I'm not here to make any bold Matas Buzelis proclamations, but he's one of maybe two reasons I would casually tune into a Mid-January slogging against who really gives a shit. That and I guess to hear the latest on whatever foot discomfort Patrick Williams is experiencing.
I haven't been this unexcited about the start of Chicago Bulls season since last year.
yeah I should've added that while they are likely truthfully intending on this being another "competitive" season, there will be a bunch of injuries and they'll be shitty so development time will happen eventually. As usually it'll be something happening to them instead of by them.
I am with you on this absence of excitement. I relinquished my tickets for the first time as a working adult - why would I go to games this year?
I don't dislike the individual players and I am somewhat looking forward to the development of Matas - he seems like a modern AK-47 type player. Coby is very likable and Giddey actually seems like a fun player. But, ownership/front office have given no reason for hope in the future. They have shown time and again they have no idea how to, nor even really any interest in, building a contender. As long as the UC is full and they are not paying the tax, ownership is happy.
This is what a tank looks like. Should they have started sooner? Probably but they did well in this draft anyway so nothing lost there. Yes they could have gotten trade returns earlier, but they didn't. Letting go of DDR now was 100% right. I believe they'll trade Zach in December and Vuc at the deadline. Not positive returns but not negative either. They'll finish in the bottom 5 and get a good to awesome pick. Hoping they get lucky. After that with no large salary commits they'll try to spend some money on a young would-be star, not a big name but one with upside that will fit in with the rest of the group. I'm fine with that. If they can't execute then yes we're all effed. It's a path to interesting at least. I HAVE bailed out during the Fred and Boylen years. I'm not out yet though I won't argue that AKME have sucked post-offseason 1 and seem delusional or liars. My hope is Reinsdorf's $7B neighborhood investment means they can't afford for this team to go totally to rot.
Not being fatally pessimistic, I may not fit in around here anymore 😉
This is not what a tank looks like. They will win 5 more games than necessary because they have LaVine and Vuc on the team. That’s not good.
A tank is a deliberate effort àt being as bad as possible in order to most improve draft lottery chances. That is absolutely NOT what is happening here.
This is a half-assed rebuild, not a tank. There is a difference.
I'm not well versed in the realm of advanced NBA statistics but it's hard for me to believe that Zach and Vuc amounts to +5 wins over whoever else would fill those minutes. Vuc has been stealing money since he got here. He sucks at essentially everything but racking up rebound numbers due to being 7 feet tall. Zach is a god awful ballhandler and defender who thinks he's better offensively than he is, and the team must accommodate this belief or everything gets all pouty and ridiculous.
Trash players. I hate watching both of these guys and I don't think they win you any games. They're just out there taking up space on the floor while other guys do the things within possessions that win you games. Or they don't. Either way, Zach and Vuc are along for the ride.
This is what’s so fascinating about the current culture of today. You don’t personally have to believe in something for it to be true. People think just that they don’t believe something, that that’s a good argument for it to not be true.
Replacing Vuc’s minutes with Jalen Smith and Adama Sanogo and Lofton and LaVine’s minutes with Matas Buzelis and Dalen Terry and Chris Duarte, and 5 wins might be selling it short.
I’m not a fan of Vucevic nor LaVine, they’re overrated and overpaid, but half their minutes would be replaced Jalen Smith and Chris Duarte - decidedly mediocre at best players - and the other half would be replaced with players that could be among the worst in the league.
Dude we're talking b-ball here. I'm not going to spend the mental energy teasing out the actual +/- value of Lavine/Vuc over the course of a season, because I have a limited amount of that and this is all fundamentally meaningless.
Either way, Demar isn't here to cover for these bums anymore and handle all the important possessions for them, so I guess we'll see soon enough.
This is something I keep seeing and it doesn't make sense to me. Yes, Zach and Vooch are bad in the sense that neither are worth anywhere near the money they make. You know who they're better than though? Jalen Smith (maybe), Adam Sanogo, Chris Duarte, Dalen Terry, Jevon Carter and Julian Phillips.
It's not that difficult. If you replace two guys who are at worst slight negatives with guys who are genuinely bad at basketball and would be big negatives, you lose more games.
TL;DR Replacing bad players with worse players equals more losses. Easy maths.
What I'm alleging is that Zach and Vuc are big negatives at this stage of their careers. The security blankets on both ends (Demar/Caruso) are gone. I think Billy can run Zach and Vuc out there 82 times and not break 25 wins this season. I would absolutely bet the under on that if you gave me a guarantee that both guys will be healthy and active for a full season.
ultimate point is that I don't share the concern troll of winning too many games because Zach and Vuc are in the rotation. I am more concerned with stagnating development of the other guys, plus just the concept of wasting time while they are still featured players
so in that sense it kind of is a tank, because in that scenario nothing matters to 'waste'.
but it's an accidental tank, which should be called out even if they somehow 'succeed' in getting a top pick
It's not a tank. They are not actively trying to lose. As someone said above: they'll succeed at tanking because they'll fail at being competitive.
I get that you hate tanks, but this isn't even that. Yikes.
And sure, call it concern trolling because you don't agree with it. That makes sense. It's these half-assed non-tanking that gets people to actually hate "tanking."
I mean, there's variances, though. I'd be actively harmful, too, but it would be a lot worse than Vucevic. So would his back-ups.
If LaVine is an actively bad player, then I don't see how you can honestly believe he'll be traded before the season - or at any point. Literally no one is taking a $40 million player than is actively bad. The only reason thye'll take a $40 million player is because they think he's a $20 or $30 million player and they don't really have a way of getting that type.
