I mentioned yesterday in the other thread, but since everyone will move over to this thread, I thought I'd mention it here, too.
Billy Donovan Sr. was almost as beloved at UF as Billy. He stuck around after Billy went to OKC and is close enough with the team, that he rode with them to the San Antonio Final Four last year (where we won our first championship since Billy left!) He's going to be missed by a lot of people.
The Bulls might have one of the most depressing front offices in professional sports.
They openly have no goals other than to maximize profits in the most short-term and surface level ways possible.
They are not running a basketball team. They are running an entertainment business that happens to feature a basketball team. They have no interest in trying to win a seventh title, because championship contention means expectations and short-term expenses, which are two things that the Reinsdorfs have no interest in.
The only goals set for AK are to keep the business out of the news and in a position to collect the short-term profits (for example, home play-in revenue). As long as AK achieves these goals most seasons, he’ll remain employed. Billy is the perfect coach for an organization with these goals because he’s seemingly content with just being competitive in a surface level way and likes the autonomy AK gives him and his son.
There are front offices that are more dysfunctional, despicable, or laughable. But there are very few as depressing as the Bulls, because there aren’t many other teams that openly display how little they actually care. It’s very sad and Bulls fans deserve better.
I think the drafting of Buzelis and Essengue indicate their new direction. Simons, Sexton and Collins depart, providing the salary cap to sign 2 or 3 young FA bigs. They'll draft bigs. Some of the new kiddie-corps would have to turn into Top-99 players. That is a plan.
Well, I think they won't be small or old or overpaid, and they now shoot a lot of threes, so if a couple of their draft picks or reclamation projects turn out, they'll start winning. What a nightmare!
In six months we'll find out. They'll be even younger and taller. LaVine, DeRozan and Vucevic are gone and still no one is happy? I'm trying to walk y'all off the ledge. For the rest of this year and for next year they'll still lose. But by then, either the arrow is pointing up or AKME will be out. IMHO.
There is no reason to think there is any pressure on AK to perform better in his role. How can you follow this team and believe that there is? He's allowed to be Mr. Misdirection the 1x/year he talks to the press because Bulls ownership thinks Bulls fans are retarded, and they're pretty much correct. I cannot fathom how people are paying so much money to go to the UC to watch this nothing of an organization.
Reinsdorf has a history of canning his GMs after standing by them longer than many other owners would have. He replaced then-future HOF'er Jerry Krause, and kicked John Paxson upstairs and brought in AKME to replace Gar Foreman. Of these, only Krause had a very long run. The clock is ticking on AKME, and they know it even if they don't show it.
It’s amazing how someone saying something positive came out of the trade deadline is automatically praising AKME. “Even a broken clock is right twice a day.” - doesn’t mean you think you have a good clock just because the clock was right. It just means it happened to be right.
Also, “don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good.” There’s a lot more AKME could have done at this deadline but didn’t - that’s why they suck. But this team is better set up for the future than it was before. Not a lot better. Not set up in some perfect way that can’t still be screwed up, but it’s better.
Not sure how the team is better. We didn't get any 1sts and we didn't get any prospects with potential besides maybe possibly I've who has been mostly hurt his whole career and even when healthy hasnt shown signs of top 50 player potential. We shuffled deck chairs on the titanic imo
Ivey is just another guy on his best day. If he hadn't been a big deal in the big 10 Bulls fans would not be talking themselves into Jaden Ivey as some kind of prize.
and still young, or at least within the AK range of 'youth with experience'
that's the thing: everybody, tank-humpers included, would be pleased with simply playing the young acquisitions. Yes there are jokes about how many guards the Bulls have but who cares you shouldn't be trying to win these games anyway!
I hope somebody asks Unseld Jr why arguably their biggest deadline acquisition (Ivey) immediately got a DNP-CD the moment Giddey and Jones came back, while Simons and Sexton played big minutes even though they're almost certainly not going to be back next season.
"Strictly a basketball decision. It’s really hard to play six guards. I wanted to push to see if I could get Josh and Tre’s minutes up. I think we were comfortable, given where they’ve been. I just felt those guys gave us the best chance. We had some pretty good stretches, pretty good combinations. He was just the odd man out tonight.”
