Yep. As I said in the other thread, the path to this team being a -12 point differential team is pretty straightforward. Basically, this team is the Process Sixers, except they owe a pick and no prospect on this team has the upside of Robert Covington.
Honestly, this might be the funniest Bulls team of my lifetime.
“No no no no, Matas. You have to EARN minutes on this team that’s aspiring for the tenth seed and just gave up 135 points to the 0-6 Utah Jazz.
Speaking of minutes. Hey, THT. Want to play 30 minutes tonight?”
Also, I get that Matas has looked bad. But like…is there a plan for him? Is giving him four minutes per game and sending him to the G league twice per month the key to development?
I don’t know, maybe give him a SLIGHT chance to develop a rhythm? Give him 12 minutes per game for the next two weeks and see how he looks. If he looks truly awful for the entire time, then send him to the G League and have him actually stay there and develop for a while.
Not so much their strategy but another example of them not giving a fuck about the fans. If you were going to call him back up immediately, why not let KC 'report' that? Instead it was 20 hours of fans pissed off. They truly do not care about fans unless they come to games.
I think games like last night are where he should be getting some burn. I'm not insensitive to the fact that Matas is not at all competent in any facet of basketball at the NBA level, nor does he project to be in the near term. That is tough. But Utah is an excremental team. Which makes games like last night's suited for challenging Matas without completely overwhelming him.
Pat is clueless basketball-wise. Not unskilled. Just robotic with (some) athleticism. You can see the hamster wheel spinning in his head at all times. Man in front of him...got to go, dribble, cross, drive, lose the ball, shit! I hate seeing him waddle around. Weird body, man. Seems like a nice buy, let him be someone else's hope.
He played alright, and I mean he was overwhelmed physically. John Collins either blew by him or Pat would foul. They got killed on the glass. I think calling it a bad game gives Pat too much credit, like how some (not us) think it's 'all mental' when I believe he is just not that athletic or skilled and perhaps lost some athleticism due to injury
His athleticism is definitely weird. Like off of two feet with the right build up, he can really get up there. But moving at full speed or off of on leg, he has like a 12 inch vertical. And then his lateral movement is also quite bad.
TLDR; if a rookie isn't playing, it's probably because he sucks. Donovan somehow gave Terrance Ferguson 124 career starts. That guy was total ass. Except, I guess, he is still an order of magnitude better than Dalen Terry.
The only guy he really misplayed was Sabonis, who he was using as a spot up guy, but in fairness the rest of that group was Westbrook, Oladipo, Roberson, and Adams... wow, talk about bad spacing.
Looks like a really mixed bag to me but I agree he has started Ayo and Carter here and Gafford when he was really raw(er) and I shouldn't have said that. At this point Matas has played about 30 minutes fewer than Reed Sheppard, for I think exactly the same reason, several other young players ahead of him. Pat Williams has been incredibly fragile so it's not like this is going to last the whole year.
I know I'm nitpicking over something totally pointless here, but I find it interesting so many Bulls fans have labeled Pat as injury-prone.
In his rookie year he played all but one game (shortened season due to COVID). His second season was when he only played 17 games due to a freak injury. He played every game his third year and then only played 43 last year due to his foot thing.
So while he has missed a good amount of games so far in his career, he's only had one non-freak injury that kept him out for a serious amount of time.
I'm not trying to say he's a man of steel or something. Mostly just saying I think it's too soon to label him as injury-prone.
I think it's totally a mixed bag. Some of the guys he played sucked. All of the guys he didn't play sucked.
But it's a long season. I saw someone complaining on a Bulls forum that we were sending down Matas instead of playing him 20mpg like the Raptors did last year with Gradey Dick, who's now playing super hard.
And I went and looked and Dick was almost never inserted into the lineup until late in the season. In the cases he was, he was prematurely removed and clearly couldn't handle the action.
Fans just need to give it time. I can say a lot of terrible things about the Bulls, but I don't think Donovan has withheld on-court opportunities to any young player who deserved them. And in many cases, they gave opportunities that weren't merited.
How they perceived and used the talents of the guys they had their hands on is another story, but they did put them on the court.
@TheMoon: Robert Covington? Not Matas? Maybe you don't consider Coby or Ayo prospects, but both have valuable skills. I actually think the Thunder would have been better off stealing Ayo than AC.
Having watched every game so far, here's what I'd do:
- Jettison Giddey and PW in December. Don't look back -- it's the Bulls biggest issue, they don't know who NOT to play and move off of. You don't want either of these guys on your team, especially long-term and not at a high price. Try not to attach picks. Take back big bodies, we need them just to be able to play NBA basketball.
- Make Vuc and Zach always-available, but no aggressively negative value deals. If no one wants them without first-rounders attached, ride it out.
- Starting lineup: Ayo, Zach, Matas, Smith, Vuc. Second bunch: Lonzo, Coby (at 30-plus minutes, 20-plus points per game), Phillips, new big body 1 (or Torey Craig), new big body 2 (or Sanogo). Slotting in when injuries occur Tucker, Duarte, Carter, Terry.
- Show upside while also tanking for all your worth. Try to get a top three pick.
- Put up a disgruntled-star-come-here sign. Trade whatever it takes to get one.
- See who develops. See who you can keep at a decent price. Keep it moving.
I'd be thrilled with this. Every move that doesn't do something like this could be deadly for half-a-decade or more (ie, not tanking this season, attaching 1sts to move Zach, continuing to give PW real minutes, paying Giddey, not recognizing Ayo's value, not being in conversations about star movement, etc.)
I have a far simpler solution. Tell every team in the league that Coby and Ayo are available. Accept the highest bid, which will be a solid return since both guys are worth far more than they make. Let Zach and Vooch score 30 a piece until the deadline while the team continues to lose, and then offload them for whatever you can at the deadline. Maybe see if you can also trade Giddey and get whatever you can in return. Be absolutely terrible for the next three years while picking in the top 5 each year.
