To me this trade deadline is actually quite a big one because while they may have a lot of cap room this off season it is basically meaningless because there are few if any interesting free agents. Right now there ARE some intriguing trade targets. Also they will no longer control Ayo or Coby since both are unrestricted and the other expiring contracts that teams might want to take on to cut their salary commitments will have...expired. Use 'em while you got 'em.
There will be plenty of good free agents this off season, and not very many teams will be in a position to sign them. We should be able to upgrade at 2-3 positions.
It didn't happen much the last couple yea4s because nobody had cap space that was a buyer. This year Bulls, Lakers and Hawks project to have space. There's also some chatter that the Jazz may be buyers this offseason.
And it doesn't matter a whole lot if a FA is signed into space, or as part of an S&T. Either way there will be a lot of players moving.
The biggest name is Austin Reaves. He's going to get a max contract from someone, and I don't know why he would want to stay in LA to be second fiddle to Luka. But there are a bunch more players who will get $20-30 million deals that we should be talking to, (including Coby).
Bulls of course cannot offer Coby more than $22 million in an extension so he is going to be a UFA. I don't see any good reason to extend either Ayo or Vuc. I think our best plan is to keep as much cap space open as we can. We can sign them back in free agency later, or fit them into one of our exceptions.
you don't know why Reaves would rather play for the Lakers than the Bulls?
that's the competition, the teams retaining their players. Yes some are against the tax and apron(s) but they will get around that by dumping worse players, not letting the good ones go
I don't know about that, yfBb. We'll see. There's starting to be a lot of chatter about RFAs being in play. Lakers are targeting Watson. Teams are asking about Easton. Suns announcers are worried they won't be able to afford Williams. Wizards want to make a run at Kessler.
You may be right this is all smoke and nothing will come of it. But I think some of those guys are going to move, and I'd like them to end up on the Bulls.
Yesterday’s game highlighted everything wrong with AK’s “strategy.”
Yes, you can win around 40 games in the East every year with a solid roster. But that’s not a very impressive achievement, and it’s certainly nothing a team president should feel good about after half a decade on the job.
If your team doesn’t have a star player, you will have a difficult time countering when an opposing star player has a great game, like Luka did yesterday.
This is why it was so insulting when AK inferred that the Celtics were a championship team because they had “9 or 10 good players.” Yes, their depth was important, but the primary reason they won a title is because they have Tatum (a top 10 player) and Brown (a top 20 player).
Coby and Giddey are usually around the number 70 when sites list top 100 players in the league. You’re not winning a playoff series if those are your best players. And if you’re not concerned with winning a playoff series, what are we doing here?
this is why he thinks he's a buyer. Because winning 40 games and being 'competitive' for a postseason berth - whether you make playoffs or not - is the goal. And the Bulls - like every team who doesn't intentionally lose - is too close to sell!
The Pincus trade proposal is quite odd to me. sending out multiple firsts for the right to pay Mathurin (pretty good young player but feel like he's pretty Coby-esque) this summer and then get Missi, who has some upside and I get the appeal in general for what the Bulls need, just feels off unless there are other significant trades along with it.
I figured Pincus picked those two guys because they are both young players on the market and he understands we are lookingtoadd young players. I agree that Mathurin doesn't seem like a good target for us.
If we are going to spend a pick the guy we should be looking at is Naji Marshall.
Prefix each of your definitive statements with IMO.
I'd like to see trades but every expiring contract not traded turns in salary cap space that can be used to sign FA's including RFA's. As I recall, if any team had cap space last offseason, they could have swept up Kuminga and/or Giddey.
They ain't tankin' because of Reinsdorf, IMO. Should all GM's refuse to work for the Bulls?
There is a strategy to build thru the draft and by trading for young players with potential. If none of them become superstars, then trade for one or two.
Have you considered that maybe your standards for this front office are too low?
This team has won a single playoff game over AK’s 5+ year tenure.
Can you provide me with an explanation of why that should be acceptable? And please, don’t respond with your hope of what they’ll do in the future. Let’s just focus on facts of what he’s actually done. What about his resume says fans shouldn’t be negative about him?
very weird, from ESPN's Zach Kram (so with a trusted-ish outlet though I don't recall him breaking stories)
> Team sources say they still have flexibility and a number of avenues they could pursue at the deadline, and they're encouraged by their squad's recent play...That position means the Bulls' results over the next week could determine their path at the deadline
that part isn't weird, it's that after it was aggregated that report disappeared from the ESPN page
I love that it's always a wait-and-see situation for these goons. Like they're always just one more tidbit of information away from being able to make any decisions, but it would be rash to come to any conclusions right now. I'm sure that's how they sell it to the 'dorfs, too.
and they will use extremely small and useless tidbits for their case. a 4 game win streak where you shot crazy well from three, won in the clutch, and the opponents had missing players or a back-to-back or are simply reeling (Timberwolves, which was a good win but not season-changing!) is egregious. I don't doubt that they can just point to record in small samples and that works on the Reinsdorfs. It's not like they have an influential analytics department who can give a more accurate assessment
I thought cheapness drove the lack of analytics, but I actually kind of like the idea that it was more out of fear that an analytics team would make them look bad by being able to easily explain why all of their moves are bad.