“I’ve been dealing with knee soreness in my knee. I’m sure people can call it out — I’m not the same player I used to be. That’s why. I’m not the J.I. I used to be. The old J.I. is dead. I’m alive in Christ no matter what the basketball setting is. … no matter how many DNPs, how many points I score, those things are a temporary thing. Jesus is eternal.”
Uhhh that's extremely concerning. Sounds like he's basically saying he's never going to get back to his former self, let alone potentially get better...
it was a low-risk move to bring him in, they could cut bait this offseason if they think he's washed. But what I don't understand is why not play him more to see if he's washed. Maybe they see it in practice? do they not have pro scouting to find these things out in advance?
Great so even he admits he is going to be a lesser version of himself from here on out. Knee issues don't improve. And even the fully health version seemed to be just pretty good so this diminished version is going to be what? Regardless he should be playing over Sexton and Jones
Despite their inconsistencies, I think Coby, Ayo, and Vuc did a lot to keep this team from completely falling apart. I’m not sure anything close to last March’s 15-5 stretch is happening without them.
This team can lose to anyone and unlike the pre-deadline version of this roster, they don’t appear to be capable of pulling off unexpected wins.
One interesting wrinkle to this season: the Bulls have 13 remaining home games and six of them are the next six games.
Considering how bad they’ve been on the road all year, if they don’t win at least a couple of games over the rest of this home stand, they might really fall off a cliff to end this season.
Season ticket holder here: long time listener, first time poster. Last night's game was horrible to watch. Just bad basketball all around and what the hell am I supposed to be rooting for anyway? Dillingham did not belong on the court last night--unplayable. I haven't seen a guard look that lost on the court for the Bulls since a young man named Cam Payne ran Point in one of the previous versions of the stupid days. The new front court guys are a bit below replacement level and will be forgotten memories like Joffery Lauvergne in a couple of months. It's a joke whether we frame it as tanking or not. It is providing no value in any way for the present or the future.
The "continuity" scam sold by AK over the past couple years did have some aesthetic benefits: a bunch of mostly likable, try-hard players who were more often fun to watch than not--they had a sense of where the other guys would be and they all bought in to a system that did work a decent amount of the time. And we did win some games. And that was OK ,I guess, if you look at games in isolation. But at the end of the day, sports fandom is not about winning games in isolation despite what this franchise tries to gaslight us to believe. The topped out the ability of those try-hard players to win games by whatever junky/lucky/aberrational way that it happened and that was enough for ownership to continue to bless it. But it was a complete unsustainable bandaid and any educated fan knew it as it was happening. We have no young success stories. Where is even one game's worth of Daniss Jenkins, someone who can thrive in the Bulls' system without a pedigree just based on good training and a good eye for scouting? We have none of that and haven't the whole time AK has been there (OK, Ayo, but that's a horrible overall track record, no other team has this bad of a development record).
We now have a complete blank slate of a future that will be filled in by the same idiots that caused this emptiness to occur by failing to plan for the inevitable for three+ years. The franchise touts "flexibility" as if we're clearing the decks for a 2010-like "decision" of a star to maybe, just maybe, want to play for us. I think AK can speak that kind of language to the ownership constituency because the ownership still maintains a mindset of team-building that hasn't existed in over 10 years.
I think most of us are thankfully done projecting the idea that AK has a "plan" that he's been executing since we got rid of DeRozan. It's been a cautious tear down while protecting the floor for no other reason than thinking "our" fans value the aesthetic value of some of those wins over planning for the future. I am negative on this new scavenger-like philosophy of "reclaiming" busted lottery picks. If we had any kind of a track record of developing depressed talent, I'd feel better. We haven't developed front court contributors since we drafted Joakim Noah in 2007 and Taj Gibson in 2009. We have no front court players now and none in the pipeline.
So AK has punted the confrontation of reality another 5 months, when he will look like he's reading a hostage statement in his bi-annual gaslighting exercise to the masses, which is the only time the organization is required to pretend to articulate some kind of vision. We won't be able to do a rebuild because we can't identify nor develop talent in a way that is better than the way other teams do it.
Will pray that one day, the organization hires a basketball mind talent that understands the way modern teams develop and cultivate talent, and then get the hell out of the way to allow that to happen.
Until then, [talking to ownership now], please stop insulting our intelligence. Please clear the lowest bar: being able to honestly articulate that serious roster building and development mistakes have been and are currently being made. Honestly articulating some kind of a plan that reflects the reality of our situation and what it will take to build a sustainable winning culture. "Our fans" have seen enough of the BS--time to get living or time to get busy dying.
