If this is Bulls management telling the truth, I wish instead they lied

lowering of expectations continues unabated as Bulls set to open doomed season

Something bothered me this Bulls offseason. Well, lots of things bothered me. The most egregious things being stuff that mattered, like ::waves hands around:: this entirely disastrous summer. But to a lesser extent, it’s also annoying to hear observers (some independent media, some team partners) give Bulls “brain” ”trust” Arturas Karnisovas and Marc Eversley any credit at all.

I won’t dig up every example, but it’s usually some variation of an extremely low bar: “they were telling the truth, they saw the need for change and…made changes!”

Nevermind that the changes were poorly executed, and the result is a directionless roster bereft of present success and hope of future success.

Bulls failing the "make a single thing worth anticipating this season" challenge

This observer here can comfortably state the following: You do not, under any circumstances, “have to hand it to ‘em”

Every AK or ME presentation to the fans (via media) this summer has been another episode in a long-running drama: delusional liar or incompetent idiot? And it goes to the highest and most basic level of their jobs, which should be communicating, simply: “what are we doing?”

It’s a legitimately tough answer to discern because they’re so bad at their jobs and even worse at communicating it. AK said the past few years up until the last do-nothing trade deadline that he just wanted to be competitive and never take a step back (even if it was to take a future step forward). Then at the end of the season, while yes vaguely promising “change”, more specifically said “we need to find ten more wins”.

They then spent the offseason subtracting wins. So a simple question I’d like asked of them would get them on the record to admit¹:

1. ‘We think this year’s team is better because it’s younger (yet experienced) and DeMar won’t slow us down any more and Josh Giddey is a future All-Star and Lonzo Ball replacement because remember before Lonzo got hurt…’

2. ‘We changed our minds, and are pivoting down the drain, because our best asset going forward is our own (protected) first round picks’

They are somewhat saying the first thing, but not fully committing to either. Let alone the actual truth:

‘we wanted to improve, but failed to move Zach LaVine and capped ourselves to where we had to let our best player effectively walk while Zach is still here, oops.’

But all the same, it’d be nice to hear them try to explain things? As of now they’re avoiding that (big) question, the latest example was on the radio with partner 670 The Score, a week before training camp opens.

For one thing, it appears the Bulls hired a head of the entire organization who is still not comfortable communicating by himself, as head coach Billy Donovan was there too. This was effective filibustering for AK, as Billy can talk ball and will do so for minutes at a time. He spent a lot of time talking in-game strategy, plus about interesting yet inessential names like Joakim Noah and Lonzo Ball.

Though if only to remind everyone he still doesn’t know what he’s doing, AK did jump in for one of his more substantial answers to add…it’s important to regain home court dominance. (wut…)

But as the head coach did most of the talking, most of that talk was about near-term goals. Basketball concepts like pace of play and usage rate among the many (too many) guards on this roster. With goals that include “trying to win every game”, while having the younger developing players “earn minutes” by “learning how to build winning habits”.

This was the most revealing topic of the conversation, and spurred commentary² something to the effect of “well they can’t say they’re sacrificing this season to develop younger players, but surely they are…”

I wouldn’t be so sure! Donovan’s history is being a win-now coach. He left Oklahoma City as they were entering a rebuild and signed on to the Bulls after being told they’d go for it³. As Bulls coach, he has never really given minutes to a developing player unless forced to after injury⁴. So when he says that Matas Buzelis may spend some time in the GLeague this season, there’s reason to believe it.

For most basketball organizations, these present-tense, on-court goals of the head coach are overridden by a forward-thinking executive focused on the bigger picture. But I think the Bulls head coach has more sway than most, partially because that executive is so weak. Donovan and Karnisovas project a chummy and confident image to where you’d think they have been to 3 of 4 Eastern Conference finals or something. Donovan even explicitly praised AK for “establishing a winning culture”, huh?

So I don’t think they’re lying to keep competitive appearances. Except in this one aspect: Zach LaVine. They are at least not incompetent enough to continue the smear campaign of a player they’re looking to trade, as both praised Zach’s professionalism and relayed his desire to start this season. Mentioned several times that he’s fully healthy and ready to go.

::winking:: got it, loud and clear. So do you hear that, rest of the league? You can trade for Zach LaVine now, he’s still an overpaid, flawed, losing player, but he’s not hurt!

There’s a separate post out there for what to do with Zach, but he is truly is not significant. He is not good enough to elevate the team currently, and doesn’t have enough trade value to get you anything that interesting in return. There would be some immediate closure in simply reallocating his minutes (and Vuc’s…) but it wouldn’t have a long-term impact.

What remains more significant is that the Bulls still either have no direction or can’t communicate what it is. One thing I would not worry (more of a concern troll) about is that they’ll “screw up the tank”. Whether intentional or not, this team is going to be as terrible as their braintrust.

1. Like they committed a crime? well, kind of!

2. simply too lazy to link, so just going by observed consensus, sorry!

3. “it” being lowest-rung all-star available Nikola Vucevic, but that was execution failure not intent

4. I suppose giving Patrick Williams a starting job he didn’t earn that preseason is one counter example