I didn't watch but it sounds like the Boston game was a farce. 13 consecutive missed 3's at the end because they were one away from the record. That's not entertainment it's just stupid.
I thought it was fun. They subbed out all of their starters because they were blowing New York out and the subs couldn't hit a three to save their lives.
how will the Sixers wriggle out of this one? Oh, they can plausibly say that Embiid's knee is shredded cheddar and you may notice he wears a 50lb brace when he does play? I guess they'll go with that, MR DETECTIVE
People love 3 pointers. People love fast paced play. NBA viewership is very high and international interest in the NBA is at an all time high. Look for the NBA to become more FIBA-like.
Viewership has been stagnant since before the pandemic, though I don't believe the numbers take into account the fact that even serious NBA fans often now just watch highlights on social media. But if that number is very large one would have to ask why they prefer to consume an already-fast-paced game in 20 second clips. "I love watching teams miss 65% of 3 pointers" would probably not register on the survey.
Honestly I find myself really not liking the product these days. I feel like most of the stars kinda suck, the style of play is boring, everything is commercialized to the point of absurdity, the stench of sports betting is too pervasive, and no one taking the regular season seriously has become an active detriment. None of this stuff is new but I’m quickly losing my ability to stomach it.
I'm with you on most of it. I disagree that the players kinda suck. Jalen Brunson is basically a clone of Derrick Rose, improved. I've never seen a player like Giannis in my life. Double for Jokic. And when he isn't bitching, watching Doncic is like tripping on mushrooms, he's just at a totally different speed than everyone else and there's usually like 3 people in the world like that at any given time. This is a pretty incredible time for basketball *players*, it's like the player pool expanded 10x over with the same number of teams (notable that I only named one American player in the entire bunch).
Yeah I shouldn't have said "sucks" as if they're bad basketball players. I'll skip the rant but a lot of the older established stars are just guys I don't care to watch. The ones you mentioned, I do like though (Luka a bit less so). Jolic is probably my favorite current player because he's always doing some aesthetically incredible shit despite looking like a drunk uncle.
My question is who is ACTUALLY benefiting from LaVine and Vuc still being here?
The fans? Most casual fans don’t care about them and most diehard fans dislike that they’re still on the team.
The owners? They only care about this team making money and that will happen regardless of who’s on the roster.
Donovan? He wants to coach a team that wins, but it’s been proven that Zach and Vuc have little to no impact on actual wins and losses.
The young players? Coby and Ayo have become the leaders of the team, so you can’t argue that LaVine and Vuc help the young guys from a morale perspective. They’re also just taking minutes and shots and don’t do anything to make the players around them better, so you can’t argue they help the young guys from a development perspective either.
LaVine and Vuc themselves? LaVine has already made it clear he wants to be traded and Vuc seems to only care about the contract and shot attempts.
AK? The longer LaVine and Vuc are here, the worse it looks for him due to the lack of direction.
So again, who is actually benefiting from them still being here?!?!
While I agree with your overall assessment, I do think you're wrong about casual fans. Casual fans seem to love Zach and Vooch. This is probably a combination of casual fans knowing those guys were All-stars at one point and knowing they put up big numbers. They don't pay close enough attention to know those numbers aren't actually impactful or see how terrible of teammates they are.
If you don't pay very close attention to this team, but see Zach light up the scoreboard every once in a while when you tune into a game and see highlights of some awesome dunks on social media, you're going to think Zach is amazing. If all you ever hear about Vooch is that he's a double-double machine, you're going to think he's pretty good.
I live on the East coast and went to a Bulls game in Charlotte a year or two ago. We sat by the away team tunnel and there were a lot of Bulls fans around. I couldn't believe some of the completely idiotic takes I was hearing from those around me. But the more I thought about it, the more it made sense. If those people only watch the occasional Bulls game and watch highlights from the Bulls social media accounts, I could totally understand why they thought the things they thought.
I think you’re describing the meathead fans, not the casual ones.
Casual fans are people who can barely name 5 people on this roster, but put the game on every now and then to have something on in the background and go to a game sometimes because they just want to have a night out with their family.
The meathead fans are the ones who argue that the team is better than people think and can make a run with some better luck. Those fans shouldn’t be of concern either, because they will talk themselves into any iteration of this team.