That sure sounds like something you put out there when you’re preparing everyone for the reality that you’re not going to be a seller.
“That position means the Bulls' results over the next week could determine their path at the deadline”
There are five games between now and the trade deadline. The Bulls are basically telling reporters that they don’t really know what their plan is and they’re willing to let a five game sample size influence their decision. That tells you everything you need to know about this front office.
1. The D Rose jersey retirement ceremony kinda made me sick -- with mostly everyone saying "This jersey in the rafters was our era's championship banner." I don't begrudge guys like Deng and Taj and Noah who said that or felt that, but it kind of encapsulates everything about the current state of Bulls' management when they keep pumping that narrative. The Rose era was ultimately a tragic failure -- a "what could have been" for the team and the city. Still worthy of celebrating the accomplishments and the joy we felt as fans, but you can't just hang a "1" in the rafters and call it a championship banner.
2. We remain at a years-long inflection point of rooting for AKME to fail hard and fail fast vs. hoping that they accidentally succeed (whatever that means, subjectively). But I'm going to put on my "let's hope they make the team better" hat for the rest of my notes here.
3. Are any of the rumors/whispers about the Bulls trade deadline being leaked by Bulls' brass? Or are we just hearing what other teams' front offices are sharing with reporters? Being tight-lipped and being media-unsavvy are two sides of the same coin (maybe there's a time and place to start leaking...the Nets did that in advance of getting the Knicks to sell the farm for Mikal Bridges...but we can't trust AKME on that front).
4. Per Eric Pincus, DO the Bulls REALLY have leverage? I guess some of their cap flexibility is a form of leverage, but I wouldn't say they have the upper hand in any negotiations. The whole league knows they'd like to get as much as they can for their expiring contracts. Their closet isn't overflowing with future tradeable picks (it's fairly neutral -- I don't see the Portland pick conveying in 2026). They don't have a bunch of guys the league is salivating to get, and they don't have a bunch of recent draft picks they need to get minutes (so they need their future picks themselves!). And everyone knows they won't go into the luxury tax. The Bulls have as much leverage as a homeowner holding a garage sale, and it's late afternoon and some of the semi-useful, functional household items are still sitting out on the driveway. Any buyer stopping by at 4:30pm knows that those items are either getting put out on the curb or getting stuffed back into the back of the garage in an hour or two. Unless miraculously another buyer or two walk up and start making counter-offers, that first buyer knows it would be a fool's errand to throw wads of cash at the homeowner. Better to bid low, and if the bid is rejected, park down the street and wait to see what you can scoop off the curb at dusk.
5. I predicted before the season that the Bulls would finish around .500 and, if they made it into the playoff bracket, would get smoked by anyone they met there. I still have them tracking towards .500 at season's end, but if -- and this is a huge "if" -- they have a full squad (and especially the combination of guys like Jones, Okoro, & Smith who have stealthily been their key cogs towards getting wins), they will probably look competitive in a series with anyone in the East. So my mind has been changed -- and thus there is a case to be made for trying to improve this year's team at the deadline. (I'm not necessarily buying that as the ideal approach, but it's not absurd/laughable as a strategy at this moment in time).
as to your leverage point, I think the idea was that they have leverage because there's no internal pressure to maximize value, so there's no urgency to trade at all
I also think Coby and Ayo should be really desirable, even with expiring contracts, because they make so little and are fairly plug-and-play.
In the garage sale analogy, it's like these other teams could use a toaster and that would mean AK could sell one, but AK has leverage because he doesn't need $2 (it's just $2 and he has this whole house!) so won't take it for the toaster even if it gets thrown out before the next garage sale
and I don't think they're a .500 team. They're like a 35 win team that has a bunch of lucky clutch wins so far.
they're not as bad as when they had Jones/Okoro/Smith out, but no NBA team can plan based on their top 8 being all healthy. Jones (and to a lesser extent, Collins) is out again already. We saw it last year when they went 15-5 but had a bunch of injuries, and the team wasn't actually that good but got Ws. And they were not competitive in the play-in.
I *kinda* disagree with you, though not fundamentally. I think maybe they're marginally better this year as a team than in previous years, when every year (as you have noted with regularity), the majority of the league has given up trying hard to win games sometime around late Feb/early March. And nothing I see is gonna keep that same NBA pattern from repeating, so I'm convinced they'll land around .500. The Bulls are who the record says they are, even if that's sort of confounding and makes that sports cliche feel absurd. Luck? To a degree, but if you knew someone who inexplicably found more lucky pennies than anyone else, you might come to realize they spend too much time crawling around on the sidewalk with a magnifying glass or spending their weekends at the beach with a metal detector. You might say "hey, you might want to get a more lucrative hobby." The Bulls are that guy.
