Billy openly admitting that he’s just guessing what the front office wants him to do the rest of this season is so incredibly telling of this organization.
The Reinsdorfs don’t have a plan other than “Keep making money and don’t be a national embarrassment” and AK doesn’t have a plan other than “Keep the Reinsdorfs happy.” That’s how we’ve ended up in this place.
As a fan, all I’m realistically rooting for the rest of this season is the continued development of Matas and Miller.
The only way the status quo will change is if the Bulls get lucky in the lottery. Otherwise, we’re likely facing another couple of years like this until AK is replaced five years overdue.
This offseason feels like an inflection point for this organization.
Either the Bulls make a jump in the lottery and the front office is forced to get serious or they stay at pick 9 or 10 and lose season ticket renewals, which would get Jerry’s attention.
Agreed it's an inflection point. We have now gone through a full cycle of team building and tearing down. This would be the easiest time to get rid of the clowns in the FO and replace with a front office leader with a different vision that comports with current best practices in roster building.
Season ticket renewals are done early in March BTW.
Prediction on my end, assuming chalk and the 9/10 pick, is that they will overreach to create a splash going into next season and lock themselves into a bad contract or three. Moving the "not skipping steps" goalposts again would not align with how this franchise traditionally operates.
totally agree. I think they're going to trade for Zion. "not skipping steps" is openly contradictory to "youth with experience", so they can just pivot to that after, since Zion is in the same age range as aforementioned "core" pieces Isaac Okoro and Tre Jones (and former "core" RIP Coby and Ayo)
and if not, well then AK is getting fired end of season because they won't make the playoffs with their current group even if they somehow steal a starter in restricted free agency. And Billy absolutely will not play Noa Essengue so they'll be on defense for that pick too
enjoyed Billy lying through his teeth that he doesn't know the draft odds as he again talked about ownership/management giving him zero guidance on strategy the rest of the season. He's just going to keep playing Giddey 40+ minutes a game apparently (he was on his way again last night before it got really ugly) until they're eliminated from play-in contention. it was also funny to read Billy seeming exasperated when asked about playing decisions and he's like "hey man I played Rob a lot and Yuki a little what more do you want!"
I think Billy and Giddey are a perfect pair. Both seem to think they're way better than they are and that they can be a driving force behind a good team.
I will never get tired of thinking about how Donovan left OKC because he didn't want to sit through a rebuild and now he's happily taking money to coach a terrible team with no long-term plan. I wonder if he knows that if he quit or got fired, that it would take him a long time to get hired as a Head Coach again.
Even if they get lucky in the lottery, Donovan will keep the pick on the bench and give minutes to Giddey to turn the ball over nearly a half dozen times a games.
think some of the Matas development is certainly real, though he's also just getting up a shit ton of shots (and has a crazy 3-point rate of late) and has been doing some bumslaying. But I will not complain about him putting up big numbers.
The Giddey stuff is truly comical at this point. after his hot start to the season, he's been meandering along for months (the injuries absolutely didn't help), but then the calendar flips to March and he immediately looks like an All-Star again. And he has literally done it his whole career. His career TS% in March is over 59% (51% from field and over 40% from 3), compared to about 54% for his career. his career March scoring average is over 18 PPG, compared to about 14 PPG for his whole career. Rebound, assist numbers also higher...except for April. Josh Giddey is the epitome of Mickey Mouse March.
I still do think Giddey is better than I ever thought he'd be, but I simply do not give a shit about him racking up these huge numbers and triple-doubles in March at this point. Do it for a full season and actually win some games, and I'll be really impressed.
Giddey is in the same tier as LaVine and Vuc: fringe all-stars who aren’t good enough to be key pieces on a contending team but too good to get minutes on a team that should be focusing on improving their lottery odds.
One of AK’s critical flaws is that he treats that tier of players as if they’re more important than they are. I’m already rolling my eyes thinking about how he’s going to bring up all of these triple-doubles from Giddey during his end of season press conference.
We all know how this will likely end - with Giddey getting traded to the Kings in two years for a lottery protected pick.
And Coby fit in that as well. I was looking back at his March/April numbers last season during that run and he was legit one of the best scorers in the league during that stretch. He put up over 27 PPG on almost 50/40/90. Then he got stomped out by the Heat and then this year was just kinda back to the normal Coby who’s good not great (injuries again didn’t help here either but still now he’s just a bench guy on a better team.)
