I don't watch NCAA basketball anymore, but checking out some tournament games par year it took me two minutes without even knowing their names to tag Stephen Castle and Dalton Knecht as NBA players, you could just tell. Four years and nobody on the Bulls can tell PW has zero natural basketball skills but is just an athletic robot (who misses more dunks than Matas in the Slam Dunk contest) and that Vuc's no-defense was a way bigger issue than Lavine? And on and on and on....and the mistakes keep burying us....
The Bulls FO is watching. It's just that they're looking specifically for guys who need to be taught how to shoot (most everyone they draft), or how to play basketball generally (P Will). These guys love the challenge of the extra-extra long development curve, where you have a guy on your roster for 4 years at the end of which they somehow still can't decide whether he's useful.
The Bulls' roster is almost pornographically terrible when you drill down (no pun intended).
Pat has the 6th worst PER in the league (8.8, where 15 is average) and it confirms the eye test completely. The best case scenario after this year appears to be PJ Tucker.
Giddey has the 7th worst TO% in the league. Even this is pretty forgiving because the players around him mostly have a much higher usage rate (Giddey, due to his preference for dribbling for 4 seconds and then spending the rest of the possession standing on the 3 point line calling for the ball, has a usage rate comparable to Jaime Jaquez, Buddy Hield and Michael Porter Jr).
Top 3 Bulls players in FTr:
Dalen Terry (.332, #45)
Talen Horton-Tucker (.270, #89)
Julian Phillips (.266, #93)
Those are the only 3 in the top 100 NBA players.
This season was a disaster that really didn't have to happen and Billy's timeclock sensibilities really don't seem to have made much difference. Coby has a PER of 13, stopped playing defense about a week after declaring himself the team's new Alex Caruso and looks like he did in his second season. Juicing the pace didn't help either, which it usually doesn't.
preaching to the choir, but there's zero justification for paying Giddey. It was seen as such a benefit that he's had all this NBA experience, but he just keeps putting out tape that he stinks! So what is that worth on the open market? Like $8M ?
and if based on potential, then run the hypothetical of him being in this draft, before his age-23 season. And what rookie scale contract that selection would get. Would a team reach for him at #5 overall because he would make $7.5M? about half of that is pick #14
i'll be fascinated what Hollinger's projections have him at. Last summer he had Pat at $12M
and this is backup money. They are already paying Lonzo $10M and Carter $8M to be backup PGs
Put the RFA qualifying offer on him like they should have done with Pat last summer. If some team wants to overpay him (unlikely) then he can go to that team. I really don’t know how much he’s worth on the market. I hope that AKME learned from their mistake last year with Pat, but not likely.
You got me thinking about what would have happened if the Bulls didn’t match the King’s offer for Zach when he was a RFA. The Bulls really didn’t do much in the eight years he was with them so it couldn’t have been much worse.
I hate, hate, hate that they've tied themselves to Giddey. He's not just a flawed player but deforming to the team he plays for and it becomes worse the more minutes he plays. You're going to spend years adding things and wondering why the 5 men on the floor still look bad until you pry him loose. He doesn't seem to have any defenders anymore, still less any fans.
Going into a rebuild I would be absolutely fine with spiking Coby's usage to hell by having him handle the point with their other 3 PGs behind him. If I'm tanking I would be absolutely fine with Tre Jones, and I have no illusions about Tre Jones. He's faster than his brother, shoots worse but barely ever turns the ball over, which for a PG overseeing a bunch of misfit parts and young players is pretty much perfect.
It would be consistent of AK to say 'we didn't know what we had, but now we do and he sucks'
But that gives AK credit to even think of things consistently. He just says all this shit about needing time for evaluation because it buys himself time
The problem is, I don't think AK thinks Giddey sucks. We all know AK's talent evaluation skills are terrible. Giddey's counting stats would make one think he's a serviceable jack of all trades type player when he's really not.
every 5th game, Giddey puts up a triple double so it fools idiots enough into thinking there's something there even though it's just a mirage in a desert of shit
I remember getting into an argument with someone here who did the whole "I don't understand why you're saying Giddey sucks, you're not stupid, so why are you saying this?" I've been ranting about this org, under this handle, since Krause was still here so I'm humble about being wrong, you can no doubt find me saying complimentary things about Eddie Basden if you look. The Giddey thing is just utterly baffling to me though.
I worried we would scapegoat Giddey for a bad season and I was totally wrong about that one. With his lack of effort or any movement toward self-improvement, I really don't want to see him be successful. It's kind of offensive?