And health is exactly why I mentioned a huge "if" (no formatting tools here to bold it or increase the font size). Obviously you can't plan around everyone being healthy, but there are some of the top 8/9 guys that seem more critical than others.
AKME obviously underplays the significance of looking overmatched against the Heat in the play-in, but at the risk of feeding into the AKME narrative I will say that we were missing the exact guys we needed to make that game competitive. Ayo and Tre Jones were both out, Ball (who had done some good things earlier in the year) was out, which would, I guess, be something akin to Okoro being out this year. Giddey came back from his forearm/wrist injury for that game and didn't look like himself (which to some confirmed his 2nd half surge was a mirage, but this year seems to have disproven that -- the Heat game was an outlier).
I think we can survive any ONE of our 3 centers being out, but not two of them. I think we can survive ONE of Okoro/Ayo/Jones being out, but not two or more of them. We can survive -- nay, we will THRIVE -- with Pat out (4-0 without him this year). And we can survive Coby or Giddey being out more easily than we can survive seeing them play heavy minutes being hobbled/rusty. How we look the rest of the season is all going to depend on this calculus.
I suppose it's too far to assume you'll always have 3 rotation guys hurt. But I don't know it really seems like they have a different definition of depth. Their depth means they can handle a starter missing time. But they are not deep to where a deep bench player can play at all.
If the injuries mount to the point where Pat, Dalen, Julian have to play, that is by definition too many injuries. Case in point vs Miami they held out Josh Giddey (nothing to see here, per Dr. Donovan), Jones was out, but THEN when Jalen Smith left mid-game that was the straw
I wouldn't be surprised if Zach Collins doesn't return this season, or at least they shouldn't count on it. Turf toe is nasty business.
They are a team who is relatively well built to sustain a regular season, that is to go .500 due to their relative depth. And unfortunately it kinda aligns with what the Reinsdorfs want. But there is very little upside and they can't win in the playoffs as they lack star power. I'd be happy to be proven wrong.
as far as what the Reinsdorfs' want, I looked it up and the Bulls were 7-3 (I guess 7-4 now after Lakers game) when going into the game as home underdogs
it's a longstanding Reinsdorfian ethos that they'd rather have a scrappy team providing entertainment nightly than a betting favorite.
It sounds to me the Bulls will have multiple offers for Coby and Ayo. They just need to say yes to the best one. That doesn't sound too hard.
As far as the off season there is a lot of leverage for a team with cap space bidding on a free agent against a team in the tax or close to it. If we bid an extra $5 million for a player, it may cost the tax team $20-25 million to match (plus apron issues).
my emotions are driving me to root for the Hornets to overtake the Bulls for the final play-in spot.
Because I don't think it matters in AK's head - he is still in the hunt for the postseason and owes it to the group or whatever - and they'll have a missed opportunity trade deadline and maybe even spend an asset to buy. and THEN if they miss the losers bracket in the losers conference??? that's just funny.
My standards aren't too low. I seldom bash AKME because everyone else does. I'm trying to take people away from the edge of the cliff.
The year they won 1 playoff game was the one where Ball, Williams and Carusu missed a lot of games. Then AKME stuck with that core, which he's now dismantling. You might get your wish next season when they could be very young, looking at the number of older players on expiring contracts. Maybe you could take credit for it.
Of the 10 teams with the worst cumulative records for the last 5 years, about half of them are now up-and-coming. Tankin' doesn't always work.
I was disappointed at last year's trade deadline, and might be again, but the real timeframe is the next 6-7 months. The tear-down should be complete by then.
To underscore this, there are 123 teams in the four major North American pro sports leagues. Of all 123 coaches, Billy Donovan is I think currently the 13th longest tenured. Among those 13, it's interesting to look at how their teams have performed in their tenures. And it's also interesting to see how many coaches hired since Billy was hired have taken their teams to incredible regular seasons, playoff runs, etc. and are now fired. That includes the firings of TWO of the five coaches who've won NBA titles since Billy was hired! And he's one ONE playoff game in that time!
To be fair to Billy, I think a lot of his mediocre results are due to the teams he's been given during his tenure in Chicago. I don't think Billy is an all-time great NBA coach but I also don't think he's bad. He basically hasn't had a single season with a team that actually properly fits together.
With that being said, I still can't figure out why Billy is so accepting of his current position. I would have assumed any self-respecting coach with as much success as he's had at both the collegiate and NBA levels would either demand his front office do more to provide him with better players or tell his front office he's leaving and they can kick rocks.
I think Billy is a really good coach. My only real point is that by this time in any other coach's tenure (across all of pro sports), a team has an idea of whether this is working or not. Or the coach moves on because they don't want to go through a reset (which is what you were alluding to).