The lack of a fringe or two-way success story is really bad for a front office that can't do the big stuff right either. You're absolutely right the Bulls haven't had even a half season of Daniss Jenkins. Maybe Javonte Green but he was older. Ousime Deing hit 5 threes in a game with Milwaukee, a mark Dalen Terry and Julian Phillips haven't hit in their entire careers. We have two 2-way spots on small guards that are 25 and 27, just circus acts for Hoffman Estates
You mean the same Ousmane Dieng who was the only remotely exciting acquisition of AKME at the deadline, only they couldn't themselves recognize that fact and flipped him to Milwaukee straight away?
I agree pretty much with everything you say, but I would note that Cam Payne eventually became a decent rotation player. If “win now” is not an imperative (and with the Bulls it shouldn’t be), young players like Dillingham need to be allowed to play through their mistakes. If after ample opportunity it becomes obvious that he sucks, then they should move on, but not until then.
lol from KC: Billy Donovan said Jaden Ivey missed practice to have his knee checked out but emphasized he was available to play last night. “In my opinion, he has not moved and played as he did in the past,” Donovan said. Donovan said he supported Wes Unseld Jr.’s decision not to play Ivey
This quote is really something. “I’m sure people can call it out — I’m not the same player I used to be,” he said. “(The knee soreness is) why. I’m not the J.I. I used to be. The old J.I. is dead. I’m alive in Christ no matter what the basketball setting is.”
Yeah, it’s nice that he’s comfortable with his religious beliefs (though frankly that’s none of my business and I don’t care), but if he doesn’t think he can play at the level that he used to, then he assuredly can’t (you have to believe in yourself before you can perform at a high level). And if he can’t, I doubt he’s good enough to be able to compensate for his limitations. Looks like yet another Bulls’ front office bungle.
They certainly give the impression that they expected him to be fine and seem a little miffed that he's not. Probably because they still run the team like it's 1978, and they expect guys to go out and play with injuries. They're fucking dumb, and their dumbness creates its own bad publicity.
Suppose they'd taken a different tack with this. Suppose when they traded for Ivey, the said, "Hey, we just traded for this guy, and we know he's coming off some serious injuries. We're going to be cautious with him, take it slow, and really make sure he's fully ready before we put him on the court. Just prepare yourselves, he might not even play this season."
If AK had said that at his stupid press conference, everyone would have nodded and talked about how sage and patient he was, and how the Bulls were finally taking a long-term view of things. Nobody would be bitching about this, and, whether it worked out or not, it'd still be a minor "win" for the Bulls.
But AK is stupid, so he didn't do that. But none of it has anything to do with the trade itself. The blunder is in the expectations and marketing.
I swear it's as if AK has no personnel power over Billy. He just gets who he can, and Billy will figure it out. So that's why he had no plan to use Ivey, it took Billy in a week to say this guy can't play (at least not over Collin Sexton) and now they're retroactively doing this injury gambit as it looks slightly less ridiculous
I actually thought the opposite. That this was a typical Bulls thing where they are expecting everyone to play with a broken knee or whatever. And they seemed annoyed and a little upset that Ivey said, "hey, my knee hurts, I need to get this checked out", while the Bulls were saying, very publicly, it's fine.
Then, a day later, it turns out to obviously not be fine. Typical Bulls injury shenanigans.
I think it's the opposite too, given how they treated Coby and Jalen and even Giddey with this same crap.
There seems to be no end to how these guys continue to fuck shit up. I mean its mind-blowing way to dilute the value of your own assets, but also just seems like a shitty way to treat their own people.
But Ivey was playing for the Pistons, over 16mpg. There was never a mention of knee soreness then. Unless, like I posited earlier, he got hurt after ramped up minutes and pace with the Bulls?
I'd imagine that most teams wouldn't even bother to mention something like this when it's obvious. He was playing between 10-20 minutes, but usually not so much.
The Bulls put him out there for over 30 minutes both games. I don't imagine it was as much of a re-injury as a reaction. Not unlike how Giddey and Coby kept have "not a setbacks!" when the Bulls put them on the court when they weren't 100%.
This is looking like the case. Lots (of course) from Billy after the game. Bulls didn't know (or bothered to find out) how hurt he was, they played him a lot of minutes and didn't like what they saw. Then they say they're going to limit his minutes and Ivey in response says there's knee soreness. And Bulls say OK you get no minutes at all.