I listened to the Stacey King pod with KC. KC defended the Caruso trade by saying that he's heard people say the Bulls should have gotten more, but OKC said that Giddey was a guy who started 80 games on one of the best teams in the West. And that was the end of the anecdote. Um, so AK just said "you're right" and took this stupid return?! Whaat?!
Also on that podcast, Schanowsky said that he heard that people don't like dealing with the Bulls because they pull out of deals at the last second or try to change the terms once they've been agreed to. KC just kind of hemmed and hawed on that.
was this the same podcast (I saw it aggregated) where Stacey said teams were out to screw the Bulls, and if LaVine were on another team they would've gotten picks?
Yeah. I rarely listen to Stacey's pod but I listened to the last 2 and in each one he said that "for some reason" teams are out to get the Bulls and don't want to deal with them. In the most recent one, Schanowski intimated that it's because the Bulls are impossible to deal with and are basically awful trade partners.
The enclownification of every Bulls employee, direct or indirect, is probably not the worst thing to happen this year but is pretty depressing. There was nothing wrong with Norm Van Lier pounding a table to talk about defense. In fact, fans like it. Nobody respects KC Johnson except the other people paid in part to respect KC Johnson.
I never liked Stacey or understood why people did but Kendall was an interesting figure. They're much worse without Perdue. And Adam Amin seems to sidestep a lot of it by adopting the "view from 5000 feet in the sky" commentator pose or citing random bits of NCAA trivia about players.
Yeah, I want to say someone from The Athletic is who originally reported that other front offices have said they don't like dealing with AK because he's hard to work with and pulls out of deals at the last minute without any warning.
If I remember correctly, it was reported at last year's deadline that the Sixers thought they had a finalized deal for Drummond and then AK backed out at the last minute.
So in a way, teams are "out to get" the Bulls in the sense that they probably avoid doing business with them if they can, or when they do actually do business, they make sure to absolutely pick AK clean because they know he's an idiot.
I hope someone in the media keeps pulling on this thread; why is AK repeatedly backing out and trying to change terms on agreed deals? And if he's not responsible for it, then who is?
Are trades being vetoed by Donovan or Michael Reinsdorf or Jerry? Is it crippling buyer's remorse on AK's part? Is it John Paxon as "Senior Advisor, Basketball Operations" in his ear telling him he should try to get more? Does AK just not care about his reputation with other GMs and keeping his word?
Unless someone leaks we'll never have an answer but it would be very enlightening to know.
today in "thankful KC doesn't actually have insight into anything"
this morning he posted a video about Billy Donovan's rotations the rest of the season including " Matas Buzelis and Patrick Williams could be a pairing for the future."
then this afternoon Donovan announced Pat is not playing tomorrow due to an injury suffered before the ASG, even though Pat fully practiced the last two days
This wagon-circling around the vets is condescending to them. In fact, the whole damn Bulls Locker Room Ethos is juvenilizing. Guys develop themselves and they are suppressed. Don't play at all, for years, and the org loves you. Do you think if Pat Riley came here he'd just burst into flames?
tank race update: Spurs are so calculating, shutting down Wemby with "deep vein thrombosis" ... totally made up! Why don't the Bulls give their players life-threatening ailments???
Not only has San Antonio shelved their best player for the remainder of the year, but the Bulls have shelved their tank commander. Enjoy our pick this year, San Antonio!
Ah yes, the classic "our young player in the first year of his big rookie extension has suffered a minor knee injury in late January/February, but don't worry it's not a big deal."
Pat should be back in 2027, folks! It'll give him plenty of time to work on his handle...
As a reminder, Pat ended last season with a "he'll be out a couple of weeks" injury that turned into him only playing 45 games and questions about whether he'd even be ready for training camp. This is a guy who averages about 50 games a season and has shown absolutely no growth in 5 seasons and yet AK jumped the market to give him a 5 year $90M deal with a player option. This is the worst contract in the NBA.
Edit: Correction-- he played 43 games last season and is on track for 45 this season. Improvement!
not that I think it matters how Pat feels, but the Bulls are doing him a disservice not just saying he's hurt a lot. That's not good, but better than stagnated-to-regressing development for 5 seasons
I'm trying to think of the most elegant way to put this. OKC hasn't had Caruso and Chet for most of the year and their points-allowed STILL decreased by more than 6 ppg. Their defense improved that much just subbing out Giddey, and their points-scored decreased by 1 free throw per game.