It's true that tanking doesn't always work. Even "The Process" which many consider one of the most authentic, transparently strategic tanks ever -- but also a very long and arduous journey for Philly fans -- didn't really work as the 76ers haven't even made it back to the Eastern Conference Finals since the Iverson years.
But you lost me when talking about the core in 2021-2022 (the narrative that Lonzo's absence was the reason they didn't keep lighting the world on fire has since been disproven by everything we've seen from those players). And you especially lost me when mentioning Patrick Williams, who did play in that Bucks series blowout. The Bulls are around 20 games under .500 since PWill was drafted. But they're around 70-58 in games he's missed, including 4-0 this season.
It didn't have to take 4 years to tear down that "core". There was precious little evidence that "core" was ever going to succeed, and certainly no major moves were made to bolster that "core". The only examples in modern sports history of teams hanging on to failed cores this long have been post-championship runs, and that doesn't usually work out either. Even the 2015-17 era Cubs core, who went to three straight NLCS and won one earth-shattering World Series that makes those guys heroes for life in this town, was completely dismantled just a little over 4 years after they raised their banner at Wrigley. And despite 53-man NFL rosters, only one Patriot from the Tom Brady dynasty (their long snapper) remained on the team at the start of 2025. Now they're heading for a Super Bowl with a whole new set of guys, and the Bulls are still committed to Vooch, Pat, and host of other guys who have never come close to winning a first round playoff series.
Now you can definitely break down AKME's moves (signings, picks) and find some good ones in there, and you can make the (valid) case that ownership dictates the Bulls' entrenchment in mediocrity, but we've had enough time with this regime to be able to call a spade a spade. It's not AKME-bashing, it's just facing reality.
"But you lost me when talking about the core in 2021-2022 (the narrative that Lonzo's absence was the reason they didn't keep lighting the world on fire has since been disproven by everything we've seen from those players)."
I don't understand this. What disproved that Lonzo was the linchpin for that team?
To me what disproved it was witnessing how far removed most of the guys on that team were and are from "winning players". They had a nice run for a couple of months before Lonzo s injury but Zach has proven himself (over and over) not to be a winning player. DeMar has the clutch gene and I love his heart and passion, but his teams don't really win because of him. PWill is not good. Vuc is Vuc. Caruso was/is a winner but more of a role player on that team (and on his current team).
Lonzo isn't a magical being. He's never been a true star in the NBA. His mere presence on the Cavs this year hasn't transformed them into something greater (quite the opposite, in fact). Sure, he was more athletic then, and the Bulls were better with him than without him, but a team of the guys mentioned above was never going to be elite or a title contender, Lonzo or no Lonzo.
And yet, AKME spent 2+ years clinging to that same "core" (and still hasn't fully moved on) based on that myth that that 2021-2022 team was a special, elite group that was just missing a catalyst or spark. Objectively we'll never know what would/could have been, but in my mind the myth of Lynchpin Lonzo has been thoroughly debunked.
You have some interesting takes sometimes, but I am not buying any of this one. Caruso was a starter on the Bulls. DeRozan was a winner with Lowry on the Raptors. And Lonzo was a great playmaker and a really good defender. You haven't debunked a damn thing, you are just spouting off.
Caruso started 18 games in that magical 2021-22 season (most of them after Lonzo went down). By far, the most starts he made in a Bulls season was 57 when the Bulls went 39-43 in 2023-2024 (with basically that same "core" without Lonzo, but a much-improved Coby White). DeRozan has had a great career overall and some very good seasons with Toronto. But I'm not sure how anyone can see look at how his Spurs, Bulls, and Kings teams have performed and say he was able to transcend mediocrity (Lowry was the leader of those Raptors teams that kept flaming out in the playoffs, and finally got his title after DeRozan was swapped for Kawhi). Lonzo pre-injury was a great teammate, and he brought solid defense and playmaking as you mentioned (not to mention three-point shooting). The team was better with him making solid contributions. Nowhere did I disparage him.
You are free to believe what you want to believe about the so-called "myth" -- again, there's no way to know what would have happened if Lonzo didn't get hurt; maybe those Bulls capture the top seed in the East and win a title? All I'm really saying is that it's hard to think of another comparable situation in the NBA (or any other sport) where a team lost their 4th or 5th best player and it totally derailed their franchise for the remainder of that season and the next two-plus seasons after that. Yes, Zach was also battling injuries during that time period...but is "healthy Zach would have gotten us over the hump" a hill anyone wants to die on, in retrospect?
Basically, if the core of that '21-22 Bulls team wasn't good enough to overcome the loss of Lonzo, maybe they weren't really that good to begin with? Or if Lonzo alone WAS worth something like 8-10 extra wins (plus playoff wins) over the course of a season, that would probably make him the BEST player on that team, right? So why would the Bulls have continued treading water and moving forward with that same core knowing (as they did) that their most critical player in Lonzo, who had previously struggled with multiple injuries, was facing an uncertain return to his playing career? If Lonzo was really the only thing holding that squad together in your mind, then you should feel equally angry at AKME for continuing to "run it back" without him. And if he wasn't the ultimate "glue" guy, and really just a great complementary piece of the "supporting cast", then why couldn't those core guys win without him? Applying Occam's Razor, my "debunking" is simply stating the simplest explanation -- they had a hot start in Lonzo's first year, and were due to start cooling off even before Lonzo got hurt.
