Why can’t you believe? This is what they have been doing for years and will continue as long any Reinsdork is alive. They hire asslickers and flakcatchers like Krause and AK and they do their job
AK is living in an alternate universe where all signs of failure are seen as signs of success. We need to remove all possible excuses from this guy, so the Bulls need to be healthy and miss the playoffs. Any injuries will be used to explain away why we didn't make the NBA Finals as planned. We also need huge blowout losses to take away the "we're competitive" stuff.
All of this also confirms to me that the Bulls really think Lonzo is coming back next year. AK had one idea for the team which included Lonzo and he is not giving up on it so long as he is under contract.
I agree with everything you say other than that we shouldn’t blame ownership. You say that AK is “a jerk for operating under the assumption we’re the ones that are all stupid” - except that he doesn’t need to care what you and I think as long as the Reinsdorfs are on board. The buck after all stops there (or maybe 50 cents given how cheap they are).
The amount of trivial lies he told was as alarming as his scripted Iraqi Information Minister responses.
Not only was he confused about his team's position in the standings (4.5 games behind Indiana, not 3), he also threw shade on his predecessor by claiming they hadn't made the playoffs in 5 years. (21:15 in the video.) It was 3 years. The 4th was under Billy Donovan and in Arturas' first year when he ran it back and then made his disastrous deadline deals. And Fred won 1 more playoff game than Billy has.
Funny all of errors are easily documented but make him sound better if you believe him. I didn't think an NBA executive would hold a press conference and lie about his team's record, both this year and in the past. But here we are, this is the new standard.
Can you imagine if Gar or Pax stood up there and lied about his team's record and about their predecessor to make themselves look better?
Feb 9·edited Feb 9Liked by your friendly BullsBlogger
The two funniest parts of his press conference:
1) When he brought up Pat’s stretch of averaging 14 ppg in December and said he “went on a tear”. That’s the threshold for impressing AK! Nikola Mirotic numbers!
2) The fact that he made it clear that the President of a nearly $5 billion dollar franchise doesn’t understand basic economics. He kept referring to it as a buyer’s market, but then said there weren’t any moves for them to make. Um, hey buddy, if you like your team and want to improve it, it would need to be a seller’s market in order to prevent you from making moves.
The crux of the issue is Chicago is the largest market that has only one team. Therefore, seats get filled no matter how bad the product. Reinsdorf won’t do a damn thing until he feels it in his wallet.
There's so many reasonable criticisms to be made, I'm just going to document one that's less obvious but probably more egregious than most.
Let's talk about what it means to mismanage and waste assets.
The Bulls traded Gafford in February 2021. Three years later, in February 2024, the Wizards traded him for a 1st round pick. They also traded Luke Kornet to the Celtics. 3 years later, he's still not great, but he's a role player who plays on the best team in the league.
In exchange for giving up these two guys who still have significant value three years later, what do the Bulls have to show for it?
They got Daniel Theis, who played a total of 23 games for the Bulls. In the three seasons since, he's played 93 games (an average of 31 per season).
They got Troy Brown Jr, who played is a league minimum wing who just got traded to his 3rd team in two years.
They got Javonte Green, who's out of the league.
The initial construction of the deal was just between the Wiz and Bulls, and in that construction, the Bulls would have kept Kornet and also received Mo Wagner instead of Theis. Wagner is, like Kornet, not great, but a young role player getting steady minutes on a team that's much better than the Bulls while Daniel Theis is long gone with nothing to show for him ever being here.
I think Artuas is doing the right thing since he still is working on undoing the bad hand left by misfit John Paxson the previous owner who mortgaged all our draft picks and left Artuas with no draft picks when he took over this team.
His only mistake was putting all his faith and big money contract into Zach Lavine who in my opinion Bulls should have let him walk away via free agency and now the best thing Bulls should consider is just wait what kind of team they can put together once Lonzo Ball and Lavine comes back or trade him over the summer for some draft picks cus right now in my own eyes Lavine has been nothing but a cancer on this team and if Artuas doesn't not find any takers for him this summer then at that point fans should crucify Artuas for failing to get nothing for Lavine.
He out 4 months so he should be healthy when he comes back before the NBA Draft to grab more future draft picks for him.
Just wait until the off season when AK hypnotizes Jerry into finally paying the tax just so he can sign/extend everyone and run back this exact squad for 2 more years. Wheeeee!
Here here and there there!
People still fill the seats.