When you're a "borderline" All-Star, it's usually because you put up a lot of scoring numbers but not a lot else. Maybe you become an All Star because you have an especially hot and efficient start to one season, or you're an injury fill-in, when you're looking at non-obvious All Stars and the easiest thing to find is just to grab someone putting up 20 ppg.
Those types of guys are almost always overpaid because scoring is overpaid.
Guys like Alex Caruso, Derrick White, and OG Anunoby are almost never considered "borderline All-Stars" like the Vucevic, Giddey, LaVine, or White are, though I'd say they're all better as overall basketball players.
One-way high-volume scorers are ALWAYS overrated and trying to build a team with those guys is silly.
That's probably right, although I'd also say that SOMEONE has to shoot the ball.
It's a tough question how to value offensive creation, because teams do not usually have lineups without a single "one way high volume scorer".
Anyway, I would be more than willing to trade Giddey (I think borderline All-Star is his ceiling) but the question is trade him for what?
And also, how many years are we prepared for the Bulls to tank?
It's easy to say "mediocrity sucks" but what if the next three seasons are gonna be like these last games and the Bulls still won't have any clear path to contention? That's not unusual, you know.
Listened to the latest Bill Simmons podcast, which was his annual “Worst NBA contracts” episode.
Patrick Williams made an appearance. Of course, in classic Bill Simmons fashion he kept bizarrely mentioning “the Williams/Okoro trade” but he did also have a moment where he said something along the lines of “the Bulls have the worst GM in the league but poor PR is preventing him from getting that title.”
There is a commonality to this whole thing and until the Bulls management get serious about contending and hire another coach. They will never know how to put together a team that will contend. They have some good players, but Donovan gives the most minutes to 2 guys, the turnover king Giddey and inconsistent Mateus. If they were to give addition minutes to other players, they could have won more games. Donovan plays favorites and loses games because management likes him, but we will see ticket sales drop if they keep being numbskulls.
I do think that Billy has his faults with lineups and minutes, but it’s not the main problem.
I think some fans tell themselves that there’s only one problem with the franchise that can easily be fixed, because that’s easier to stomach than accepting the reality that it’s a gigantic organizational disaster that won’t get turned around immediately.
Here’s the reality: Billy is an imperfect, middle of the road NBA coach who has actually made the past couple of seasons look better than they are. Last year’s team had no business being in the play-in tournament and this year’s team had no business being above .500 in late January, but both happened because Billy understood the strengths of the team and coached in a way that focused on that.
This franchise is currently in a wasteland because their owners don’t care and their president is incompetent and won’t accept that his team needs a superstar. Billy’s stubbornness is an issue, but it’s far from the reason why we’re here.
Bulls win, terrible loss for Houston. Er I mean very important win for the Bulls. When Matas Buzelis is the 6th man for some other team in 5 years he'll remember closing these games and how much worse his career would have gone if he wasn't drafted by a team that was All About Winning.
It's Cowley, so he could be fabricating or at least exaggerating his sources, but he says today that Marc Eversley could get canned (who'd notice?), and Billy Donovan could "step away and re-evaluate" after being in this "mess" amidst his personal tragedies this month. https://www.chicagotribune.com/2026/03/22/chicago-bulls-billy-donovan-tragedies-turmoil/
Everyone else leaving, but keeping AK would be so ridiculously Reinsdorfs that it would almost constitute as parody.
Who would even be the Donovan replacement? Maybe the Jon Scheyer rumors are true and we can all be conspiratorial and think that means we’re jumping up in the lottery and getting Boozer.
yes just think of the executive costs savings when the replacements are a still-there John Paxson and, oh, some 1990s White Sox player is the new coach
After spending years making it seem like Eversley does absolutely nothing, it'll at least be entertaining to see how AK twists himself into pretzels trying to explain how Eversley has actually been the one pulling the strings all along.
I thought Gar Forman would never work again but I underestimated the 'network' in this business is like any other
So Cowley speculating that Eversley would have too poor of a resume to want to leave falls flat to me. He can always go work for Klutch (directly this time)
David Haugh on WSCR today fed into the speculation, saying the move 'on the table' that he would do is Billy 'quits' coaching but goes in the front office.