No, that is not the simplest explanation, it is the most complicated, full-of-questionable-conclusions explanation, that someone could come up with.
But in retrospect, sure, AK took some big swings to put together a good team and it didn't work out. He maybe should have known Ball was not going to recover from his knee injury, and that Vuc was not going to keep playing at an All Star level. He also definitely should have picked someone other than Pat Williams in the draft. But he stuck with the group, didn't blow it up and start over. We probably would be better off now if he had done that.
I have to agree with Waveland. Obviously we'll never know if Lonzo was the missing piece, but it does seem unlikely. That team's starting five was essentially Lonzo, Zach, DeMar, Caruso, and Vooch. I'm sorry, but that's likely not a starting five that gets you far in the playoffs. Lonzo and Caruso are/were amazing defenders, but they can't make up for three terrible defenders.
And it's not like they had some amazing bench. Alize Johnson got serious minutes that season. Their second unit mostly consisted of Coby, Ayo, Pat, DJJ, and Tony Bradley. Not a great second unit.
It's also important to remember how fluky the start of that season was due to COVID. That's not to say the Bulls weren't affected, but just that teams were so in flux to begin that season.
The Bulls had a terrible record against playoff teams before Lonzo got hurt that season and were basically just beating up on all the bad teams. It seems unlikely they would have magically bucked that trend come the playoffs.
But ultimately we've gotten way off topic. The original point was that core didn't work out and AK took way too long to move on from it. I'm not sure there's much disputing that at this point.
DeRozan and Vuc were not terrible defenders at the time. I am really not sure how you grade players on defense, you need to explain your methodology to me sometime.
Lavine, Derozan and Vuc were all All Stars. You probably agree Ball would have been an All Star too if he had stayed healthy. So four All Star level players in their prime is a pretty good core.
Good teams beat up on bad teams, that's not a flaw to do that. And good teams play even with other good teams. I am not arguing they were championship contenders but they were an ECF level team with Ball.
Reinsdorf doesn’t have a quick trigger as evidenced by Jerry Krause for 19 years, from 1984-85 to 2002-03, the first 6 seasons and the last 5 seasons without a championship. After him, John Paxson was an execetive for 7 years and Gar Foreman for 11 years, without a championship.
No one's comparing Karnišovas or Eversley to HOF'er Krause, but AK, who will turn 55 this season, is reportedly signed thru the 2027-28 season.
Mixing my metaphors, it's a fool's errand to howl at the moon.
Krause was fired after attendance really started to soften at the United Center, and the same thing was true of Forman as well. That could be the real driver of AK's strategy: he gets to keep his job so long as people will buy tickets to watch a 39-win play-in team every year.
Yeah, I understand that take. I'd use different words. Every executive (or any employee) is given guidelines. I assume Reinsdorf (as many owners do) requires that the team has an attraction. The "paid writers" even acknowledge that some trades are made to put asses in seats. But I'm looking forward to the next core, not all of whom are all-stars or even difference-makers; some are role players. My list includes: Giddey, Ayo, Matas, Essengue, Smith, Okoro ... some others on the roster could be keepers, but others could be traded for picks or young players with an upside. They need some beef ... and what's it called, a potential MVP.
I didn't pay that close attention back then; I thought they kicked Paxson upstairs. And today, IDK exactly how the duties are divided between AK-ME, tho I pretty much know their titles and pecking order.
Not changing the subject, but who really knows the decision making among the Bears: McCaskey, Warren, Pace/Poles, Nagy/Eberflus/Johnson? Why did Poles fix the OLine this season? Did he finally figure it out, or did Johnson tell him what to do, or maybe even McCaskey or Warren stood up?
There's also no 'splaining NBA games, where: the Bulls beat the Celtics (tho they did play in a prior OT, back-to-back game) but they lose to the Pacers; and a disproportionate number of games decided by last minute shots, as if the NBA profits the most from nail-biters.
I don't understand why people think AK is hard to read. He's trying to add more good young players. Pincus understands that. Every recent move AK has made has been to add young players.
He's also said a bunch of times he wants to be able to go 9 or 10 deep with good players. A lot of people don't agree with that strategy, which is fine. But he has been clear that's what he is trying to do.
I agree. I think what people find "hard to read" about AK is that everything he says he wants to do makes zero sense, so people just assume he actually has some secret plan. So they then go digging through what he says to see if they can find some hidden meaning when in reality he means exactly what he says. He's just dumb.
it's hard because he has the conflicting goal of maximizing his postseason chances. Moves like keeping everyone in the offseason (besides Lonzo-for-Okoro), and the creeping definition of 'young'. they're hard to read because you usually pick one or the other.