Whatever, ultimately he was a flier. Kevin Huerter got a DNP for Detroit too. Bulls probably did think they were getting some potential and chose Ivey over another asset but that asset was a second rounder or something
This has been an embarrassing season for this franchise.
An immediate collapse after a 6-1 start. Vuc calling out his teammates and openly questioning why he’s still here. Countless losses against tanking teams. Matas continuously getting benched in a season where his development should be top priority. A laughably delayed collection of trades that resulted in underwhelming returns. Playing Coby while he was injured right before he was traded and losing a draft pick as a result. Multiple young guys who were acquired at the deadline getting buried on the bench and critiqued by the coaching staff. A bizarre controversy surrounding an Ivey injury.
This has all happened because a team president with one playoff win in five years was given a contract extension for some reason.
Teams have been coasting against the Bulls all year, but unlike before the deadline, the roster isn’t good enough to make them pay for that.
Seems like the post-deadline stretch is going to be defined by a lot of games where the Bulls are in it for a couple of quarters until opponents decide to try harder and then they’re suddenly down by double digits.
AK’s probably going to give some stupid postseason comment about how they were really competitive in the first halves, so they just have to learn how to finish games.
it was truly funny how obvious it was once the Pistons flipped the switch and said enough of this bullshit last night. helped that they hit more shots in the 3rd, but their defensive intensity went to a totally different level.
any decent team that brings a reasonable effort and doesn't just totally shit the bed shooting the ball should be able to beat these guys. the Raptors played like absolute shit offensively the other night and still won just cuz they tried on defense and the Bulls are just throwing the ball all over the place
Bulls need players who are physically and mentally stronger (and taller and more athletic). Pistons manhandled the Bulls in the 3rd quarter. Have seem other teams such as Portland do this to the Bulls this season.
Thanks for the note Ron. As to Cam P., that was part of my point--Payne became a good rotation player in Phoenix only after he was legit unplayable on the Bulls and then dumped. Kris Dunn needed a few years in the wilderness to recover from the stink of his Chicago time before he became a starter again. Markkanen became a front line all-star player after he ran into a developmental wall during the Hoiberg/Boylen rebuild. Agreed that there is no reason to avoid giving these new players all the rope they need out there, but the team is currently so poorly constructed and balanced that meaningful data from the results will be difficult, especially with a front office that will take any statistical improvement to be per se evidence of their keen scouting eye, continuing the horrible cycle of overvaluing their own assets.
Man, this is so obviously the time to dump the current front office regime--they have now completed a failed team building cycle with a blank slate to be filled in. They would get a substantial PR bump just from making the change--clear the bar of recognizing some obvious failures! No sane human being can look at the current situation and point to AK to say, "yes, this is the guy to get us back to the top." Just that simple recognition would go so far. Please throw us a bone, Michael R! You can still pay $450K annually to Benny the Bull, just give the few of us that still care some signal that the basketball operations still matters even a little bit.
I mentioned yesterday in the other thread, but since everyone will move over to this thread, I thought I'd mention it here, too.
Billy Donovan Sr. was almost as beloved at UF as Billy. He stuck around after Billy went to OKC and is close enough with the team, that he rode with them to the San Antonio Final Four last year (where we won our first championship since Billy left!) He's going to be missed by a lot of people.
I’m predicting nine wins for the Bulls the rest of the season and they finish with the ninth worst record.
The Bulls might have one of the most depressing front offices in professional sports.
They openly have no goals other than to maximize profits in the most short-term and surface level ways possible.
They are not running a basketball team. They are running an entertainment business that happens to feature a basketball team. They have no interest in trying to win a seventh title, because championship contention means expectations and short-term expenses, which are two things that the Reinsdorfs have no interest in.
The only goals set for AK are to keep the business out of the news and in a position to collect the short-term profits (for example, home play-in revenue). As long as AK achieves these goals most seasons, he’ll remain employed. Billy is the perfect coach for an organization with these goals because he’s seemingly content with just being competitive in a surface level way and likes the autonomy AK gives him and his son.
There are front offices that are more dysfunctional, despicable, or laughable. But there are very few as depressing as the Bulls, because there aren’t many other teams that openly display how little they actually care. It’s very sad and Bulls fans deserve better.
How many GM job offers have you turned down?