Nah, I was definitely describing casual fans. Not people who spend their time on Twitter or Reddit trying to convince others that the Bulls are actually good and AK is secretly a basketball genius. I'm talking about people who only occasionally watch games and get most of their information about the team from Bulls social media.
I think it is the owners (and thus AK, as he's helping the owners), as yes they will make money regardless, they are not taking back 'worse' money or paying players not to play for them
I wouldn't doubt there is a LaVine trade offered where the Bulls don't give up any assets but did take on more money, and thus AK turned it down. Whenever they do get a deal done I'm sure they could've gotten more assets if they took more money (see DeMar trade)
i haven’t concocted a good enough metaphor to describe this team. in the past the insane decision making felt like watching a flaming tire roll down a hill. it was bad, but there was something there. directionality, bad but with some flash, some spectacle.
whereas this team? it just feels like nothing. maybe no metaphor is most apt. i feel nothing. i expect nothing. i desire nothing. maybe this has been a years long project to help the people of chicago escape samsara. in which case, great success.
speaking of CHSN, I regret to inform that their podcast is not very good. Cam Smith (the co-host employed by the network) is playing the house organ. "you're nuts if you bet the under" and "THT is the best 15th man in the league" were phrases that went into my ears.
also uses "we" when describing the team, which is more just a trigger but still
I have a love-hate relationship with that podcast. On one hand, I genuinely struggle to get through it sometimes. On the other hand, some of Cam Smith's takes are laughably terrible. I do wonder how Drew Stevens holds it together sometimes.
It’s nuts to think that a team that will be awful defensively and just traded DeMar DeRozan for Chris Duarte can win 28 or less games?
I’m calling it now. The Bulls are going to win a random game against a good team early this season and Cam Smith is going to go on some “us against the world” tangent that’s going to age like milk.
I'm with you. Not sure about quite that many wins, but this team will be trying to win. That will lead to a better record than other equal or slightly better teams that are willing to intentionally tank when it's clear they won't make a playoff run and/or will have a shot at a high draft pick.
My bet is they make the last seed for the Play-in.
Hm, I find 41 games really unbelievable, but moreover:
1. There's going to be one major trade, possibly two, in the next few months. My vibe check is that nobody on the team is taking out a long term lease right now. That's probably not great vibes for selflessness.
2. The team added another non-shooter getting 33 mpg. Not very modern of them.
3. The bench is deep with players we're familiar with but I think a lot of pieces that are overpaid and can quickly scale down to unplayable. Smith was last year, Giddey too, and Carter for our own shitty team. Dalen Terry and Julian Phillips' minutes have been charity, for the most part.
4. I guess they're long, but most of them don't play long.
5. The rookie playing is for the best but for on-court results would by probabilities be a net subtraction, not because he's bad in particular but few rookies are a net positive.
6. Why would "LaVine is chastened" be a good thing? He played the best game of his life as a giant FUCK YOU to Jim Boylen.
7. Unmentioned But Its Power Is Among Us: This will be one of the worst defensive teams in the league and the offense is not nearly good enough to make up for it.
Finally, Donovan couldn't get them to play .500 ball when they really did have good vibes and Zach and Vucevic were current-year all stars. Can't see it.
I think Matas is setup to succeed. Coming in as a 10th man, 15mins a night. I think he's talented enough to be a net positive. He fit in great during the preseason.
"Unmentioned But Its Power Is Among Us: This will be one of the worst defensive teams in the league and the offense is not nearly good enough to make up for it."
This is my biggest question mark for the team. Just how bad will the defense be? If they can be just below average, rather than absolutely terrible, then they are going to piss off everyone here and be good enough to lose their pick, but not good enough to make the play-offs.
"Finally, Donovan couldn't get them to play .500 ball when they really did have good vibes and Zach and Vucevic were current-year all stars. Can't see it. "
They were much better than .500 with Lonzo on the court... .675, if my memory serves. This is the first time Donovan will have a real PG on the court since then and he needs a PG to run his offense. Having Giddey and Lonzo will likely prove to be more significant on offense than a lot of people think.