I completely approve of this message. I'd also add that every time I see someone talking about protecting our pick, I wonder if they realize that if we protect it this year, we'll just be back to having to protect it next year. To keep our pick, we gotta suck really bad for three whole years.
But yeah, this team is in for years of sucking. The best bet here is to start selling. Obviously we all know this, but it can't be said enough.
Some people probably don‘t realize that, but I’d guess most do or don‘t care. First, this draft is “supposed to be loaded.” But even whatever from that, it‘s better to get the pick now than in 3 years. Just on general principal. It’s better to get a player now than next year or the year after. Just like Coby and Markkanen and Wendell (just name some of the Bulls, not to mention anyone else), non “surefire” players take a few years to develop, if at all. If you get luck and get someone like Jalen WIlliams or Franz Wagner, then great. You‘ve got a good player a lot sooner. But if it takes a couple years like Dyson Daniels, then it’s better to have them sooner, too.
I say if the Bulls are bad enough this year to “protect their pick,“ and they use it, then they aren‘t that bad next year, and they lose it, I’d call that a win, even if it LaVine and Vucevic are still on the team. Something happened.
I understand what you're saying, but I don't think I agree. Contracts and fit are such a big deal that I think it's actually wasteful to get a guy a year or two early from the rest of the rebuild.
Instead, I think most successful turnarounds are accomplished by getting a critical mass of guys in a short amount of time. If you bring in a guy now, in three years, he's going to be closing in on extension time, and if the team doesn't have a clear direction (it won't) it seems likely that the kind of "good but not great" player like Coby or Wendell, or even the really good but surrounded by crap and misused player like Lauri is going to be undervalued.
I think the a good rebuild needs:
1. A surplus of picks
2. Good drafting/prospect evaluation
The Bulls have neither.
Like, let's fast forward to 2028. The Bulls have added the #7 pick three consecutive seasons. Is anyone going to be excited about a Matas Bezels extension if he follows the Coby/WCJr/Lauri pattern? Or the Pat Pattern of just not being very good?
And if the Bulls lose their draft pick in one of those three years, it'll look even worse.
I mean, first we’re discussing a world where AKME aren’t involved right? Otherwise, I think we both agree that it would be pointless.
My counterpoint: let’s go to 2028, Bulls have just drafted the next Coby/Wendell who won’t actually be a positive contributor until 2031, 3-4 years out, if at all. Meanwhile, you’ve signed big free agents who are probably 28 or older. So now you’re waiting for that player to get better, he’s not much of a contributor. I’d rather have the same player already being decent and a solid contributor when you bring the free agents in, even if it causes some “worries” about paying that player.
But that’s just in general. For the Bulls specifically, it’s even more imperative (I think) to get cheaper talent in now. They’re going to need to re-up White and Dosunmu in the next two years. They’ll likely be bringing in guys to replace Vucevic, LaVine, and Smith. I doubt they’d have too much cap space in 3 years.
If you’re saying they should do the full tank and trade anyone of value for draft picks and cap space and do The Process, I’d agree with you there. But even then, that’s tanking this year and trying to keep that pick.
In that case, I’d still want to keep the pick. If it ends up 9 or 10 and they want to trade it for future draft capital, fine. And then hope you stay sucky enough to keep it for the next 3 seasons.
I dunno. I guess what I'm saying is that just like there's a "window of opportunity" to win a championship with a solid team, I think there's a window of opportunity to build the makings of a good team.
You need a critical mass of guys brought in during a short timeframe. Not a slow drip of guys brought in over a longer timeframe. The guys who are the front end of that drip, as a rule (I'm sure there are exceptions) generally need to be turned over quickly unless they're really awesome.
It's not that I think we shouldn't have the '25 pick. It's that I think that even if we hit on the 25 pick, we will be very poorly placed to build around him.
Suppose we get Flagg. Best case scenario. Would I prefer Scenario 1 where we keep Coby, Ayo, and everyone else we might keep, and lose the 26 pick?
Or would I prefer Scenario 2, where we trade Coby, Ayo and everyone else we can, and have the 26 pick plus another high potential pick (I think Coby could get one in the right deal) and maybe a couple lesser ones (I think Ayo might fetch that).
The pick also scales from "top 10 protected" in 2025 to "top 8 protected" in the 2026 and 2027 drafts.
How bad do you have to be to avoid that? Memphis got the #9 pick last year with 27 wins (would have been #7 but two teams jumped them into the top 3). The average win total for teams drafting #9 the last few years is 31. The only team that hasn't exceeded 31 wins in any of the last 4 seasons is the Pistons. Dregs like Charlotte, San Antonio, Portland have all won more games than that in the last few years. When OKC was intentionally fielding the worst team they could, they still wound up around 24 wins. So being that bad, and staying that bad, is something that you actually need to work at.
I would argue there's different levels of bad and at this shitty level it's not strictly related to talent or skill. Right now the Bulls have zero fundamentals, terrible defense and the players fit together horribly. Substituting a couple of guys who know how to box out and defend isn't going to get them to 50 wins but could get a 22 win team to 30. (It's easier to wrap your head around the other way: a team of very talented scorers lose their defensive center and lock-down swingman and despite still having the same offensive firepower just fall to pieces. The same happens in reverse with players nobody really think are "difference makers" like that.)
I pointed this out in discord but fit matters for a lot. Last year Coby White was in the top 5 in the league in drawing charges. He had 50. This season he has 1. Alex Caruso being gone shouldn't make any difference in another player drawing charges but it clearly does.
