Bulls state media publishes then takes down propaganda spinning front office extensions

a new low, though their overall irrelevance works in their favor

I’ll say this: it’s a bit of actually interesting information for a team that’s irretrievably uninteresting.

Early last week in the wake of the depressing news that the Bulls rewarded the front office (including the influential Head Coach Billy Donovan), there was no confirmation from the team or other media sources.

While demoralizing, the reports and the ambiguity surrounding them weren’t unexpected behavior from Ownership, who have a clear mission statement over the course of decades that includes main initiatives 1) not competing for championships 2) restrained spending and 3) not disclosing ‘their business’ to the fans

That third bit, combined with a general lack of interest in The Chicago Bulls 6x World Champions franchise, has also led to local¹ and national media not trying real hard to find things out.

But then the team screwed up, and then screwed up further. On Thursday, an episode of the Bulls-owned ‘By the Horns’ Podcast was posted, hosted by ‘dorfTV correspondents KC Johnson and Cam Smith.

via @SeanfromNE on The Everything App

A day later…it was taken down.

Intriguing minds want to…well, usually they are are not concerned with the Bulls, but in this case intriguing minds want to know: why?

I am not a subscriber to this bit of Bulls PR, but friend of the site Doug Thonus tipped me off to the contents and I did listen before it was pulled. [update: can find auto-generated transcript here (via)]

Best I can tell, there were three potential sources of shame that the team looked to remove:

1. KC confirmed the extension for Arturas Karnisovas, adding the sourced detail that his contract now ran through the 2027-28 season

2. KC described ownership’s thinking in giving the AKME Regime this reward: Ownership assessed that AKME did a good job in 2020-21 in building that team, and this was technically their second roster build and they deserved to see it through. While at first KC was only a ‘messenger’ for Ownership, he and Smith quickly defended this logic.

3. KC prefaced the following behind-the-scenes details on Karnisovas’s personality by saying that AK may be mad for disclosing: that AK is really competitive, really takes losses hard and home losses especially hard

I can see why all parties involved wanted to remove this, as everyone involved comes off like a moron:

• Ownership - no need to go into too much detail for something so obvious, but that ‘first team’ AKME built mortgaged a ton of future resources, they did not achieve much at all, and the too-slow reaction to failure over several years should be part of their job performance too instead of getting a do-over. Just look at the currently most dunked-on ownership, the Phoenix Suns, and for all their problems see how the Bulls compare to their stated standards, achievement, and assessments.

• Johnson and Smith - the spin quickly progressed from ‘devil’s advocate’ to absurd full-throated defense of AKME. Smith even favorably compared Karnisovas to Michael Corleone as a stealth dealmaker because of a bad trade made four and a half years ago. Both lamented the what-ifs of Lonzo Ball’s health, which is truly ridiculous in this recent context of how actual title-contending teams have been ravaged by superstars (including heretofore-durable stars, decidedly not Lonzo) injuries in the playoffs. Again, this podcast and the hosts are operated by the team, so we shouldn’t expect much different.

• Karnisovas - It was funny to hear KC try and explain AK’s weird and misguided fixation on home court advantage, and what looks to be an irrational competitive nature, as a positive trait. “No, he really believes it”. Yes, KC, we already know he’s temperamentally unfit to be a lead executive and we see it in the results!

While speculation (from Thonus and others) usually focused on the sorta off-record bit regarding Karnisovas behind the scenes, I think the answer as to what got this propaganda pulled down is the simple fact that they confirmed the extensions.

It goes against Bulls policy to announce their agreements with non-players, and these particular agreements are really, really embarrassing. The only thing working in their favor is that everyone expects them to embarrass themselves all the time, so this will be forgotten amongst past and future idiocy, forming a cocoon of irrelevance where they can hide away from the rest of the NBA.

1. while independent outlet TheBigs got the scoop, the mainstream local media has Tribune covering WNBA, TheAthletic with the job vacant, and The Sun-Times employing a functional illiterate