The obvious questions are:
1. How will Giddey develop?
2. How much can Lonzo play?
3. How much of a defensive drop-off will we see among the starters, going from DDR & Lonzo to Giddey & Coby?
Six teams were in the top 10 in pace and bottom 10 in D rating:
Hawks
Pistons
Indiana
Spurs
Jazz
Wizards
It's a terrible place to be. The first 3 teams were trying to be good, only one was and it had something like a genius PG. Giddey is not even in that ballpark. His game also bears so little resemblance to Lonzo I don't know how it can be compared. Lonzo shot the 3 ball great and almost nothing else, and was an absolutely irritating defender. These two things he was exceptional at, which defined his game during the Glorious 35 games, Giddey cannot do at all.
"They were much better than .500 with Lonzo on the court..."
And DeRozan, and Caruso. The Bulls were 11-15 in games after Vucevic was acquired in the games he played (I think they lost all 3 he missed). That translates to about 34 wins over an 82 game season, with a similar mix of sorta-maybe and not-really players here now.
" His game also bears so little resemblance to Lonzo I don't know how it can be compared."
Except it's not Lonzo vs Giddey. It's Lonzo & DDR vs Giddey & Coby. When you have flawed players, it's how they fit together, not just how good they are in a vacuum.
>And DeRozan, and Caruso
And we have Lonzo back (temporarily?), on limited minutes. He's basically taking over AC's role.
As for DDR... love the dude, but he was a net negative on defense and paired very poorly with Lavine (more Lavine's fault, IMHO). Again, with flawed players, it's more about how they fit together than how good they are individually.
That team with Lonzo was filled with flawed players. They just worked very well, due to Lonzo's skills helping them mesh. The combo of Giddey plus matured Coby plus limited minutes Lonzo has the potential (clearly unproven) to create a similar cohesiveness.
To be clear, I don't think this team will mesh like that. But I think it has the potential.
I think they will have better vibes (at least to begin) and they'll play a more modern style of basketball. Honestly, I'm excited to start the season, even if most on here either aren't or are unwilling to admit it.
I'm not excited because I think this team is going to overperform though. I'm mostly just excited for the unknown. 41 wins is some insane faith in this team though.
"I suppose hope for other teams to stumble early and get desperate, so desperate that even Arturas Karnisovas could exert leverage. "
He won't. I've said it before, but AK's biggest problem with trades is he looks for fair value, not to win a trade. He doesn't look at what the other team can afford or is willing to trade. Just what is "fair" in his mind.
I guess I'd be considered a die-hard because I know more about this dysfunctional ass roster and organization than the "casual" fan. But I decided last season to invest my time watching basketball in teams that are actually trying to compete. Arturas Karnisovas and Marc Eversley can try to sell that they want to compete if they want, but I'm not buying it. This roster screams "we're gonna fuck up yet another attempt to tank". It's giving me three straight No 7 picks vibes, but this time the pick will be in the 11-14 range. Just good enough to fuck the Bulls out of it, and keep them from ending up on a path to possibly building something better in the future.
P.S. as a guy on the West Coast I'm more prone to watching Lakers, Kings, Warriors, or Suns games. All of them present better options than this dumpster fire of an organization that only cares about a dollar.
Don't the bottom four teams all get the same odds at #1? Not saying I think the Bulls will be bottom four, but if it ends up being only those three teams worse than the Bulls, they'd have the same chance as the others.
Not sure what it says that our backcourt shot 9/24 and however good or bad you see that, to know now that they were being defended by Dejounte Murray with a broken hand.
The real sad thing is the majority myths and rationalizations everyone is going to make on the way down are just self-perpetuating.
There's no silver lining here where these guys are going to "develop" or learn "teamwork" in the process of getting curb stomped. Most likely the opposite will happen. Play Matas 30 minutes a game and let him shoot 30% from the field you say?
OK, stop and look at guys who are successful in this league. Did ANY of them start off playing 30mpg and shooting 30%? No, the guys who do that implode and are gone quick. Playing him a bunch is like putting a baby in the middle of a crosswalk.
The rest of this bunch is what they are. Pat, Dalen Terry, Adama Sanogo, Julian Phillips? No meaningful upside.
The guys on this roster that can play will all be long-gone by the time we're good again, if that comes before the massive asteroid destroys everything.
I’m certainly not arguing for 30 mpg this season from Matas, but less than 3 non-garbage time minutes is criminal.
Regardless of whether or not he’ll be a good NBA player this season, we’re talking about the 11th overall pick on a bad team that has zero objectively good forwards. There is no reason Matas shouldn’t be getting 15 mpg on this team.
