It's genuinely hard now. Like I don't stop thinking about the bulls and moves they can make... But, we know this ownership, and based off the lack of moves made when it was very possible to do something, I just don't have faith that any scenario I can concoct will have any chance in reality. The bulls are going to keep things as they are and maybe attempt to do something by the trade deadline.... I fear we all know this is the truth.
goofy-ass leverage peddling (sorry, 'rumor') coming from LeBron that the Mavericks want to re-sign Kyrie and then also somehow get LeBron there.
If the Mavs were interested in cap space, but don't have picks to trade, Bulls could step in and offer this Lonzo poison carrot.
Bertans+Hardaway+McGee is $40.6M
they could take back a Vuc S&T (let's assuage his ego and say $15M this year but it escalates and is a 3-year deal) and Lonzo, who they waive-and-stretch. That'd be $17M in cap savings.
In his latest podcast, Bill Simmons said the Bulls GM job is the worst in the league because they're stuck with middling assets, no apparent way to improve, and ownership that won't go into the tax.
There's thee FO moves. 1. Go for it, either acquire a star (Durant) or build smartly around one. 2. Rebuild. Dump it all for best chance at draft assets.
I think the Bulls are well positioned to do 3. Reset. They have a couple of good young assets to keep. Lavine. PW. Maybe Coby. Caruso although I think he's a better reset asset. Trade DDR. S&T Vic if possible. Trade high on Caruso. See if Lonzo can bring back anything. Target young players not totally wanted by their team but potential to be unlocked. RJ Barrett. Ayton. Kuminga. Simons/Sharpe. Find a desperate trade partner needing immediate gratification vs waiting on development. Try to catch lightning in a bottle. If that doesn't work out, Rebuild.
I saw a couple Twitter comments over the weekend (I know, I know) that "Vooch isn't the problem" and "Bulls issues aren’t Vuce related" and I give up at this point.
Those are lazy takes at best. I really hope this smoke of extension talks is just that, smoke.
Thanks for the shout out, Matt. I'm going to write up a more fleshed out offseason plan probably after the Finals are over with a list of cheapo shooters that the Bulls could target.
That Dan Bernstein interview w/ Bulls Talk was so cringey, played automatically while I was working and almost knocked the jack stand out from under my car leaning to turn it off. Have never understood why that guy has kept a job so long, his kind were the absolute doldrums of sports radio in Chicago history. Just snarky useless comment after pithy useless observation, the king of pseudo-intellect, never interesting. Like sports Seinfeld, a show about nothing, but except without the humor or wit. All the more proof that major sports media, especially in Chicago, remains to this day an old boys club, which preserve their dusty mantle with the likes of the Reinsdorfs. And why the only interesting content is in underground corners of media like this Blog and Cash Considerations. Guys like Dan Bernstein, and often times the Bulls "beat" reporters themselves (more often like Approved Bulls Biographers though than beat reporters) are so at odds with modern Bulls fans it's almost like there's animosity between the brand and the fans, and yet on air Bernstein and the old Bulls reporters are revered as if they're all time titans. They're gate keepers closely maintaining narratives, only willing to state the obvious on topics like Lonzo's knee, the extremely low ceiling and flexibility of the roster (obvious last off-season), AK's job performance, etc about a season after it's obvious to honest observers. They deserve every bit as much scorn as the Reinsdorfs, Chicago deserves more. Or maybe we dont? It has always been a town centered around grift and self- serving promotion at the expense of the greater good.
I'm not sure why we bother talking about Lonzo. The Bulls are going to keep him and keep saying they are monitoring this next season. Then they will say after the season they were really hopeful but they are hopeful for the 24-25 season.
They will not apply for the DPE because then they would be pressured to use it, which they won't do because that could put them in the luxury tax. They are never going into the luxury tax so why would we consider otherwise?
Was also thinking the waive & stretch would be best for Lonzo, but Dorf hates paying for players not on the roster (was surprised he signed off on waiving Bradley). What about Lonzo/Caruso for Ben Simmons? I know he’s a mess, but maybe a risk worth taking? I think we need more ball movement and less ISO. Ben fits positional needs for PG/PF. Then use exceptions for shooters - strus?
Bulls need a huge talent infusion. It sure seems like the right place to look is a DeMar trade to OKC. They've got all this young talent and cap space, and a cerebral, efficient offensive player like DeMar would fit right in.
Could Demar return Jalen Williams and their 1st (#12) or something?
Thanks for linking the Cash Consideration pod with Stephen Noh. Found myself tickled that a few of the players he mentioned as cheap pick-ups are some of my current scrub obsessions (Yuta Watanabe, Torrey Craig) and a few others who are probably even better pick-ups.
