After one Summer League game (where there was a lot to like), and looking far ahead to the NBA early-season games (and barring any trades), there will be several in the Bulls rotation capable of nightly cringe-worthy plays:
Giddey: careless turnover, trips while attempting to split two players, crashes to the floor on D;
PWill: freezes while holding the ball, fails to take a drive opportunity;
Okoro: bricks;
Wilson: rookie mistakes.
Otherwise, Essengue, Swain and Dillingham shouldn't be considered top-12 players now. They'll need body-building and/or better decision-making. BTW, I'm one who believes that a player can develop during practice sessions and G-League games.
It's too early to identify a whipping boy or scapegoat. For this rebuilding season, it's also beneath us.
Barring injuries, I'd argue Swain and Essengue should absolutely be in the regular 10-man rotation.
Starters: Giddey, Powell, Matas, Wilson, Claxton
Reserves: Jones, Swain, Miller, Essengue, Smith
Okoro needs to be traded before the season starts. He has value but has no place on this team. Him barely getting minutes won't be good for trading him at the deadline. Smith and Jones should also absolutely be traded by the deadline, which would open up some playing time for Dillingham.
I appreciate your view on Miller but not Okoro. So much could change after 7 months of Splitter and Graham, that the trade deadline is very fluid.
Your 10-man rotation has hight but no muscle. The only person currently on the roster over 225 lbs is Zach Collins ... not sayin', just sayin'. It's an extreme example I know, but I can't erase the image from my mind of Buzelis and Smith trying in vain last season to guard KAT down low. This situation could change in 7 months too.
We're NOT trying to lose the most games anymore. In fact, as long as we're adhering to priority #2 above, there's no number of wins that would be bad for us. There's not a scenario where "dammit, Swain and Noa and Caleb and Buzi are just too darn good and led us to the play-in or playoffs" is anything but a positive in my mind. (Only achieving this at the EXPENSE of development would be bad)
I walked away from the game believing that Caleb Wilson may never get past being called Caleb Williams every now and again, be he will better than Patrick Williams. Yes, that's a low bar, but no, he didn't trip over it. So that made me happy.
They're going to add additional rounds back to the NBA draft (used to be 10 rounds, then 7, before moving to 2) and fund NBA Europe by selling every new pick for cash considerations.
NBA Europe championship will be determined by the team that finishes closest to .500.
Due to the inherent challenges operating a league in a multi-lingual society, all official NBA Europe business will be conducted in "mumbled English"
it's kinda weak having back to backs during summer league? bulls didn't play for like 3 days, while others are playing b2b... schedule it so people will actually play lol.
also true. load management for 19 year olds in summer league feels like a bit much lol. Though I also get that they don't want them to get hurt either.
Herscu obviously tied to Splitter from Portland. Interestingly started his career as a video coordinator for the Bulls in 2013. Then in 2020-21 was with Sacramento with Kalamian (who's been a lot of places)
Ahearn is from the Spurs tree, starting there and going with Taylor Jenkins to Memphis
so these all look to be Splitter-directed hires, I'm assuming a Billy Donovan holdover will take the Randy Brown award of "front office spy"
Not only should Dillingham have been playing in SL due to his own NBA struggles, but he should have been playing because the Bulls SL squad desperately needs a point guard. The Sellers/Swain point guard combo has been truly horrific.
PG situation is so bad, I'm out on the rest of this SL stuff. I understand SL isn't the pinnacle of basketball excellence or aesthetics, but someone should've asked whoever put this roster together what the plan was for simply bringing the ball up the floor. There are days I look in the mirror and don't particularly like myself, but this has eclipsed even my threshold for pain.
>>it feels like he has so little control over his body....Tiago Splitter says Noa didn’t start the second half because Splitter “wanted more from him.” Noted he had a couple early turnovers, that Splitter wanted more ball handling to start the 3rd.<<
Not trying to defend Essengue too much here (he does look like he hasn't grown into his body most of the time), but not having a distributor is killing him offensively. We've seen last Summer League and in the G League that Essengue is pretty good being fed in transition and on cuts. That's where most of his offense comes from. Unfortunately this SL squad has no one on it that can distribute the ball.
So yeah, Essengue was rightfully benched to get another ball handler on the floor to start the second half because the Bulls decided it was a good idea to put together a Summer League squad with no point guard.