Yes, there is a good reason. Playing a guy who doesn't deserve to be out there is bad for him.
Call it the Bronnie James principle. Matas isn't as bad as Bronnie James, but he's always pretty obviously unready and pretending otherwise does him no favors.
It's also a mistake the Bulls and their fans make over and over. And really, it's kind of a Chicago thing. Pick a guy who's supremely unready. Throw him into the fire. Act belligerent and angry when it's pointed out that he even though he is the next big thing, he ain't, maybe pump the brakes and slow down. Decide the guy sucks (and maybe he does) and dump him.
Your not caring is also an NBA problem. Unwatchable 3pt chucking and rooting for your team to lose need fixing fast.
I didn't watch but it sounds like the Boston game was a farce. 13 consecutive missed 3's at the end because they were one away from the record. That's not entertainment it's just stupid.
In a blowout, it was entertaining. May their cold 3pt shooting haunt them.
I thought it was fun. They subbed out all of their starters because they were blowing New York out and the subs couldn't hit a three to save their lives.
That was bad, but not as bad as the Knicks’ effort.
Well on ESPN tonight, see the stars! Except not Embiid, PG, Middleton, Kawhi
LMAO https://www.hoopsrumors.com/2024/10/sixers-facing-nba-investigation-over-embiids-early-season-absence.html
how will the Sixers wriggle out of this one? Oh, they can plausibly say that Embiid's knee is shredded cheddar and you may notice he wears a 50lb brace when he does play? I guess they'll go with that, MR DETECTIVE
Yeah, don't tell me the league cares about the health of the players!
People love 3 pointers. People love fast paced play. NBA viewership is very high and international interest in the NBA is at an all time high. Look for the NBA to become more FIBA-like.
Viewership has been stagnant since before the pandemic, though I don't believe the numbers take into account the fact that even serious NBA fans often now just watch highlights on social media. But if that number is very large one would have to ask why they prefer to consume an already-fast-paced game in 20 second clips. "I love watching teams miss 65% of 3 pointers" would probably not register on the survey.
My “pitch clock” moment was when I realized I enjoy watching the Chuck Barkley TNT show more than the games.
Honestly I find myself really not liking the product these days. I feel like most of the stars kinda suck, the style of play is boring, everything is commercialized to the point of absurdity, the stench of sports betting is too pervasive, and no one taking the regular season seriously has become an active detriment. None of this stuff is new but I’m quickly losing my ability to stomach it.
I'm with you on most of it. I disagree that the players kinda suck. Jalen Brunson is basically a clone of Derrick Rose, improved. I've never seen a player like Giannis in my life. Double for Jokic. And when he isn't bitching, watching Doncic is like tripping on mushrooms, he's just at a totally different speed than everyone else and there's usually like 3 people in the world like that at any given time. This is a pretty incredible time for basketball *players*, it's like the player pool expanded 10x over with the same number of teams (notable that I only named one American player in the entire bunch).
Yeah I shouldn't have said "sucks" as if they're bad basketball players. I'll skip the rant but a lot of the older established stars are just guys I don't care to watch. The ones you mentioned, I do like though (Luka a bit less so). Jolic is probably my favorite current player because he's always doing some aesthetically incredible shit despite looking like a drunk uncle.
*Jokic. Fat thumbs + small phone :(
Also hard to stomach the bizzaro salaries going to average players. Why am I not getting those kind of raises?
Personally I find it funny to see teams tripping over themselves to give $200 million to any above-average player. We can make a game of it!
My question is who is ACTUALLY benefiting from LaVine and Vuc still being here?
The fans? Most casual fans don’t care about them and most diehard fans dislike that they’re still on the team.
The owners? They only care about this team making money and that will happen regardless of who’s on the roster.
Donovan? He wants to coach a team that wins, but it’s been proven that Zach and Vuc have little to no impact on actual wins and losses.
The young players? Coby and Ayo have become the leaders of the team, so you can’t argue that LaVine and Vuc help the young guys from a morale perspective. They’re also just taking minutes and shots and don’t do anything to make the players around them better, so you can’t argue they help the young guys from a development perspective either.
LaVine and Vuc themselves? LaVine has already made it clear he wants to be traded and Vuc seems to only care about the contract and shot attempts.