I think the drafting of Buzelis and Essengue indicate their new direction. Simons, Sexton and Collins depart, providing the salary cap to sign 2 or 3 young FA bigs. They'll draft bigs. Some of the new kiddie-corps would have to turn into Top-99 players. That is a plan.
I didn't say they didn't have a plan. I said it's a shitty plan* that does what they are explicitly saying they aren't (skipping steps)
*sending out top-99 ish players and hoping they get some in a couple years, instead of a top-9 player
Well, I think they won't be small or old or overpaid, and they now shoot a lot of threes, so if a couple of their draft picks or reclamation projects turn out, they'll start winning. What a nightmare!
Must be nice living in your fairytale world.
In six months we'll find out. They'll be even younger and taller. LaVine, DeRozan and Vucevic are gone and still no one is happy? I'm trying to walk y'all off the ledge. For the rest of this year and for next year they'll still lose. But by then, either the arrow is pointing up or AKME will be out. IMHO.
There is no reason to think there is any pressure on AK to perform better in his role. How can you follow this team and believe that there is? He's allowed to be Mr. Misdirection the 1x/year he talks to the press because Bulls ownership thinks Bulls fans are retarded, and they're pretty much correct. I cannot fathom how people are paying so much money to go to the UC to watch this nothing of an organization.
Reinsdorf has a history of canning his GMs after standing by them longer than many other owners would have. He replaced then-future HOF'er Jerry Krause, and kicked John Paxson upstairs and brought in AKME to replace Gar Foreman. Of these, only Krause had a very long run. The clock is ticking on AKME, and they know it even if they don't show it.
there IS a game, here's the Raptors roster: https://substack.com/profile/3012-your-friendly-bullsblogger/note/c-216933979
Game 1, Billy didn't coach but I'm assuming he'll do the same:
Dillingham 10 minutes
Ivey DNP
Miller DNP
Olbrich (he's young?) DNP
It’s amazing how someone saying something positive came out of the trade deadline is automatically praising AKME. “Even a broken clock is right twice a day.” - doesn’t mean you think you have a good clock just because the clock was right. It just means it happened to be right.
Also, “don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good.” There’s a lot more AKME could have done at this deadline but didn’t - that’s why they suck. But this team is better set up for the future than it was before. Not a lot better. Not set up in some perfect way that can’t still be screwed up, but it’s better.
Are they? I'm not saying you are wrong. I'd like to hear your argument, since most opinions I've seen say that we are about the same or a bit worse.
The team is worse, which is better.
I do agree that they didn't pursue the absolute worst option, which would've been keeping everyone and gunning for the play-in
intent matters, it's certainly not positive that the clock is 'broken'
I think this is it. If they got worse because they were really trying to get worse, it would be better.
Since they weren't, it's just more evidence that they suck and don't know what they're doing.
That outweighs everything else.
Not sure how the team is better. We didn't get any 1sts and we didn't get any prospects with potential besides maybe possibly I've who has been mostly hurt his whole career and even when healthy hasnt shown signs of top 50 player potential. We shuffled deck chairs on the titanic imo
The titanic was a bold, world leading design for its time. The Bulls are anything but bold.
True but that bitch still sank
Ivey is just another guy on his best day. If he hadn't been a big deal in the big 10 Bulls fans would not be talking themselves into Jaden Ivey as some kind of prize.
26 minutes for PWill tonight with a 6/7/1 line. That’s good if your goal is to lose games.
and still young, or at least within the AK range of 'youth with experience'
that's the thing: everybody, tank-humpers included, would be pleased with simply playing the young acquisitions. Yes there are jokes about how many guards the Bulls have but who cares you shouldn't be trying to win these games anyway!
I hope somebody asks Unseld Jr why arguably their biggest deadline acquisition (Ivey) immediately got a DNP-CD the moment Giddey and Jones came back, while Simons and Sexton played big minutes even though they're almost certainly not going to be back next season.
they did ask him:
"Strictly a basketball decision. It’s really hard to play six guards. I wanted to push to see if I could get Josh and Tre’s minutes up. I think we were comfortable, given where they’ve been. I just felt those guys gave us the best chance. We had some pretty good stretches, pretty good combinations. He was just the odd man out tonight.”