I love that going into this season, the Bulls had one young starting-caliber player on a good deal (White) and that was the guy they displaced when trading their best asset. And for a much inferior player! Guys, why??!
Seriously! Coby has been screwed over by this organization so many times. He finally had a breakout year last year while playing the position he's been asking to play since he came into the league, and this front office immediately goes out and gets someone else (who is far worse) to play that position instead. I kind of wish Coby wasn't such a nice guy and would demand a trade.
Preaching to the choir here, but last night was another example of how this team is definitely not tanking. Matas played a total of 7:47 over the final 29 minutes. He made that bad inbounds turnover with roughly 8:30 left in the third and Billy immediately benched him for 15 in-game minutes until he brought him back in for a sub-two minute stint in the middle of the fourth.
I know some on here have different thoughts as to how much playing time Matas should be getting, but I'm personally on the "just give him all the minutes" train. I get pulling him after that turnover so you can talk to him about some things you want him to do better, but I just don't understand the point of benching him for the next half hour. What good does that do?
I wouldn't be opposed to playing Lonzo 30 minutes a night if the reasoning behind it was to showcase he's healthy so that they can trade him for a decent return this summer.
But I'd be incredibly surprised if AK even listens to offers for him this summer. And we know Billy is playing him 30 minutes a night because Billy is trying to win and Lonzo helps with that more than any other player on this team.
I encourage everyone to ignore reasoning altogether and simply look at results.
Why? Because:
1. There's usually a lot of motivations for any particular action.
2. It's not something that can be proven.
3. It's ultimately irrelevant because there's no reason to keep around someone who has the best of intentions but can't actually do anything right.
I actually consider it a pretty solid rule for life to assume that looking at reasoning/motivations instead of results is a bad thing to do, and when one puts motivations ahead of results, that person is usually in the wrong.
So I hardly ever believe anyone if they say they're doing something dumb for "good reasons" or I rarely believe it when I hear someone (or myself upon reflection) doing something good but dismiss it because they did the right thing for "bad reasons".
Re: Lonzo... I feel like the action here is pretty counterproductive, so the rationale behind it isn't going to make it any better.
I’m losing respect for Donovan this season. I genuinely have no idea what he’s trying to accomplish.
And his whole tangent about the importance of winning is borderline delusional.
Billy, no one is saying that you need to tell your young players that winning doesn’t matter. By all means, encourage them to try to win every game they play in. The point is just that you need to keep the young players on the floor even when they’re making mistakes.
There is something to presenting challenges to players and competition for PT. I fully agree with that.
I don't really think what Donovan is rolling out there is actually "better," though. Matas Buzelis is too light and is getting bullied by other teams but I'm not sure what universe we live in where the solution to that is to play 3 point guards. Shifting Giddey into the SF spot is not exactly a worthwhile response to physical play.
And if the GM says this is an "evaluation" I'm not sure what they're evaluating right now.
But obviously the biggest argument here is that even with this approach the team has lost 5 games in a row and is presently clinging to the final play-in spot because Philly has lost 6.
Edit: Also while it's encouraging that being ridiculed during an undeserved all-star appearance didn't put a dent in Buzelis' confidence, announcing his intention to win Rookie of The Year when he's currently far behind even Jaylen Wells is kind of irritating. If I were "Teacher Billy," I would play him 40 minutes/game against KAT, Durant and Embiid the next 3 games to have more "confidence building" opportunities.
I don't know, my thoughts on Donovan haven't really changed this season. Actually they've really just solidified. Despite what he said a couple weeks ago when asked about being okay with a rebuild, he's not a rebuild/develop-young-players type of coach coach. He's just not and he never has been during his time in the NBA.
His comments about winning the other week only proved that further. He doesn't know how to develop players because that's never been his job in the NBA. And to be honest, that's totally fine with me. He was brought in to lead the Bulls to contention. That was AK's desire so he hired a coach with the same desire.
The problem is, despite AK not wanting to rebuild, this team has kind of slid into a rebuild and now AK is having to sort of accept that (even though he's definitely trying to keep one foot in the "contending" door). The coach they had chosen to lead a veteran group of players to the playoffs now no longer fits this current team full of young players that need to be developed.
Billy knows they need to develop and I'm sure he thinks he's developing them just fine. He just doesn't actually know how to develop players, so he's not doing it effectively. A smart FO would understand the guy who met the job requirements of the team five years ago now no longer meets the current job requirements and they'd move on. Unfortunately AK and Billy seem to be besties, so it's highly unlikely Billy gets replaced anytime soon.