And yes, some of Zach's shots will go to those guys. Dosunmu is not better. Neither has Giddey shown that he is better at taking "some of those shots." His impact would likely suffer by not having another high-volume, high-efficiency player.
Look, I don't like LaVine, but largely because he's been vastly overrated by the Bulls community and ownership. But that doesn't mean he's trash, either. There's vast difference in basketball than just "player-good; player-bad!!"
Having Jokic or Embiid at center is pretty awesome. Having Gobert is pretty good. Having Valanciunas or Stephen Adams or Zubac is meh, sure. Having Vucivic or Nick Richards is meh, nah. Having Adema Sanogo or some other 2-way player as your center is downright horrible.
I'm with you in the sense that I'm probably less pessimistic than a lot on here. With that being said, I'm not with you on a lot of what you said.
Getting rid of DeMar was 100% the right move because they basically had no other moves. They had two past trade deadlines and an offseason or two to trade him and they didn't. They tried to offer him $40 million a year for two more years and DeMar said no, so they were basically stuck with losing him for nothing or getting someone to agree to a sign-and-trade. Thankfully they got the latter.
I do believe they'll trade LaVine at some point this year, but it'll be for basically nothing. It was only a year or year and a half ago when multiple teams were interested in his services but AK shut down any offers that didn't blow him away.
I don't know if Vooch will be traded this year. My gut says no unless he comes out and plays significantly better than he did last year and I struggle to see that happening. Usually once big men start declining, there's no coming back. It's crazy to think he already wasn't that good and clearly not a good fit, and AK gave him three more years and $60 million without letting the market decide his worth.
While I agree that the Bulls will be quite bad this year, finishing in the bottom five is going to be difficult. There are some truly bad teams this year that are clearly trying to be bad. The Bulls aren't. AK has never hinted at wanting to be bad. Billy has been known his whole career as a win-now coach and has left teams that were entering rebuilds.
Zach, Coby, Vooch, Ayo all have reasons to play as hard as they can - either to prove their worth, get traded, or just because they're sick of losing (or any combination of the three). Giddey is in a contract year and will have the keys to the offense for the first time in his career. There's no doubt he'll be giving it his all every night.
This team will lose because it's poorly constructed, not because it has terrible players and is trying to lose. There will be games they steal because they have a bunch of players that want to win and because they have a coach and FO that wants to win. That's not a recipe for a bottom five seed when there are several legitimately bad teams trying to lose.
I expect the Bulls to be bad enough that they keep their pick this year, but I don't expect it to be in the top 5. Maybe they'll get lucky and whoever they pick ends up being a star. But that's basically what we have to hope for with this team. They're not going to get better because of the direction of the front office. They will get better if they get super lucky.
Lastly, let's not forget the Bulls are entering a rebuild, whether they want to believe it or not, with a draft pick deficit. That's basically a guaranteed way to fail at a rebuild unless they get super lucky.
Agreed. Which of these guys would start on a playoff team: Vuc, Duarte, Carter, Ayo, Craig, Matas, Dalen, Julian Phillips, Jalen Smith? Coby and Zach are the only 2 credible starters on this team. I could hear an argument for Giddey but the last time we saw him, he was coming off the bench in the playoffs. I'm not even mentioning Patrick Williams and Lonzo since they are injured and never play.
"I could hear an argument for Giddey but the last time we saw him, he was coming off the bench in the playoffs. "
To be fair to Giddey, that was on the number one seed with two other ball dominant players that are a better fit with the rest of that team. And that team got trounced in the series where he was benched.
I think he's definitely starter quality, but probably in the lower half of starting quality PGs, at the moment.
Yes, I agree with you. There are some truly terrible players on this team. But there are also some decent players on this team. It's important to remember this is in the context of the worst teams in the league. When looking at the Nets, Wizards, Pistons, etc., all of those teams have far worse starting fives.
That was my point in my comment above. I wasn't trying to say this team may accidentally sneak into the playoffs. Just saying that compared to the other bad teams in the league that are clearly trying to get a shot at Cooper Flagg, the Bulls starters are probably better than those teams and they will be trying to win, unlike most of those other teams.
I think this team's starting 5 is decidedly mediocre - Giddey, White, LaVine, Williams, Vucevic. That's not good at all, but it's not terrible. That said, the bench is pretty atrocious. Dosunmu is fine, but not a good back-up you want starting for any length of time. Jalen Smith is also fine, but not a good starter. If those are your 9th and 10 best players (meaning, you have a really good wing player Kyle Anderson, a good ball-handling scoring guard like Tim Hardaway, Jr., a good back-up big like Obi Toppin), you could get away with it. But instead, it's guys like Adama Sanogo, or Chris Duarte, or Jevon Carter who I think are on their last contract before going overseas.
Who cares if they can communicate what they’re doing? This team IS interesting. There will be a lot of nifty passes for dunks and player movement + injury drama. Plenty of young players who’ll get a chance to distinguish themselves. Expectations are thru the floor, so they can’t disappoint? No tanking!
I think this is where I'm struggling. I do find this current team more interesting than what we've gotten the last couple years and I'd even say I'm more excited for this season than I was for the last couple of seasons. To be clear, I'm still not incredibly excited. It's more just that I wasn't really excited at all the last couple of years haha.