AK? The longer LaVine and Vuc are here, the worse it looks for him due to the lack of direction.
So again, who is actually benefiting from them still being here?!?!
While I agree with your overall assessment, I do think you're wrong about casual fans. Casual fans seem to love Zach and Vooch. This is probably a combination of casual fans knowing those guys were All-stars at one point and knowing they put up big numbers. They don't pay close enough attention to know those numbers aren't actually impactful or see how terrible of teammates they are.
If you don't pay very close attention to this team, but see Zach light up the scoreboard every once in a while when you tune into a game and see highlights of some awesome dunks on social media, you're going to think Zach is amazing. If all you ever hear about Vooch is that he's a double-double machine, you're going to think he's pretty good.
I live on the East coast and went to a Bulls game in Charlotte a year or two ago. We sat by the away team tunnel and there were a lot of Bulls fans around. I couldn't believe some of the completely idiotic takes I was hearing from those around me. But the more I thought about it, the more it made sense. If those people only watch the occasional Bulls game and watch highlights from the Bulls social media accounts, I could totally understand why they thought the things they thought.
I think you’re describing the meathead fans, not the casual ones.
Casual fans are people who can barely name 5 people on this roster, but put the game on every now and then to have something on in the background and go to a game sometimes because they just want to have a night out with their family.
The meathead fans are the ones who argue that the team is better than people think and can make a run with some better luck. Those fans shouldn’t be of concern either, because they will talk themselves into any iteration of this team.
Nah, I was definitely describing casual fans. Not people who spend their time on Twitter or Reddit trying to convince others that the Bulls are actually good and AK is secretly a basketball genius. I'm talking about people who only occasionally watch games and get most of their information about the team from Bulls social media.
I think it is the owners (and thus AK, as he's helping the owners), as yes they will make money regardless, they are not taking back 'worse' money or paying players not to play for them
I wouldn't doubt there is a LaVine trade offered where the Bulls don't give up any assets but did take on more money, and thus AK turned it down. Whenever they do get a deal done I'm sure they could've gotten more assets if they took more money (see DeMar trade)
That’s probably it.
LaVine hasn’t been traded yet, because the only active GM/President who would trade young players, draft picks, and no bad contracts for him is AK.
Who is the benefiting? The other teams who don't have to roster these two players!
i haven’t concocted a good enough metaphor to describe this team. in the past the insane decision making felt like watching a flaming tire roll down a hill. it was bad, but there was something there. directionality, bad but with some flash, some spectacle.
whereas this team? it just feels like nothing. maybe no metaphor is most apt. i feel nothing. i expect nothing. i desire nothing. maybe this has been a years long project to help the people of chicago escape samsara. in which case, great success.
Girlfriend’s gone nihilist. Don’t give up your toe, dude!
glad we have boots on the ground:
@KCJHoop
General vibe from opening shootaround; Bulls players are quietly confident they’ll exceed the modest expectations surrounding them.
lol is this real
Yes, our fan surrogate insider at a website that doesn't existst for a TV channel most can't see
Billy Donovan hitting next level locker room hype:
"Who's gonna EXCEED THE MODEST EXPECTATIONS surrounding them?"
Team [quietly]: "Us?"
*slow clap crescendo*!!!!
speaking of CHSN, I regret to inform that their podcast is not very good. Cam Smith (the co-host employed by the network) is playing the house organ. "you're nuts if you bet the under" and "THT is the best 15th man in the league" were phrases that went into my ears.
also uses "we" when describing the team, which is more just a trigger but still
I have a love-hate relationship with that podcast. On one hand, I genuinely struggle to get through it sometimes. On the other hand, some of Cam Smith's takes are laughably terrible. I do wonder how Drew Stevens holds it together sometimes.
They have good chemistry, and that shouldn't be discounted (and won't in my future 'shitty Bulls podcasts power rankings')
It’s nuts to think that a team that will be awful defensively and just traded DeMar DeRozan for Chris Duarte can win 28 or less games?
I’m calling it now. The Bulls are going to win a random game against a good team early this season and Cam Smith is going to go on some “us against the world” tangent that’s going to age like milk.
Wow! If the Pacers are a 9th seed, somebody getting fired
Meh, they're a cheap/poor franchise so probably not
I feel good about this team. They aren't competing for a championship. The FO doesn't accumulate value necessary to do so, nor will they ever, but...