It's interesting that you group Giddey and Pat Williams together. They both remind me of one of Bill James' criticisms of baseball players who continue to make "rookie mistakes" their entire careers. Billy yanked Giddey in the 4th quarter, as CE pointed out in the game thread, after he missed yet another runner and debuted his 47th different shooting form in chucking a 3 on consecutive plays. The Bulls ran a full-court press and he was so lost it looked like he had never done it before. He looked genuinely confused about what to do in a full-court press, which consists entirely of matching up to a player and guarding him.
This is a very puzzling player. I mean weird guys come into the NBA all the time but they're not handed a starting job and deemed a valuable player. The last Bulls player sort of like this was Ron Artest, and when I found out later that he had a pretty severe drinking problem with the Bulls, suddenly a lot of things made sense.
Seeing all the casual fans gush over Giddey is only confirming in my mind that AK's going to extend him on a rather large deal this coming summer. Giddey does some nice things, which I guarantee will make AK think he's worth a big extension. Unfortunately he doesn't do anything incredibly well and he does several things very badly.
Three point shooting and defense are arguably the two most important traits in today's NBA. It's why Pat was always going to get a decent payday regardless of how disappointing he's been as a #4 pick. Probably not as much as he got from AK, but likely more than Coby got. Giddey's bad at both shooting and defense and his one "good" area isn't even great. He's an above average passer whose passing is handicapped by his inability to control defenses with his scoring ability.
Totally agree with this. PG and C are positions of scarcity in the league, so the career of even a deeply flawed player at those positions will be longer, you'll get more chances but eventually you will find yourself on the outs.
If a generic player is "good" at both shooting and defense, they can be a starter in this league. If they're only "good" at one, they can be a roleplayer. If they're not good at either, they're basically Enes Kanter, to pick a recent example. No matter how good he was at converting around the rim, he got destroyed on D and couldn't shoot and found himself shuffled from team to team as a big body before trying to reinvent himself as a weird influencer. (I might cite Markelle Fultz but (a) I have no memory of his defense and (b) I didn't see him at all last year coming back from the injury.)
This is the kind of losing this squad needs to be doing to keep that Top 10 pick. Be bad. Be really bad. Be so bad that the teams that thought/think they're bad, think they're good when they play you. Can't believe you're asking why they picked up Dalen Terry's option. Same reason they decided to sign Patrick for 90 million. BECAUSE THEY DON'T KNOW WTF THEY'RE DOING!! They have no future plans. Their only plan is to keep existing and being mediocre. And as long as fans keep showing up to watch them be mid, all is well in Jerry World. I think if there's no revenue from Reinsdorfvision, along with a poor record and dwindling attendance numbers, Jerry might start leaning towards evaluating his ownership of this organization. At least one can hope....
Great recap. A genuinely good mix of humor and bitterness. That the team in the no. 3 largest market in the NBA can’t show its product to fans is an embarrassment.
Regarding what's good on the Bulls, I think it's just Coby and Ayo, but I also think we should be honest about what kind of good they are.
Too bad for Coby and Ayo. I think those two guys would play a solid role on every team in the league, but a lot of times it'd be as the 4th-7th best player. I think Coby could potentially be the 3rd best player on the right really good team. For example, if you replaced DLo with him on the Lakers, they'd be obviously better because Coby can do all the same good things that DLo does, but he's a better shooter and better at the kind of catch and shoot stuff that DLo has always been worse at than his numbers suggest. Any team with a top dog scorer could use a secondary creator who is also good at catch and shoot.
And any team can use a guy like Ayo who can defend and not be complete trash on offense. Ayo can really get to the hoop. On the other hand, he's not shooting well to start. I'm not super worried, but he's not selling himself.
Anyway, if I were the Bulls. I'd be selling those two to the highest bidder because there's literally nothing else we can do to get picks. Maybe the right deal would let us unload Vuc's Potemkin Village double-double machine too.
I'm going to keep riding for Ayo. Last night, they mentioned he has the highest two-point percentage in Bulls history, after Artis Gilmore. His downhill push and finishing is ELITE. He plays defense. His three isn't great, but no reason he can't hit league average. He was a second round pick, that hangs around his neck. But the league obviously got it wrong. Was not surprised at all he scored 25 points last night.
Coby isn't off to a great start, looks a little sloppy and role-confused. But I agree he can be a solid #3 on a championship team, shooting 10+ threes a game at good%.
Looks like the problem is the Bulls can't extend them at market price and if I was either of them I'd walk away from this shit-show.
> Looks like the problem is the Bulls can't extend them at market price and if I was either of them I'd walk away from this shit-show.
Yeah. It's the same thing as with Zach (in 20/21 before he signed his max deal) and then with DeMar and AC. The best time to trade a (good) player (that the other team is acquiring for basketball reasons) is generally when they have one year left on the deal. So the acquiring team gets cost control for this year plus one more.
That's Coby and Ayo. They're in the sweet spot. Good contracts and you'd get them next year for that deal too.
But if you wait, you either have to sign them to a new deal, or take less value in trade.
The Athletic is a bellwether. They pulled back from "coverage of every team" (like SBNation...) and are deploying their reporters more "tactically". Thus why Darnell Mayberry stopped traveling with the Bulls last season, and covered OKC in the playoffs.
for yesterday's game Darnell was at the UC, but filed a story covering The Jazz (who have no dedicated beat writer at The Athletic anymore). Jon Greenberg did the Bulls gamer.
I completely missed this Terry contract news, and am stumped. I don't see the rotation player potential and am not sure why he gets playing time over Buzelis, Craig or other people who can hit an open shot or make a layup.
I don't get the salary cap strategy here either - seems to be a lot of filling spots, positions and cap for not real rhyme or reason. Why spend on Terry, why not get lower under the apron and make it easy to clean up the cap and pick situation before the whole thing cleans itself up in two years? By that time I can't see this regime sticking around, and this extremely passive approach seems optimal for both fans and their own job prospects.
Regarding the comments that we should trade Coby and Ayo, I can’t get there.