But on the other hand, it's difficult to find a team interesting when you know how poorly that team is being run. Like yeah, they finally chose a new direction, but they chose that new direction at minimum a year too late and at maximum two or two and a half years too late. Had they traded Zach and DeMar during the 22-23 season or 23 offseason and even just not re-signed Vooch, they'd be in a much better place now and would be so much more interesting.
So yes, I am more excited for this season than the last couple of seasons. But also, a competent GM/Exec would have made changes already and that team would be even more interesting than the current one. I guess you just can't have your cake and eat it too when you're a Bulls fan.
What do you find interesting about this team? I think it might be interesting too, but I'm worried that the Bulls don't have enough talent to not be overmatched in every game, which would curtail my interest really quick.
I think the only "interesting" thing is basically the allure of the unknown. We don't know what Giddey's going to look like with the keys to the offense. We don't know if Coby can take another step forward. We don't know if Pat can find some confidence. We don't know if Zach or Vooch might get traded. All those sorts of things.
Sure, we can take educated guesses. Giddey will likely make some fun passes and push the ball in transition more, but he'll also be frustrating to watch due to his poor shooting and tendency to turn the ball over a lot. Coby likely won't take another step forward while playing alongside Zach. Pat may not even be healthy enough to see if he's improved.
But we're Bulls fans. We don't get to be excited about new blockbuster trades, or young prospects who we're sure are going to break out because we have an amazing development staff. So the only things we can be excited about are what-ifs.
I didn’t this team interesting in the big picture sense, but not in the day to day sense. What’s LaVine going to come back as? Will Ball ever play? Will Williams be hurt again? What’s the path?
Knicks make another huge move for KAT right before training camp. Julius Randle is in the deal. Strange, Knicks were able to do a trade of Randle and not need to have others see him healthy on the court again first...
Saw your comment on Bleacher Nation. Surprisingly a lot of the comments on there weren't all that impressed with the trade. I thought it was a great trade for the Knicks. In my mind, Randle is in the same vein as Zach. Both put up great numbers but don't really do anything else that well to the point where they don't actually seem to impact winning that much. I've thought this for years and the playoffs last season proved that to be true.
KAT has had an interesting career and probably until last year I would have put him in the same group as Zach and Randle. But he took a pretty serious step forward last year and it's clear that if you can hide him on defense, he can be seriously effective. Luckily for him, the Knicks have some great defenders to surround him and Thibs knows how to orchestrate a great defense with the best of them.
A starting five of Brunson, Bridges, Hart, OG, and KAT sounds crazy good. Or if Robinson is healthy and Thibs wants to go with a bigger lineup, they could bring Hart off the bench and have a starting lineup of Brunson, Bridges, OG, KAT and Robinson. Either of those lineups would have at least three excellent defenders with at least three excellent scorers.
And they didn't even have to give up that much. Losing DiVincenzo is unfortunate since he was a great role player. But to essentially give up a really good role player, an overpaid "star" that's never healthy and has questionable impact, and a first round pick for KAT seems like a great move for the Knicks.
I assume you're referring to the 2023 playoffs? If so, Randle was third on the team in PPG during those playoffs behind Brunson and Barrett. They also beat the #4 seed Cavs and then lost to the #8 seed Heat. Not exactly powerhouse teams. He shot 37% from the field and 26% from deep.
Going back to the 2021 playoffs, the Knicks lost to the #5 seed Hawks in five games. Rose led that team in PPG despite Randle leading the team in MPG. Randle shot less than 30% from the field and 33% from deep. He also averaged more turnovers than assists.
He was abysmal in the 2021 playoffs and then outplayed by two of his teammates in the 2023 playoffs despite being considered the team's best player at the time. I guess I just don't see how that proves he's more than an empty calorie star.
Yeah, maybe empty calorie star isn't the correct term. Essentially I just mean Randle and Zach can look like stars because of their scoring proficiency, but when things get serious, they're unlikely to actually lead your team to success.
Ha I’m misremembering the playoffs where Atlanta got to the ecf, yeah his playoff numbers have been bad. He’s been a main piece on winning teams, I retreat to the position that he’s been a main piece in a winning team. More desirable than lavine.
I agree that he's more desirable than LaVine. Although that's also a very low bar haha! Ultimately, I think this was a good trade for New York as I believe KAT will be far more impactful on that team than Randle was.
Well, Randle earns 15 million less than Lavine, played almost twice as many games last year and played better, too, so it's not surprising that he's easier to trade than Zach.
The issue with Zach is that at 43 million and with the new CBA, if he's not playing at All Star level, who wants him?
Right and I'm saying those issues are not going away with him playing for the Bulls this November. The framing is that Zach is impossible to trade now, whereas I agree it's harder but a competent front office could do it
Well, I think it's gonna be extremely hard to trade him without giving up assets.
Now, IF he plays at a really high level for a couple of months then it's probably gonna be a little less hard.
This front office is incompetent, but the CBA has changed things. The Towns/Randle trade doesn't happen without the second apron looming over the Wolves.
today at Chuggo, one of their questions: "can Zach regain trade value"?
why isn't it on The Bulls, at all, to do this? They better be working overtime this camp just talking about how great and bought-in he looks. I hope it's on KC Johnson's quarterly goals
SG: White - fine, if he’s a starter on a team, how good can they be? LaVine-good player, way overrated, never plays
SF: Buzelis - à rookie. No one else is NBA
PF: Williams - perfectly cromulent, fine. Not even at White’s level; Jalen Smith - not as good as Williams but he is an NBA player
C: Vucevic - mediocre player, not terrible, overpaid and overrated, anyone else matter?
