backup PG minutes. I'm fine playing Simons some but I truly don't understand why Sexton is here. he's totally fine but just no reason for him to be on this team and he could help a contender off the bench.
yes I'm interested as well, and it's really not worth going into while Billy still has the out of injury. I maintain he never would've played Matas last season if not for injuries.
If everyone is healthy, guard rotation (Okoro is a SF I guess) should be Giddey+Ivey start, then Dillingham first off the bench followed by Jones.
I have a feeling Ivey will be coming off the bench and Dillingham won't play at all. I suppose since Dillingham is only 21 and under team control that's relatively* fine. But they need to learn more about Ivey.
*they of course should be doing all tanking under the guise of young tryouts, like Olbrich should be backup center, but they won't.
and just announced all 3 of Giddey/Jones/Smith are out tonight. Only one more game before all-star break, REALLY don't see why any would play then
so I suppose that is a bit of a tanking move, but it's just for a couple games
Too bad the Nets will outtank them (which basically just means that MPJ is out, tho I believe Demin is resting)
Welp Billy tried his damndest to win by pushing his vets for the win and they still couldn’t do it lol
Nah, it's an evaluation, not tanking. The Bulls went for 2nd rounders at the deadline and happened to collect players as well. Now they have to see what they got, just in case ^^
AK blocking Billy from interviewing with the Knicks was deeply offensive -- not as a Bulls fan but as a basketball fan. He was the perfect guy for that job, a good-cop Thibs w/ years of Vuc experience to make defensive lemonade w/ KAT lemons, and he was obviously wrong for the Bulls.
That should have been a cosmic wool-from-the-eyes moment for AK -- a sign to change the team's direction, trade Coby while his value was higher, etc. I came into that offseason believing AK was a fool, and I left it believing he also doesn't like basketball.
“It never ceases to frustrate me that the Bulls have a superpower in that their irrelevance keeps them from scrutiny.”
This is why AK is still employed. He keeps ticket sales relatively high, he gives Jerry a home play-in game every now and then, he avoids the local media as much as he possibly can, and he builds teams that win just enough to avoid national scrutiny.
AK is not running an NBA team. He’s running Jerry’s entertainment business that happens to feature an NBA team.
anybody could do this, though. And without the fuckups that are only limiting embarrassment because nobody is paying attention
Well, of course anyone can do that. But somehow AK has convinced Michael Reinsdorf that he’s the only one who actually can.
AK’s superpower is tricking a billionaire’s son into thinking that he’s doing a good job.
Michael Reinsdorf hired AK, so he's going to be easy to convince. Most people don't like admitting they're wrong.
Thibs types stir the waters. BD and AK types keep the waters calm.
The Bulls escape scrutiny because nobody in polite company is just willing to repeatedly and loudly attack anyone. It's like beating up or making fun of a handicapped kid. He's got it bad enough already, and pointing it out just mean's you're an asshole.
and it's almost like impolite company types like Joe Cowley are less hardboiled journalists and more loudmouth morons putting on an act
roster for tonight's Nets matchup: https://substack.com/profile/3012-your-friendly-bullsblogger/note/c-212356333
they're boldly tanking, holding out a 20 year old, and not on a back-to-back, for 'rest'
Bulls are also, maybe, leaning into the tank...at least for this week. All of Giddey, Jones, and Smith remain out with their leg injuries.
There’s a lot of talk about this team still likely winning games this season, but I don’t know about that.
They’re awful defensively. They almost gave up 125 points and 50% three-point shooting to an openly tanking 14-win Nets team.
This team might give up an average of over 125 points per game the rest of the season.
Total wins overs sweating right now
I thought this paragraph from a Ringers piece about winners and losers from the NBA trade deadline (this is from Vucevic being a winner by exiting the unserious Bulls franchise) was good:
"This is pretty simple. Vucevic is exiting an organization that’s completely indifferent to success, has no identifiable team-building strategy beyond a sudden obsession with second-round picks, and isn’t very good. He’s joining an organization that’s committed to winning the championship every single year, boasts a rock-solid culture that’s based on accountability, and is very good. The Bulls are asleep. The Celtics are awake. The Bulls are unserious. The Celtics are shrewd."
https://www.theringer.com/2026/02/05/nba/nba-trade-deadline-2026-giannis-antetokounmpo-rumors
nothing wrong in that quote about how the Bulls are operating
But I think the Celtics are SO shrewd that they are dodging what was a potentially risky and bad trade for them. They made their trades to get out of the luxury tax. Vuc stinks, he'll likely be of less help than Simons would've been, but there's enough still there to where they can say they made a trade based on position and size.
Credit to Joel Lorenzi of The Athletic - he asked Billy Donovan about this. -> https://bsky.app/profile/jxlorenzi.bsky.social/post/3mehs6s5a4k26
The answer was a lot of pontificating over how calf and hamstring injuries are effecting the whole league and every player is different. Coby wasn't feeling symptoms - might have even been implication that he wouldn't reveal them even if he had them - so he played. Didn't really answer the question of why their standards are different than Charlotte, especially with the Bulls being a trade deadline seller.
It does sound like this is all at Billy's direction, but it shouldn't be, and AK should have to address that.
I think we’ve reached the point where Billy’s insistence on doing whatever he can to win every regular season game is bordering on obnoxious. There is zero reason why Collin Sexton should be getting more minutes than Rob Dillingham for a team in the Bulls’ position.
But this isn’t even Billy’s fault. He’s always been a coach who will heavily lean on vets and prioritize wins over everything.
He’s just no longer a good fit for where the Bulls are and AK needs to accept that.
AK is accepting it, this is what he wants too
I don’t think AK has any wants from a roster perspective at this point. I subscribe to the theory that he has no clue what he wants to do next. His only concrete goal is to stay employed.
Obviously, that’s the main problem. If your team president has no plan, of course your coach is then just going to manage the lineup and minutes however he wants.
When Billy was hired, AKME bragged about him coming to the Bulls because Billy didn't want to be part of a rebuild in OKC, so this is part of his personal plan to coach as if he's not part of a rebuild or something?
The Nets first round draftees pretty soundly beat the Bulls 'youth with experience' on Monday night. Billy Donovan went all-out to try and get the win with a closing lineup of Sexton/Simons/Okoro/Buzelis/Richards (at least he didn't pull Matas?), but the Nets did not do egregious in-game tanking like pulling their starters in the 4th so they were able to hold on and win
Calculated the weighted minutes age of both non-playoff teams:
Bulls 25.5 years old
Nets 23.5 years old
Okay sure, but how do they rank in terms of continuity and cohesion? Oh, wait
That's a different stage! New stage now! Confusion and chaos.
Why are Simons and Sexton on this roster right now? Makes no sense.
Simons could be good enough that they workout a sign and trade with him this off season? Maybe that's galaxy-brained, I dunno. Sexton on the other hand has the nickname 'Young Bull' and thus they are legally obligated to play him at least 20 minutes a game the rest of the season.
after - for some reason? - Isaac Okoro played 36 and a half minutes in their latest (meaningless) game, he's on the injury report with knee soreness for tonight
Okoro out tonight, as is Giddey/Jones/Smith. Makes sense as this is the last game before All-Star break
Vuc revenge ::yawn:: here's the post-deadline roster ->https://substack.com/@blogabull/note/c-213311652
I tried to tamper expectations of (other) 76ers fans on LibertyBallers about Dalen Terry, to no avail I'm afraid. They seem (way too) excited about getting him.
the tank is definitely rolling