Perhaps even more notable was Ivey’s response 😬
“I’ve been dealing with knee soreness in my knee. I’m sure people can call it out — I’m not the same player I used to be. That’s why. I’m not the J.I. I used to be. The old J.I. is dead. I’m alive in Christ no matter what the basketball setting is. … no matter how many DNPs, how many points I score, those things are a temporary thing. Jesus is eternal.”
Uhhh that's extremely concerning. Sounds like he's basically saying he's never going to get back to his former self, let alone potentially get better...
it was a low-risk move to bring him in, they could cut bait this offseason if they think he's washed. But what I don't understand is why not play him more to see if he's washed. Maybe they see it in practice? do they not have pro scouting to find these things out in advance?
but the Bulls are still having him practice, so it's not a case where they're playing it safe or something
Great so even he admits he is going to be a lesser version of himself from here on out. Knee issues don't improve. And even the fully health version seemed to be just pretty good so this diminished version is going to be what? Regardless he should be playing over Sexton and Jones
Despite their inconsistencies, I think Coby, Ayo, and Vuc did a lot to keep this team from completely falling apart. I’m not sure anything close to last March’s 15-5 stretch is happening without them.
This team can lose to anyone and unlike the pre-deadline version of this roster, they don’t appear to be capable of pulling off unexpected wins.
I dunno, they were in another clutch game despite playing like shit
there will be plenty of matchups down the stretch against either full-on tankers or playoff teams using strategic rest
I agree they won't go 15-5 again, that was a special confluence of flukey wins. They aren't getting below their current lottery position though.
One interesting wrinkle to this season: the Bulls have 13 remaining home games and six of them are the next six games.
Considering how bad they’ve been on the road all year, if they don’t win at least a couple of games over the rest of this home stand, they might really fall off a cliff to end this season.
Season ticket holder here: long time listener, first time poster. Last night's game was horrible to watch. Just bad basketball all around and what the hell am I supposed to be rooting for anyway? Dillingham did not belong on the court last night--unplayable. I haven't seen a guard look that lost on the court for the Bulls since a young man named Cam Payne ran Point in one of the previous versions of the stupid days. The new front court guys are a bit below replacement level and will be forgotten memories like Joffery Lauvergne in a couple of months. It's a joke whether we frame it as tanking or not. It is providing no value in any way for the present or the future.
The "continuity" scam sold by AK over the past couple years did have some aesthetic benefits: a bunch of mostly likable, try-hard players who were more often fun to watch than not--they had a sense of where the other guys would be and they all bought in to a system that did work a decent amount of the time. And we did win some games. And that was OK ,I guess, if you look at games in isolation. But at the end of the day, sports fandom is not about winning games in isolation despite what this franchise tries to gaslight us to believe. The topped out the ability of those try-hard players to win games by whatever junky/lucky/aberrational way that it happened and that was enough for ownership to continue to bless it. But it was a complete unsustainable bandaid and any educated fan knew it as it was happening. We have no young success stories. Where is even one game's worth of Daniss Jenkins, someone who can thrive in the Bulls' system without a pedigree just based on good training and a good eye for scouting? We have none of that and haven't the whole time AK has been there (OK, Ayo, but that's a horrible overall track record, no other team has this bad of a development record).
We now have a complete blank slate of a future that will be filled in by the same idiots that caused this emptiness to occur by failing to plan for the inevitable for three+ years. The franchise touts "flexibility" as if we're clearing the decks for a 2010-like "decision" of a star to maybe, just maybe, want to play for us. I think AK can speak that kind of language to the ownership constituency because the ownership still maintains a mindset of team-building that hasn't existed in over 10 years.
I think most of us are thankfully done projecting the idea that AK has a "plan" that he's been executing since we got rid of DeRozan. It's been a cautious tear down while protecting the floor for no other reason than thinking "our" fans value the aesthetic value of some of those wins over planning for the future. I am negative on this new scavenger-like philosophy of "reclaiming" busted lottery picks. If we had any kind of a track record of developing depressed talent, I'd feel better. We haven't developed front court contributors since we drafted Joakim Noah in 2007 and Taj Gibson in 2009. We have no front court players now and none in the pipeline.
So AK has punted the confrontation of reality another 5 months, when he will look like he's reading a hostage statement in his bi-annual gaslighting exercise to the masses, which is the only time the organization is required to pretend to articulate some kind of vision. We won't be able to do a rebuild because we can't identify nor develop talent in a way that is better than the way other teams do it.
