Bulls remind everyone: we are not competitive

objective observers: this is a major offseason for Chicago | Bulls: lol, lmao even

As fans have been conditioned to respond: this is all not surprising, but still infuriating. Or, perhaps more correctly: the infuriating has been lessened towards apathy but it’s still very annoying.

If they were competing in the NBA let alone aspiring to their glamour franchise status, the Bulls would be facing some kind of internal pressure this offseason after multiple years (in a league where every timeline has been accelerated) of failure and paralysis.

And so far it’s been: nope! Every indication in their moves and rumor-peddling is that they have reached their low standards and are sticking with…whatever ‘this’ is.

I’m reminded of John Hollinger’s disdain for the New Orleans Pelicans after they had a non-search for their new front office:

The message that they sent out — without intending to — is ‘stop taking us seriously, we’re not a real organization, everyone else in the West can exhale, don’t worry about us. We’re just gonna keep being cheap and doing whatever we’re doing. See you in the lottery.’

And that was a team that actually made a change! As did the Denver Nuggets, Sacramento Kings and Atlanta Hawks with their front offices, and the Memphis Grizzlies and New York Knicks with their head coach.

The Chicago Bulls? “Don’t take us seriously”

Rumors abound¹ (the team never discloses their non-player agreements out of shame) that all of Head Coach Billy Donovan and the executive tag team of Arturas Karnisovas and Marc Eversley have seen their contracts extended. They preemptively announced that after the draft that Karnisovas will not be addressing the media and Eversley will instead. As trades and trade rumors heat up even during The Finals, all indications are that the Bulls are going to do nothing significant. And while making news at the end of the year that they’ve even further whittled down their already tiny player development staff, we haven’t heard anything when it comes to new hires.

For a normal NBA team this would all be ludicrous in the face of the results on and off the court. With the Bulls, it’s all the same story: there is an extremely low standard for this franchise, and while the metrics of success are purposefully ambiguous, it’s clear that they’ve achieved them.

A couple things are different than the Pelicans when it comes to the Bulls. They are in the far, far, far less difficult conference so may actually stay out of the lottery. And they have never been taken seriously enough to now “stop”. There was perhaps some faint hope when Michael Reinsdorf took over operations from his absentee father, but that’s been quickly dashed simply by who he has empowered to run the team: the man hired and touted proven morons like Karnisovas and Jim Boylen. Similarly, we know Eversley is also a moron not only due to some indications of dumbassery in his rare public comments, but that he is an underling to Karnisovas.

Everyone in that building is just hanging on to their jobs by outsmarting the people hiring, and now extending, them. They are not succeeding at any level, even the consistent attendance is from doing the bare minimum with built-in advantages.

The Lakers and Celtics just sold their franchises for obscenely-high valuations. For all those who thinks Jerry Reinsdorf only cares about money, just think of what his Bulls would fetch in a sale if he didn’t use them to allow his son to play businessman for the last five years²

1. big scoop by Chicago independent media outlet The Bigs for breaking the story on the front office extensions! The rest of the local media is content to stay out of Bulls business.

2. Mikey has been ‘in charge’ for longer, but we all know he had no authority and John Paxson had to quit for there to be any change