Without those two guys, almost all hope for enjoyment watching this team would depend on their ability to draft and develop. That’s not a gamble I’m willing to make lol
Ok sure, Coby and Ayo can be traded to contenders for picks. They’d likely be mid-late first round picks. You trust AK to do anything smart with those picks? You trust him to identify players as good as them? Ayo is literally the only good NBA player AK has drafted in nearly half a decade and that’s because he had no business being available at pick 38.
Bad organizations should keep the good, young players they have.
MikeDC mentioned this before, basically every point can be invalidated with "... but these bozos are the ones making the decisions." You can make an objective statement about what they should do without carrying their low stamina and intellect as a handicap.
Trading Alex Caruso was the right move, they should have done it a year earlier in fact. Despite that I have harshly criticized the trade itself. It is totally possible to do both of these things.
Trading DeMar was likewise the right move, should have been done earlier, etc. and then they cheaped out on the return and sent the draft pick compensation to San Antonio.
Trading Coby this season makes sense for exactly the same reason, but I am under no illusion the trade will probably be bad and inspired by lazy thinking.
Why bother? Again, we have to find some way to kill the time.
Granvillator summed up my thinking when I wrote that comment about trading Coby and Ayo in his reply to you. As a fan, I'd hate to see it. If I'm playing armchair GM though, it makes total sense.
Intrepid Univision reporter Gerardo Reinsdorfo took the opportunity today to ask the governor if there isn't "something, you know, the state could do" to get the Bulls and Blackhawks on TV:
Q: Is there anything you can do to help all the Black Hawks and Bulls fans who pay millions to Comcast and aren’t getting anything for their money because they can’t watch, you know, sports at night? Is there something, you know, the state could do to help these consumers?
Pritzker: I haven’t been asked to be involved in that by any of the parties that you’re referring to, and so I don’t know if there are, you know… they should make themselves known if that’s the case. But the fact is that private businesses, other than the normal things that government can do to support private businesses, which we do, you know, want to be able to manage their own futures together. I also would like to be able to access these things more easily [chuckles], but it’s very difficult…
"The trade was met with confusion and criticism around the league, primarily about Chicago's failure to get additional draft compensation. Sources told ESPN the Bulls were offered as many as two first-round picks for Caruso before the 2024 trade deadline."
Not that we hadn't already heard rumors that the Bulls were offered two first round picks for Caruso, but this is probably the most clear confirmation we've gotten.
It's good that Giddey is honest about this. There were many fans who didn't want to believe it:
As his role changed, he acknowledged his attitude did, too, sulking on the bench.
"The first two games of that series, I was a bad teammate, to be honest," Giddey told ESPN. "I was just so caught up in myself, and it's, like, 'What does everyone think of this?' I'm not playing. I started the whole year and now I'm coming off the bench. I was so worried about external noise that I was probably, like, not being the teammate I should have been."
Giddey pointed to two conversations that helped him. The first was with his father, who noticed Giddey's poor body language watching games on TV. "He's just like, 'People are always watching,'" Giddey recalled. "When you're sitting on the bench, pouting, everyone notices that. That hit home."
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Overall, I like Giddey more than I thought I would, but still think it was a really bad trade and still struggle to see how to make a winning team work with him.
Completely agree. I've actually enjoyed watching him more than I expected and he seems like a guy who genuinely loves the game and wants to succeed. He also seems to be fairly self-aware, as you pointed out from the article.
But as you also said, I just don't see how to make a winning team with him as a foundational piece. I think he can be a contributor on a good team, but I don't see him being one of its foundational pieces. It's just so hard to be anything more than okay in today's NBA when you can't shoot or defend.
It mystifies me that a guy who seems generally self-aware, and obviously has a good send of how to play offensively has such a clunky shot and such cluelessness about defense.
My only thought is that maybe the self-awareness is a newer thing. If it took his dad pointing it out in the playoffs this past spring, then it is a fairly new thing.
>> still struggle to see how to make a winning team work with him
Yes. For those that like him a bit, consider: his +/- is atrocious. he can't get by anyone usually and just drives, jumps and throws the ball back out. he's not really a creator, just a usage monster. he can't shoot, no really he can't. he plays zero defense, man or help. he rebounds because he's 6-8 and doesn't play defense OR box out so if others' clear out the lane he's happy to step in and steal the board. He's a primadonna and a Barbie. He wants and may get $25-30m per year.
Yep. As I said in the other thread, the path to this team being a -12 point differential team is pretty straightforward. Basically, this team is the Process Sixers, except they owe a pick and no prospect on this team has the upside of Robert Covington.
This team is like a social experiment.
How many games can a bad team win if they don’t ACCEPT they’re bad?
Nikola Vucevic just REFUSES TO LOSE!
That was a hell of a stinger at the end.
Honestly, this might be the funniest Bulls team of my lifetime.
“No no no no, Matas. You have to EARN minutes on this team that’s aspiring for the tenth seed and just gave up 135 points to the 0-6 Utah Jazz.
Speaking of minutes. Hey, THT. Want to play 30 minutes tonight?”
Also, I get that Matas has looked bad. But like…is there a plan for him? Is giving him four minutes per game and sending him to the G league twice per month the key to development?
I don’t know, maybe give him a SLIGHT chance to develop a rhythm? Give him 12 minutes per game for the next two weeks and see how he looks. If he looks truly awful for the entire time, then send him to the G League and have him actually stay there and develop for a while.
Bah! I forgot to mention Matas
Not so much their strategy but another example of them not giving a fuck about the fans. If you were going to call him back up immediately, why not let KC 'report' that? Instead it was 20 hours of fans pissed off. They truly do not care about fans unless they come to games.
I mean, are you even a fan if you're not going to games??
I think games like last night are where he should be getting some burn. I'm not insensitive to the fact that Matas is not at all competent in any facet of basketball at the NBA level, nor does he project to be in the near term. That is tough. But Utah is an excremental team. Which makes games like last night's suited for challenging Matas without completely overwhelming him.