Unfortunately we're potentially getting the worst versions of both Swain and Essengue simply because the organization couldn't be bothered to include a decent playmaker in Summer League.
Essengue is the only player other than Caleb who has looked like he's worth anything to me. He seems to be a force on defense. But yeah he seems to have zero self creation
yeah I mean I think he's shown some good instincts on D but definitely still raw. Not to mention definitely looks like a dude who needs to get used to his size lol.
This is pretty much where I landed on with Noa. He was trying to do way too much out there. Right now he really needs someone to make things simple for him on the offensive end. I do think him and Swain will be alright once they play in a proper system where they can find their role.
i agree, so can we say conclusively right now that bryson graham is trash? He didn't address the one glaring need in the offseason (maybe there's still time to scrap from the trash heap), and he, like all his predecessors, should NOT get the benefit of the doubt
Their one glaring need this offseason was not a Summer League point guard. As much as I think there should have been a point guard on their Summer League squad, I don't think missing on that is a huge indictment on Graham.
Like yfBB said, their glaring need is a star. They potentially have that now. Or at least have their best shot at one since Jimmy. Obviously Wilson sort of fell into Graham's lap and I'd like to think AK would have also chosen Wilson had he still been in charge.
Point is, I'm not ready to say Graham is trash. There's very little to prove that, mostly just because he hasn't been in the job nearly long enough to prove he's good or bad.
Yeah, that article's a real corker. The indictments against AKME read like the comment section of this blog over the past few years - this is a smart group.
- I think Caleb will be a star. He’s just got it. Still some work to do like any rookie, but his skills and potential are off the charts.
- I can’t decide whether or not it was fair to Swain to experiment with him so much as the PG. It’s summer league, so I get that the stakes are relatively low, but it feels like an unnecessary risk to potentially shake his confidence at the very beginning of his NBA career. I’m sure he’ll ultimately be fine, but I’d slow down with the experiment a bit.
- Essengue is a versatile defender with a lot of potential who is also a bull in a china shop on offense. It was clearly a disservice to his development that he barely played his rookie year. I’d like to see him get some steady minutes off the bench this season to get him used to NBA defenses, but I wouldn’t be surprised if he gets less minutes overall this season than people expect.
- Hard to analyze Caleb’s missed free throws due to this pointless experiment from the NBA that’s only allowing him to attempt one at a time. Who asked for that, by the way? How many collective minutes is it actually saving? There is not a single person out there who is saying “I’ll watch Summer League, but only if it’s six minutes shorter.”
I don’t like unnecessarily messing with the actual game. I’d much rather they speed up games by reducing all of the reviews and challenges. They take significantly longer than free throws.
sure I would give more consideration it was regular season. But time between FTs is a pretty significant time-waster, and I think there's an argument that FT shooting is *not* "the actual game"
I'm not going to get too carried away about Summer League rules but having a free throw worth 3 points is pretty ridiculous to me. If they want to enforce a 6 or 8 second FT clock I'd be good with that too. It's not that I enjoy watching them, but the way FTs are set up as "one pointers" is pretty central to the integrity of the game and how it's been played at every level since 1896.
This was a more watchable game, they actually looked like a team out there compared to the last 2 games. Swain is able to get inside but he's struggling to finish. Not worried yet despite the Kris Dunn-esque finishes. Somehow his +/- is a +18. Also, Caleb was so happy in that post-game interview. He had another solid game and finally got his first win.
I like what I'm seeing from some of the Bulls two-way guys. Assuming Sellers' jump shot comes around (and I'm sure it will since he shot 43% from three last year), he's a pretty intriguing prospect. If he could learn to play-make a little bit, I think he'd pretty much instantly become an NBA bench-level player. He's a pesky defender and plenty athletic for real NBA minutes.
Atwell might be the most intriguing to me because his role is simple - be an amazing three point shooter. And so far he's looked pretty good in that role. I don't expect him to ever be an amazing player but the Bulls need shooting and Atwell provides that.
I'm not sure how I feel about Awaka. The guy is a rebound vacuum on both ends of the floor. He's also more mobile than I was expecting and switches pretty well onto smaller, faster players. The problem is he has zero offense. I don't just mean he can't shoot. He can't dribble or pass either. But I do think he's better than Olbrich or Sanogo before him. He's undersized like those two guys but far more athletic and mobile.
