Something like 7 out of the top 10 individual attendance games of the NBA season this year were at UC. Jerry has shown over 4 decades across two franchises that he only responds to financial pain. It is likely they will be hurting badly, relatively speaking, with the launch of an RSN while they hawk 3 abominable teams as the product, but that more significantly impacts the White Sox.
The only answer is to humiliate ownership, like the Fire GarPax stuff at the ASG, and to refuse to show up and fill their coffers. Otherwise, its a pointless meandering "led" by executives who prefer to cash checks over competing, which fits perfectly within the culture built by an owner who has won one conference championship and eight total playoff series in 71 combined seasons once you exclude buying the team with Michael Jordan on it.
Jerry is completely willing to put out out the worst team in baseball history and then ask for a new stadium for them before the season is even done. So we know he can't be humiliated. Can he be hurt financially? I don't know that he can. NBA has gone pretty far in insulating their small market teams like Chicago from financial losses and he's unabashedly using a glitch to run up the score.
You're not wrong about Jerry or the NBA's socialism for billionaires. That said, it would dawn on him and his limited partners if the Bulls profit line was $40 million instead of $140 million and their do-nothing monopoly ownership checks were 70% lower. The Bulls attendance number is the toggle between one of the most profitable sports teams in America and just another NBA team like the Pacers.
This is fair. Back in the day ticket sales were kind of a trailing indicator — you had to be bad for awhile before people began thinking of better things to do in Chicago in January than watch Trenton Hassell. Not sure if that's still the case?
I expect that AKME will be on the hot seat. Jery is used to strong attendance and the bottom was starting to fall out before the Lavine trade. That's with a very able marketing staff working hard to hustle tickets. There's no must see player on the Bulls and I don't expect many teams to play their stars against us down the homestretch.
I disagree on the goal of the "tryout" in the last game. I can't believe that Billy saw any potential at all in Huerter in the expansive minutes he was given, and it was more to give the coach an excuse to bury him for the rest of the year. I mean Dalen Terry of all people looked more NBA ready than Huerter.
I think something similar around Tre Jones. He's not Huerter awful but can't justify minutes above Coby, Ayo or even Jevon.
I expect a few more minutes for these guys before the deadline and then we don't see them often afterwards.
He also did make some backhanded comments about having too many guards to play, and struggling to get Collins playing time behind Vuc and Smith.
Maybe I'm over analyzing but I think he knows what they are and is just kind of showcasing it to the FO with the goal of not having to play them later.
The future is unceasingly bleak. So let's work our way back to the recent past.
Today's current roster looks like a 10 seed (not good enough to go higher or bad enough to go lower).
The same team once also had three very good players: DeMar, Zach and Caruso.
But they were still a 10 seed.
I agree fully that AKME has zero ability to evaluate talent or build a roster. But this roster has also wildly been mismanaged by Billy as well. Which feeds back into this misguided roster 'plan'.
Disaster all around. Banking on Giddey might be my final last straw after 40 plus years as a Bulls fan and having watched 90% of their games this year on my brand spankin new digital antenna.
They're a 10th seed right now but their win percentage is worse than previous seasons as is their net rating relative to the rest of the league. The standings don't mean anything; they happen to be in the JV conference with multiple bottom feeder teams tanking for Flagg.
Basketball at this level is just not predictable. The worst team in the league, the Wizards, are definitely trying to be the worst team in the league. The next worst team in the league (the Pelicans) were hopeful of getting home court advantage in the playoffs. There's 3 games difference between them.
I think of Atlanta as a similarly aimless, go-nowhere franchise. Here's a thought experiment: if you look at the Hawks and Bulls rosters together and list the players from best to worst, at what point does a Bulls player make the first appearance?
If Johnson is healthy, I'm not sure a Bulls player makes the starting 5. Hunter, Bogdanovic and Capela would have been my first 3 off the bench before the deadline. I suppose Vuc and Coby make an appearance there now.
They did something with Hunter that AK would never do, especially in the middle of a play-in chase
there's still time: Hunter was already 27 and finally started to put together a good season. I have a feeling though if Pat Williams did that next year he'd hold
can do this with the Raptors as well. They just extended Ingram, and you can hear lolz about the mediocrity of it all
but the Raptors are doing this '9-10 very good players' thing (though I doubt they'd say it was the goal, but more forced while they still troll for a star)
they have Ingram, Barnes, Quickley, Barrett, Poeltl (ok, he stinks). And while also not having any extra picks, their 2025 selection is likely better than the Bulls this year
I am guessing that part of the reason for extending Ingram at that price is for salary matching purposes when trading for a star. If they get lucky-ish with a draft pick (say, 2nd-4th), they could trade that pick and Gradey Dick for like LaMelo Ball or Devin Booker or whatever. I'm not saying Charlotte or Phoenix would do that, just two I thought of off the top of my head. I'm guessing that's why they wanted to give the team option on the 3rd year, too.
That's obviously a gamble so they have to like him, too, but that's what smart teams would be thinking about.
Just a simple way to look at it but so far this year in terms of win shares
Okongwu 4.1
Young 3.2
Daniels 2.9
Johnson 2.5 (in only 36 games)
Ayo 2.4
J. Smith 2.3
Giddey 2.2
Coby 2.0
Risacher 0.8
Phillips 0.8
Matas 0.7
Not a perfect measure, but it reflects how much these guys have been playing. If I were just gonna pick guys, I'd probably go Johnson, Young, Matas, Okongwu, Risacher, Coby, Daniels, Ayo.
I'm conflicted about young. He's got such a hatable game, but he's undeniably talented too.
Cowley: "Giddey and Coby don't work. They're not going to invest in Coby White. They're going to invest in Josh Giddey."
Okay, from the start I thought Josh Giddey was basically a failed prospect and his defense is likely among the worst in the league and worst I've ever seen (context: I've been following a team that's had Zach LaVine for the last 8 years). But Karnisovas can do the funniest thing imaginable here.
Like if I'm trying to sell an extension for Josh Giddey to my boss, I'm trying to think of a comparison and I'm really failing. Who do you see Josh Giddey, best case scenario, being most like?
I always think Coby gets Rodney Dangerfield levels of disrespect. I don’t even think he’s that good, like in the 15-20 range probably of PGs, but he’s so obviously better than Giddey it’s not even funny.
Anyway it just seems like there’s always a reason for them to go away from Coby, even though he continues to pretty obviously be the best option.
Coby has been disrespected and overlooked at every possible opportunity by this organization. I hope he tells AK to not even make an offer next year because there's no way in hell he's staying in Chicago.
Cowley also said there was no way Lonzo would be extended and the report of it was just AK goosing up the trade value. So there's hope in that he's just uninformed.
but it would be very AK to talk all this time about needing to see players, and then Giddy showing you he stinks, but then still committing to him because you traded for him (aka using evidence of before he was in the building)
My guess is that Cowley (and all the rest) were basically parroting what AKME said.
AKME said "we're trading away all these guys - Zach, Vuc, Lonzo, and at least looking hard at trading Coby and Ayo".
Then, after AKME utterly failed get anything like what they thought they might get, they just decided to do something different. And they started spinning.
So, if it's out there that they like Giddey better, I think AKME put it out there. Especially because it sounds pretty stupid. Now, does that mean that AKME are set in stone? Of course not. I don't think they hold any deep convictions at all. They're just flopping around from one dumb idea to another.
Just tickled to have someone of his mindset explain to me the "bad fit" of Coby White and Josh Giddey and who the "ideal" backcourt partner for Giddey would be. I think you can put Coby White next to anyone, not because he's an all-NBA player but there's not much in his game that's egregiously bad. Making Giddey look good takes a village.
The one thing Coby does best, the thing that makes him fit almost anywhere, is that he creates some gravity off the ball, but can also do something if you put the ball in his hands.
That's exactly what I'd want to surround Giddey with, because he can't fucking shoot, his handle is pretty weak for a guy who would otherwise bring it up all the time, and he's too slow to create much on his own.
I come out from under a rock every so often to repeat the same thing I've been saying for years -- and I know others have said it too. Which is that, since the moment he was drafted (and then at the beginning of each successive season), the only universe where this iteration of the Bulls was going to succeed was one in which Patrick Williams became an absolute stud. Not saying that outcome would have guaranteed us success, but AKME painted themselves into a PWill corner (and for some reason tried to apply another fresh coat of paint last offseason). We're basically the mid-2010s Bucks if Giannis never got very good and we refused to tank.