I guess more simply do you think AK is a buyer or seller? That it's a question by definition makes them hard to read IMO
Right now he is trying to buy young players and to sell his expirings.
Hopefully he is not focused on this season, I would not want him to sacrifice the future to get a few more wins this year. But I am not sure how he thinks about that, because ownership clearly prioritizes attendance.
So I could see him trading an expiring for a good role player on a good contract. Marshall fits that bill, although as you say he is a little older than AK might prefer. I think the primary goal is to use our cap space to upgrade our roster, but if we can get someone now that we like, we should do that.
Marshall should be a target of teams that are in contention and have established stars already. For the Bulls, he would just be another player of the same they already have 10 Marshalls on the roster.
I suppose it could be clear, if totally unrealistic, to say "AK is a buyer, he always is a buyer, and will try to acquire good young players while not giving up much which is why he makes so few trades"
kind of like "they'll do well in restricted free agency", I can't prove it to be false!
AK is a 100% a buyer -- he's a discount-rack, thrift store shopper always looking to score "finds". He's careful with his cash but financially illiterate when it comes to acquiring, saving, and spending draft pick currency.
Is the Lavine trade the only move he's made that you could call selling? In that he got some picks back and took on some "bad" salaries (that actually ended up being pretty good). I honestly can't think of any other move. I guess Lauri? Caruso/Giddey *should* have been a sell, but no need to re-litigate that one.
Where most of us see taking "bad" salaries, AK sees "guys who can help the team be more competitive". In this example maybe we're both right? Huerter and Collins are both overpaid and useful.
But per your question, besides the Zach trade, the Lauri trade was another outlier in that AK sold him for both a (protected) 1st rounder and a decent player. Whether moving on from Lauri was the right call in retrospect, I do know that everyone on this site was clamoring to get rid of him and I was a fan of the trade at the time. We did sell low on him but it felt like a decent return for selling low.
I don't think AK had any assessment of Jones, Collins or Huerter. They were just salaries to match. KC said right after the trade they were looking to flip all of them.
but AK may, at least should, have confidence that ANY healthy-and-merely-playable player can 'look good in their system', they play a high pace, egalitarian shot attempts, bench-heavy style.
I’m not against that strategy in theory, but I don’t think that the Bulls front office can find 9-10 good players. This is their sixth season and they have almost nothing to show for it. They’re no closer to being a contender than they were when they were hired.
At the end of the day you have to prove it on the court, but I think we're getting there. Let's upgrade at two positions this summer and let our young core guys get better.
AK’s inability to decide if he’s a buyer or seller creates such a massive disadvantage for this team at the trade deadline. I think this has been an underrated problem for him every year.
Other teams have likely known if they’re going to be buyers or sellers for weeks now. That probably means they’ve already started to have serious conversations about trades. The deadline is likely just when they put their finishing touches on the transactions and make them official.
AK seems to wait until the deadline to decide what he MIGHT want to do and then tries to quickly make a deal happen based on the decision he just made. By then, it’s too late because teams are further down the road with other transactions.
This would explain why every deadline he acts like they did a lot of work when they actually accomplished nothing.
Yep, it's interesting how different the franchises are. Heat have one of the best GMs, Bulls have the worst. Heat have one of the best destinations to attract players, Bulls have one of the worst. Heat have one of the best coaches. Billy is mediocre. Heat will spend whatever they can to build the best team, Reinsdorf saves war nickels.
Yet here they both are side by side year after year in play-in hell.
Jeremy Sochan interest was only rumored by AI-bot Evan Sidery, but it's more true that 1) the Spurs are interest in dealing him and 2) he's the kind of player AK would like in that he was drafted high, still young (22.7 years old) and stinks
Sochan stinks and he's a dirty, dirty player (been watching him since college and if you want a longer and more athletic Grayson Allen but with zero basketball skill, he's your guy!). I can't think of many players I'd want LESS than that dude.
they're pretty much fully healthy (no Haliburton or Toppin all season, of course) and on paper may be as talented as the current Bulls. Also the game is in Indianapolis, so I could easily see a mild upset (Pacers +2.5) tonight. Or Vuc and Jalen Smith dominate their frontcourt, Buzelis plays 19 minutes, and easy Bulls W
interesting, Billy pulled Jalen Smith from starting lineup for Giddey. the lack of double-big likely works better against the Pacers. And there really isn't a great option otherwise, if you take Okoro out then no perimeter defender, and if you take Matas out people (deservedly) riot
I'm looking at the Hawks roster and they could have an easy deal with Milwaukee for Giannis. I think Risacher and New Orleans' pick would beat any other offers. Add CJ and Kennard expirings and a couple low level picks and you're done.
Watched for the first time and things seem to be par for the course. Back to my no-Bulls slumber. Anyway good news is we’re so hopeless that non-Bulls fans are writing about us!