Will pray that one day, the organization hires a basketball mind talent that understands the way modern teams develop and cultivate talent, and then get the hell out of the way to allow that to happen.
Until then, [talking to ownership now], please stop insulting our intelligence. Please clear the lowest bar: being able to honestly articulate that serious roster building and development mistakes have been and are currently being made. Honestly articulating some kind of a plan that reflects the reality of our situation and what it will take to build a sustainable winning culture. "Our fans" have seen enough of the BS--time to get living or time to get busy dying.
Liked
The lack of a fringe or two-way success story is really bad for a front office that can't do the big stuff right either. You're absolutely right the Bulls haven't had even a half season of Daniss Jenkins. Maybe Javonte Green but he was older. Ousime Deing hit 5 threes in a game with Milwaukee, a mark Dalen Terry and Julian Phillips haven't hit in their entire careers. We have two 2-way spots on small guards that are 25 and 27, just circus acts for Hoffman Estates
You mean the same Ousmane Dieng who was the only remotely exciting acquisition of AKME at the deadline, only they couldn't themselves recognize that fact and flipped him to Milwaukee straight away?
I think Dillingham is more exciting, Miller too. Deing probably stinks but is inherently more exciting than the veterans (and Ivey)
I agree pretty much with everything you say, but I would note that Cam Payne eventually became a decent rotation player. If “win now” is not an imperative (and with the Bulls it shouldn’t be), young players like Dillingham need to be allowed to play through their mistakes. If after ample opportunity it becomes obvious that he sucks, then they should move on, but not until then.
lol from KC: Billy Donovan said Jaden Ivey missed practice to have his knee checked out but emphasized he was available to play last night. “In my opinion, he has not moved and played as he did in the past,” Donovan said. Donovan said he supported Wes Unseld Jr.’s decision not to play Ivey
https://x.com/kcjhoop/status/2024929724284194890?s=46&t=0VgLvCcpTsmLUyl6hpiIew
at least, not moving as well as his high school scouting report acknowledged.
While that is an argument for not playing him last night, it's really an argument for never playing him again.
This quote is really something. “I’m sure people can call it out — I’m not the same player I used to be,” he said. “(The knee soreness is) why. I’m not the J.I. I used to be. The old J.I. is dead. I’m alive in Christ no matter what the basketball setting is.”
Pat should try this
Yeah, it’s nice that he’s comfortable with his religious beliefs (though frankly that’s none of my business and I don’t care), but if he doesn’t think he can play at the level that he used to, then he assuredly can’t (you have to believe in yourself before you can perform at a high level). And if he can’t, I doubt he’s good enough to be able to compensate for his limitations. Looks like yet another Bulls’ front office bungle.
This Jaden Ivey situation is a cluster
It really is. They just announced he's out for next two weeks
possibilities:
1. the Bulls don't do pro scouting so Billy's look at Ivey in practice is team's first impression
2. Ivey got hurt in the couple of games leading into the all star break, maybe the quick adjustment to more minutes and pace
Or they didn't give him a physical?
They certainly give the impression that they expected him to be fine and seem a little miffed that he's not. Probably because they still run the team like it's 1978, and they expect guys to go out and play with injuries. They're fucking dumb, and their dumbness creates its own bad publicity.
Suppose they'd taken a different tack with this. Suppose when they traded for Ivey, the said, "Hey, we just traded for this guy, and we know he's coming off some serious injuries. We're going to be cautious with him, take it slow, and really make sure he's fully ready before we put him on the court. Just prepare yourselves, he might not even play this season."
If AK had said that at his stupid press conference, everyone would have nodded and talked about how sage and patient he was, and how the Bulls were finally taking a long-term view of things. Nobody would be bitching about this, and, whether it worked out or not, it'd still be a minor "win" for the Bulls.
But AK is stupid, so he didn't do that. But none of it has anything to do with the trade itself. The blunder is in the expectations and marketing.
I swear it's as if AK has no personnel power over Billy. He just gets who he can, and Billy will figure it out. So that's why he had no plan to use Ivey, it took Billy in a week to say this guy can't play (at least not over Collin Sexton) and now they're retroactively doing this injury gambit as it looks slightly less ridiculous
I actually thought the opposite. That this was a typical Bulls thing where they are expecting everyone to play with a broken knee or whatever. And they seemed annoyed and a little upset that Ivey said, "hey, my knee hurts, I need to get this checked out", while the Bulls were saying, very publicly, it's fine.