If LaVine plays SF, they at least have legitimate starters at every position, even if they’re all in the 16-30 range at their respective positions. They have acceptable back-ups in both Dosunmu and Smith, though neither is pushing for starting minutes like you would like a good back-up to do.
This team is going to be so ugly and boring to watch, and they’re going to win games just because they have some legitimate talent on the roster.
Over who though? He's not a point guard, so he's not going to start over Giddey. He's not as good as White or LaVine. His numbers may look better because he doesn't get defensive attention like those two.
I say that as a big Ayo fan. The guy should be a great sixth man and that's likely how he'll be used this year until injuries start piling up.
He's not not a point guard. His numbers look good cause he scores within the offense and is open for the corner 3, which he hits. Yeah there needs to be offense from other for him to get his shots, but that's basketball. The Bulls are overloaded with ball handlers and wings with no big depth, and Dosunmu is going to get squeezed unfairly.
Don't get me wrong, I agree that he's a good player and will likely lose minutes this season if Zach, Giddey and Coby stay healthy (just like he did at the beginning of last season). I just don't think he should be a starter over any of those guys.
Even though CHSN launches in a few days and they have released next to nothing about their programming, I was able to find their tv listings through a listings website and it’s as cheap and barebones as you would expect from a Reinsdorf business venture. They’re simulcasting the Score’s Mully and Haugh show from 7-9 AM, their Chicago sports news show called The Chicago Lead usually between 6-7 PM, college and professional football shows, a video version of their podcast and paid programming overnights. They’re also replaying the Hawks preseason games a lot sometimes as many as three times a day. They are just starting out so we should cut them some slack. However, they announced this network months ago and knew for years that they were starting it so they should have been better prepared than this. Good thing that the Hawks have Berdard or else nobody would be watching this network.
Bulls media day today. No need for a preview post because the Org. message was clearly being brought out in this radio interview and they're not smart enough to adjust.
Only news I expect is several players practice availability. Williams, LaVine, Ball. Maybe we'll get a fun phantom injury revealed today!
And I'm also somewhat interested in what 'media' is showing up. KC doesn't count, he has gone from 80% to 100% employed by the team. ESPN and The Athletic are covering the Bulls only part-time. The 2 major papers have reporters there but one is a novice and the other an imbecile. Chuggo will be there. Will the Daily Herald or local TV bother sending anyone?
Will Gottlieb asked my exact question ("did you add ten wins like you said you would?"). But sort of botched the execution though in giving AK an out to meander around an answer (which he did)
there's just a fundamental problem with AK's mode of operation. He's always "wait and see" and using NBA regular seasons to tell him information to make decisions. He should have a vision for things, and try to speculate how things are going to go instead of saying they don't know until they're out there
AK is so stupid he may literally have forgotten that Zach was healthy to start last year. He keeps bringing up the injury and not that they started 5-16 or whatever when he played.
Not able to catch it live, but plan to watch it in half an hour or so. Did the Bulls social media team turn the comments off on the YouTube live stream this time?
Didn't have ruptured anterior talofibular ligament on the bingo card this season though. Now, honestly, I don't know what that is exactly, but Josh Giddey apparently has it.
I vaguely remember hearing about this injury when it happened, but haven’t heard anything since. I figure that they’ll sign to a figure of approximately whatever Lonzo is making this year next summer as their big move and they’ll be under the tax again.
Zach's prepared statement was pretty good! I don't believe any of it, but it was well thought out and he came across as sincere. Maybe AK can hit him up for some pointers during Zach's exit interview later this season.
The Bulls seem destined to actually bottom out despite it all because their defense is going to be abominable and their team somehow lacks both consistent outside shooting and meaningful size.
They should have traded Coby this summer while his 2 years remaining hold moderate value but then who would they tell us to pretend to care about on promotional materials asking for ticket purchases?
I'm not here to make any bold Matas Buzelis proclamations, but he's one of maybe two reasons I would casually tune into a Mid-January slogging against who really gives a shit. That and I guess to hear the latest on whatever foot discomfort Patrick Williams is experiencing.
I haven't been this unexcited about the start of Chicago Bulls season since last year.
yeah I should've added that while they are likely truthfully intending on this being another "competitive" season, there will be a bunch of injuries and they'll be shitty so development time will happen eventually. As usually it'll be something happening to them instead of by them.
I think the shortest and simplest way of putting it is this: the Bulls will succeed (at tanking) by failing (at being competitive).
I am with you on this absence of excitement. I relinquished my tickets for the first time as a working adult - why would I go to games this year?
I don't dislike the individual players and I am somewhat looking forward to the development of Matas - he seems like a modern AK-47 type player. Coby is very likable and Giddey actually seems like a fun player. But, ownership/front office have given no reason for hope in the future. They have shown time and again they have no idea how to, nor even really any interest in, building a contender. As long as the UC is full and they are not paying the tax, ownership is happy.
This is what a tank looks like. Should they have started sooner? Probably but they did well in this draft anyway so nothing lost there. Yes they could have gotten trade returns earlier, but they didn't. Letting go of DDR now was 100% right. I believe they'll trade Zach in December and Vuc at the deadline. Not positive returns but not negative either. They'll finish in the bottom 5 and get a good to awesome pick. Hoping they get lucky. After that with no large salary commits they'll try to spend some money on a young would-be star, not a big name but one with upside that will fit in with the rest of the group. I'm fine with that. If they can't execute then yes we're all effed. It's a path to interesting at least. I HAVE bailed out during the Fred and Boylen years. I'm not out yet though I won't argue that AKME have sucked post-offseason 1 and seem delusional or liars. My hope is Reinsdorf's $7B neighborhood investment means they can't afford for this team to go totally to rot.
