Bulls failing to provide reason to pay attention

barely trying, at that: at their core they don't like attention anyway

I’m still ‘following’ the Bulls as they trudge to the finish line of another wasted and hopeless season, but I wouldn’t say I’m ‘watching’.

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.

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:

interesting to see a lot of ‘young players with experience’ on the team that isn’t explicit about that being a desire

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.

1. we did learn on the road trip that Rob Dillingham has a persistent and known issue with his shooting wrist that the Bulls decided he should play through, very cool!

2. notice when Billy talks about this, he includes ownership as a party he’s directly communicating with over AKME’s head

3. can also root for the TrailBlazers to win the Western Conference play-in and convey that first round pick for this draft