Then again Pat was totally overwhelmed in that game
Well, no. He wasn't totally overwhelmed. He played poorly. There's a difference.
Pat is clueless basketball-wise. Not unskilled. Just robotic with (some) athleticism. You can see the hamster wheel spinning in his head at all times. Man in front of him...got to go, dribble, cross, drive, lose the ball, shit! I hate seeing him waddle around. Weird body, man. Seems like a nice buy, let him be someone else's hope.
He played alright, and I mean he was overwhelmed physically. John Collins either blew by him or Pat would foul. They got killed on the glass. I think calling it a bad game gives Pat too much credit, like how some (not us) think it's 'all mental' when I believe he is just not that athletic or skilled and perhaps lost some athleticism due to injury
His athleticism is definitely weird. Like off of two feet with the right build up, he can really get up there. But moving at full speed or off of on leg, he has like a 12 inch vertical. And then his lateral movement is also quite bad.
If the Jazz can start two rookies, the Bulls can find 12-15 minutes a game for Matas. Especially when they're already lacking in the PF department.
Wizards started 3 rookies, a sophomore and Jordan Poole last night and actually looked pretty fun.
Utah started 2 rookies and beat Chicago's face in.
But none of this is a surprise, Donovan has a reputation and is living up to it.
I dunno, I think coaches get that "reputation" almost entirely based on fans being dumb.
Like... here's the young players that Donovan has played a lot:
Steven Adams (2), Andre Roberson (2)
Domas Sabonis (R), Alex Abrines (R)
Terrence Ferguson (1, 2)
Lu Dort (R)
SGA (1)
Darius Bazley (R)
Pat Williams (R, 1, 2, 3... isn't he still basically a rookie?)
Ayo (R)
Coby (1, 2)
Gafford (1), Carter(2), Lauri (3), Troy Brown Jr (2)
And here's the young guys that he didn't:
Mitch McGary, Josh Huestis, Cam Payne, Justin Patton, Dalen Terry, Chandler Hutchison, Marko Simonvic
TLDR; if a rookie isn't playing, it's probably because he sucks. Donovan somehow gave Terrance Ferguson 124 career starts. That guy was total ass. Except, I guess, he is still an order of magnitude better than Dalen Terry.
The only guy he really misplayed was Sabonis, who he was using as a spot up guy, but in fairness the rest of that group was Westbrook, Oladipo, Roberson, and Adams... wow, talk about bad spacing.
Looks like a really mixed bag to me but I agree he has started Ayo and Carter here and Gafford when he was really raw(er) and I shouldn't have said that. At this point Matas has played about 30 minutes fewer than Reed Sheppard, for I think exactly the same reason, several other young players ahead of him. Pat Williams has been incredibly fragile so it's not like this is going to last the whole year.
I know I'm nitpicking over something totally pointless here, but I find it interesting so many Bulls fans have labeled Pat as injury-prone.
In his rookie year he played all but one game (shortened season due to COVID). His second season was when he only played 17 games due to a freak injury. He played every game his third year and then only played 43 last year due to his foot thing.
So while he has missed a good amount of games so far in his career, he's only had one non-freak injury that kept him out for a serious amount of time.
I'm not trying to say he's a man of steel or something. Mostly just saying I think it's too soon to label him as injury-prone.
I think it is nitpicking. He missed basically 1.5 years out of his first 4. Call it what you will, I'm not going to walk that back.
I think it's totally a mixed bag. Some of the guys he played sucked. All of the guys he didn't play sucked.
But it's a long season. I saw someone complaining on a Bulls forum that we were sending down Matas instead of playing him 20mpg like the Raptors did last year with Gradey Dick, who's now playing super hard.
And I went and looked and Dick was almost never inserted into the lineup until late in the season. In the cases he was, he was prematurely removed and clearly couldn't handle the action.
Fans just need to give it time. I can say a lot of terrible things about the Bulls, but I don't think Donovan has withheld on-court opportunities to any young player who deserved them. And in many cases, they gave opportunities that weren't merited.
How they perceived and used the talents of the guys they had their hands on is another story, but they did put them on the court.
I wonder if the THT minutes was Billy knowing it was a 'revenge game' for him? Truly a players coach!
@TheMoon: Robert Covington? Not Matas? Maybe you don't consider Coby or Ayo prospects, but both have valuable skills. I actually think the Thunder would have been better off stealing Ayo than AC.
Having watched every game so far, here's what I'd do:
- Jettison Giddey and PW in December. Don't look back -- it's the Bulls biggest issue, they don't know who NOT to play and move off of. You don't want either of these guys on your team, especially long-term and not at a high price. Try not to attach picks. Take back big bodies, we need them just to be able to play NBA basketball.
- Make Vuc and Zach always-available, but no aggressively negative value deals. If no one wants them without first-rounders attached, ride it out.
- Starting lineup: Ayo, Zach, Matas, Smith, Vuc. Second bunch: Lonzo, Coby (at 30-plus minutes, 20-plus points per game), Phillips, new big body 1 (or Torey Craig), new big body 2 (or Sanogo). Slotting in when injuries occur Tucker, Duarte, Carter, Terry.
- Show upside while also tanking for all your worth. Try to get a top three pick.
- Put up a disgruntled-star-come-here sign. Trade whatever it takes to get one.
- See who develops. See who you can keep at a decent price. Keep it moving.
I'd be thrilled with this. Every move that doesn't do something like this could be deadly for half-a-decade or more (ie, not tanking this season, attaching 1sts to move Zach, continuing to give PW real minutes, paying Giddey, not recognizing Ayo's value, not being in conversations about star movement, etc.)