Not being fatally pessimistic, I may not fit in around here anymore 😉
This is not what a tank looks like. They will win 5 more games than necessary because they have LaVine and Vuc on the team. That’s not good.
A tank is a deliberate effort àt being as bad as possible in order to most improve draft lottery chances. That is absolutely NOT what is happening here.
This is a half-assed rebuild, not a tank. There is a difference.
I'm not well versed in the realm of advanced NBA statistics but it's hard for me to believe that Zach and Vuc amounts to +5 wins over whoever else would fill those minutes. Vuc has been stealing money since he got here. He sucks at essentially everything but racking up rebound numbers due to being 7 feet tall. Zach is a god awful ballhandler and defender who thinks he's better offensively than he is, and the team must accommodate this belief or everything gets all pouty and ridiculous.
Trash players. I hate watching both of these guys and I don't think they win you any games. They're just out there taking up space on the floor while other guys do the things within possessions that win you games. Or they don't. Either way, Zach and Vuc are along for the ride.
This is what’s so fascinating about the current culture of today. You don’t personally have to believe in something for it to be true. People think just that they don’t believe something, that that’s a good argument for it to not be true.
Replacing Vuc’s minutes with Jalen Smith and Adama Sanogo and Lofton and LaVine’s minutes with Matas Buzelis and Dalen Terry and Chris Duarte, and 5 wins might be selling it short.
I’m not a fan of Vucevic nor LaVine, they’re overrated and overpaid, but half their minutes would be replaced Jalen Smith and Chris Duarte - decidedly mediocre at best players - and the other half would be replaced with players that could be among the worst in the league.
Dude we're talking b-ball here. I'm not going to spend the mental energy teasing out the actual +/- value of Lavine/Vuc over the course of a season, because I have a limited amount of that and this is all fundamentally meaningless.
Either way, Demar isn't here to cover for these bums anymore and handle all the important possessions for them, so I guess we'll see soon enough.
This is something I keep seeing and it doesn't make sense to me. Yes, Zach and Vooch are bad in the sense that neither are worth anywhere near the money they make. You know who they're better than though? Jalen Smith (maybe), Adam Sanogo, Chris Duarte, Dalen Terry, Jevon Carter and Julian Phillips.
It's not that difficult. If you replace two guys who are at worst slight negatives with guys who are genuinely bad at basketball and would be big negatives, you lose more games.
TL;DR Replacing bad players with worse players equals more losses. Easy maths.
What I'm alleging is that Zach and Vuc are big negatives at this stage of their careers. The security blankets on both ends (Demar/Caruso) are gone. I think Billy can run Zach and Vuc out there 82 times and not break 25 wins this season. I would absolutely bet the under on that if you gave me a guarantee that both guys will be healthy and active for a full season.
Understood. I'm not sure I agree, but that's the fun thing about speculation. We'll just have to see how the season plays out!
I reason that Zach's minutes (and shots) more go to White, Giddey, Dosunmu. When White got more of Zach's touches last season was a positive
Vuc's minutes being replaced by anybody could reasonably be a positive too. He is actively harmful.
ultimate point is that I don't share the concern troll of winning too many games because Zach and Vuc are in the rotation. I am more concerned with stagnating development of the other guys, plus just the concept of wasting time while they are still featured players
so in that sense it kind of is a tank, because in that scenario nothing matters to 'waste'.
but it's an accidental tank, which should be called out even if they somehow 'succeed' in getting a top pick
It's not a tank. They are not actively trying to lose. As someone said above: they'll succeed at tanking because they'll fail at being competitive.
I get that you hate tanks, but this isn't even that. Yikes.
And sure, call it concern trolling because you don't agree with it. That makes sense. It's these half-assed non-tanking that gets people to actually hate "tanking."
I mean, there's variances, though. I'd be actively harmful, too, but it would be a lot worse than Vucevic. So would his back-ups.
If LaVine is an actively bad player, then I don't see how you can honestly believe he'll be traded before the season - or at any point. Literally no one is taking a $40 million player than is actively bad. The only reason thye'll take a $40 million player is because they think he's a $20 or $30 million player and they don't really have a way of getting that type.
And yes, some of Zach's shots will go to those guys. Dosunmu is not better. Neither has Giddey shown that he is better at taking "some of those shots." His impact would likely suffer by not having another high-volume, high-efficiency player.
Look, I don't like LaVine, but largely because he's been vastly overrated by the Bulls community and ownership. But that doesn't mean he's trash, either. There's vast difference in basketball than just "player-good; player-bad!!"
Having Jokic or Embiid at center is pretty awesome. Having Gobert is pretty good. Having Valanciunas or Stephen Adams or Zubac is meh, sure. Having Vucivic or Nick Richards is meh, nah. Having Adema Sanogo or some other 2-way player as your center is downright horrible.
I'm with you in the sense that I'm probably less pessimistic than a lot on here. With that being said, I'm not with you on a lot of what you said.
Getting rid of DeMar was 100% the right move because they basically had no other moves. They had two past trade deadlines and an offseason or two to trade him and they didn't. They tried to offer him $40 million a year for two more years and DeMar said no, so they were basically stuck with losing him for nothing or getting someone to agree to a sign-and-trade. Thankfully they got the latter.