I don't think this is true. I asked this question to begin the season, and I'll ask it again: suppose the Bulls traded Pat and salary for Jayson Tatum this offseason. How many games do the Bulls win next year? What's their high water mark over the next three years? It is not even close to obvious that "winning at least 50 games" is the answer to either question. Bulls are a really long way away from anything I would call "success".
There's no way to know how the Bulls would be with someone like Tatum, but they'd be better. My point wasn't that an All-NBA version of Pat would make Bulls great, just that AKME had no backup plan (at least not one they were willing to try) for Pat never really developing much.
If we had a 23yo Tatum, or any truly elite player, a front office (any front office, including AKME) would attempt to construct a team around that player. Having an potential "Alpha on a championship team" TOTALLY changes a GM's approach, where you'll try to add a second/third star (much easier when guys want/demand to come play alongside an Alpha) and your trades/signings are all in service of bringing in complementary pieces. An Alpha on the Bulls also likely gets Reinsdorf in "spend in service of a championship" mode, or at least moves the needle towards going into the tax.
It's hypothetically possible AKME would have been good at constructing a team around a genuine superstar! Or maybe, better articulated, they would have seemed less bad. Jerry Krause looked like a mastermind building around MJ but pretty dopey when he had to construct from scratch. We've seen similar results with other "genius" GMs who really just rode on the backs of star players.
Without a stud, AKME decided to put together a team of "3rd star on a great team" players and hope that building a squad of five #3 options would add up to the same as a clear 1-2-3-4-5 hierarchy (mathematically it works, just not in the modern NBA). Or at least that the "mid 3" approach would push them closer to relevance while buying time for Pat to develop into a star. Had Pat been Tatum 3 years ago, regardless of what we all think of AKME, the team would have looked a lot different -- having different players and/or slotting some of these guys into roles they're better suited to fill, made better by the star(s) around them. (For example, Jevon Carter is solid on a championship team, trash with us. On the flipside, look at our "meh" guys like DJJ and "Tank Commander Payne" playing key minutes on title-aspiring teams).
I think AKME's attempt to "build around a star" would look pretty much like what they look like now. He would have said, "hey, I got Jason Tatum" and proceeded to go trade the farm for Vucevic just like he did in reality.
He fucking sucks.
And by the way, they did have an all-star PF on the roster and thoroughly failed to identify his potential or how to get him to reach it.
"AKME just sucks" is true in many ways, and feels good to say as ultra-frustrated fans, but it's also pretty reductive. No, I don't think they're good, I have no desire to have them around, and I've long since lost the ability to give them the benefit of the doubt (certainly not in this forum!). But they're not "every move should have been the exact opposite" level of incompetent, or like "IQ of a 5-year-old" incompetent....that doesn't help things make sense. There have been a handful of good moves among all the bad! They just overpay, get "owned" by other GMs in negotiations, and double-down on their mistakes. They work for ownership who wants them to stay at least barely competitive without taking on dead/bad salary or ever sniffing the tax. The same approach the White Sox use (crazy enough, the White Sox weren't intentionally tanking last year).
In terms of all-star PF, are you talking about Lauri? I mean, maybe you were one of his defenders but I was reading this blog when he was on the team and everyone here (including yfbb) couldn't wait to get rid of him; we talked about him like Vuc or PWill get ragged on today. 90% of people here thought it was pretty good that we got a 1st and DJJ for Lauri in a S&T and would have been aghast if we'd signed him long term. A more recent yfbb post included the line "As we know, when Lauri Markkanen is your best player…Lauri Markkanen is your best player." This isn't in defense of AKME -- they're paid to be smarter than bloggers/commenters. I just don't think it's intellectually honest to say every move we liked that went wrong is their pure and absolute idiocy, and every move that turned out ok was just pure dumb luck. They're just fairly good at listening to their boss and not at all good at strategically building a winning team.
It's like when your kid tries to convince you that if you buy him a really nice guitar instead of the decent one he already has, then he'll actually get good. That never works!
The only ways to be a legitimate contending team are either to tank or to get lucky. There's not a team in the Top 5ish in either conference that got there otherwise. about 90% of the teams that got there have a Top 5 pick they made on their team or they traded that pick or a player made with it to get where they are.
Cleveland, Boston, Atlanta, Detroit, Orlando, Memphis, Houston, Minnesota are obvious as they're led (sorta) by guys they drafted in a terrible season. OKC got SGA by trading Paul George who they got for #2 Overall pick Oladipo (and they were obvious tankers so much that Billy Donovan left). Plus they've been lucky. I'd say Milwaukee and Denver were at least as lucky as good in getting their MVPs. I don't think it's a stretch to say the Knicks got "lucky" by having a player who desperately wanted to go to New York because he and his Dad were from there. And they got Anunoby by trading #3 overall pick Barrett anyway.
The Lakers and Clippers are in LA, which it seems every pro player wants to be at. Besides, they got Doncic from Dallas with Anthony Davis whom they got by trading Lonzo (#2) Ingram (#3) and the #4 pick to New Orleans.
So I guess Indiana? I mean, they're good, and building that team over the past 10 years is something. To me, they're kind of the best case scenario of building the team and not getting lucky. Finish in the 4th-10th in the East every year. It's better than where the Bulls are now, but meh.
This is basically where I'm at. At my core, I don't want the Bulls to tank. Why would I want my favorite team to intentionally be really bad?
But I'm also well aware of the fact that this front office has no idea what it's doing. They can clear as much cap space as they want, but no superstar is going to randomly decide they want to play in Chicago. It just doesn't happen.
They're also not going to make any trades that could even potentially lead to a young guy they get back becoming a stud. That basically leaves the draft as their only possibility at success.
And they can't evaluate talent for shit, so there's no chance they swing on a late first rounder who happens to become a star. They basically need to be so high up the draft for multiple years that the player they select is the obvious choice.
Every player they've drafted that has been good has been the obvious choice. Everyone praises AK for drafting Ayo in the second round but they really shouldn't. Ayo fell into AK's lap. He was supposed to go in the first round and ended up falling. Add to that the fact that we know AK loves going for local guys because apparently that gets butts in seats and it makes even more sense that he'd pick Ayo.
Matas is the exact same. Everyone expected him off the board by the time the Bulls picked and he ended up falling. He was the obvious choice. Plus, not only was he local but his family is Lithuanian! AK probably couldn't believe his luck that night.
All of his other picks have been terrible, which means the only path to success is basically for the Bulls to draft in the top three like three or four years in a row and each of those drafts needs to be stacked.
Tanking is too broad a term. The Bulls are tanking now. But it's a failing, flailing tank in which they aren't really intentional about it.
Like, I'd say this. If they traded away Vuc and Lonzo and had gotten a real pick back for Zach (not just their own) and gotten the Kings '31 pick for DeMar and gotten the couple of firsts and seconds the Thunder hand out like candy for Caruso, then I'd be fine if they got the 10th seed anyway. But I'd think it's more likely that they wouldn't, and would keep their pick.
What they're actually doing to threading the needle to where they're going to miss the 10th seed, but still asset poor, and still saddled with a bunch of pointless guys.
Yep, completely agree. And I agree with your comment to tyger. The problem is your whole scenario relies on a front office that is actually good at their jobs. This front office isn't. So while tanking isn't necessarily the only (or even the best) way forward, I'd say it's the one with the highest chance at success simply because it requires the least input from this front office.
I get what you're saying, but I think it's an illusiory difference.
As we've established, success requires creating and capitalizing on a whole series of opportunities.
Instead of winning the lottery, think of it winning a bunch at blackjack. It can be done (and it's mostly not done a lot because casinos are very good at figuring out who's doing it and banning them).
Any dummy can win a hand, or even get hot and win a couple hands. But this kind of luck doesn't amount to jack shit if you're not actually very good at cards. Which we all agree that AKME is not.
In short, tanking is mostly just another gimmick sell hope to fans that while the team cheeps out.
The Bulls are definitely not tanking. I think it’s the anti-tankers that define the term so broadly so that they can easily knock it down. Utah is tanking. Wizards are tanking. New Orleans is low key tanking.
The number one parameter to call yourself à tanking team is that you’re trying to be bad. The Bulls clear goal is to try to make the play-in and win games. The second part is that you need to be collecting assets for future use. One could argue here that the Bulls are bad at trying to do something . But here again, I would say collecting assets for future use is not actually a goal which is why they’re bad at it.