I have a far simpler solution. Tell every team in the league that Coby and Ayo are available. Accept the highest bid, which will be a solid return since both guys are worth far more than they make. Let Zach and Vooch score 30 a piece until the deadline while the team continues to lose, and then offload them for whatever you can at the deadline. Maybe see if you can also trade Giddey and get whatever you can in return. Be absolutely terrible for the next three years while picking in the top 5 each year.
I completely approve of this message. I'd also add that every time I see someone talking about protecting our pick, I wonder if they realize that if we protect it this year, we'll just be back to having to protect it next year. To keep our pick, we gotta suck really bad for three whole years.
But yeah, this team is in for years of sucking. The best bet here is to start selling. Obviously we all know this, but it can't be said enough.
Some people probably don‘t realize that, but I’d guess most do or don‘t care. First, this draft is “supposed to be loaded.” But even whatever from that, it‘s better to get the pick now than in 3 years. Just on general principal. It’s better to get a player now than next year or the year after. Just like Coby and Markkanen and Wendell (just name some of the Bulls, not to mention anyone else), non “surefire” players take a few years to develop, if at all. If you get luck and get someone like Jalen WIlliams or Franz Wagner, then great. You‘ve got a good player a lot sooner. But if it takes a couple years like Dyson Daniels, then it’s better to have them sooner, too.
I say if the Bulls are bad enough this year to “protect their pick,“ and they use it, then they aren‘t that bad next year, and they lose it, I’d call that a win, even if it LaVine and Vucevic are still on the team. Something happened.
I understand what you're saying, but I don't think I agree. Contracts and fit are such a big deal that I think it's actually wasteful to get a guy a year or two early from the rest of the rebuild.
Instead, I think most successful turnarounds are accomplished by getting a critical mass of guys in a short amount of time. If you bring in a guy now, in three years, he's going to be closing in on extension time, and if the team doesn't have a clear direction (it won't) it seems likely that the kind of "good but not great" player like Coby or Wendell, or even the really good but surrounded by crap and misused player like Lauri is going to be undervalued.
I think the a good rebuild needs:
1. A surplus of picks
2. Good drafting/prospect evaluation
The Bulls have neither.
Like, let's fast forward to 2028. The Bulls have added the #7 pick three consecutive seasons. Is anyone going to be excited about a Matas Bezels extension if he follows the Coby/WCJr/Lauri pattern? Or the Pat Pattern of just not being very good?
And if the Bulls lose their draft pick in one of those three years, it'll look even worse.
I mean, first we’re discussing a world where AKME aren’t involved right? Otherwise, I think we both agree that it would be pointless.
My counterpoint: let’s go to 2028, Bulls have just drafted the next Coby/Wendell who won’t actually be a positive contributor until 2031, 3-4 years out, if at all. Meanwhile, you’ve signed big free agents who are probably 28 or older. So now you’re waiting for that player to get better, he’s not much of a contributor. I’d rather have the same player already being decent and a solid contributor when you bring the free agents in, even if it causes some “worries” about paying that player.
But that’s just in general. For the Bulls specifically, it’s even more imperative (I think) to get cheaper talent in now. They’re going to need to re-up White and Dosunmu in the next two years. They’ll likely be bringing in guys to replace Vucevic, LaVine, and Smith. I doubt they’d have too much cap space in 3 years.
If you’re saying they should do the full tank and trade anyone of value for draft picks and cap space and do The Process, I’d agree with you there. But even then, that’s tanking this year and trying to keep that pick.
In that case, I’d still want to keep the pick. If it ends up 9 or 10 and they want to trade it for future draft capital, fine. And then hope you stay sucky enough to keep it for the next 3 seasons.
I dunno. I guess what I'm saying is that just like there's a "window of opportunity" to win a championship with a solid team, I think there's a window of opportunity to build the makings of a good team.
You need a critical mass of guys brought in during a short timeframe. Not a slow drip of guys brought in over a longer timeframe. The guys who are the front end of that drip, as a rule (I'm sure there are exceptions) generally need to be turned over quickly unless they're really awesome.
It's not that I think we shouldn't have the '25 pick. It's that I think that even if we hit on the 25 pick, we will be very poorly placed to build around him.
Suppose we get Flagg. Best case scenario. Would I prefer Scenario 1 where we keep Coby, Ayo, and everyone else we might keep, and lose the 26 pick?
Or would I prefer Scenario 2, where we trade Coby, Ayo and everyone else we can, and have the 26 pick plus another high potential pick (I think Coby could get one in the right deal) and maybe a couple lesser ones (I think Ayo might fetch that).
Probably I'd prefer scenario 2.
The pick also scales from "top 10 protected" in 2025 to "top 8 protected" in the 2026 and 2027 drafts.
How bad do you have to be to avoid that? Memphis got the #9 pick last year with 27 wins (would have been #7 but two teams jumped them into the top 3). The average win total for teams drafting #9 the last few years is 31. The only team that hasn't exceeded 31 wins in any of the last 4 seasons is the Pistons. Dregs like Charlotte, San Antonio, Portland have all won more games than that in the last few years. When OKC was intentionally fielding the worst team they could, they still wound up around 24 wins. So being that bad, and staying that bad, is something that you actually need to work at.
This team is already pretty bad. Trading all of Zach, Coby, Ayo and Vooch (and hopefully Giddey) would make them truly terrible.
With that being said, I'm sure AK would still figure out a way to screw things up.
I would argue there's different levels of bad and at this shitty level it's not strictly related to talent or skill. Right now the Bulls have zero fundamentals, terrible defense and the players fit together horribly. Substituting a couple of guys who know how to box out and defend isn't going to get them to 50 wins but could get a 22 win team to 30. (It's easier to wrap your head around the other way: a team of very talented scorers lose their defensive center and lock-down swingman and despite still having the same offensive firepower just fall to pieces. The same happens in reverse with players nobody really think are "difference makers" like that.)