I do believe they'll trade LaVine at some point this year, but it'll be for basically nothing. It was only a year or year and a half ago when multiple teams were interested in his services but AK shut down any offers that didn't blow him away.
I don't know if Vooch will be traded this year. My gut says no unless he comes out and plays significantly better than he did last year and I struggle to see that happening. Usually once big men start declining, there's no coming back. It's crazy to think he already wasn't that good and clearly not a good fit, and AK gave him three more years and $60 million without letting the market decide his worth.
While I agree that the Bulls will be quite bad this year, finishing in the bottom five is going to be difficult. There are some truly bad teams this year that are clearly trying to be bad. The Bulls aren't. AK has never hinted at wanting to be bad. Billy has been known his whole career as a win-now coach and has left teams that were entering rebuilds.
Zach, Coby, Vooch, Ayo all have reasons to play as hard as they can - either to prove their worth, get traded, or just because they're sick of losing (or any combination of the three). Giddey is in a contract year and will have the keys to the offense for the first time in his career. There's no doubt he'll be giving it his all every night.
This team will lose because it's poorly constructed, not because it has terrible players and is trying to lose. There will be games they steal because they have a bunch of players that want to win and because they have a coach and FO that wants to win. That's not a recipe for a bottom five seed when there are several legitimately bad teams trying to lose.
I expect the Bulls to be bad enough that they keep their pick this year, but I don't expect it to be in the top 5. Maybe they'll get lucky and whoever they pick ends up being a star. But that's basically what we have to hope for with this team. They're not going to get better because of the direction of the front office. They will get better if they get super lucky.
Lastly, let's not forget the Bulls are entering a rebuild, whether they want to believe it or not, with a draft pick deficit. That's basically a guaranteed way to fail at a rebuild unless they get super lucky.
To be fair here, and to give credit where it's due--I think a lot of these players are terrible.
Agreed. Which of these guys would start on a playoff team: Vuc, Duarte, Carter, Ayo, Craig, Matas, Dalen, Julian Phillips, Jalen Smith? Coby and Zach are the only 2 credible starters on this team. I could hear an argument for Giddey but the last time we saw him, he was coming off the bench in the playoffs. I'm not even mentioning Patrick Williams and Lonzo since they are injured and never play.
"I could hear an argument for Giddey but the last time we saw him, he was coming off the bench in the playoffs. "
To be fair to Giddey, that was on the number one seed with two other ball dominant players that are a better fit with the rest of that team. And that team got trounced in the series where he was benched.
I think he's definitely starter quality, but probably in the lower half of starting quality PGs, at the moment.
that's the Chicago Bulls, baby, 'technically an NBA team'
Yes, I agree with you. There are some truly terrible players on this team. But there are also some decent players on this team. It's important to remember this is in the context of the worst teams in the league. When looking at the Nets, Wizards, Pistons, etc., all of those teams have far worse starting fives.
That was my point in my comment above. I wasn't trying to say this team may accidentally sneak into the playoffs. Just saying that compared to the other bad teams in the league that are clearly trying to get a shot at Cooper Flagg, the Bulls starters are probably better than those teams and they will be trying to win, unlike most of those other teams.
I think this team's starting 5 is decidedly mediocre - Giddey, White, LaVine, Williams, Vucevic. That's not good at all, but it's not terrible. That said, the bench is pretty atrocious. Dosunmu is fine, but not a good back-up you want starting for any length of time. Jalen Smith is also fine, but not a good starter. If those are your 9th and 10 best players (meaning, you have a really good wing player Kyle Anderson, a good ball-handling scoring guard like Tim Hardaway, Jr., a good back-up big like Obi Toppin), you could get away with it. But instead, it's guys like Adama Sanogo, or Chris Duarte, or Jevon Carter who I think are on their last contract before going overseas.
If Matas goes to the G League and we have guys like Javon Carter getting minutes I'm going to lose my mind.
I can see the Bulls tweet already: "Join us in congratulating our G-League MVP, Matas Buzelis!"
Who cares if they can communicate what they’re doing? This team IS interesting. There will be a lot of nifty passes for dunks and player movement + injury drama. Plenty of young players who’ll get a chance to distinguish themselves. Expectations are thru the floor, so they can’t disappoint? No tanking!
I think this is where I'm struggling. I do find this current team more interesting than what we've gotten the last couple years and I'd even say I'm more excited for this season than I was for the last couple of seasons. To be clear, I'm still not incredibly excited. It's more just that I wasn't really excited at all the last couple of years haha.
But on the other hand, it's difficult to find a team interesting when you know how poorly that team is being run. Like yeah, they finally chose a new direction, but they chose that new direction at minimum a year too late and at maximum two or two and a half years too late. Had they traded Zach and DeMar during the 22-23 season or 23 offseason and even just not re-signed Vooch, they'd be in a much better place now and would be so much more interesting.
So yes, I am more excited for this season than the last couple of seasons. But also, a competent GM/Exec would have made changes already and that team would be even more interesting than the current one. I guess you just can't have your cake and eat it too when you're a Bulls fan.
What do you find interesting about this team? I think it might be interesting too, but I'm worried that the Bulls don't have enough talent to not be overmatched in every game, which would curtail my interest really quick.
I think the only "interesting" thing is basically the allure of the unknown. We don't know what Giddey's going to look like with the keys to the offense. We don't know if Coby can take another step forward. We don't know if Pat can find some confidence. We don't know if Zach or Vooch might get traded. All those sorts of things.