But the first part is still clearly wrong. The Bulls are not tanking. They’re trying to win.
So here's my question, and yes, I know we're really in the weeds here. Does AK actually think he traded away their three best players to get worse?
I'm 99% certain he thought trading Caruso for Giddey was actually a win for the Bulls and that Giddey is better than Caruso. He tried to re-sign DeMar and DeMar basically told him to fuck off. So in AK's mind he knew he was going to lose DeMar. Getting a sign-and-trade completed where they got anything back was probably a win to him, and I wouldn't be surprised if he had talked himself into thinking Chris Duarte was going to be a meaningful piece on this team.
The LaVine situation is a difficult one. We know that AK has been actively shopping LaVine since shortly after he signed his max extension. We also know a deal didn't get done for a long time because AK wanted good, young players to make up for losing LaVine.
The return he eventually got was clearly bad and I do think AK actually knew that and wasn't under some false illusion that the guys he got back were going to be good. But I also think AK was desperate to get off of LaVine's money and decided to just bite the bullet on a bad return.
My point being, to anyone with half a brain, this team has traded away its three best players over the past year and has clearly gotten worse. But does AK actually view it that way? Maybe I'm too jaded but I just don't think he actually believes this team has gotten significantly worse and I don't think he's trying to make the team significantly worse either.
I think he's trying to do what he did in 2021 all over again. This team is going to have a ton of cap space in the summer of 2026 and I think AK's going to go after a couple stars again. And when I say stars, I mean C-tier stars because that's all he'll be able to get to come to Chicago. Assembling a team of "stars" is the only thing he's been remotely successful at during his time in Chicago, so it would only make sense that he'll try it again. It's why he wanted the protections taken off of their pick, so he can use that if he needs to.
I think you are answering your own question (Does AKME think the Bulls got worse?) when you say you believe he's gonna go out and chase a bunch of C-tier stars. If that's "the plan", it's not a plan you make because you think everything is going well right now.
I admit to be being confused about all the distinctions people are making, and why, even if the situations are distinguished, it's important.
The general truth is that we can ascribe whatever intent we want to AKME and by whatever motive we pick, he's still doing a bad job.
Is he trying to tank? Is he trying to win? He's so bad that you can look at one set of moves he's made and think one thing, and look at another set of moves and think the opposite.
The only common denominator is that he's bad. I think his only true plan is selling Michael Reinsdorf whatever line of bullshit he can at any given moment.
This is where I'm at and why I'm absolving Billy of any responsibility here. A rebuilding team is usually bad because it makes deals that send out talent or rents out cap space in return for future assets. AK sent out talent for essentially nothing and has refused deals where the Bulls would take on salary for draft capital. He basically reshuffled the lineup to make it worse but is still telling Billy to make the play-in. This isn't a tank, this is mismanagement.
2. Why? Because "luck" is a crude way of saying someone made good on an opportunity.
3. The real way to be good is to be opportunistic. Create as many opportunities as possible.
4. What you see from most successful teams is that they don't succeed every time. I wouldn't even consider most of those teams as super successful. The most successful teams usually have some misses, but they have keep trying. It takes getting a superstar to win, but it also takes a lot of other hits. That's why the Tatum thought experiment. Even if we were gifted an MVP level player, it would take a lot of additional successes to build that into a championship level team.
5. Tanking is the lowest common denominator approach to creating opportunities. Another way to put it is it's the most luck dependent of the opportunities a team might create. You give up a high price and then maybe you get an opportunity. But most likely no, and you were just bad to no real purpose.
So the argument I'd make is that tanking is the cheap and lazy approach. The expensive, difficult approach is to
1. Always be churning and collecting other team's picks. Don't fall in love with your current players.
2. Invest in scouting and player development.
3. Invest in building an organization and leadership that's respected around the league.
4. Always be looking for the desperate short sighted teams. They're the ones to take advantage of.
Churning isn't just collecting picks. It's the Warriors hitting on their core players all outside of the top 5, being willing to spend, and working through lots of guys (Barnes, KD, Bogut, Ellis, Iggy, DLo, Wiggins, etc) to get them where they wanted to be.
It's the Heat being good for decades with three distinct cores of players
I always love when the first part of someone’s argument is some sort of disparaging remark. It really sets the tone, ya know? Lets us all know what we’re in for.
"For the booing fans — this is what you have been asking for. These are the beginning stages of the rebuild. The losses are going to continue to come. They won’t all be this ugly, but some will. That’s OK. It’s what the Bulls are signing up for and it’s what they need to go through to come out the other end as a team that can eventually compete at a high level."
I don't hate Will but this is a terribly thought out argument. Obviously the fans who want to tank are not the ones showing up to a Bulls vs Pistons game in the middle of February in Chicago.
The people going to those games likely don't pay close enough attention to the team to realize they're actually really bad. They naively went to the game expecting a somewhat competitive game and were disappointed to see their team getting absolutely smoked. And the few there who actually do want a tank likely weren't booing. If they were, they were doing so to show ownership they disapprove of how this team is being run (even if it's falling on deaf ears).
I tend to give these guys the benefit of the doubt. Will's entire job is to follow the Bulls. THE FREAKING BULLS. The only way I wouldn't be wasted by 9 am every day if that was my job would be if I somehow managed to convince some little part of my brain that things couldn't possibly be as bad as they look. Like I genuinely can't think of another way to cover this team as a full time job. It must be so exhausting.
Darnell had the exact opposite take: "This isn’t how anyone envisioned the Bulls kick-starting their rebuild. Losses were to be expected, but a 40-point pasting on their home floor has nothing to do with life after Zach LaVine."
I mean, you’re an ass about it sometimes, but that’s not why I’m in favor of a tank. I don’t know which came first: tankers saying this is the best way to win, or anti-tankers saying anyone that thinks that are just losers. I’ll let you decide.
Well okay but basically anything that goes outside the parameters and worked is deemed "luck" here. Let's look at 2 teams from a decade ago:
1. Brooklyn had a bad, aging roster and no picks, not even their own. Their top players were cagey draft picks taken in the teens (Jarrett Allen) picked up by absorbing bad contracts of players they salvaged (D'Angelo Russell) and retread players who everyone could see as contributors on a good team (Joe Harris). Would KD + Kyrie have gone there if they hadn't put together this team of legit cheap players that they could slide into? Would they have even done it if they didn't clear additional cap space to give a dumb contract to their buddy DeAndre Jordan, which oddly seemed to be the linchpin of the whole thing to them? Is that luck? New York is "lucky" because Brunson blew up everything to play there, but they were not lucky at all when KD + Kyrie went across town.
2. The Celtics have finished under .500 twice in the last 18 or 19 years. One of those seasons they finished 40-42. That was the year they pulled out of a rebuild because Isaiah Thomas became available (!) They had all of those Brooklyn picks but they (correctly) gambled that Brooklyn was going to be so terrible that they would never pick out of the top 10 again, and with half of them being pick swaps their own record didn't matter. This whole era has been kind of erased after their current success but they weren't bad before Tatum & Green came in or even before they acquired Kyrie with one of those picks + Thomas. In fact their win totals after making the Brooklyn trade (and holding on to Rondo for too long) were 25, 40, 48 and 53 before they acquired Kyrie. I don't see "luck" here, I see a lot of gambles and one incredibly good one. One of those gambles that worked out (or at least didn't turn sour) was that their own picks were irrelevant and they went to the conference finals with a team whose top 3 scorers were Isaiah Thomas, Avery Bradley and Jae Crowder.
It seems like any team that didn't follow a conventional rebuild (Brooklyn because they couldn't, Boston because they didn't want to) we can just dismiss as "lucky." I'd say that if Boston and Brooklyn didn't try to get good, that "luck" would have gone to someone else. KD isn't forcing his way to Brooklyn if they didn't try to get good, and if Boston had an 18 win team Kyrie probably isn't forcing the earlier trade there either.
I thought I was clear that I didn’t think Indiana wasn’t luck, so trying to say I’m just reducing everything down to luck doesn’t sway me. Also, fair enough about Boston, but how do you say they had no luck then took a bunch of gambles. That seems contradictory to me.
Was Brooklyn ever actually good? They finished 2nd in the East in the COVID season, so I guess that’s something. Otherwise they’ve been a bunch of meh and distinction.