I can't imagine that'd happen with AK staying around, but they all are just happy to get checks so maybe it'd be ok
Actually, it might make sense. The speculation (from Cowley, so lots of salt applied) is that the blame could be placed on Eversley. By all accounts, it seems like AK and Billy get along pretty well. Maybe the plan would be to lay the blame on Eversley and promote Billy up into Eversley's GM position.
Billy could still be the mouthpiece of the organization, which I'm sure AK would be very happy with. Billy could also probably take some of the GMing part of the job that AK seems to currently be doing (poorly of course). Gives AK extra time to golf and more cover if things continue going poorly. He could just blame Billy and say it's because Billy's new to the whole GM thing and maybe it's just not for him.
Cowley stinks at his job but at least he's there. Though I don't begrudge other media outlets for giving up on the Bulls, that dynamic should be a story in itself
Billy openly admitting that he’s just guessing what the front office wants him to do the rest of this season is so incredibly telling of this organization.
The Reinsdorfs don’t have a plan other than “Keep making money and don’t be a national embarrassment” and AK doesn’t have a plan other than “Keep the Reinsdorfs happy.” That’s how we’ve ended up in this place.
As a fan, all I’m realistically rooting for the rest of this season is the continued development of Matas and Miller.
The only way the status quo will change is if the Bulls get lucky in the lottery. Otherwise, we’re likely facing another couple of years like this until AK is replaced five years overdue.
I wish a lottery win would inspire change, like "oh now this is serious, too important for AK to run"
This offseason feels like an inflection point for this organization.
Either the Bulls make a jump in the lottery and the front office is forced to get serious or they stay at pick 9 or 10 and lose season ticket renewals, which would get Jerry’s attention.
Agreed it's an inflection point. We have now gone through a full cycle of team building and tearing down. This would be the easiest time to get rid of the clowns in the FO and replace with a front office leader with a different vision that comports with current best practices in roster building.
Season ticket renewals are done early in March BTW.
Prediction on my end, assuming chalk and the 9/10 pick, is that they will overreach to create a splash going into next season and lock themselves into a bad contract or three. Moving the "not skipping steps" goalposts again would not align with how this franchise traditionally operates.
totally agree. I think they're going to trade for Zion. "not skipping steps" is openly contradictory to "youth with experience", so they can just pivot to that after, since Zion is in the same age range as aforementioned "core" pieces Isaac Okoro and Tre Jones (and former "core" RIP Coby and Ayo)
and if not, well then AK is getting fired end of season because they won't make the playoffs with their current group even if they somehow steal a starter in restricted free agency. And Billy absolutely will not play Noa Essengue so they'll be on defense for that pick too
Not sure if anything is an inflection point until the Reinsdorfs sell the team, if they ever do.
enjoyed Billy lying through his teeth that he doesn't know the draft odds as he again talked about ownership/management giving him zero guidance on strategy the rest of the season. He's just going to keep playing Giddey 40+ minutes a game apparently (he was on his way again last night before it got really ugly) until they're eliminated from play-in contention. it was also funny to read Billy seeming exasperated when asked about playing decisions and he's like "hey man I played Rob a lot and Yuki a little what more do you want!"
Billy gets hazard pay to be AK's shield from the media. Apparently still worth it.
I think Billy and Giddey are a perfect pair. Both seem to think they're way better than they are and that they can be a driving force behind a good team.
I will never get tired of thinking about how Donovan left OKC because he didn't want to sit through a rebuild and now he's happily taking money to coach a terrible team with no long-term plan. I wonder if he knows that if he quit or got fired, that it would take him a long time to get hired as a Head Coach again.
Even if they get lucky in the lottery, Donovan will keep the pick on the bench and give minutes to Giddey to turn the ball over nearly a half dozen times a games.
think some of the Matas development is certainly real, though he's also just getting up a shit ton of shots (and has a crazy 3-point rate of late) and has been doing some bumslaying. But I will not complain about him putting up big numbers.