The vibes are there.
The style of play is modern.
The bench is deep.
The team is long.
The Rookie will play.
This is not the Boylen Bulls, I can't see how it's even close. They lost talent, but they're growing and LaVine is chastened.
41 - 41
I'm with you. Not sure about quite that many wins, but this team will be trying to win. That will lead to a better record than other equal or slightly better teams that are willing to intentionally tank when it's clear they won't make a playoff run and/or will have a shot at a high draft pick.
My bet is they make the last seed for the Play-in.
Hm, I find 41 games really unbelievable, but moreover:
1. There's going to be one major trade, possibly two, in the next few months. My vibe check is that nobody on the team is taking out a long term lease right now. That's probably not great vibes for selflessness.
2. The team added another non-shooter getting 33 mpg. Not very modern of them.
3. The bench is deep with players we're familiar with but I think a lot of pieces that are overpaid and can quickly scale down to unplayable. Smith was last year, Giddey too, and Carter for our own shitty team. Dalen Terry and Julian Phillips' minutes have been charity, for the most part.
4. I guess they're long, but most of them don't play long.
5. The rookie playing is for the best but for on-court results would by probabilities be a net subtraction, not because he's bad in particular but few rookies are a net positive.
6. Why would "LaVine is chastened" be a good thing? He played the best game of his life as a giant FUCK YOU to Jim Boylen.
7. Unmentioned But Its Power Is Among Us: This will be one of the worst defensive teams in the league and the offense is not nearly good enough to make up for it.
Finally, Donovan couldn't get them to play .500 ball when they really did have good vibes and Zach and Vucevic were current-year all stars. Can't see it.
I think Matas is setup to succeed. Coming in as a 10th man, 15mins a night. I think he's talented enough to be a net positive. He fit in great during the preseason.
"Unmentioned But Its Power Is Among Us: This will be one of the worst defensive teams in the league and the offense is not nearly good enough to make up for it."
This is my biggest question mark for the team. Just how bad will the defense be? If they can be just below average, rather than absolutely terrible, then they are going to piss off everyone here and be good enough to lose their pick, but not good enough to make the play-offs.
"Finally, Donovan couldn't get them to play .500 ball when they really did have good vibes and Zach and Vucevic were current-year all stars. Can't see it. "
They were much better than .500 with Lonzo on the court... .675, if my memory serves. This is the first time Donovan will have a real PG on the court since then and he needs a PG to run his offense. Having Giddey and Lonzo will likely prove to be more significant on offense than a lot of people think.
The obvious questions are:
1. How will Giddey develop?
2. How much can Lonzo play?
3. How much of a defensive drop-off will we see among the starters, going from DDR & Lonzo to Giddey & Coby?
Six teams were in the top 10 in pace and bottom 10 in D rating:
Hawks
Pistons
Indiana
Spurs
Jazz
Wizards
It's a terrible place to be. The first 3 teams were trying to be good, only one was and it had something like a genius PG. Giddey is not even in that ballpark. His game also bears so little resemblance to Lonzo I don't know how it can be compared. Lonzo shot the 3 ball great and almost nothing else, and was an absolutely irritating defender. These two things he was exceptional at, which defined his game during the Glorious 35 games, Giddey cannot do at all.
"They were much better than .500 with Lonzo on the court..."
And DeRozan, and Caruso. The Bulls were 11-15 in games after Vucevic was acquired in the games he played (I think they lost all 3 he missed). That translates to about 34 wins over an 82 game season, with a similar mix of sorta-maybe and not-really players here now.
" His game also bears so little resemblance to Lonzo I don't know how it can be compared."
Except it's not Lonzo vs Giddey. It's Lonzo & DDR vs Giddey & Coby. When you have flawed players, it's how they fit together, not just how good they are in a vacuum.
>And DeRozan, and Caruso
And we have Lonzo back (temporarily?), on limited minutes. He's basically taking over AC's role.
As for DDR... love the dude, but he was a net negative on defense and paired very poorly with Lavine (more Lavine's fault, IMHO). Again, with flawed players, it's more about how they fit together than how good they are individually.
That team with Lonzo was filled with flawed players. They just worked very well, due to Lonzo's skills helping them mesh. The combo of Giddey plus matured Coby plus limited minutes Lonzo has the potential (clearly unproven) to create a similar cohesiveness.