"The only ways to be a legitimate contending team are either to tank or to get lucky."
I mean I didn't write that! If I were to say that the only hope for humanity is death, jail or rock'n'roll, I can't really get upset if someone doesn't note that I put in a footnote that smooth jazz and drugs were also KINDA acceptable, but not really.
So they turned down a first round pick because they didn't want to take on long-term salary? Do they not realize that's how you stockpile picks? Teams don't just give up picks for funsies. You have to be willing to also take back something "bad" or be giving up something with great value. An expiring Lonzo isn't great value.
we shouldn't underestimate the value in keeping Vuc+Lonzo to help internal development versus getting picks for external development, in that the former requires no work from the front office
I figure this was Marcus Smart. The salary is only through next year, and they got a 1st. I guess they also could have had Jake LaRavia, who is a 6'8" 235 PF who is shooting 44% on 3s.
Until he shows us different, I'm assuming that Karnisovas is entering this summer with the intention of prying loose a disgruntled star (or "star") with his giant pile of expiring contracts. That likely won't be enough because most teams can figure out a way to just get a bunch of 1 year contracts, so I'm envisioning a re-run of the Vuc deal where he sends out several of the team's picks with it.
Like before, there's no "Plan B" here. If it doesn't work — and "work" here is probably predicated on sending away 2 firsts, a swap (after Morey explains what a "swap" is) and the pick of our expiring contracts for Paul George — it's just kicking the same plan to the deadline, and then entering July 2026 with an eye on The Metaphysical Equivalent of Terry Rozier in free agency.
I'd actually be fine with that, provided he followed up that star-grabbing move with his own resignation
But I don't think we should assume that. He went into detail how he doesn't want to build a team around a star, and the Vuc trade "skipped steps" (so he admits he thought Vuc was a star, yikes)
I just don't think he's smart enough to lie. Though he is stupid enough to quickly do what he said he wouldn't...
"Regarding @johnhollinger report that Bulls had first-round pick on table for Lonzo Ball as long as they took on long-term money, we reported multiple times on @CHSN__ this scenario, including from Minnesota before/after his extension news broke. We framed it as 'draft capital.'"
Dude you get paid by the people you are covering. While this might make you uncomfortable, you were covering their asses even when you were being paid by poor Tribune subscriber money.
missed this (the team put Arturas quotes on their own website for everyone to see)
just dummy stuff:
" Last three to four years we're not doing well in the last 30 games. I would like to see change"
this is identical to his statement on home court advantage. He doesn't recognize that there isn't some special factor with home games, or post-deadline games, when you don't have a good team! You aren't doing well in these games because you're not doing well overall!
There's also the obvious factor that a lot of teams are trying to win those last 30 games for playoff positioning reasons. So during the final stretch of the season the Bulls don't steal those cheap wins where the other team is fucking around like they do November through January.
Honestly I think it’s kinda the opposite. Post ASB ball in February and March is often kinda just the silly season cuz you have tankers, injuries/attrition, playoff teams just trying to get to the playoffs in one piece and then like a handful of teams actually battling for meaningful playoff seeding.
Also AK is a liar because the Pat Bev Bulls probably helped convince him to keep the team together because they played well after the ASB and nearly made the playoffs. It then predictably backfire because they weren’t actually good.
Still trying to wrap my head around Lillard missing the game against the Wolves last night but putting out word that he was healthy enough to defend his 3 point championship trophy at the ASG in his hometown. I just don't ever remember that. When he was a player, Barkley was threatened against skipping the all-star game altogether. He said he was okay with it because he understood Stern didn't want it to turn into the NFL pro-bowl which almost everyone who doesn't need a free trip to Hawaii would skip.
But here you have a guy skipping a regular season game against one of the most dynamic talents in the league that was in the WCF last year with the implication that he probably could have played, or was even missing it so he'd be fully healthy for a pointless contest.
Why should anyone care about the regular season? NBA has a really strange problem. Stern was willing to fine people for not wearing suits, Silver can't even compel guys to play games that supposedly matter.
"Meanwhile, Patrick Williams, the No. 4 pick in the 2020 NBA Draft, scored five points on 2-of-8 shooting in 20 minutes off the bench. A reserve role for Williams initially seemed to be a match for his talents. However, in the past three contests, Williams has scored 21 points on 7-of-25 shooting, connecting on only 2 of 10 3-pointers. He’s added eight rebounds, one assist and four turnovers in his past 65 minutes. Williams’ decline has reached the point that rookie Matas Buzelis is now consistently outplaying him."
from Jake Fischer: "the Raptors‘ coaching staff has encouraged the team’s young players not to stress over game-night results this season, having prioritized player development and growth over wins and losses."
Billy Donovan before his team was blown out by 40: YES, STRESS OVER IT
"The minute you start taking away winning as being any level of importance, how can you ever expect a young player to ever – ‘OK, now winning is important? Why’s it important now? Why’s it not important tonight?’ They need to feel a sense of urgency and importance every time they step on the floor. At some point ... the focus is going to shift of how much these guys are impacting winning. They need to start doing that now. Instead of saying, 'Hey listen, don't worry about it, it's not a big deal.' So now all of a sudden, when does it (winning) become a big deal? I think there's got to be consistency in the messaging of the importance of playing games."
AK is now on record saying that the 10th seed and getting a high draft pick would both be good outcomes of this season. In fairness to Billy, his boss has given him mutually exclusive goals so I'm not sure what he's supposed to do.
Was hoping the Bulls would let Vooch start his All-star weekend vacation early and just cite it as his twisted ankle yesterday. Sadly he's listed as probable tonight.
I think the NBA should have these kind of "homestands" as the norm, like baseball. I can't think of anything more wasteful than flying to a city for one game and then flying to another one the next day. But I've noticed that the games get a bit chippy, like a playoff series. Getting destroyed by 40 should be like pouring gasoline on that but the Bulls have put together maybe the least physical team in their history so I have no idea what that would even look like. Ayo looks like he'd be a tough SOB in a bar fight but I'm not sure who else would jump in. (Patrick would drop his drink, pick up a pool cue and then drop that too.)
Outside of that play it was pretty grim. Buzelis was being tossed around by any and every Piston who had the chance to get away with a shove and nobody did anything. Instead they got 2 technicals for yelling at the refs.
NEW POST! I mostly mined my comments from this one:
https://www.blogabull.com/p/trade-deadline-reporting-reveals
Something like 7 out of the top 10 individual attendance games of the NBA season this year were at UC. Jerry has shown over 4 decades across two franchises that he only responds to financial pain. It is likely they will be hurting badly, relatively speaking, with the launch of an RSN while they hawk 3 abominable teams as the product, but that more significantly impacts the White Sox.
The only answer is to humiliate ownership, like the Fire GarPax stuff at the ASG, and to refuse to show up and fill their coffers. Otherwise, its a pointless meandering "led" by executives who prefer to cash checks over competing, which fits perfectly within the culture built by an owner who has won one conference championship and eight total playoff series in 71 combined seasons once you exclude buying the team with Michael Jordan on it.
Jerry is completely willing to put out out the worst team in baseball history and then ask for a new stadium for them before the season is even done. So we know he can't be humiliated. Can he be hurt financially? I don't know that he can. NBA has gone pretty far in insulating their small market teams like Chicago from financial losses and he's unabashedly using a glitch to run up the score.
right, and the Bulls are so irrelevant they aren't going to be called out nationally. That's Reinsdorf's sweet spot: stay out of his business
You're not wrong about Jerry or the NBA's socialism for billionaires. That said, it would dawn on him and his limited partners if the Bulls profit line was $40 million instead of $140 million and their do-nothing monopoly ownership checks were 70% lower. The Bulls attendance number is the toggle between one of the most profitable sports teams in America and just another NBA team like the Pacers.
This is fair. Back in the day ticket sales were kind of a trailing indicator — you had to be bad for awhile before people began thinking of better things to do in Chicago in January than watch Trenton Hassell. Not sure if that's still the case?
I expect that AKME will be on the hot seat. Jery is used to strong attendance and the bottom was starting to fall out before the Lavine trade. That's with a very able marketing staff working hard to hustle tickets. There's no must see player on the Bulls and I don't expect many teams to play their stars against us down the homestretch.