Billy Donovan is a rich nepo baby's idea of a working class guy. I think the Reinsdorfs love him and surely plan to make him another employee for life if he wants it. He seems to have no objections.
I don't care if he's an employee for life as long as it's not as the head coach. He seems to be a decent basketball mind and I'm sure he could have success in some sort of front office position. He just shouldn't be the coach of a rebuilding team.
Billy knows his next check comes from showing Ws. Nobody will care that he developed Matas Buzelis as a rookie. I think he's planning his exit, asking for a contract extension and will be turned down.
Against the Suns, Kevin Huerter way more minutes than Matas. I don't think this is AK plan (to 'showcase' lmao) but Billy running the show. It's so funny that AK can't even direct playing time because he defers to Billy as a better decision maker.
The Kings aspire to 46 or 47 wins. The Bulls seemingly aspire to 36 or 37. They very nearly occupied their own tier on this list and were an obvious choice for No. 30. To understand why, let's briefly go through some of the bullet points we covered up top to show all of the ways this organization is failing:
Does the GM have a track record? No. The Bulls haven't won a playoff series under Arturas Karnisovas.
Does the GM have a plan? It certainly doesn't seem like it. Karnisovas argued in a recent press conference that teams can win championships with nine or 10 very good players rather than two or three superstars. Aside from being mostly untrue historically, it is worth pointing out here that the Bulls do not have nine or 10 very good players, nor are they especially close to reaching that number.
Does the front tend to make good trades? Well, they managed to trade Alex Caruso to Oklahoma City without getting a single first-round pick back, they basically kickstarted the Orlando rebuild with the Nikola Vucevic trade, and they recently gave away their best player in LaVine to regain control of a first-round pick that was already top-8 protected and therefore eminently keepable if they had been willing to tank for it properly. So I'm gonna go ahead and say no.
Does the front office tend to sign good contracts? Patrick Williams is averaging 9.1 points per game on a $90 million deal right now, so this isn't looking great either.
Is ownership willing to spend enough to win? Despite operating in the NBA's third-biggest market, the Bulls have paid the luxury tax only twice. Only six teams have spent less in total tax dollars, according to Spotrac.
Nico Harrison (Dallas) at least built a Finals team last season. Matt Ishbia (Phoenix) deserves credit for his willingness to spend. The Kings have pathways to at least being reasonably competitive. But there's just no argument whatsoever in favor of how the Bulls operate beyond consistently maximizing revenue and minimizing costs.
Yet even with the 30th best GM, they have the 23rd best team! I like to call this a Managerial Championship. The banner will be made entirely out of one of Karnisovas' weird skin-tight t-shirts.
Remember when Jeff Van Gundy used to make fun of them during broadcasts and that felt like the bottom? We've sailed past that at Mach 2 and there's no bottom in sight. It was a hell of an accomplishment to find an executive even less respected than Gar Forman, but they did it.
I don't watch NCAA basketball anymore, but checking out some tournament games par year it took me two minutes without even knowing their names to tag Stephen Castle and Dalton Knecht as NBA players, you could just tell. Four years and nobody on the Bulls can tell PW has zero natural basketball skills but is just an athletic robot (who misses more dunks than Matas in the Slam Dunk contest) and that Vuc's no-defense was a way bigger issue than Lavine? And on and on and on....and the mistakes keep burying us....
Sure, but you actually watch basketball. Surely we shouldn't expect the front office to be held to such lofty expectations?
The Bulls FO is watching. It's just that they're looking specifically for guys who need to be taught how to shoot (most everyone they draft), or how to play basketball generally (P Will). These guys love the challenge of the extra-extra long development curve, where you have a guy on your roster for 4 years at the end of which they somehow still can't decide whether he's useful.
The Bulls' roster is almost pornographically terrible when you drill down (no pun intended).
Pat has the 6th worst PER in the league (8.8, where 15 is average) and it confirms the eye test completely. The best case scenario after this year appears to be PJ Tucker.
Giddey has the 7th worst TO% in the league. Even this is pretty forgiving because the players around him mostly have a much higher usage rate (Giddey, due to his preference for dribbling for 4 seconds and then spending the rest of the possession standing on the 3 point line calling for the ball, has a usage rate comparable to Jaime Jaquez, Buddy Hield and Michael Porter Jr).
Top 3 Bulls players in FTr:
Dalen Terry (.332, #45)
Talen Horton-Tucker (.270, #89)
Julian Phillips (.266, #93)
Those are the only 3 in the top 100 NBA players.