The other good part about pursing this strategy is if a few of those players turn out useful but you're not going anywhere, you've just added second round picks you can flip them for at the deadline from a playoff-bound team that needs shooting (aka almost all of them). Similarly, there's no good reason why any team would voluntarily trade a competent back-up PG or C - the positions where every team needs someone that fits in roughly those shapes and sizes. Who is like "Man, we have too many backup Cs and PGs, we are oozing with too much competence and it is a problem"? But they might part with them if you've got some scrub that is shooting 41% from 3.
idk why I feel like I need to spell this out but "having things that other teams want is good for you."
Agree 100% on Dosunmu and a few others. They're not unusable players or anything, they're just on the worst possible team to be a non-shooter. I have a vision in which Dosunmu is the leader of a revamped Bench Mob which comes in and fucks with the other team's best players by getting in their jerseys and being all gritty-like... But you can't perfect your bench when your starting lineup is such a mess. And what I'm willing to pay for that isn't really different than what I'd pay for Kris Dunn.
So are we going to cook up some microwave excitement around the new Phoenix bonehead hiring a worse coach than the one he fired and now trying to get rid of Chris Paul?
Man, I just started going to BleacherNation in August of last year, and felt it sort of level-headed. The season was "over" and they seemed to have good takes. It was all downhill from there.
Anyway, there Bulls coverage is atrocious. They tried to say that keeping Vucevic is a no-brainer and Front Office 101. I wouldn't keep Vuc at any price, especially with Drummond opting in to his contract. Go after Naz Reid somehow, or just get a bouncy young center and hope for the best. Try to strike gold on a defensive mistake-eraser and don't worry about offense. Spend your money elsewhere.
My ideal off-season is to get Van Vleet and Reid, though I haven't even looked into if that's really, really, really unlikely or impossible.
But:
VanVleet - Dosunmu
LaVine -
Caruso - Terry
DeRozan - Williams
Reid - Drummond
Would kind of be about as good as you could expect. Yuo could try for Reid with the MLE, but I don't know how you get VanVleet without trading valuable players in LaVine, Caruso or DeRozan. Maybe some form of Patrick Williams and Lonzo Ball to start. I'd definitely do that.
It's genuinely hard now. Like I don't stop thinking about the bulls and moves they can make... But, we know this ownership, and based off the lack of moves made when it was very possible to do something, I just don't have faith that any scenario I can concoct will have any chance in reality. The bulls are going to keep things as they are and maybe attempt to do something by the trade deadline.... I fear we all know this is the truth.
goofy-ass leverage peddling (sorry, 'rumor') coming from LeBron that the Mavericks want to re-sign Kyrie and then also somehow get LeBron there.
If the Mavs were interested in cap space, but don't have picks to trade, Bulls could step in and offer this Lonzo poison carrot.
Bertans+Hardaway+McGee is $40.6M
they could take back a Vuc S&T (let's assuage his ego and say $15M this year but it escalates and is a 3-year deal) and Lonzo, who they waive-and-stretch. That'd be $17M in cap savings.
In his latest podcast, Bill Simmons said the Bulls GM job is the worst in the league because they're stuck with middling assets, no apparent way to improve, and ownership that won't go into the tax.
Bulls are gonna give Vuc like $22M a year, right?
Any speculation on where this new CBA came from? I find it mildly suspicious that it essentially imposes 'Reinsdorf-rules' on the rest of the league.
There's thee FO moves. 1. Go for it, either acquire a star (Durant) or build smartly around one. 2. Rebuild. Dump it all for best chance at draft assets.
I think the Bulls are well positioned to do 3. Reset. They have a couple of good young assets to keep. Lavine. PW. Maybe Coby. Caruso although I think he's a better reset asset. Trade DDR. S&T Vic if possible. Trade high on Caruso. See if Lonzo can bring back anything. Target young players not totally wanted by their team but potential to be unlocked. RJ Barrett. Ayton. Kuminga. Simons/Sharpe. Find a desperate trade partner needing immediate gratification vs waiting on development. Try to catch lightning in a bottle. If that doesn't work out, Rebuild.
I saw a couple Twitter comments over the weekend (I know, I know) that "Vooch isn't the problem" and "Bulls issues aren’t Vuce related" and I give up at this point.
Those are lazy takes at best. I really hope this smoke of extension talks is just that, smoke.
Thanks for the shout out, Matt. I'm going to write up a more fleshed out offseason plan probably after the Finals are over with a list of cheapo shooters that the Bulls could target.