I disagree on the goal of the "tryout" in the last game. I can't believe that Billy saw any potential at all in Huerter in the expansive minutes he was given, and it was more to give the coach an excuse to bury him for the rest of the year. I mean Dalen Terry of all people looked more NBA ready than Huerter.
I think something similar around Tre Jones. He's not Huerter awful but can't justify minutes above Coby, Ayo or even Jevon.
I expect a few more minutes for these guys before the deadline and then we don't see them often afterwards.
You think Billy Donovan was incapable of knowing what Huerter and Jones could do until playing 20 minutes in game he's coaching? And now he knows?
He also did make some backhanded comments about having too many guards to play, and struggling to get Collins playing time behind Vuc and Smith.
Maybe I'm over analyzing but I think he knows what they are and is just kind of showcasing it to the FO with the goal of not having to play them later.
that'd be pretty ballsy, but I suppose Donovan has totally captivated AK so it's not unreasonable
Billy also called out AKME for not having a plan, so maybe he's getting tired of their shit.
I hope someone asks him today now that the deadline is over
So how many games are we to endure this lol
The future is unceasingly bleak. So let's work our way back to the recent past.
Today's current roster looks like a 10 seed (not good enough to go higher or bad enough to go lower).
The same team once also had three very good players: DeMar, Zach and Caruso.
But they were still a 10 seed.
I agree fully that AKME has zero ability to evaluate talent or build a roster. But this roster has also wildly been mismanaged by Billy as well. Which feeds back into this misguided roster 'plan'.
Disaster all around. Banking on Giddey might be my final last straw after 40 plus years as a Bulls fan and having watched 90% of their games this year on my brand spankin new digital antenna.
They're a 10th seed right now but their win percentage is worse than previous seasons as is their net rating relative to the rest of the league. The standings don't mean anything; they happen to be in the JV conference with multiple bottom feeder teams tanking for Flagg.
Basketball at this level is just not predictable. The worst team in the league, the Wizards, are definitely trying to be the worst team in the league. The next worst team in the league (the Pelicans) were hopeful of getting home court advantage in the playoffs. There's 3 games difference between them.
I think of Atlanta as a similarly aimless, go-nowhere franchise. Here's a thought experiment: if you look at the Hawks and Bulls rosters together and list the players from best to worst, at what point does a Bulls player make the first appearance?
Trae Young is 26, and Rishacher is not yet 20, so AK wins
Was just going to say something like this.
If Johnson is healthy, I'm not sure a Bulls player makes the starting 5. Hunter, Bogdanovic and Capela would have been my first 3 off the bench before the deadline. I suppose Vuc and Coby make an appearance there now.
They did something with Hunter that AK would never do, especially in the middle of a play-in chase
there's still time: Hunter was already 27 and finally started to put together a good season. I have a feeling though if Pat Williams did that next year he'd hold
No way would he trade Williams if he started playing better. He'd be able to justify the contract then!
can do this with the Raptors as well. They just extended Ingram, and you can hear lolz about the mediocrity of it all
but the Raptors are doing this '9-10 very good players' thing (though I doubt they'd say it was the goal, but more forced while they still troll for a star)
they have Ingram, Barnes, Quickley, Barrett, Poeltl (ok, he stinks). And while also not having any extra picks, their 2025 selection is likely better than the Bulls this year
I am guessing that part of the reason for extending Ingram at that price is for salary matching purposes when trading for a star. If they get lucky-ish with a draft pick (say, 2nd-4th), they could trade that pick and Gradey Dick for like LaMelo Ball or Devin Booker or whatever. I'm not saying Charlotte or Phoenix would do that, just two I thought of off the top of my head. I'm guessing that's why they wanted to give the team option on the 3rd year, too.
That's obviously a gamble so they have to like him, too, but that's what smart teams would be thinking about.
Just a simple way to look at it but so far this year in terms of win shares
Okongwu 4.1
Young 3.2
Daniels 2.9
Johnson 2.5 (in only 36 games)
Ayo 2.4
J. Smith 2.3
Giddey 2.2
Coby 2.0
Risacher 0.8
Phillips 0.8
Matas 0.7
Not a perfect measure, but it reflects how much these guys have been playing. If I were just gonna pick guys, I'd probably go Johnson, Young, Matas, Okongwu, Risacher, Coby, Daniels, Ayo.
I'm conflicted about young. He's got such a hatable game, but he's undeniably talented too.
Cowley: "Giddey and Coby don't work. They're not going to invest in Coby White. They're going to invest in Josh Giddey."
Okay, from the start I thought Josh Giddey was basically a failed prospect and his defense is likely among the worst in the league and worst I've ever seen (context: I've been following a team that's had Zach LaVine for the last 8 years). But Karnisovas can do the funniest thing imaginable here.
Like if I'm trying to sell an extension for Josh Giddey to my boss, I'm trying to think of a comparison and I'm really failing. Who do you see Josh Giddey, best case scenario, being most like?
Best case? Sherman Douglas but 8 inches taller.
More likely is Paul Pressey but a negative defender.
I always think Coby gets Rodney Dangerfield levels of disrespect. I don’t even think he’s that good, like in the 15-20 range probably of PGs, but he’s so obviously better than Giddey it’s not even funny.
Anyway it just seems like there’s always a reason for them to go away from Coby, even though he continues to pretty obviously be the best option.
Coby has been disrespected and overlooked at every possible opportunity by this organization. I hope he tells AK to not even make an offer next year because there's no way in hell he's staying in Chicago.
Cowley also said there was no way Lonzo would be extended and the report of it was just AK goosing up the trade value. So there's hope in that he's just uninformed.
but it would be very AK to talk all this time about needing to see players, and then Giddy showing you he stinks, but then still committing to him because you traded for him (aka using evidence of before he was in the building)
My guess is that Cowley (and all the rest) were basically parroting what AKME said.
AKME said "we're trading away all these guys - Zach, Vuc, Lonzo, and at least looking hard at trading Coby and Ayo".
Then, after AKME utterly failed get anything like what they thought they might get, they just decided to do something different. And they started spinning.
So, if it's out there that they like Giddey better, I think AKME put it out there. Especially because it sounds pretty stupid. Now, does that mean that AKME are set in stone? Of course not. I don't think they hold any deep convictions at all. They're just flopping around from one dumb idea to another.
Just tickled to have someone of his mindset explain to me the "bad fit" of Coby White and Josh Giddey and who the "ideal" backcourt partner for Giddey would be. I think you can put Coby White next to anyone, not because he's an all-NBA player but there's not much in his game that's egregiously bad. Making Giddey look good takes a village.
Right?
The one thing Coby does best, the thing that makes him fit almost anywhere, is that he creates some gravity off the ball, but can also do something if you put the ball in his hands.
That's exactly what I'd want to surround Giddey with, because he can't fucking shoot, his handle is pretty weak for a guy who would otherwise bring it up all the time, and he's too slow to create much on his own.
I come out from under a rock every so often to repeat the same thing I've been saying for years -- and I know others have said it too. Which is that, since the moment he was drafted (and then at the beginning of each successive season), the only universe where this iteration of the Bulls was going to succeed was one in which Patrick Williams became an absolute stud. Not saying that outcome would have guaranteed us success, but AKME painted themselves into a PWill corner (and for some reason tried to apply another fresh coat of paint last offseason). We're basically the mid-2010s Bucks if Giannis never got very good and we refused to tank.
See you in 3.5 years.
I don't think this is true. I asked this question to begin the season, and I'll ask it again: suppose the Bulls traded Pat and salary for Jayson Tatum this offseason. How many games do the Bulls win next year? What's their high water mark over the next three years? It is not even close to obvious that "winning at least 50 games" is the answer to either question. Bulls are a really long way away from anything I would call "success".
There's no way to know how the Bulls would be with someone like Tatum, but they'd be better. My point wasn't that an All-NBA version of Pat would make Bulls great, just that AKME had no backup plan (at least not one they were willing to try) for Pat never really developing much.
If we had a 23yo Tatum, or any truly elite player, a front office (any front office, including AKME) would attempt to construct a team around that player. Having an potential "Alpha on a championship team" TOTALLY changes a GM's approach, where you'll try to add a second/third star (much easier when guys want/demand to come play alongside an Alpha) and your trades/signings are all in service of bringing in complementary pieces. An Alpha on the Bulls also likely gets Reinsdorf in "spend in service of a championship" mode, or at least moves the needle towards going into the tax.