"I was not happy he was wearing a baggy T-Shirt under his jersey."
Even a compression shirt looks like a T-shirt when you have toothpicks for arms.
I've never felt as personally attacked on this sub, as right now. lol
After one Summer League game (where there was a lot to like), and looking far ahead to the NBA early-season games (and barring any trades), there will be several in the Bulls rotation capable of nightly cringe-worthy plays:
Giddey: careless turnover, trips while attempting to split two players, crashes to the floor on D;
PWill: freezes while holding the ball, fails to take a drive opportunity;
Okoro: bricks;
Wilson: rookie mistakes.
Otherwise, Essengue, Swain and Dillingham shouldn't be considered top-12 players now. They'll need body-building and/or better decision-making. BTW, I'm one who believes that a player can develop during practice sessions and G-League games.
It's too early to identify a whipping boy or scapegoat. For this rebuilding season, it's also beneath us.
Barring injuries, I'd argue Swain and Essengue should absolutely be in the regular 10-man rotation.
Starters: Giddey, Powell, Matas, Wilson, Claxton
Reserves: Jones, Swain, Miller, Essengue, Smith
Okoro needs to be traded before the season starts. He has value but has no place on this team. Him barely getting minutes won't be good for trading him at the deadline. Smith and Jones should also absolutely be traded by the deadline, which would open up some playing time for Dillingham.
I appreciate your view on Miller but not Okoro. So much could change after 7 months of Splitter and Graham, that the trade deadline is very fluid.
Your 10-man rotation has hight but no muscle. The only person currently on the roster over 225 lbs is Zach Collins ... not sayin', just sayin'. It's an extreme example I know, but I can't erase the image from my mind of Buzelis and Smith trying in vain last season to guard KAT down low. This situation could change in 7 months too.
Who cares? The Bulls should have two main priorities this season:
1. Get to the minimum number of wins that ensure you're not in the relegation zone, and
2. Develop all the young players they have as much as possible.
To develop the most and yougest players and to lose the most games, this is the rotation you need:
Giddey, Okoro, Wilson, Matas, Smith.
Dillingham, Swain, Essengue, PWill, Miller.
But most realize that Powell and Claxton need to play. And IMO they also need some muscle in the paint, young or old.
We're NOT trying to lose the most games anymore. In fact, as long as we're adhering to priority #2 above, there's no number of wins that would be bad for us. There's not a scenario where "dammit, Swain and Noa and Caleb and Buzi are just too darn good and led us to the play-in or playoffs" is anything but a positive in my mind. (Only achieving this at the EXPENSE of development would be bad)
I walked away from the game believing that Caleb Wilson may never get past being called Caleb Williams every now and again, be he will better than Patrick Williams. Yes, that's a low bar, but no, he didn't trip over it. So that made me happy.
To be fair, Stan Van Gundy is an idiot.
meanwhile in the NBA, AK has a new job, NBA Europe is dead 😁
::Bill Simmons voice:: are we sure Adam Silver is good?
Some of AK's coming innovations in his new role:
They're going to add additional rounds back to the NBA draft (used to be 10 rounds, then 7, before moving to 2) and fund NBA Europe by selling every new pick for cash considerations.
NBA Europe championship will be determined by the team that finishes closest to .500.
Due to the inherent challenges operating a league in a multi-lingual society, all official NBA Europe business will be conducted in "mumbled English"
I like that so much !!! 🤣
boo, tonight's Bulls SL game has the Jazz on a back-to-back, so they're not playing Darryn Peterson, Ace Bailey and Cody Williams
I was afraid that was going to happen. Caleb's going to struggle with no rival to play against!
They should have an NBA participation policy for the summer league too, for lottery picks.
it's kinda weak having back to backs during summer league? bulls didn't play for like 3 days, while others are playing b2b... schedule it so people will actually play lol.
But also these are basically kids. They can play in back-to-backs.
also true. load management for 19 year olds in summer league feels like a bit much lol. Though I also get that they don't want them to get hurt either.
Caleb can shoot. It’s legit.
Welp
2-12 from the FT line over first two games
That seems like a simpler change than correcting a 3 point shot.
With the wackadoodle free throw rules in Summer League his 0-6 showing cost him 14 POINTS last night!