The Giddey stuff is truly comical at this point. after his hot start to the season, he's been meandering along for months (the injuries absolutely didn't help), but then the calendar flips to March and he immediately looks like an All-Star again. And he has literally done it his whole career. His career TS% in March is over 59% (51% from field and over 40% from 3), compared to about 54% for his career. his career March scoring average is over 18 PPG, compared to about 14 PPG for his whole career. Rebound, assist numbers also higher...except for April. Josh Giddey is the epitome of Mickey Mouse March.
I still do think Giddey is better than I ever thought he'd be, but I simply do not give a shit about him racking up these huge numbers and triple-doubles in March at this point. Do it for a full season and actually win some games, and I'll be really impressed.
Giddey is in the same tier as LaVine and Vuc: fringe all-stars who aren’t good enough to be key pieces on a contending team but too good to get minutes on a team that should be focusing on improving their lottery odds.
One of AK’s critical flaws is that he treats that tier of players as if they’re more important than they are. I’m already rolling my eyes thinking about how he’s going to bring up all of these triple-doubles from Giddey during his end of season press conference.
We all know how this will likely end - with Giddey getting traded to the Kings in two years for a lottery protected pick.
And Coby fit in that as well. I was looking back at his March/April numbers last season during that run and he was legit one of the best scorers in the league during that stretch. He put up over 27 PPG on almost 50/40/90. Then he got stomped out by the Heat and then this year was just kinda back to the normal Coby who’s good not great (injuries again didn’t help here either but still now he’s just a bench guy on a better team.)
Coby per36: 26.1 points, 6.9 assists, 5.6 rebounds
Borderline all-stars (at the right price) have some value, though.
You just have to be careful to not overpay (which is what happened with Zach).
When you're a "borderline" All-Star, it's usually because you put up a lot of scoring numbers but not a lot else. Maybe you become an All Star because you have an especially hot and efficient start to one season, or you're an injury fill-in, when you're looking at non-obvious All Stars and the easiest thing to find is just to grab someone putting up 20 ppg.
Those types of guys are almost always overpaid because scoring is overpaid.
Guys like Alex Caruso, Derrick White, and OG Anunoby are almost never considered "borderline All-Stars" like the Vucevic, Giddey, LaVine, or White are, though I'd say they're all better as overall basketball players.
One-way high-volume scorers are ALWAYS overrated and trying to build a team with those guys is silly.
That's probably right, although I'd also say that SOMEONE has to shoot the ball.
It's a tough question how to value offensive creation, because teams do not usually have lineups without a single "one way high volume scorer".
Anyway, I would be more than willing to trade Giddey (I think borderline All-Star is his ceiling) but the question is trade him for what?
And also, how many years are we prepared for the Bulls to tank?
It's easy to say "mediocrity sucks" but what if the next three seasons are gonna be like these last games and the Bulls still won't have any clear path to contention? That's not unusual, you know.
to be fair to AK, "fringe all-star when you give him all the usage on your crappy team" is still way better than I thought Giddey was
You articulated everything I've been trying to say about Giddey for a year now. Thank you!
Listened to the latest Bill Simmons podcast, which was his annual “Worst NBA contracts” episode.
Patrick Williams made an appearance. Of course, in classic Bill Simmons fashion he kept bizarrely mentioning “the Williams/Okoro trade” but he did also have a moment where he said something along the lines of “the Bulls have the worst GM in the league but poor PR is preventing him from getting that title.”
There is a commonality to this whole thing and until the Bulls management get serious about contending and hire another coach. They will never know how to put together a team that will contend. They have some good players, but Donovan gives the most minutes to 2 guys, the turnover king Giddey and inconsistent Mateus. If they were to give addition minutes to other players, they could have won more games. Donovan plays favorites and loses games because management likes him, but we will see ticket sales drop if they keep being numbskulls.
I do think that Billy has his faults with lineups and minutes, but it’s not the main problem.
I think some fans tell themselves that there’s only one problem with the franchise that can easily be fixed, because that’s easier to stomach than accepting the reality that it’s a gigantic organizational disaster that won’t get turned around immediately.
Here’s the reality: Billy is an imperfect, middle of the road NBA coach who has actually made the past couple of seasons look better than they are. Last year’s team had no business being in the play-in tournament and this year’s team had no business being above .500 in late January, but both happened because Billy understood the strengths of the team and coached in a way that focused on that.