It's hypothetically possible AKME would have been good at constructing a team around a genuine superstar! Or maybe, better articulated, they would have seemed less bad. Jerry Krause looked like a mastermind building around MJ but pretty dopey when he had to construct from scratch. We've seen similar results with other "genius" GMs who really just rode on the backs of star players.
Without a stud, AKME decided to put together a team of "3rd star on a great team" players and hope that building a squad of five #3 options would add up to the same as a clear 1-2-3-4-5 hierarchy (mathematically it works, just not in the modern NBA). Or at least that the "mid 3" approach would push them closer to relevance while buying time for Pat to develop into a star. Had Pat been Tatum 3 years ago, regardless of what we all think of AKME, the team would have looked a lot different -- having different players and/or slotting some of these guys into roles they're better suited to fill, made better by the star(s) around them. (For example, Jevon Carter is solid on a championship team, trash with us. On the flipside, look at our "meh" guys like DJJ and "Tank Commander Payne" playing key minutes on title-aspiring teams).
I think AKME's attempt to "build around a star" would look pretty much like what they look like now. He would have said, "hey, I got Jason Tatum" and proceeded to go trade the farm for Vucevic just like he did in reality.
He fucking sucks.
And by the way, they did have an all-star PF on the roster and thoroughly failed to identify his potential or how to get him to reach it.
"AKME just sucks" is true in many ways, and feels good to say as ultra-frustrated fans, but it's also pretty reductive. No, I don't think they're good, I have no desire to have them around, and I've long since lost the ability to give them the benefit of the doubt (certainly not in this forum!). But they're not "every move should have been the exact opposite" level of incompetent, or like "IQ of a 5-year-old" incompetent....that doesn't help things make sense. There have been a handful of good moves among all the bad! They just overpay, get "owned" by other GMs in negotiations, and double-down on their mistakes. They work for ownership who wants them to stay at least barely competitive without taking on dead/bad salary or ever sniffing the tax. The same approach the White Sox use (crazy enough, the White Sox weren't intentionally tanking last year).
In terms of all-star PF, are you talking about Lauri? I mean, maybe you were one of his defenders but I was reading this blog when he was on the team and everyone here (including yfbb) couldn't wait to get rid of him; we talked about him like Vuc or PWill get ragged on today. 90% of people here thought it was pretty good that we got a 1st and DJJ for Lauri in a S&T and would have been aghast if we'd signed him long term. A more recent yfbb post included the line "As we know, when Lauri Markkanen is your best player…Lauri Markkanen is your best player." This isn't in defense of AKME -- they're paid to be smarter than bloggers/commenters. I just don't think it's intellectually honest to say every move we liked that went wrong is their pure and absolute idiocy, and every move that turned out ok was just pure dumb luck. They're just fairly good at listening to their boss and not at all good at strategically building a winning team.
It's like when your kid tries to convince you that if you buy him a really nice guitar instead of the decent one he already has, then he'll actually get good. That never works!
But it might work for us!
Kendall Gill keeps pivoting harder into homerdom. I guess it keeps the checks coming. https://bsky.app/profile/blogabull.bsky.social/post/3lhwitxhtas25
Next step is dating a woman who wears no clothes.
I'd give anything to have Norm Van Lier back on the broadcast.
People get so confused because they want the team to be good so badly that they can't be critical of the team.
If someone is confused by this FO direction, do two things:
1. Pretend AKME have thought of a bad plan/direction/goal.
2. Pretend that on top of that, AKME are bad at actually executing that goal.
The only ways to be a legitimate contending team are either to tank or to get lucky. There's not a team in the Top 5ish in either conference that got there otherwise. about 90% of the teams that got there have a Top 5 pick they made on their team or they traded that pick or a player made with it to get where they are.
Cleveland, Boston, Atlanta, Detroit, Orlando, Memphis, Houston, Minnesota are obvious as they're led (sorta) by guys they drafted in a terrible season. OKC got SGA by trading Paul George who they got for #2 Overall pick Oladipo (and they were obvious tankers so much that Billy Donovan left). Plus they've been lucky. I'd say Milwaukee and Denver were at least as lucky as good in getting their MVPs. I don't think it's a stretch to say the Knicks got "lucky" by having a player who desperately wanted to go to New York because he and his Dad were from there. And they got Anunoby by trading #3 overall pick Barrett anyway.
The Lakers and Clippers are in LA, which it seems every pro player wants to be at. Besides, they got Doncic from Dallas with Anthony Davis whom they got by trading Lonzo (#2) Ingram (#3) and the #4 pick to New Orleans.
So I guess Indiana? I mean, they're good, and building that team over the past 10 years is something. To me, they're kind of the best case scenario of building the team and not getting lucky. Finish in the 4th-10th in the East every year. It's better than where the Bulls are now, but meh.
Change my mind all you anti-tankers.
This is basically where I'm at. At my core, I don't want the Bulls to tank. Why would I want my favorite team to intentionally be really bad?
But I'm also well aware of the fact that this front office has no idea what it's doing. They can clear as much cap space as they want, but no superstar is going to randomly decide they want to play in Chicago. It just doesn't happen.
They're also not going to make any trades that could even potentially lead to a young guy they get back becoming a stud. That basically leaves the draft as their only possibility at success.
And they can't evaluate talent for shit, so there's no chance they swing on a late first rounder who happens to become a star. They basically need to be so high up the draft for multiple years that the player they select is the obvious choice.
Every player they've drafted that has been good has been the obvious choice. Everyone praises AK for drafting Ayo in the second round but they really shouldn't. Ayo fell into AK's lap. He was supposed to go in the first round and ended up falling. Add to that the fact that we know AK loves going for local guys because apparently that gets butts in seats and it makes even more sense that he'd pick Ayo.
Matas is the exact same. Everyone expected him off the board by the time the Bulls picked and he ended up falling. He was the obvious choice. Plus, not only was he local but his family is Lithuanian! AK probably couldn't believe his luck that night.
All of his other picks have been terrible, which means the only path to success is basically for the Bulls to draft in the top three like three or four years in a row and each of those drafts needs to be stacked.
Tanking is too broad a term. The Bulls are tanking now. But it's a failing, flailing tank in which they aren't really intentional about it.
Like, I'd say this. If they traded away Vuc and Lonzo and had gotten a real pick back for Zach (not just their own) and gotten the Kings '31 pick for DeMar and gotten the couple of firsts and seconds the Thunder hand out like candy for Caruso, then I'd be fine if they got the 10th seed anyway. But I'd think it's more likely that they wouldn't, and would keep their pick.
What they're actually doing to threading the needle to where they're going to miss the 10th seed, but still asset poor, and still saddled with a bunch of pointless guys.
Yep, completely agree. And I agree with your comment to tyger. The problem is your whole scenario relies on a front office that is actually good at their jobs. This front office isn't. So while tanking isn't necessarily the only (or even the best) way forward, I'd say it's the one with the highest chance at success simply because it requires the least input from this front office.
I get what you're saying, but I think it's an illusiory difference.
As we've established, success requires creating and capitalizing on a whole series of opportunities.
Instead of winning the lottery, think of it winning a bunch at blackjack. It can be done (and it's mostly not done a lot because casinos are very good at figuring out who's doing it and banning them).
Any dummy can win a hand, or even get hot and win a couple hands. But this kind of luck doesn't amount to jack shit if you're not actually very good at cards. Which we all agree that AKME is not.
In short, tanking is mostly just another gimmick sell hope to fans that while the team cheeps out.
Can't argue with you there. What a time to be a Bulls fan!
The Bulls are definitely not tanking. I think it’s the anti-tankers that define the term so broadly so that they can easily knock it down. Utah is tanking. Wizards are tanking. New Orleans is low key tanking.
The number one parameter to call yourself à tanking team is that you’re trying to be bad. The Bulls clear goal is to try to make the play-in and win games. The second part is that you need to be collecting assets for future use. One could argue here that the Bulls are bad at trying to do something . But here again, I would say collecting assets for future use is not actually a goal which is why they’re bad at it.
But the first part is still clearly wrong. The Bulls are not tanking. They’re trying to win.
You can argue that, but what I think you are coming to is just that the Bulls are tanking badly.
They traded away their three best players. They were clearly trying to be worse.
Just not as bad as you want them to be. But thats not what you do if youre trying to maximize wins.
Likewise, they got back assets, just not in the quantity or quality we would like.
They are bad and wishy washy. Are they tanking? Yeah. Depending on the day you ask.