This season was a disaster that really didn't have to happen and Billy's timeclock sensibilities really don't seem to have made much difference. Coby has a PER of 13, stopped playing defense about a week after declaring himself the team's new Alex Caruso and looks like he did in his second season. Juicing the pace didn't help either, which it usually doesn't.
this must've hit the Bulls inbox today and reminded them that they still had Sanogo under two-way contract.
that glitch has been fixed: https://www.hoopsrumors.com/2025/02/bulls-to-sign-jahmir-young-waive-adama-sanogo.html
the replacement: Jahmir Young, who is 6'2" and older than Talen Horton-Tucker
Young is shooting 26% from 3 this season in the G League. Sounds like just what the doctor ordered for this team.
But he's got that special talent the Bulls just love- a Vuc-like ability to take lots of 2PAs without ever going to the free thow line.
preaching to the choir, but there's zero justification for paying Giddey. It was seen as such a benefit that he's had all this NBA experience, but he just keeps putting out tape that he stinks! So what is that worth on the open market? Like $8M ?
and if based on potential, then run the hypothetical of him being in this draft, before his age-23 season. And what rookie scale contract that selection would get. Would a team reach for him at #5 overall because he would make $7.5M? about half of that is pick #14
i'll be fascinated what Hollinger's projections have him at. Last summer he had Pat at $12M
and this is backup money. They are already paying Lonzo $10M and Carter $8M to be backup PGs
Put the RFA qualifying offer on him like they should have done with Pat last summer. If some team wants to overpay him (unlikely) then he can go to that team. I really don’t know how much he’s worth on the market. I hope that AKME learned from their mistake last year with Pat, but not likely.
Well then you risk the chance that the guy who couldn't play next to SGA suddenly becomes an all-star caliber player and lol sorry I can't
You got me thinking about what would have happened if the Bulls didn’t match the King’s offer for Zach when he was a RFA. The Bulls really didn’t do much in the eight years he was with them so it couldn’t have been much worse.
I hate, hate, hate that they've tied themselves to Giddey. He's not just a flawed player but deforming to the team he plays for and it becomes worse the more minutes he plays. You're going to spend years adding things and wondering why the 5 men on the floor still look bad until you pry him loose. He doesn't seem to have any defenders anymore, still less any fans.
Going into a rebuild I would be absolutely fine with spiking Coby's usage to hell by having him handle the point with their other 3 PGs behind him. If I'm tanking I would be absolutely fine with Tre Jones, and I have no illusions about Tre Jones. He's faster than his brother, shoots worse but barely ever turns the ball over, which for a PG overseeing a bunch of misfit parts and young players is pretty much perfect.
It would be consistent of AK to say 'we didn't know what we had, but now we do and he sucks'
But that gives AK credit to even think of things consistently. He just says all this shit about needing time for evaluation because it buys himself time
The problem is, I don't think AK thinks Giddey sucks. We all know AK's talent evaluation skills are terrible. Giddey's counting stats would make one think he's a serviceable jack of all trades type player when he's really not.
every 5th game, Giddey puts up a triple double so it fools idiots enough into thinking there's something there even though it's just a mirage in a desert of shit
Feels like everybody here knew this ahead of time.
I remember getting into an argument with someone here who did the whole "I don't understand why you're saying Giddey sucks, you're not stupid, so why are you saying this?" I've been ranting about this org, under this handle, since Krause was still here so I'm humble about being wrong, you can no doubt find me saying complimentary things about Eddie Basden if you look. The Giddey thing is just utterly baffling to me though.
I worried we would scapegoat Giddey for a bad season and I was totally wrong about that one. With his lack of effort or any movement toward self-improvement, I really don't want to see him be successful. It's kind of offensive?
I listened to the Stacey King pod with KC. KC defended the Caruso trade by saying that he's heard people say the Bulls should have gotten more, but OKC said that Giddey was a guy who started 80 games on one of the best teams in the West. And that was the end of the anecdote. Um, so AK just said "you're right" and took this stupid return?! Whaat?!
Also on that podcast, Schanowsky said that he heard that people don't like dealing with the Bulls because they pull out of deals at the last second or try to change the terms once they've been agreed to. KC just kind of hemmed and hawed on that.
Man I bet every fucking car dealership in town has an alert when Karnisovas steps on the lot.
was this the same podcast (I saw it aggregated) where Stacey said teams were out to screw the Bulls, and if LaVine were on another team they would've gotten picks?