This franchise is currently in a wasteland because their owners don’t care and their president is incompetent and won’t accept that his team needs a superstar. Billy’s stubbornness is an issue, but it’s far from the reason why we’re here.
agreed. BD is a decent coach but at this point we need to bring a more developmentally inclined coach like a Kenny Atkinson type.
The main issue is and always will be ownership. A fish rots from the head down.
Can we deal with OKC again and swap Billy for Mark Daigneault?
wow, they're still doing Bulls games? I 'missed' last week but back doing opponent snapshots. Here's the Rockets: https://substack.com/profile/3012-your-friendly-bullsblogger/note/c-232244806
Bulls win, terrible loss for Houston. Er I mean very important win for the Bulls. When Matas Buzelis is the 6th man for some other team in 5 years he'll remember closing these games and how much worse his career would have gone if he wasn't drafted by a team that was All About Winning.
Impatiently waiting for a Micky Mouse March episode from Cash Considerations where Ricky loses his mind...
I think that episode already happened when the Bulls made it clear they weren't "catching" Memphis.
Now with them likely having the Bucks also get more lottery balls, maybe it'll mean another Ricky rant. Or he's beaten down and resigned.
It's Cowley, so he could be fabricating or at least exaggerating his sources, but he says today that Marc Eversley could get canned (who'd notice?), and Billy Donovan could "step away and re-evaluate" after being in this "mess" amidst his personal tragedies this month. https://www.chicagotribune.com/2026/03/22/chicago-bulls-billy-donovan-tragedies-turmoil/
Everyone else leaving, but keeping AK would be so ridiculously Reinsdorfs that it would almost constitute as parody.
Who would even be the Donovan replacement? Maybe the Jon Scheyer rumors are true and we can all be conspiratorial and think that means we’re jumping up in the lottery and getting Boozer.
yes just think of the executive costs savings when the replacements are a still-there John Paxson and, oh, some 1990s White Sox player is the new coach
After spending years making it seem like Eversley does absolutely nothing, it'll at least be entertaining to see how AK twists himself into pretzels trying to explain how Eversley has actually been the one pulling the strings all along.
I thought Gar Forman would never work again but I underestimated the 'network' in this business is like any other
So Cowley speculating that Eversley would have too poor of a resume to want to leave falls flat to me. He can always go work for Klutch (directly this time)
That's nonsense. With ME we started the season 5-0 😁
And we have a quintillion of second rounders to build the future !!!!
now the yearly speculation of Donovan returning to college hoops, with North Carolina job opening https://x.com/CHGO_Bulls/status/2036634408195592461
David Haugh on WSCR today fed into the speculation, saying the move 'on the table' that he would do is Billy 'quits' coaching but goes in the front office.
I can't imagine that'd happen with AK staying around, but they all are just happy to get checks so maybe it'd be ok
Actually, it might make sense. The speculation (from Cowley, so lots of salt applied) is that the blame could be placed on Eversley. By all accounts, it seems like AK and Billy get along pretty well. Maybe the plan would be to lay the blame on Eversley and promote Billy up into Eversley's GM position.
Billy could still be the mouthpiece of the organization, which I'm sure AK would be very happy with. Billy could also probably take some of the GMing part of the job that AK seems to currently be doing (poorly of course). Gives AK extra time to golf and more cover if things continue going poorly. He could just blame Billy and say it's because Billy's new to the whole GM thing and maybe it's just not for him.
Cowley stinks at his job but at least he's there. Though I don't begrudge other media outlets for giving up on the Bulls, that dynamic should be a story in itself
anyway, Billy quotes on how adrift he feels, essentially setting a bar AK can't reach (have a plan) https://chicago.suntimes.com/bulls/2026/03/25/coach-billy-donovan-discussed-future-bulls-rumors
The Ringer just published their latest Top 100 current players.
One Bull on the list: Giddey at 64.
Six years of the AK era and all he has to show for it is one playoff game victory and the 64th best player in the league.
But yeah, Eversley is the one who REALLY needs to go…
Oh boy Isaac Okoro back tonight. He's in the core!
Sixers Roster snapshot for tonight, Embiid and Paul George return https://substack.com/profile/3012-your-friendly-bullsblogger/note/c-233325509
new post on Billy, who I think is done https://www.blogabull.com/p/head-coach-billy-donewiththis