This game is making me miss Yuki and appreciate Giddey more. Not having a real PG out there makes this game such a frustrating watch.
Holy hell that dunk by Caleb!
😔 forgot to launch chat for this game.
Caleb Wilson highlights versus Jazz https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HB4lFj1Uw7I
Eeerrr, I'm afraid our new head coach is 0-2, we need a new new head coach 😅
Swain didn't make a shot. It's time to jump ship. Or at least to put out version 2.0 of the depth chart.
So he's on the job ! Defend and bring the players their bags ^^
very KCJHoop tweet on this:
>>Tiago Splitter said Austin Dufault will serve as head coach Wednesday. Plan was always for Splitter to coach two games.<<
speaking of the coaching staff:
Michael Scotto (HoopsHype) reports Bulls will add Rex Kalamian, Jonah Herscu, and Blake Ahearn as assistant coaches.
Kalamian was an assistant coach for the Bucks, Pistons, Kings, Clippers, Raptors, Thunder, Timberwolves, and Nuggets.
Herscu was Portland's G League head coach and assistant coach for the Blazers and Kings.
Ahearn was a Grizzlies assistant coach and San Antonio's G League head coach.
trying to find some ties to current or past management:
https://basketball.realgm.com/staff/Blake-Ahearn/Summary/28064
https://basketball.realgm.com/staff/Jonah-Herscu/Summary/19176
https://basketball.realgm.com/staff/Rex-Kalamian/Summary/1248
Herscu obviously tied to Splitter from Portland. Interestingly started his career as a video coordinator for the Bulls in 2013. Then in 2020-21 was with Sacramento with Kalamian (who's been a lot of places)
Ahearn is from the Spurs tree, starting there and going with Taylor Jenkins to Memphis
so these all look to be Splitter-directed hires, I'm assuming a Billy Donovan holdover will take the Randy Brown award of "front office spy"
Not only should Dillingham have been playing in SL due to his own NBA struggles, but he should have been playing because the Bulls SL squad desperately needs a point guard. The Sellers/Swain point guard combo has been truly horrific.
PG situation is so bad, I'm out on the rest of this SL stuff. I understand SL isn't the pinnacle of basketball excellence or aesthetics, but someone should've asked whoever put this roster together what the plan was for simply bringing the ball up the floor. There are days I look in the mirror and don't particularly like myself, but this has eclipsed even my threshold for pain.
While I absolutely don't think Yuki should be on next season's G-League roster, he would have been perfect for this SL team.
Nah ! You can't have two stars on a SL roster. And Yuki is a SL star !
Starting to get nervous about Swain. Gotta show something against summer league defenders
getting more nervous, this feels like a Marquelle Fultz situation
Noah Essengue game 2:
Joel Lorenzi
>>it feels like he has so little control over his body....Tiago Splitter says Noa didn’t start the second half because Splitter “wanted more from him.” Noted he had a couple early turnovers, that Splitter wanted more ball handling to start the 3rd.<<
Not trying to defend Essengue too much here (he does look like he hasn't grown into his body most of the time), but not having a distributor is killing him offensively. We've seen last Summer League and in the G League that Essengue is pretty good being fed in transition and on cuts. That's where most of his offense comes from. Unfortunately this SL squad has no one on it that can distribute the ball.
So yeah, Essengue was rightfully benched to get another ball handler on the floor to start the second half because the Bulls decided it was a good idea to put together a Summer League squad with no point guard.
Unfortunately we're potentially getting the worst versions of both Swain and Essengue simply because the organization couldn't be bothered to include a decent playmaker in Summer League.
Essengue is the only player other than Caleb who has looked like he's worth anything to me. He seems to be a force on defense. But yeah he seems to have zero self creation
yeah I mean I think he's shown some good instincts on D but definitely still raw. Not to mention definitely looks like a dude who needs to get used to his size lol.
This is pretty much where I landed on with Noa. He was trying to do way too much out there. Right now he really needs someone to make things simple for him on the offensive end. I do think him and Swain will be alright once they play in a proper system where they can find their role.
i agree, so can we say conclusively right now that bryson graham is trash? He didn't address the one glaring need in the offseason (maybe there's still time to scrap from the trash heap), and he, like all his predecessors, should NOT get the benefit of the doubt
I don't think that's true. The one glaring need is a star player, and he may have addressed that.