I pointed this out in discord but fit matters for a lot. Last year Coby White was in the top 5 in the league in drawing charges. He had 50. This season he has 1. Alex Caruso being gone shouldn't make any difference in another player drawing charges but it clearly does.
It's interesting that you group Giddey and Pat Williams together. They both remind me of one of Bill James' criticisms of baseball players who continue to make "rookie mistakes" their entire careers. Billy yanked Giddey in the 4th quarter, as CE pointed out in the game thread, after he missed yet another runner and debuted his 47th different shooting form in chucking a 3 on consecutive plays. The Bulls ran a full-court press and he was so lost it looked like he had never done it before. He looked genuinely confused about what to do in a full-court press, which consists entirely of matching up to a player and guarding him.
This is a very puzzling player. I mean weird guys come into the NBA all the time but they're not handed a starting job and deemed a valuable player. The last Bulls player sort of like this was Ron Artest, and when I found out later that he had a pretty severe drinking problem with the Bulls, suddenly a lot of things made sense.
Seeing all the casual fans gush over Giddey is only confirming in my mind that AK's going to extend him on a rather large deal this coming summer. Giddey does some nice things, which I guarantee will make AK think he's worth a big extension. Unfortunately he doesn't do anything incredibly well and he does several things very badly.
Three point shooting and defense are arguably the two most important traits in today's NBA. It's why Pat was always going to get a decent payday regardless of how disappointing he's been as a #4 pick. Probably not as much as he got from AK, but likely more than Coby got. Giddey's bad at both shooting and defense and his one "good" area isn't even great. He's an above average passer whose passing is handicapped by his inability to control defenses with his scoring ability.
Totally agree with this. PG and C are positions of scarcity in the league, so the career of even a deeply flawed player at those positions will be longer, you'll get more chances but eventually you will find yourself on the outs.
If a generic player is "good" at both shooting and defense, they can be a starter in this league. If they're only "good" at one, they can be a roleplayer. If they're not good at either, they're basically Enes Kanter, to pick a recent example. No matter how good he was at converting around the rim, he got destroyed on D and couldn't shoot and found himself shuffled from team to team as a big body before trying to reinvent himself as a weird influencer. (I might cite Markelle Fultz but (a) I have no memory of his defense and (b) I didn't see him at all last year coming back from the injury.)
This is the kind of losing this squad needs to be doing to keep that Top 10 pick. Be bad. Be really bad. Be so bad that the teams that thought/think they're bad, think they're good when they play you. Can't believe you're asking why they picked up Dalen Terry's option. Same reason they decided to sign Patrick for 90 million. BECAUSE THEY DON'T KNOW WTF THEY'RE DOING!! They have no future plans. Their only plan is to keep existing and being mediocre. And as long as fans keep showing up to watch them be mid, all is well in Jerry World. I think if there's no revenue from Reinsdorfvision, along with a poor record and dwindling attendance numbers, Jerry might start leaning towards evaluating his ownership of this organization. At least one can hope....
Great recap. A genuinely good mix of humor and bitterness. That the team in the no. 3 largest market in the NBA can’t show its product to fans is an embarrassment.
speaking of CHSN, oof: https://x.com/cowhitchurch/status/1853807207445414341
Regarding what's good on the Bulls, I think it's just Coby and Ayo, but I also think we should be honest about what kind of good they are.
Too bad for Coby and Ayo. I think those two guys would play a solid role on every team in the league, but a lot of times it'd be as the 4th-7th best player. I think Coby could potentially be the 3rd best player on the right really good team. For example, if you replaced DLo with him on the Lakers, they'd be obviously better because Coby can do all the same good things that DLo does, but he's a better shooter and better at the kind of catch and shoot stuff that DLo has always been worse at than his numbers suggest. Any team with a top dog scorer could use a secondary creator who is also good at catch and shoot.
And any team can use a guy like Ayo who can defend and not be complete trash on offense. Ayo can really get to the hoop. On the other hand, he's not shooting well to start. I'm not super worried, but he's not selling himself.
Anyway, if I were the Bulls. I'd be selling those two to the highest bidder because there's literally nothing else we can do to get picks. Maybe the right deal would let us unload Vuc's Potemkin Village double-double machine too.
I'm going to keep riding for Ayo. Last night, they mentioned he has the highest two-point percentage in Bulls history, after Artis Gilmore. His downhill push and finishing is ELITE. He plays defense. His three isn't great, but no reason he can't hit league average. He was a second round pick, that hangs around his neck. But the league obviously got it wrong. Was not surprised at all he scored 25 points last night.
Coby isn't off to a great start, looks a little sloppy and role-confused. But I agree he can be a solid #3 on a championship team, shooting 10+ threes a game at good%.
Looks like the problem is the Bulls can't extend them at market price and if I was either of them I'd walk away from this shit-show.
> Looks like the problem is the Bulls can't extend them at market price and if I was either of them I'd walk away from this shit-show.
Yeah. It's the same thing as with Zach (in 20/21 before he signed his max deal) and then with DeMar and AC. The best time to trade a (good) player (that the other team is acquiring for basketball reasons) is generally when they have one year left on the deal. So the acquiring team gets cost control for this year plus one more.
That's Coby and Ayo. They're in the sweet spot. Good contracts and you'd get them next year for that deal too.
But if you wait, you either have to sign them to a new deal, or take less value in trade.
It's pretty simple
They’re so bad and irrelevant that The Athletic left them out of their power rankings on first post.
The Athletic is a bellwether. They pulled back from "coverage of every team" (like SBNation...) and are deploying their reporters more "tactically". Thus why Darnell Mayberry stopped traveling with the Bulls last season, and covered OKC in the playoffs.
for yesterday's game Darnell was at the UC, but filed a story covering The Jazz (who have no dedicated beat writer at The Athletic anymore). Jon Greenberg did the Bulls gamer.