Sure, we can take educated guesses. Giddey will likely make some fun passes and push the ball in transition more, but he'll also be frustrating to watch due to his poor shooting and tendency to turn the ball over a lot. Coby likely won't take another step forward while playing alongside Zach. Pat may not even be healthy enough to see if he's improved.
But we're Bulls fans. We don't get to be excited about new blockbuster trades, or young prospects who we're sure are going to break out because we have an amazing development staff. So the only things we can be excited about are what-ifs.
I didn’t this team interesting in the big picture sense, but not in the day to day sense. What’s LaVine going to come back as? Will Ball ever play? Will Williams be hurt again? What’s the path?
But it’s going to be ugly on a nightly basis.
Knicks make another huge move for KAT right before training camp. Julius Randle is in the deal. Strange, Knicks were able to do a trade of Randle and not need to have others see him healthy on the court again first...
Saw your comment on Bleacher Nation. Surprisingly a lot of the comments on there weren't all that impressed with the trade. I thought it was a great trade for the Knicks. In my mind, Randle is in the same vein as Zach. Both put up great numbers but don't really do anything else that well to the point where they don't actually seem to impact winning that much. I've thought this for years and the playoffs last season proved that to be true.
KAT has had an interesting career and probably until last year I would have put him in the same group as Zach and Randle. But he took a pretty serious step forward last year and it's clear that if you can hide him on defense, he can be seriously effective. Luckily for him, the Knicks have some great defenders to surround him and Thibs knows how to orchestrate a great defense with the best of them.
A starting five of Brunson, Bridges, Hart, OG, and KAT sounds crazy good. Or if Robinson is healthy and Thibs wants to go with a bigger lineup, they could bring Hart off the bench and have a starting lineup of Brunson, Bridges, OG, KAT and Robinson. Either of those lineups would have at least three excellent defenders with at least three excellent scorers.
And they didn't even have to give up that much. Losing DiVincenzo is unfortunate since he was a great role player. But to essentially give up a really good role player, an overpaid "star" that's never healthy and has questionable impact, and a first round pick for KAT seems like a great move for the Knicks.
My point was more it sure seems other teams are able to make trades (or not) yet with the Bulls it's other forces making it impossible on them
Sorry, yes I understood your point. Was more just expounding on the trade itself, and not necessarily how it relates to the Bulls.
Randle got the Knicks deep into the playoffs without much offensive help (luv ya Rose).
I assume you're referring to the 2023 playoffs? If so, Randle was third on the team in PPG during those playoffs behind Brunson and Barrett. They also beat the #4 seed Cavs and then lost to the #8 seed Heat. Not exactly powerhouse teams. He shot 37% from the field and 26% from deep.
Going back to the 2021 playoffs, the Knicks lost to the #5 seed Hawks in five games. Rose led that team in PPG despite Randle leading the team in MPG. Randle shot less than 30% from the field and 33% from deep. He also averaged more turnovers than assists.
He was abysmal in the 2021 playoffs and then outplayed by two of his teammates in the 2023 playoffs despite being considered the team's best player at the time. I guess I just don't see how that proves he's more than an empty calorie star.
Yeah, just checked Randle playoffs stats (Zach, too) and yikes, it's ugly.
I don't like the "empty calories" description, but both seem to be guys that crumble under the intensified defensive focus of the playoffs.
Yeah, maybe empty calorie star isn't the correct term. Essentially I just mean Randle and Zach can look like stars because of their scoring proficiency, but when things get serious, they're unlikely to actually lead your team to success.
Ha I’m misremembering the playoffs where Atlanta got to the ecf, yeah his playoff numbers have been bad. He’s been a main piece on winning teams, I retreat to the position that he’s been a main piece in a winning team. More desirable than lavine.
I agree that he's more desirable than LaVine. Although that's also a very low bar haha! Ultimately, I think this was a good trade for New York as I believe KAT will be far more impactful on that team than Randle was.
Well, Randle earns 15 million less than Lavine, played almost twice as many games last year and played better, too, so it's not surprising that he's easier to trade than Zach.
The issue with Zach is that at 43 million and with the new CBA, if he's not playing at All Star level, who wants him?
Right and I'm saying those issues are not going away with him playing for the Bulls this November. The framing is that Zach is impossible to trade now, whereas I agree it's harder but a competent front office could do it
Well, I think it's gonna be extremely hard to trade him without giving up assets.
Now, IF he plays at a really high level for a couple of months then it's probably gonna be a little less hard.
This front office is incompetent, but the CBA has changed things. The Towns/Randle trade doesn't happen without the second apron looming over the Wolves.
today at Chuggo, one of their questions: "can Zach regain trade value"?
why isn't it on The Bulls, at all, to do this? They better be working overtime this camp just talking about how great and bought-in he looks. I hope it's on KC Johnson's quarterly goals
Interesting looking at the depth chart:
PG: Giddey - fine, maybe good; Dosunmu-meh, fine, no longer young, he’s fine; Carter-eke; Lonzo Ball?
SG: White - fine, if he’s a starter on a team, how good can they be? LaVine-good player, way overrated, never plays
SF: Buzelis - à rookie. No one else is NBA
PF: Williams - perfectly cromulent, fine. Not even at White’s level; Jalen Smith - not as good as Williams but he is an NBA player
C: Vucevic - mediocre player, not terrible, overpaid and overrated, anyone else matter?
If LaVine plays SF, they at least have legitimate starters at every position, even if they’re all in the 16-30 range at their respective positions. They have acceptable back-ups in both Dosunmu and Smith, though neither is pushing for starting minutes like you would like a good back-up to do.