Yeah. I rarely listen to Stacey's pod but I listened to the last 2 and in each one he said that "for some reason" teams are out to get the Bulls and don't want to deal with them. In the most recent one, Schanowski intimated that it's because the Bulls are impossible to deal with and are basically awful trade partners.
The enclownification of every Bulls employee, direct or indirect, is probably not the worst thing to happen this year but is pretty depressing. There was nothing wrong with Norm Van Lier pounding a table to talk about defense. In fact, fans like it. Nobody respects KC Johnson except the other people paid in part to respect KC Johnson.
I never liked Stacey or understood why people did but Kendall was an interesting figure. They're much worse without Perdue. And Adam Amin seems to sidestep a lot of it by adopting the "view from 5000 feet in the sky" commentator pose or citing random bits of NCAA trivia about players.
Yeah, I want to say someone from The Athletic is who originally reported that other front offices have said they don't like dealing with AK because he's hard to work with and pulls out of deals at the last minute without any warning.
If I remember correctly, it was reported at last year's deadline that the Sixers thought they had a finalized deal for Drummond and then AK backed out at the last minute.
So in a way, teams are "out to get" the Bulls in the sense that they probably avoid doing business with them if they can, or when they do actually do business, they make sure to absolutely pick AK clean because they know he's an idiot.
I hope someone in the media keeps pulling on this thread; why is AK repeatedly backing out and trying to change terms on agreed deals? And if he's not responsible for it, then who is?
Are trades being vetoed by Donovan or Michael Reinsdorf or Jerry? Is it crippling buyer's remorse on AK's part? Is it John Paxon as "Senior Advisor, Basketball Operations" in his ear telling him he should try to get more? Does AK just not care about his reputation with other GMs and keeping his word?
Unless someone leaks we'll never have an answer but it would be very enlightening to know.
today in "thankful KC doesn't actually have insight into anything"
this morning he posted a video about Billy Donovan's rotations the rest of the season including " Matas Buzelis and Patrick Williams could be a pairing for the future."
then this afternoon Donovan announced Pat is not playing tomorrow due to an injury suffered before the ASG, even though Pat fully practiced the last two days
Is that like how they said Luka was injured but he was really just fat?
Would love to see DNP-Fat or DNP-Stinks in a box score.
And Thursday Bulls announced Pat shut down for two weeks
Good! Well not good that Pat is this injury prone, but good way to handle that
Now we'll see if Billy plays Julian Phillips more for evaluation...or another guard
Huerter's other arm is gonna fall off.
This wagon-circling around the vets is condescending to them. In fact, the whole damn Bulls Locker Room Ethos is juvenilizing. Guys develop themselves and they are suppressed. Don't play at all, for years, and the org loves you. Do you think if Pat Riley came here he'd just burst into flames?
tank race update: Spurs are so calculating, shutting down Wemby with "deep vein thrombosis" ... totally made up! Why don't the Bulls give their players life-threatening ailments???
Not only has San Antonio shelved their best player for the remainder of the year, but the Bulls have shelved their tank commander. Enjoy our pick this year, San Antonio!
Deep vein thrombosis? Sounds like someone's due for a spinal tap.
oops and they won their first game after doing this. That's not very tank-y!
Pat Williams out for at least two weeks, probably more:
https://www.nba.com/bulls/news/patrick-williams-medical-update
Ah yes, the classic "our young player in the first year of his big rookie extension has suffered a minor knee injury in late January/February, but don't worry it's not a big deal."
Pat should be back in 2027, folks! It'll give him plenty of time to work on his handle...
As a reminder, Pat ended last season with a "he'll be out a couple of weeks" injury that turned into him only playing 45 games and questions about whether he'd even be ready for training camp. This is a guy who averages about 50 games a season and has shown absolutely no growth in 5 seasons and yet AK jumped the market to give him a 5 year $90M deal with a player option. This is the worst contract in the NBA.
Edit: Correction-- he played 43 games last season and is on track for 45 this season. Improvement!
not that I think it matters how Pat feels, but the Bulls are doing him a disservice not just saying he's hurt a lot. That's not good, but better than stagnated-to-regressing development for 5 seasons
how are you getting tendinosis before you're even 25.
still have no clue why the FO didn't let PW go out and offers and see what the actual market was before just pre-emptively handling over a bag
It’s almost impressive how quickly many of AK’s decisions blow up in his face. It really puts the “Art” in Arturas.