Why can’t you believe? This is what they have been doing for years and will continue as long any Reinsdork is alive. They hire asslickers and flakcatchers like Krause and AK and they do their job
AK is living in an alternate universe where all signs of failure are seen as signs of success. We need to remove all possible excuses from this guy, so the Bulls need to be healthy and miss the playoffs. Any injuries will be used to explain away why we didn't make the NBA Finals as planned. We also need huge blowout losses to take away the "we're competitive" stuff.
All of this also confirms to me that the Bulls really think Lonzo is coming back next year. AK had one idea for the team which included Lonzo and he is not giving up on it so long as he is under contract.
I agree with everything you say other than that we shouldn’t blame ownership. You say that AK is “a jerk for operating under the assumption we’re the ones that are all stupid” - except that he doesn’t need to care what you and I think as long as the Reinsdorfs are on board. The buck after all stops there (or maybe 50 cents given how cheap they are).
Thad Young is being waved. Think AK wants to really run it back?
The amount of trivial lies he told was as alarming as his scripted Iraqi Information Minister responses.
Not only was he confused about his team's position in the standings (4.5 games behind Indiana, not 3), he also threw shade on his predecessor by claiming they hadn't made the playoffs in 5 years. (21:15 in the video.) It was 3 years. The 4th was under Billy Donovan and in Arturas' first year when he ran it back and then made his disastrous deadline deals. And Fred won 1 more playoff game than Billy has.
Funny all of errors are easily documented but make him sound better if you believe him. I didn't think an NBA executive would hold a press conference and lie about his team's record, both this year and in the past. But here we are, this is the new standard.
Can you imagine if Gar or Pax stood up there and lied about his team's record and about their predecessor to make themselves look better?
I miss GarPax
It’s sad that as we were joking a week ago I said “we like our team Ak “. And that’s what he said today.
Well YFB you were right about AK. Years ago in fact. Crow sucks for dinner
The two funniest parts of his press conference:
1) When he brought up Pat’s stretch of averaging 14 ppg in December and said he “went on a tear”. That’s the threshold for impressing AK! Nikola Mirotic numbers!
2) The fact that he made it clear that the President of a nearly $5 billion dollar franchise doesn’t understand basic economics. He kept referring to it as a buyer’s market, but then said there weren’t any moves for them to make. Um, hey buddy, if you like your team and want to improve it, it would need to be a seller’s market in order to prevent you from making moves.
The crux of the issue is Chicago is the largest market that has only one team. Therefore, seats get filled no matter how bad the product. Reinsdorf won’t do a damn thing until he feels it in his wallet.
Just gonna repost:
There's so many reasonable criticisms to be made, I'm just going to document one that's less obvious but probably more egregious than most.
Let's talk about what it means to mismanage and waste assets.
The Bulls traded Gafford in February 2021. Three years later, in February 2024, the Wizards traded him for a 1st round pick. They also traded Luke Kornet to the Celtics. 3 years later, he's still not great, but he's a role player who plays on the best team in the league.
In exchange for giving up these two guys who still have significant value three years later, what do the Bulls have to show for it?
They got Daniel Theis, who played a total of 23 games for the Bulls. In the three seasons since, he's played 93 games (an average of 31 per season).
They got Troy Brown Jr, who played is a league minimum wing who just got traded to his 3rd team in two years.
They got Javonte Green, who's out of the league.
The initial construction of the deal was just between the Wiz and Bulls, and in that construction, the Bulls would have kept Kornet and also received Mo Wagner instead of Theis. Wagner is, like Kornet, not great, but a young role player getting steady minutes on a team that's much better than the Bulls while Daniel Theis is long gone with nothing to show for him ever being here.
This is what terrible GMing looks like.
I think Artuas is doing the right thing since he still is working on undoing the bad hand left by misfit John Paxson the previous owner who mortgaged all our draft picks and left Artuas with no draft picks when he took over this team.
His only mistake was putting all his faith and big money contract into Zach Lavine who in my opinion Bulls should have let him walk away via free agency and now the best thing Bulls should consider is just wait what kind of team they can put together once Lonzo Ball and Lavine comes back or trade him over the summer for some draft picks cus right now in my own eyes Lavine has been nothing but a cancer on this team and if Artuas doesn't not find any takers for him this summer then at that point fans should crucify Artuas for failing to get nothing for Lavine.
He out 4 months so he should be healthy when he comes back before the NBA Draft to grab more future draft picks for him.
My dad's nickname for the team, "the losing losers from loserville" has rarely felt as fitting as today.
The Athletic Bounce newsletter named the Bulls trading for Vuc the worst deadline day deal OF ALL TIME
Just wait until the off season when AK hypnotizes Jerry into finally paying the tax just so he can sign/extend everyone and run back this exact squad for 2 more years. Wheeeee!