So here's my question, and yes, I know we're really in the weeds here. Does AK actually think he traded away their three best players to get worse?
I'm 99% certain he thought trading Caruso for Giddey was actually a win for the Bulls and that Giddey is better than Caruso. He tried to re-sign DeMar and DeMar basically told him to fuck off. So in AK's mind he knew he was going to lose DeMar. Getting a sign-and-trade completed where they got anything back was probably a win to him, and I wouldn't be surprised if he had talked himself into thinking Chris Duarte was going to be a meaningful piece on this team.
The LaVine situation is a difficult one. We know that AK has been actively shopping LaVine since shortly after he signed his max extension. We also know a deal didn't get done for a long time because AK wanted good, young players to make up for losing LaVine.
The return he eventually got was clearly bad and I do think AK actually knew that and wasn't under some false illusion that the guys he got back were going to be good. But I also think AK was desperate to get off of LaVine's money and decided to just bite the bullet on a bad return.
My point being, to anyone with half a brain, this team has traded away its three best players over the past year and has clearly gotten worse. But does AK actually view it that way? Maybe I'm too jaded but I just don't think he actually believes this team has gotten significantly worse and I don't think he's trying to make the team significantly worse either.
I think he's trying to do what he did in 2021 all over again. This team is going to have a ton of cap space in the summer of 2026 and I think AK's going to go after a couple stars again. And when I say stars, I mean C-tier stars because that's all he'll be able to get to come to Chicago. Assembling a team of "stars" is the only thing he's been remotely successful at during his time in Chicago, so it would only make sense that he'll try it again. It's why he wanted the protections taken off of their pick, so he can use that if he needs to.
I think you are answering your own question (Does AKME think the Bulls got worse?) when you say you believe he's gonna go out and chase a bunch of C-tier stars. If that's "the plan", it's not a plan you make because you think everything is going well right now.
I admit to be being confused about all the distinctions people are making, and why, even if the situations are distinguished, it's important.
The general truth is that we can ascribe whatever intent we want to AKME and by whatever motive we pick, he's still doing a bad job.
Is he trying to tank? Is he trying to win? He's so bad that you can look at one set of moves he's made and think one thing, and look at another set of moves and think the opposite.
The only common denominator is that he's bad. I think his only true plan is selling Michael Reinsdorf whatever line of bullshit he can at any given moment.
This is where I'm at and why I'm absolving Billy of any responsibility here. A rebuilding team is usually bad because it makes deals that send out talent or rents out cap space in return for future assets. AK sent out talent for essentially nothing and has refused deals where the Bulls would take on salary for draft capital. He basically reshuffled the lineup to make it worse but is still telling Billy to make the play-in. This isn't a tank, this is mismanagement.
1. Luck is for losers.
2. Why? Because "luck" is a crude way of saying someone made good on an opportunity.
3. The real way to be good is to be opportunistic. Create as many opportunities as possible.
4. What you see from most successful teams is that they don't succeed every time. I wouldn't even consider most of those teams as super successful. The most successful teams usually have some misses, but they have keep trying. It takes getting a superstar to win, but it also takes a lot of other hits. That's why the Tatum thought experiment. Even if we were gifted an MVP level player, it would take a lot of additional successes to build that into a championship level team.
5. Tanking is the lowest common denominator approach to creating opportunities. Another way to put it is it's the most luck dependent of the opportunities a team might create. You give up a high price and then maybe you get an opportunity. But most likely no, and you were just bad to no real purpose.
So the argument I'd make is that tanking is the cheap and lazy approach. The expensive, difficult approach is to
1. Always be churning and collecting other team's picks. Don't fall in love with your current players.
2. Invest in scouting and player development.
3. Invest in building an organization and leadership that's respected around the league.
4. Always be looking for the desperate short sighted teams. They're the ones to take advantage of.
Sure. Other than Boston, who’s done that?
In different ways:
Warriors
Spurs
Heat
Pacers
Celtics
Cavs
Spurs
Churning isn't just collecting picks. It's the Warriors hitting on their core players all outside of the top 5, being willing to spend, and working through lots of guys (Barnes, KD, Bogut, Ellis, Iggy, DLo, Wiggins, etc) to get them where they wanted to be.
It's the Heat being good for decades with three distinct cores of players
etc.
I always love when the first part of someone’s argument is some sort of disparaging remark. It really sets the tone, ya know? Lets us all know what we’re in for.
is it enough to be anti-tankers because pro-tankers are usually smarmy?
like look at Will Gottlieb's shit today: https://allchgo.com/chicago-bulls-blown-out-by-40-points-against-detroit/
"For the booing fans — this is what you have been asking for. These are the beginning stages of the rebuild. The losses are going to continue to come. They won’t all be this ugly, but some will. That’s OK. It’s what the Bulls are signing up for and it’s what they need to go through to come out the other end as a team that can eventually compete at a high level."
I don't hate Will but this is a terribly thought out argument. Obviously the fans who want to tank are not the ones showing up to a Bulls vs Pistons game in the middle of February in Chicago.
The people going to those games likely don't pay close enough attention to the team to realize they're actually really bad. They naively went to the game expecting a somewhat competitive game and were disappointed to see their team getting absolutely smoked. And the few there who actually do want a tank likely weren't booing. If they were, they were doing so to show ownership they disapprove of how this team is being run (even if it's falling on deaf ears).
exactly, Bulls media is so used to the franchise's inertia that they can't even fathom that fans WANT PEOPLE FIRED
also, probably necessary to say since he blocked me on Twitter and Bluesky: I don't hate will either lol
but he has some bad takes, is all
I tend to give these guys the benefit of the doubt. Will's entire job is to follow the Bulls. THE FREAKING BULLS. The only way I wouldn't be wasted by 9 am every day if that was my job would be if I somehow managed to convince some little part of my brain that things couldn't possibly be as bad as they look. Like I genuinely can't think of another way to cover this team as a full time job. It must be so exhausting.
Darnell had the exact opposite take: "This isn’t how anyone envisioned the Bulls kick-starting their rebuild. Losses were to be expected, but a 40-point pasting on their home floor has nothing to do with life after Zach LaVine."
I mean, you’re an ass about it sometimes, but that’s not why I’m in favor of a tank. I don’t know which came first: tankers saying this is the best way to win, or anti-tankers saying anyone that thinks that are just losers. I’ll let you decide.
Well okay but basically anything that goes outside the parameters and worked is deemed "luck" here. Let's look at 2 teams from a decade ago:
1. Brooklyn had a bad, aging roster and no picks, not even their own. Their top players were cagey draft picks taken in the teens (Jarrett Allen) picked up by absorbing bad contracts of players they salvaged (D'Angelo Russell) and retread players who everyone could see as contributors on a good team (Joe Harris). Would KD + Kyrie have gone there if they hadn't put together this team of legit cheap players that they could slide into? Would they have even done it if they didn't clear additional cap space to give a dumb contract to their buddy DeAndre Jordan, which oddly seemed to be the linchpin of the whole thing to them? Is that luck? New York is "lucky" because Brunson blew up everything to play there, but they were not lucky at all when KD + Kyrie went across town.
2. The Celtics have finished under .500 twice in the last 18 or 19 years. One of those seasons they finished 40-42. That was the year they pulled out of a rebuild because Isaiah Thomas became available (!) They had all of those Brooklyn picks but they (correctly) gambled that Brooklyn was going to be so terrible that they would never pick out of the top 10 again, and with half of them being pick swaps their own record didn't matter. This whole era has been kind of erased after their current success but they weren't bad before Tatum & Green came in or even before they acquired Kyrie with one of those picks + Thomas. In fact their win totals after making the Brooklyn trade (and holding on to Rondo for too long) were 25, 40, 48 and 53 before they acquired Kyrie. I don't see "luck" here, I see a lot of gambles and one incredibly good one. One of those gambles that worked out (or at least didn't turn sour) was that their own picks were irrelevant and they went to the conference finals with a team whose top 3 scorers were Isaiah Thomas, Avery Bradley and Jae Crowder.
It seems like any team that didn't follow a conventional rebuild (Brooklyn because they couldn't, Boston because they didn't want to) we can just dismiss as "lucky." I'd say that if Boston and Brooklyn didn't try to get good, that "luck" would have gone to someone else. KD isn't forcing his way to Brooklyn if they didn't try to get good, and if Boston had an 18 win team Kyrie probably isn't forcing the earlier trade there either.