Trade for Vuc? Immediately miss the playoffs with him!
Extend Zach? Immediately try to trade him!
Extend Pat? Immediately has his worst shooting season and has multiple injuries!
Trade Caruso for Giddey? Immediately produce one of the worst defenses in team history!
What’s next? Let’s trade for Jokic and watch as he announces his retirement next season!
I wouldn't even be mad if they traded for Jokic and he immediately announced his retirement. Couldn't blame him one bit.
I'm trying to think of the most elegant way to put this. OKC hasn't had Caruso and Chet for most of the year and their points-allowed STILL decreased by more than 6 ppg. Their defense improved that much just subbing out Giddey, and their points-scored decreased by 1 free throw per game.
I love that going into this season, the Bulls had one young starting-caliber player on a good deal (White) and that was the guy they displaced when trading their best asset. And for a much inferior player! Guys, why??!
No Bulls fault! Oh wait!
Seriously! Coby has been screwed over by this organization so many times. He finally had a breakout year last year while playing the position he's been asking to play since he came into the league, and this front office immediately goes out and gets someone else (who is far worse) to play that position instead. I kind of wish Coby wasn't such a nice guy and would demand a trade.
Preaching to the choir here, but last night was another example of how this team is definitely not tanking. Matas played a total of 7:47 over the final 29 minutes. He made that bad inbounds turnover with roughly 8:30 left in the third and Billy immediately benched him for 15 in-game minutes until he brought him back in for a sub-two minute stint in the middle of the fourth.
I know some on here have different thoughts as to how much playing time Matas should be getting, but I'm personally on the "just give him all the minutes" train. I get pulling him after that turnover so you can talk to him about some things you want him to do better, but I just don't understand the point of benching him for the next half hour. What good does that do?
Started Lonzo and played him 29 minutes too
I wouldn't be opposed to playing Lonzo 30 minutes a night if the reasoning behind it was to showcase he's healthy so that they can trade him for a decent return this summer.
But I'd be incredibly surprised if AK even listens to offers for him this summer. And we know Billy is playing him 30 minutes a night because Billy is trying to win and Lonzo helps with that more than any other player on this team.
I encourage everyone to ignore reasoning altogether and simply look at results.
Why? Because:
1. There's usually a lot of motivations for any particular action.
2. It's not something that can be proven.
3. It's ultimately irrelevant because there's no reason to keep around someone who has the best of intentions but can't actually do anything right.
I actually consider it a pretty solid rule for life to assume that looking at reasoning/motivations instead of results is a bad thing to do, and when one puts motivations ahead of results, that person is usually in the wrong.
So I hardly ever believe anyone if they say they're doing something dumb for "good reasons" or I rarely believe it when I hear someone (or myself upon reflection) doing something good but dismiss it because they did the right thing for "bad reasons".
Re: Lonzo... I feel like the action here is pretty counterproductive, so the rationale behind it isn't going to make it any better.
I’m losing respect for Donovan this season. I genuinely have no idea what he’s trying to accomplish.
And his whole tangent about the importance of winning is borderline delusional.
Billy, no one is saying that you need to tell your young players that winning doesn’t matter. By all means, encourage them to try to win every game they play in. The point is just that you need to keep the young players on the floor even when they’re making mistakes.
There is something to presenting challenges to players and competition for PT. I fully agree with that.
I don't really think what Donovan is rolling out there is actually "better," though. Matas Buzelis is too light and is getting bullied by other teams but I'm not sure what universe we live in where the solution to that is to play 3 point guards. Shifting Giddey into the SF spot is not exactly a worthwhile response to physical play.
And if the GM says this is an "evaluation" I'm not sure what they're evaluating right now.
But obviously the biggest argument here is that even with this approach the team has lost 5 games in a row and is presently clinging to the final play-in spot because Philly has lost 6.
Edit: Also while it's encouraging that being ridiculed during an undeserved all-star appearance didn't put a dent in Buzelis' confidence, announcing his intention to win Rookie of The Year when he's currently far behind even Jaylen Wells is kind of irritating. If I were "Teacher Billy," I would play him 40 minutes/game against KAT, Durant and Embiid the next 3 games to have more "confidence building" opportunities.
I don't know, my thoughts on Donovan haven't really changed this season. Actually they've really just solidified. Despite what he said a couple weeks ago when asked about being okay with a rebuild, he's not a rebuild/develop-young-players type of coach coach. He's just not and he never has been during his time in the NBA.