That Dan Bernstein interview w/ Bulls Talk was so cringey, played automatically while I was working and almost knocked the jack stand out from under my car leaning to turn it off. Have never understood why that guy has kept a job so long, his kind were the absolute doldrums of sports radio in Chicago history. Just snarky useless comment after pithy useless observation, the king of pseudo-intellect, never interesting. Like sports Seinfeld, a show about nothing, but except without the humor or wit. All the more proof that major sports media, especially in Chicago, remains to this day an old boys club, which preserve their dusty mantle with the likes of the Reinsdorfs. And why the only interesting content is in underground corners of media like this Blog and Cash Considerations. Guys like Dan Bernstein, and often times the Bulls "beat" reporters themselves (more often like Approved Bulls Biographers though than beat reporters) are so at odds with modern Bulls fans it's almost like there's animosity between the brand and the fans, and yet on air Bernstein and the old Bulls reporters are revered as if they're all time titans. They're gate keepers closely maintaining narratives, only willing to state the obvious on topics like Lonzo's knee, the extremely low ceiling and flexibility of the roster (obvious last off-season), AK's job performance, etc about a season after it's obvious to honest observers. They deserve every bit as much scorn as the Reinsdorfs, Chicago deserves more. Or maybe we dont? It has always been a town centered around grift and self- serving promotion at the expense of the greater good.
I'm not sure why we bother talking about Lonzo. The Bulls are going to keep him and keep saying they are monitoring this next season. Then they will say after the season they were really hopeful but they are hopeful for the 24-25 season.
They will not apply for the DPE because then they would be pressured to use it, which they won't do because that could put them in the luxury tax. They are never going into the luxury tax so why would we consider otherwise?
Was also thinking the waive & stretch would be best for Lonzo, but Dorf hates paying for players not on the roster (was surprised he signed off on waiving Bradley). What about Lonzo/Caruso for Ben Simmons? I know he’s a mess, but maybe a risk worth taking? I think we need more ball movement and less ISO. Ben fits positional needs for PG/PF. Then use exceptions for shooters - strus?
Bulls need a huge talent infusion. It sure seems like the right place to look is a DeMar trade to OKC. They've got all this young talent and cap space, and a cerebral, efficient offensive player like DeMar would fit right in.
Could Demar return Jalen Williams and their 1st (#12) or something?
Are you actually pining for Duncan Robinson? May as well just bring back Doug McDermott...
Just read that Drummond is opting in... WTF?
Thanks for linking the Cash Consideration pod with Stephen Noh. Found myself tickled that a few of the players he mentioned as cheap pick-ups are some of my current scrub obsessions (Yuta Watanabe, Torrey Craig) and a few others who are probably even better pick-ups.
The other good part about pursing this strategy is if a few of those players turn out useful but you're not going anywhere, you've just added second round picks you can flip them for at the deadline from a playoff-bound team that needs shooting (aka almost all of them). Similarly, there's no good reason why any team would voluntarily trade a competent back-up PG or C - the positions where every team needs someone that fits in roughly those shapes and sizes. Who is like "Man, we have too many backup Cs and PGs, we are oozing with too much competence and it is a problem"? But they might part with them if you've got some scrub that is shooting 41% from 3.
idk why I feel like I need to spell this out but "having things that other teams want is good for you."
Agree 100% on Dosunmu and a few others. They're not unusable players or anything, they're just on the worst possible team to be a non-shooter. I have a vision in which Dosunmu is the leader of a revamped Bench Mob which comes in and fucks with the other team's best players by getting in their jerseys and being all gritty-like... But you can't perfect your bench when your starting lineup is such a mess. And what I'm willing to pay for that isn't really different than what I'd pay for Kris Dunn.
So are we going to cook up some microwave excitement around the new Phoenix bonehead hiring a worse coach than the one he fired and now trying to get rid of Chris Paul?
Man, I just started going to BleacherNation in August of last year, and felt it sort of level-headed. The season was "over" and they seemed to have good takes. It was all downhill from there.
Anyway, there Bulls coverage is atrocious. They tried to say that keeping Vucevic is a no-brainer and Front Office 101. I wouldn't keep Vuc at any price, especially with Drummond opting in to his contract. Go after Naz Reid somehow, or just get a bouncy young center and hope for the best. Try to strike gold on a defensive mistake-eraser and don't worry about offense. Spend your money elsewhere.
My ideal off-season is to get Van Vleet and Reid, though I haven't even looked into if that's really, really, really unlikely or impossible.
But:
VanVleet - Dosunmu
LaVine -
Caruso - Terry
DeRozan - Williams
Reid - Drummond
Would kind of be about as good as you could expect. Yuo could try for Reid with the MLE, but I don't know how you get VanVleet without trading valuable players in LaVine, Caruso or DeRozan. Maybe some form of Patrick Williams and Lonzo Ball to start. I'd definitely do that.
Are we going to get the phony "Bulls inquire about Chris Paul" rumors now?