I'm shocked Pistons players are over the indignity of tanking, just think how much better their development would have been in a 'all about winning' environment
I am already mad that he's going to say (and he will say this genuinely, because he's a moron) that they had a good record against good teams but he "doesn't know" why they have a bad record against bad teams
Well, they're 6-8 against the top 5 teams in the East and West, so not terrible, but not tearing it up either. For a guy who's all about sample sizes, how about 17-23 over the last 40 games?
To me this trade deadline is actually quite a big one because while they may have a lot of cap room this off season it is basically meaningless because there are few if any interesting free agents. Right now there ARE some intriguing trade targets. Also they will no longer control Ayo or Coby since both are unrestricted and the other expiring contracts that teams might want to take on to cut their salary commitments will have...expired. Use 'em while you got 'em.
I think this is correct, but AK will have enough cover through the Chicago media to say "wait for us to cook in free agency before you judge"
There will be plenty of good free agents this off season, and not very many teams will be in a position to sign them. We should be able to upgrade at 2-3 positions.
I thought this free agency class was viewed as being pretty weak overall.
There are a lot of guys available that are better than the ones we have.
those aren't contradictory statements
Ok?
Top names rarely actually hit free agency anymore.
When I look at the list of top free agents this year, the guys who might actually be available are Anfernee Simons and maybe Norman Powell.
And again, AK is likely going to use a good amount of money giving at least 2 of Vuc, Coby, and Ayo extensions.
It didn't happen much the last couple yea4s because nobody had cap space that was a buyer. This year Bulls, Lakers and Hawks project to have space. There's also some chatter that the Jazz may be buyers this offseason.
And it doesn't matter a whole lot if a FA is signed into space, or as part of an S&T. Either way there will be a lot of players moving.
The biggest name is Austin Reaves. He's going to get a max contract from someone, and I don't know why he would want to stay in LA to be second fiddle to Luka. But there are a bunch more players who will get $20-30 million deals that we should be talking to, (including Coby).
Bulls of course cannot offer Coby more than $22 million in an extension so he is going to be a UFA. I don't see any good reason to extend either Ayo or Vuc. I think our best plan is to keep as much cap space open as we can. We can sign them back in free agency later, or fit them into one of our exceptions.
you don't know why Reaves would rather play for the Lakers than the Bulls?
that's the competition, the teams retaining their players. Yes some are against the tax and apron(s) but they will get around that by dumping worse players, not letting the good ones go
I don't know about that, yfBb. We'll see. There's starting to be a lot of chatter about RFAs being in play. Lakers are targeting Watson. Teams are asking about Easton. Suns announcers are worried they won't be able to afford Williams. Wizards want to make a run at Kessler.
You may be right this is all smoke and nothing will come of it. But I think some of those guys are going to move, and I'd like them to end up on the Bulls.
Yesterday’s game highlighted everything wrong with AK’s “strategy.”
Yes, you can win around 40 games in the East every year with a solid roster. But that’s not a very impressive achievement, and it’s certainly nothing a team president should feel good about after half a decade on the job.
If your team doesn’t have a star player, you will have a difficult time countering when an opposing star player has a great game, like Luka did yesterday.
This is why it was so insulting when AK inferred that the Celtics were a championship team because they had “9 or 10 good players.” Yes, their depth was important, but the primary reason they won a title is because they have Tatum (a top 10 player) and Brown (a top 20 player).
Coby and Giddey are usually around the number 70 when sites list top 100 players in the league. You’re not winning a playoff series if those are your best players. And if you’re not concerned with winning a playoff series, what are we doing here?
this is why he thinks he's a buyer. Because winning 40 games and being 'competitive' for a postseason berth - whether you make playoffs or not - is the goal. And the Bulls - like every team who doesn't intentionally lose - is too close to sell!
The Pincus trade proposal is quite odd to me. sending out multiple firsts for the right to pay Mathurin (pretty good young player but feel like he's pretty Coby-esque) this summer and then get Missi, who has some upside and I get the appeal in general for what the Bulls need, just feels off unless there are other significant trades along with it.
I figured Pincus picked those two guys because they are both young players on the market and he understands we are lookingtoadd young players. I agree that Mathurin doesn't seem like a good target for us.
If we are going to spend a pick the guy we should be looking at is Naji Marshall.
Marshall just turned 28
He's a nice two-way player on a good contract.
Prefix each of your definitive statements with IMO.
I'd like to see trades but every expiring contract not traded turns in salary cap space that can be used to sign FA's including RFA's. As I recall, if any team had cap space last offseason, they could have swept up Kuminga and/or Giddey.
They ain't tankin' because of Reinsdorf, IMO. Should all GM's refuse to work for the Bulls?
There is a strategy to build thru the draft and by trading for young players with potential. If none of them become superstars, then trade for one or two.
I hope some of this meets your high standards.
Have you considered that maybe your standards for this front office are too low?
This team has won a single playoff game over AK’s 5+ year tenure.