His comments about winning the other week only proved that further. He doesn't know how to develop players because that's never been his job in the NBA. And to be honest, that's totally fine with me. He was brought in to lead the Bulls to contention. That was AK's desire so he hired a coach with the same desire.
The problem is, despite AK not wanting to rebuild, this team has kind of slid into a rebuild and now AK is having to sort of accept that (even though he's definitely trying to keep one foot in the "contending" door). The coach they had chosen to lead a veteran group of players to the playoffs now no longer fits this current team full of young players that need to be developed.
Billy knows they need to develop and I'm sure he thinks he's developing them just fine. He just doesn't actually know how to develop players, so he's not doing it effectively. A smart FO would understand the guy who met the job requirements of the team five years ago now no longer meets the current job requirements and they'd move on. Unfortunately AK and Billy seem to be besties, so it's highly unlikely Billy gets replaced anytime soon.
Billy Donovan is a rich nepo baby's idea of a working class guy. I think the Reinsdorfs love him and surely plan to make him another employee for life if he wants it. He seems to have no objections.
I don't care if he's an employee for life as long as it's not as the head coach. He seems to be a decent basketball mind and I'm sure he could have success in some sort of front office position. He just shouldn't be the coach of a rebuilding team.
Billy knows his next check comes from showing Ws. Nobody will care that he developed Matas Buzelis as a rookie. I think he's planning his exit, asking for a contract extension and will be turned down.
he has no purpose as a coach on a team like this. it's obvious the Bulls like him around so just kick him upstairs and get a Kenny Atkinson type coach
I imagine pretty much everyone but Kevin Durant would like "a Kenny Atkinson type coach".
Against the Suns, Kevin Huerter way more minutes than Matas. I don't think this is AK plan (to 'showcase' lmao) but Billy running the show. It's so funny that AK can't even direct playing time because he defers to Billy as a better decision maker.
Stop throwing so much shade at AK. The Bulls are ranked in the top 30 of front offices in the league! That counts for something, right?
https://www.cbssports.com/nba/news/nba-front-office-rankings-celtics-okc-at-the-top-mavericks-sink-after-luka-trade-but-theyre-not-no-30/
"30th place is just a few places behind 25th place."
—Arturas Karnisovas
The analysis of the Bulls is spot-on:
The Kings aspire to 46 or 47 wins. The Bulls seemingly aspire to 36 or 37. They very nearly occupied their own tier on this list and were an obvious choice for No. 30. To understand why, let's briefly go through some of the bullet points we covered up top to show all of the ways this organization is failing:
Does the GM have a track record? No. The Bulls haven't won a playoff series under Arturas Karnisovas.
Does the GM have a plan? It certainly doesn't seem like it. Karnisovas argued in a recent press conference that teams can win championships with nine or 10 very good players rather than two or three superstars. Aside from being mostly untrue historically, it is worth pointing out here that the Bulls do not have nine or 10 very good players, nor are they especially close to reaching that number.
Does the front tend to make good trades? Well, they managed to trade Alex Caruso to Oklahoma City without getting a single first-round pick back, they basically kickstarted the Orlando rebuild with the Nikola Vucevic trade, and they recently gave away their best player in LaVine to regain control of a first-round pick that was already top-8 protected and therefore eminently keepable if they had been willing to tank for it properly. So I'm gonna go ahead and say no.
Does the front office tend to sign good contracts? Patrick Williams is averaging 9.1 points per game on a $90 million deal right now, so this isn't looking great either.
Is ownership willing to spend enough to win? Despite operating in the NBA's third-biggest market, the Bulls have paid the luxury tax only twice. Only six teams have spent less in total tax dollars, according to Spotrac.
Nico Harrison (Dallas) at least built a Finals team last season. Matt Ishbia (Phoenix) deserves credit for his willingness to spend. The Kings have pathways to at least being reasonably competitive. But there's just no argument whatsoever in favor of how the Bulls operate beyond consistently maximizing revenue and minimizing costs.
Yet even with the 30th best GM, they have the 23rd best team! I like to call this a Managerial Championship. The banner will be made entirely out of one of Karnisovas' weird skin-tight t-shirts.
Remember when Jeff Van Gundy used to make fun of them during broadcasts and that felt like the bottom? We've sailed past that at Mach 2 and there's no bottom in sight. It was a hell of an accomplishment to find an executive even less respected than Gar Forman, but they did it.
Brutal
Why would the NBA *do* this to us?!
https://www.bleachernation.com/bulls/2025/02/21/bulls-kings-national-tv/