I completely missed this Terry contract news, and am stumped. I don't see the rotation player potential and am not sure why he gets playing time over Buzelis, Craig or other people who can hit an open shot or make a layup.
I don't get the salary cap strategy here either - seems to be a lot of filling spots, positions and cap for not real rhyme or reason. Why spend on Terry, why not get lower under the apron and make it easy to clean up the cap and pick situation before the whole thing cleans itself up in two years? By that time I can't see this regime sticking around, and this extremely passive approach seems optimal for both fans and their own job prospects.
Regarding the comments that we should trade Coby and Ayo, I can’t get there.
Without those two guys, almost all hope for enjoyment watching this team would depend on their ability to draft and develop. That’s not a gamble I’m willing to make lol
Ok sure, Coby and Ayo can be traded to contenders for picks. They’d likely be mid-late first round picks. You trust AK to do anything smart with those picks? You trust him to identify players as good as them? Ayo is literally the only good NBA player AK has drafted in nearly half a decade and that’s because he had no business being available at pick 38.
Bad organizations should keep the good, young players they have.
MikeDC mentioned this before, basically every point can be invalidated with "... but these bozos are the ones making the decisions." You can make an objective statement about what they should do without carrying their low stamina and intellect as a handicap.
Trading Alex Caruso was the right move, they should have done it a year earlier in fact. Despite that I have harshly criticized the trade itself. It is totally possible to do both of these things.
Trading DeMar was likewise the right move, should have been done earlier, etc. and then they cheaped out on the return and sent the draft pick compensation to San Antonio.
Trading Coby this season makes sense for exactly the same reason, but I am under no illusion the trade will probably be bad and inspired by lazy thinking.
Why bother? Again, we have to find some way to kill the time.
This team sucks and makes me sad.
Granvillator summed up my thinking when I wrote that comment about trading Coby and Ayo in his reply to you. As a fan, I'd hate to see it. If I'm playing armchair GM though, it makes total sense.
Mavs thread is up https://open.substack.com/chat/posts/e21fa85a-5bcc-4df3-9f41-689a0fa310d6
Intrepid Univision reporter Gerardo Reinsdorfo took the opportunity today to ask the governor if there isn't "something, you know, the state could do" to get the Bulls and Blackhawks on TV:
Q: Is there anything you can do to help all the Black Hawks and Bulls fans who pay millions to Comcast and aren’t getting anything for their money because they can’t watch, you know, sports at night? Is there something, you know, the state could do to help these consumers?
Pritzker: I haven’t been asked to be involved in that by any of the parties that you’re referring to, and so I don’t know if there are, you know… they should make themselves known if that’s the case. But the fact is that private businesses, other than the normal things that government can do to support private businesses, which we do, you know, want to be able to manage their own futures together. I also would like to be able to access these things more easily [chuckles], but it’s very difficult…
Reinsdorf is a welfare queen.
From Jamal Colllier's article on ESPN:
"The trade was met with confusion and criticism around the league, primarily about Chicago's failure to get additional draft compensation. Sources told ESPN the Bulls were offered as many as two first-round picks for Caruso before the 2024 trade deadline."
Not that we hadn't already heard rumors that the Bulls were offered two first round picks for Caruso, but this is probably the most clear confirmation we've gotten.
https://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/42228761/josh-giddey-chicago-bulls-hoping-next-step
It's good that Giddey is honest about this. There were many fans who didn't want to believe it:
As his role changed, he acknowledged his attitude did, too, sulking on the bench.
"The first two games of that series, I was a bad teammate, to be honest," Giddey told ESPN. "I was just so caught up in myself, and it's, like, 'What does everyone think of this?' I'm not playing. I started the whole year and now I'm coming off the bench. I was so worried about external noise that I was probably, like, not being the teammate I should have been."
Giddey pointed to two conversations that helped him. The first was with his father, who noticed Giddey's poor body language watching games on TV. "He's just like, 'People are always watching,'" Giddey recalled. "When you're sitting on the bench, pouting, everyone notices that. That hit home."
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Overall, I like Giddey more than I thought I would, but still think it was a really bad trade and still struggle to see how to make a winning team work with him.
Completely agree. I've actually enjoyed watching him more than I expected and he seems like a guy who genuinely loves the game and wants to succeed. He also seems to be fairly self-aware, as you pointed out from the article.
But as you also said, I just don't see how to make a winning team with him as a foundational piece. I think he can be a contributor on a good team, but I don't see him being one of its foundational pieces. It's just so hard to be anything more than okay in today's NBA when you can't shoot or defend.
It mystifies me that a guy who seems generally self-aware, and obviously has a good send of how to play offensively has such a clunky shot and such cluelessness about defense.
My only thought is that maybe the self-awareness is a newer thing. If it took his dad pointing it out in the playoffs this past spring, then it is a fairly new thing.
And, if it took someone else pointing it out, it's not actually self-awareness.
>> still struggle to see how to make a winning team work with him
Yes. For those that like him a bit, consider: his +/- is atrocious. he can't get by anyone usually and just drives, jumps and throws the ball back out. he's not really a creator, just a usage monster. he can't shoot, no really he can't. he plays zero defense, man or help. he rebounds because he's 6-8 and doesn't play defense OR box out so if others' clear out the lane he's happy to step in and steal the board. He's a primadonna and a Barbie. He wants and may get $25-30m per year.
I didn't want to go quite that far, but it's interesting to me to compare his bad shooting to, say, Ayo's bad shooting.
Ayo doesn't gaf about the stats. Even in that game the other night when he couldn't throw it in the ocean, he was shooting it. Automatically
Giddey seems like seems like he's always calculating the odds.
This article reads like it was written 2 weeks ago and was supposed to be published a week ago but got delayed until now.
Hawks game thread! https://open.substack.com/chat/posts/7586c55d-43e7-4007-a446-23896dd77b85