This team is going to be so ugly and boring to watch, and they’re going to win games just because they have some legitimate talent on the roster.
Dosunmu started 32 games at the tail end of the year.
16ppg, 51% shooting, 43% from 3. Good defender. Why isn't he the starter?
Over who though? He's not a point guard, so he's not going to start over Giddey. He's not as good as White or LaVine. His numbers may look better because he doesn't get defensive attention like those two.
I say that as a big Ayo fan. The guy should be a great sixth man and that's likely how he'll be used this year until injuries start piling up.
He's not not a point guard. His numbers look good cause he scores within the offense and is open for the corner 3, which he hits. Yeah there needs to be offense from other for him to get his shots, but that's basketball. The Bulls are overloaded with ball handlers and wings with no big depth, and Dosunmu is going to get squeezed unfairly.
Don't get me wrong, I agree that he's a good player and will likely lose minutes this season if Zach, Giddey and Coby stay healthy (just like he did at the beginning of last season). I just don't think he should be a starter over any of those guys.
Even though CHSN launches in a few days and they have released next to nothing about their programming, I was able to find their tv listings through a listings website and it’s as cheap and barebones as you would expect from a Reinsdorf business venture. They’re simulcasting the Score’s Mully and Haugh show from 7-9 AM, their Chicago sports news show called The Chicago Lead usually between 6-7 PM, college and professional football shows, a video version of their podcast and paid programming overnights. They’re also replaying the Hawks preseason games a lot sometimes as many as three times a day. They are just starting out so we should cut them some slack. However, they announced this network months ago and knew for years that they were starting it so they should have been better prepared than this. Good thing that the Hawks have Berdard or else nobody would be watching this network.
It’s still funny that most of the information on their website is about setting up an antenna to watch the channel.
I put down my TV dinner to read it.
CHGO has a case for IP theft. punitive damage assessed value of $14
Bulls media day today. No need for a preview post because the Org. message was clearly being brought out in this radio interview and they're not smart enough to adjust.
Only news I expect is several players practice availability. Williams, LaVine, Ball. Maybe we'll get a fun phantom injury revealed today!
And I'm also somewhat interested in what 'media' is showing up. KC doesn't count, he has gone from 80% to 100% employed by the team. ESPN and The Athletic are covering the Bulls only part-time. The 2 major papers have reporters there but one is a novice and the other an imbecile. Chuggo will be there. Will the Daily Herald or local TV bother sending anyone?
point: Ryan Baker of CBS Chicago was there and asked a question
counterpoint: called AK "Arturo"
should be starting soon https://www.nba.com/bulls/bullstv/live
huh, said 12 central. maybe busy at work pretending they didn't undo Zach's building pass
Billy's up there as an AK shield again
incredible, has a written statement again and it mentions Lonzo's injury
yeah no change from last week. he thinks this is a new team that's pointed up, not still pointing down. Zach's here to win, ok.
second question is about Lonzo Ball, lol
Cowley is a moron but was pressing AK effectively about how AK can still try and sell "winning" when they let 3 of their better players go
Will Gottlieb asked my exact question ("did you add ten wins like you said you would?"). But sort of botched the execution though in giving AK an out to meander around an answer (which he did)
there's just a fundamental problem with AK's mode of operation. He's always "wait and see" and using NBA regular seasons to tell him information to make decisions. He should have a vision for things, and try to speculate how things are going to go instead of saying they don't know until they're out there
so this season is going to be toast, and after the season it'll be "because we traded Zach and that threw off rotations"
AK's priorities (when asked about if it's keeping top-10 protected pick):
1) establish playing style identity
2) home court advantage
Billy has now twice mentioned Chris Paul under him in OKC as reason why these 3 guards will work as starters
they are both so defensive about this team being called 'development'. I don't think they correctly assess the collective intelligence of the fanbase.
And AK actually thinks he's making good moves and Billy needs to win games to show how good the moves are.
AK is so stupid he may literally have forgotten that Zach was healthy to start last year. He keeps bringing up the injury and not that they started 5-16 or whatever when he played.
Not able to catch it live, but plan to watch it in half an hour or so. Did the Bulls social media team turn the comments off on the YouTube live stream this time?
notable that Patrick Williams is said to be ready to go
but I would not be surprised if he's not, and AK is just misinformed.
Didn't have ruptured anterior talofibular ligament on the bingo card this season though. Now, honestly, I don't know what that is exactly, but Josh Giddey apparently has it.
And there it is. This year's unreported injury goes to Josh Giddey. Ruptured some ankle tendon in the Olympics, great
Billy mentioned the 'unfortunate situation' with Giddey earlier but thought it was just he wasn't in the country
Vuc is cupping his shoulders already. They almost asked a question about it, but instead asked a question about the arm sleeve.
I vaguely remember hearing about this injury when it happened, but haven’t heard anything since. I figure that they’ll sign to a figure of approximately whatever Lonzo is making this year next summer as their big move and they’ll be under the tax again.
Goddamn I love Coby White.
Zach's prepared statement was pretty good! I don't believe any of it, but it was well thought out and he came across as sincere. Maybe AK can hit him up for some pointers during Zach's exit interview later this season.
like that "team source" suggested, Zach showed up and was compliant
The Bulls seem destined to actually bottom out despite it all because their defense is going to be abominable and their team somehow lacks both consistent outside shooting and meaningful size.
They should have traded Coby this summer while his 2 years remaining hold moderate value but then who would they tell us to pretend to care about on promotional materials asking for ticket purchases?