To be clear, I don't think this team will mesh like that. But I think it has the potential.
I think they will have better vibes (at least to begin) and they'll play a more modern style of basketball. Honestly, I'm excited to start the season, even if most on here either aren't or are unwilling to admit it.
I'm not excited because I think this team is going to overperform though. I'm mostly just excited for the unknown. 41 wins is some insane faith in this team though.
"I suppose hope for other teams to stumble early and get desperate, so desperate that even Arturas Karnisovas could exert leverage. "
He won't. I've said it before, but AK's biggest problem with trades is he looks for fair value, not to win a trade. He doesn't look at what the other team can afford or is willing to trade. Just what is "fair" in his mind.
Another way to put it is AK thinks he's going to win these trades or he wouldn't be making them. He's just really bad at his job.
I guess I'd be considered a die-hard because I know more about this dysfunctional ass roster and organization than the "casual" fan. But I decided last season to invest my time watching basketball in teams that are actually trying to compete. Arturas Karnisovas and Marc Eversley can try to sell that they want to compete if they want, but I'm not buying it. This roster screams "we're gonna fuck up yet another attempt to tank". It's giving me three straight No 7 picks vibes, but this time the pick will be in the 11-14 range. Just good enough to fuck the Bulls out of it, and keep them from ending up on a path to possibly building something better in the future.
P.S. as a guy on the West Coast I'm more prone to watching Lakers, Kings, Warriors, or Suns games. All of them present better options than this dumpster fire of an organization that only cares about a dollar.
Can someone go round to YFBB's house and check if he is ok?
I miss the old days of everyone being angry at the org. Remember Fire GarPax?
All this apathy is getting me down...
I see basically no way that we will be able to be worse than the Nets, Wizards or Blazers. So, no Cooper Flagg.
Don't the bottom four teams all get the same odds at #1? Not saying I think the Bulls will be bottom four, but if it ends up being only those three teams worse than the Bulls, they'd have the same chance as the others.
and Zion is out tonight.
See, never a doubt. He, Derrick Rose, Ben Simmons, Lonzo Ball...will never play in a game again.
also should see a running total this year of stars "missing" Bulls matchups because they are irrelevant and not on national TV
GAME THREAD IS UP
https://open.substack.com/chat/posts/25c652a3-735e-49cf-88df-6ea3d0dd6763
Not sure what it says that our backcourt shot 9/24 and however good or bad you see that, to know now that they were being defended by Dejounte Murray with a broken hand.
The Reddit meltdown might be the best part of this season! It's comedy gold over there.
The real sad thing is the majority myths and rationalizations everyone is going to make on the way down are just self-perpetuating.
There's no silver lining here where these guys are going to "develop" or learn "teamwork" in the process of getting curb stomped. Most likely the opposite will happen. Play Matas 30 minutes a game and let him shoot 30% from the field you say?
OK, stop and look at guys who are successful in this league. Did ANY of them start off playing 30mpg and shooting 30%? No, the guys who do that implode and are gone quick. Playing him a bunch is like putting a baby in the middle of a crosswalk.
The rest of this bunch is what they are. Pat, Dalen Terry, Adama Sanogo, Julian Phillips? No meaningful upside.
The guys on this roster that can play will all be long-gone by the time we're good again, if that comes before the massive asteroid destroys everything.
I’m certainly not arguing for 30 mpg this season from Matas, but less than 3 non-garbage time minutes is criminal.
Regardless of whether or not he’ll be a good NBA player this season, we’re talking about the 11th overall pick on a bad team that has zero objectively good forwards. There is no reason Matas shouldn’t be getting 15 mpg on this team.
Yes, there is a good reason. Playing a guy who doesn't deserve to be out there is bad for him.
Call it the Bronnie James principle. Matas isn't as bad as Bronnie James, but he's always pretty obviously unready and pretending otherwise does him no favors.
It's also a mistake the Bulls and their fans make over and over. And really, it's kind of a Chicago thing. Pick a guy who's supremely unready. Throw him into the fire. Act belligerent and angry when it's pointed out that he even though he is the next big thing, he ain't, maybe pump the brakes and slow down. Decide the guy sucks (and maybe he does) and dump him.
NEW POST on the opener https://www.blogabull.com/p/bulls-open-the-season-looking-a-bit