Their one glaring need this offseason was not a Summer League point guard. As much as I think there should have been a point guard on their Summer League squad, I don't think missing on that is a huge indictment on Graham.
Like yfBB said, their glaring need is a star. They potentially have that now. Or at least have their best shot at one since Jimmy. Obviously Wilson sort of fell into Graham's lap and I'd like to think AK would have also chosen Wilson had he still been in charge.
Point is, I'm not ready to say Graham is trash. There's very little to prove that, mostly just because he hasn't been in the job nearly long enough to prove he's good or bad.
Pretty good article from ESPN today on some of the inner workings of the Bulls front office:
https://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/49350739/inside-hopeful-resurrection-chicago-bulls-six-years-stasis
Yeah, that article's a real corker. The indictments against AKME read like the comment section of this blog over the past few years - this is a smart group.
NEW POST on this: https://www.blogabull.com/p/the-now-they-tell-us-article-on-arturas
Summer league thoughts so far:
- I think Caleb will be a star. He’s just got it. Still some work to do like any rookie, but his skills and potential are off the charts.
- I can’t decide whether or not it was fair to Swain to experiment with him so much as the PG. It’s summer league, so I get that the stakes are relatively low, but it feels like an unnecessary risk to potentially shake his confidence at the very beginning of his NBA career. I’m sure he’ll ultimately be fine, but I’d slow down with the experiment a bit.
- Essengue is a versatile defender with a lot of potential who is also a bull in a china shop on offense. It was clearly a disservice to his development that he barely played his rookie year. I’d like to see him get some steady minutes off the bench this season to get him used to NBA defenses, but I wouldn’t be surprised if he gets less minutes overall this season than people expect.
- Hard to analyze Caleb’s missed free throws due to this pointless experiment from the NBA that’s only allowing him to attempt one at a time. Who asked for that, by the way? How many collective minutes is it actually saving? There is not a single person out there who is saying “I’ll watch Summer League, but only if it’s six minutes shorter.”
🙋 me, I don't want to watch FTs. What is there to analyze? They go in or they don't.
I don’t like unnecessarily messing with the actual game. I’d much rather they speed up games by reducing all of the reviews and challenges. They take significantly longer than free throws.
sure I would give more consideration it was regular season. But time between FTs is a pretty significant time-waster, and I think there's an argument that FT shooting is *not* "the actual game"
I would argue that if it directly leads to points, it’s part of the actual game.
But I understand that not everyone likes watching free throws.
I'm not going to get too carried away about Summer League rules but having a free throw worth 3 points is pretty ridiculous to me. If they want to enforce a 6 or 8 second FT clock I'd be good with that too. It's not that I enjoy watching them, but the way FTs are set up as "one pointers" is pretty central to the integrity of the game and how it's been played at every level since 1896.
I agree it's part of the game given the current incentives, but maybe it shouldn't be?
all i know is there's way too many guys acting like they got shot to get them so therefore they are bad
This was a more watchable game, they actually looked like a team out there compared to the last 2 games. Swain is able to get inside but he's struggling to finish. Not worried yet despite the Kris Dunn-esque finishes. Somehow his +/- is a +18. Also, Caleb was so happy in that post-game interview. He had another solid game and finally got his first win.
plus minus dumb
I like what I'm seeing from some of the Bulls two-way guys. Assuming Sellers' jump shot comes around (and I'm sure it will since he shot 43% from three last year), he's a pretty intriguing prospect. If he could learn to play-make a little bit, I think he'd pretty much instantly become an NBA bench-level player. He's a pesky defender and plenty athletic for real NBA minutes.
Atwell might be the most intriguing to me because his role is simple - be an amazing three point shooter. And so far he's looked pretty good in that role. I don't expect him to ever be an amazing player but the Bulls need shooting and Atwell provides that.
I'm not sure how I feel about Awaka. The guy is a rebound vacuum on both ends of the floor. He's also more mobile than I was expecting and switches pretty well onto smaller, faster players. The problem is he has zero offense. I don't just mean he can't shoot. He can't dribble or pass either. But I do think he's better than Olbrich or Sanogo before him. He's undersized like those two guys but far more athletic and mobile.
could Rodman play in this league these days