I thought I was clear that I didn’t think Indiana wasn’t luck, so trying to say I’m just reducing everything down to luck doesn’t sway me. Also, fair enough about Boston, but how do you say they had no luck then took a bunch of gambles. That seems contradictory to me.
Was Brooklyn ever actually good? They finished 2nd in the East in the COVID season, so I guess that’s something. Otherwise they’ve been a bunch of meh and distinction.
y-you're opening sentence is:
"The only ways to be a legitimate contending team are either to tank or to get lucky."
I mean I didn't write that! If I were to say that the only hope for humanity is death, jail or rock'n'roll, I can't really get upset if someone doesn't note that I put in a footnote that smooth jazz and drugs were also KINDA acceptable, but not really.
From John Hollinger's trade deadline rankings (Bulls were 27th)
>according to a league source, the Bulls had a firm offer to get a first-round pick and take on future money for Lonzo Ball and extended him instead.
So they turned down a first round pick because they didn't want to take on long-term salary? Do they not realize that's how you stockpile picks? Teams don't just give up picks for funsies. You have to be willing to also take back something "bad" or be giving up something with great value. An expiring Lonzo isn't great value.
AK was asked this pretty directly, and he said 'obviously we value [what we historically have not valued]'
But I'm not sure it was a knowing lie, but more he is dumb and bad at his job, and thus:
1) does value other things more
2) couldn't articulate that correctly
youtu.be/0vvY5t0G7A8
we shouldn't underestimate the value in keeping Vuc+Lonzo to help internal development versus getting picks for external development, in that the former requires no work from the front office
old pal Jay Pat deduced that it probably was Grizzlies* and Marcus Smart, $21M next season
Wizards took that deal, and didn't even send back useful players like Lonzo
*who Hollinger used to work for
I figure this was Marcus Smart. The salary is only through next year, and they got a 1st. I guess they also could have had Jake LaRavia, who is a 6'8" 235 PF who is shooting 44% on 3s.
Not like we need any PFs though...
Until he shows us different, I'm assuming that Karnisovas is entering this summer with the intention of prying loose a disgruntled star (or "star") with his giant pile of expiring contracts. That likely won't be enough because most teams can figure out a way to just get a bunch of 1 year contracts, so I'm envisioning a re-run of the Vuc deal where he sends out several of the team's picks with it.
Like before, there's no "Plan B" here. If it doesn't work — and "work" here is probably predicated on sending away 2 firsts, a swap (after Morey explains what a "swap" is) and the pick of our expiring contracts for Paul George — it's just kicking the same plan to the deadline, and then entering July 2026 with an eye on The Metaphysical Equivalent of Terry Rozier in free agency.
I'd actually be fine with that, provided he followed up that star-grabbing move with his own resignation
But I don't think we should assume that. He went into detail how he doesn't want to build a team around a star, and the Vuc trade "skipped steps" (so he admits he thought Vuc was a star, yikes)
I just don't think he's smart enough to lie. Though he is stupid enough to quickly do what he said he wouldn't...
KC is just such a fucking worm:
"Regarding @johnhollinger report that Bulls had first-round pick on table for Lonzo Ball as long as they took on long-term money, we reported multiple times on @CHSN__ this scenario, including from Minnesota before/after his extension news broke. We framed it as 'draft capital.'"
Dude you get paid by the people you are covering. While this might make you uncomfortable, you were covering their asses even when you were being paid by poor Tribune subscriber money.
Lmao, and getting roasted in the replies. Among porn ads and scam links. It truly is the everything app!
missed this (the team put Arturas quotes on their own website for everyone to see)
just dummy stuff:
" Last three to four years we're not doing well in the last 30 games. I would like to see change"
this is identical to his statement on home court advantage. He doesn't recognize that there isn't some special factor with home games, or post-deadline games, when you don't have a good team! You aren't doing well in these games because you're not doing well overall!
There's also the obvious factor that a lot of teams are trying to win those last 30 games for playoff positioning reasons. So during the final stretch of the season the Bulls don't steal those cheap wins where the other team is fucking around like they do November through January.
Honestly I think it’s kinda the opposite. Post ASB ball in February and March is often kinda just the silly season cuz you have tankers, injuries/attrition, playoff teams just trying to get to the playoffs in one piece and then like a handful of teams actually battling for meaningful playoff seeding.
Also AK is a liar because the Pat Bev Bulls probably helped convince him to keep the team together because they played well after the ASB and nearly made the playoffs. It then predictably backfire because they weren’t actually good.
Still trying to wrap my head around Lillard missing the game against the Wolves last night but putting out word that he was healthy enough to defend his 3 point championship trophy at the ASG in his hometown. I just don't ever remember that. When he was a player, Barkley was threatened against skipping the all-star game altogether. He said he was okay with it because he understood Stern didn't want it to turn into the NFL pro-bowl which almost everyone who doesn't need a free trip to Hawaii would skip.
But here you have a guy skipping a regular season game against one of the most dynamic talents in the league that was in the WCF last year with the implication that he probably could have played, or was even missing it so he'd be fully healthy for a pointless contest.
Why should anyone care about the regular season? NBA has a really strange problem. Stern was willing to fine people for not wearing suits, Silver can't even compel guys to play games that supposedly matter.
I hope this slug was on purpose
https://www.blogabull.com/p/no-need-to-spin-arturas-karnisovASS
RIP to "Pat is comfortable off the bench"
"Meanwhile, Patrick Williams, the No. 4 pick in the 2020 NBA Draft, scored five points on 2-of-8 shooting in 20 minutes off the bench. A reserve role for Williams initially seemed to be a match for his talents. However, in the past three contests, Williams has scored 21 points on 7-of-25 shooting, connecting on only 2 of 10 3-pointers. He’s added eight rebounds, one assist and four turnovers in his past 65 minutes. Williams’ decline has reached the point that rookie Matas Buzelis is now consistently outplaying him."
https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/6131406/2025/02/12/bulls-pistons-nba-loss-boos-fans/?source=emp_shared_article
I suppose he IS comfortable in that less is expected of him.
Pat is comfortable on the bench.
from Jake Fischer: "the Raptors‘ coaching staff has encouraged the team’s young players not to stress over game-night results this season, having prioritized player development and growth over wins and losses."
Billy Donovan before his team was blown out by 40: YES, STRESS OVER IT
"The minute you start taking away winning as being any level of importance, how can you ever expect a young player to ever – ‘OK, now winning is important? Why’s it important now? Why’s it not important tonight?’ They need to feel a sense of urgency and importance every time they step on the floor. At some point ... the focus is going to shift of how much these guys are impacting winning. They need to start doing that now. Instead of saying, 'Hey listen, don't worry about it, it's not a big deal.' So now all of a sudden, when does it (winning) become a big deal? I think there's got to be consistency in the messaging of the importance of playing games."
Please someone on the Bulls beat ask Billy tonight about Toronto's decision and see what he says!
Billy was also disappointed that when they were trailing by 40 in the first half, nobody "took a charge."
Like what kind of "style" do you think you've encouraged this season? Your team has drawn 7 charges all year!
AK is now on record saying that the 10th seed and getting a high draft pick would both be good outcomes of this season. In fairness to Billy, his boss has given him mutually exclusive goals so I'm not sure what he's supposed to do.
Was hoping the Bulls would let Vooch start his All-star weekend vacation early and just cite it as his twisted ankle yesterday. Sadly he's listed as probable tonight.
He is a warrior. Unfortunately not a Golden State Warrior
😂😂😂
I think the NBA should have these kind of "homestands" as the norm, like baseball. I can't think of anything more wasteful than flying to a city for one game and then flying to another one the next day. But I've noticed that the games get a bit chippy, like a playoff series. Getting destroyed by 40 should be like pouring gasoline on that but the Bulls have put together maybe the least physical team in their history so I have no idea what that would even look like. Ayo looks like he'd be a tough SOB in a bar fight but I'm not sure who else would jump in. (Patrick would drop his drink, pick up a pool cue and then drop that too.)
Well, looks like you can tell the future. Things got chippy tonight (by Bulls standards at least) and it was in fact Ayo who was involved.
Outside of that play it was pretty grim. Buzelis was being tossed around by any and every Piston who had the chance to get away with a shove and nobody did anything. Instead they got 2 technicals for yelling at the refs.