Then, a day later, it turns out to obviously not be fine. Typical Bulls injury shenanigans.
I think it's the opposite too, given how they treated Coby and Jalen and even Giddey with this same crap.
There seems to be no end to how these guys continue to fuck shit up. I mean its mind-blowing way to dilute the value of your own assets, but also just seems like a shitty way to treat their own people.
But Ivey was playing for the Pistons, over 16mpg. There was never a mention of knee soreness then. Unless, like I posited earlier, he got hurt after ramped up minutes and pace with the Bulls?
I'd imagine that most teams wouldn't even bother to mention something like this when it's obvious. He was playing between 10-20 minutes, but usually not so much.
The Bulls put him out there for over 30 minutes both games. I don't imagine it was as much of a re-injury as a reaction. Not unlike how Giddey and Coby kept have "not a setbacks!" when the Bulls put them on the court when they weren't 100%.
This is looking like the case. Lots (of course) from Billy after the game. Bulls didn't know (or bothered to find out) how hurt he was, they played him a lot of minutes and didn't like what they saw. Then they say they're going to limit his minutes and Ivey in response says there's knee soreness. And Bulls say OK you get no minutes at all.
https://allchgo.com/bulls-jaden-ivey-sidelined-two-weeks-knee-soreness/
Whatever, ultimately he was a flier. Kevin Huerter got a DNP for Detroit too. Bulls probably did think they were getting some potential and chose Ivey over another asset but that asset was a second rounder or something
Zach Collins out for the year, no reason not to waive him and sign a youngish non-guard
This has been an embarrassing season for this franchise.
An immediate collapse after a 6-1 start. Vuc calling out his teammates and openly questioning why he’s still here. Countless losses against tanking teams. Matas continuously getting benched in a season where his development should be top priority. A laughably delayed collection of trades that resulted in underwhelming returns. Playing Coby while he was injured right before he was traded and losing a draft pick as a result. Multiple young guys who were acquired at the deadline getting buried on the bench and critiqued by the coaching staff. A bizarre controversy surrounding an Ivey injury.
This has all happened because a team president with one playoff win in five years was given a contract extension for some reason.
Teams have been coasting against the Bulls all year, but unlike before the deadline, the roster isn’t good enough to make them pay for that.
Seems like the post-deadline stretch is going to be defined by a lot of games where the Bulls are in it for a couple of quarters until opponents decide to try harder and then they’re suddenly down by double digits.
AK’s probably going to give some stupid postseason comment about how they were really competitive in the first halves, so they just have to learn how to finish games.
it was truly funny how obvious it was once the Pistons flipped the switch and said enough of this bullshit last night. helped that they hit more shots in the 3rd, but their defensive intensity went to a totally different level.
any decent team that brings a reasonable effort and doesn't just totally shit the bed shooting the ball should be able to beat these guys. the Raptors played like absolute shit offensively the other night and still won just cuz they tried on defense and the Bulls are just throwing the ball all over the place
Bulls need players who are physically and mentally stronger (and taller and more athletic). Pistons manhandled the Bulls in the 3rd quarter. Have seem other teams such as Portland do this to the Bulls this season.
Thanks for the note Ron. As to Cam P., that was part of my point--Payne became a good rotation player in Phoenix only after he was legit unplayable on the Bulls and then dumped. Kris Dunn needed a few years in the wilderness to recover from the stink of his Chicago time before he became a starter again. Markkanen became a front line all-star player after he ran into a developmental wall during the Hoiberg/Boylen rebuild. Agreed that there is no reason to avoid giving these new players all the rope they need out there, but the team is currently so poorly constructed and balanced that meaningful data from the results will be difficult, especially with a front office that will take any statistical improvement to be per se evidence of their keen scouting eye, continuing the horrible cycle of overvaluing their own assets.
Man, this is so obviously the time to dump the current front office regime--they have now completed a failed team building cycle with a blank slate to be filled in. They would get a substantial PR bump just from making the change--clear the bar of recognizing some obvious failures! No sane human being can look at the current situation and point to AK to say, "yes, this is the guy to get us back to the top." Just that simple recognition would go so far. Please throw us a bone, Michael R! You can still pay $450K annually to Benny the Bull, just give the few of us that still care some signal that the basketball operations still matters even a little bit.