Can you provide me with an explanation of why that should be acceptable? And please, don’t respond with your hope of what they’ll do in the future. Let’s just focus on facts of what he’s actually done. What about his resume says fans shouldn’t be negative about him?
are you prompting a chatbot?
very weird, from ESPN's Zach Kram (so with a trusted-ish outlet though I don't recall him breaking stories)
> Team sources say they still have flexibility and a number of avenues they could pursue at the deadline, and they're encouraged by their squad's recent play...That position means the Bulls' results over the next week could determine their path at the deadline
that part isn't weird, it's that after it was aggregated that report disappeared from the ESPN page
I love that it's always a wait-and-see situation for these goons. Like they're always just one more tidbit of information away from being able to make any decisions, but it would be rash to come to any conclusions right now. I'm sure that's how they sell it to the 'dorfs, too.
and they will use extremely small and useless tidbits for their case. a 4 game win streak where you shot crazy well from three, won in the clutch, and the opponents had missing players or a back-to-back or are simply reeling (Timberwolves, which was a good win but not season-changing!) is egregious. I don't doubt that they can just point to record in small samples and that works on the Reinsdorfs. It's not like they have an influential analytics department who can give a more accurate assessment
I thought cheapness drove the lack of analytics, but I actually kind of like the idea that it was more out of fear that an analytics team would make them look bad by being able to easily explain why all of their moves are bad.
or they could point at the right/ relevant moves. But t'en, they would have power over FO decisions 🙀
“they’re encouraged by their squads recent play”
That sure sounds like something you put out there when you’re preparing everyone for the reality that you’re not going to be a seller.
“That position means the Bulls' results over the next week could determine their path at the deadline”
There are five games between now and the trade deadline. The Bulls are basically telling reporters that they don’t really know what their plan is and they’re willing to let a five game sample size influence their decision. That tells you everything you need to know about this front office.
Yes it's a fireable awful way to run a team. I say it isnt weird because it's predictable
FWIW it's back up on ESPN. https://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/47191162/nba-buzz-latest-live-updates-trades-intel-league
I have a bunch of random thoughts...
1. The D Rose jersey retirement ceremony kinda made me sick -- with mostly everyone saying "This jersey in the rafters was our era's championship banner." I don't begrudge guys like Deng and Taj and Noah who said that or felt that, but it kind of encapsulates everything about the current state of Bulls' management when they keep pumping that narrative. The Rose era was ultimately a tragic failure -- a "what could have been" for the team and the city. Still worthy of celebrating the accomplishments and the joy we felt as fans, but you can't just hang a "1" in the rafters and call it a championship banner.
2. We remain at a years-long inflection point of rooting for AKME to fail hard and fail fast vs. hoping that they accidentally succeed (whatever that means, subjectively). But I'm going to put on my "let's hope they make the team better" hat for the rest of my notes here.
3. Are any of the rumors/whispers about the Bulls trade deadline being leaked by Bulls' brass? Or are we just hearing what other teams' front offices are sharing with reporters? Being tight-lipped and being media-unsavvy are two sides of the same coin (maybe there's a time and place to start leaking...the Nets did that in advance of getting the Knicks to sell the farm for Mikal Bridges...but we can't trust AKME on that front).
4. Per Eric Pincus, DO the Bulls REALLY have leverage? I guess some of their cap flexibility is a form of leverage, but I wouldn't say they have the upper hand in any negotiations. The whole league knows they'd like to get as much as they can for their expiring contracts. Their closet isn't overflowing with future tradeable picks (it's fairly neutral -- I don't see the Portland pick conveying in 2026). They don't have a bunch of guys the league is salivating to get, and they don't have a bunch of recent draft picks they need to get minutes (so they need their future picks themselves!). And everyone knows they won't go into the luxury tax. The Bulls have as much leverage as a homeowner holding a garage sale, and it's late afternoon and some of the semi-useful, functional household items are still sitting out on the driveway. Any buyer stopping by at 4:30pm knows that those items are either getting put out on the curb or getting stuffed back into the back of the garage in an hour or two. Unless miraculously another buyer or two walk up and start making counter-offers, that first buyer knows it would be a fool's errand to throw wads of cash at the homeowner. Better to bid low, and if the bid is rejected, park down the street and wait to see what you can scoop off the curb at dusk.
5. I predicted before the season that the Bulls would finish around .500 and, if they made it into the playoff bracket, would get smoked by anyone they met there. I still have them tracking towards .500 at season's end, but if -- and this is a huge "if" -- they have a full squad (and especially the combination of guys like Jones, Okoro, & Smith who have stealthily been their key cogs towards getting wins), they will probably look competitive in a series with anyone in the East. So my mind has been changed -- and thus there is a case to be made for trying to improve this year's team at the deadline. (I'm not necessarily buying that as the ideal approach, but it's not absurd/laughable as a strategy at this moment in time).
as to your leverage point, I think the idea was that they have leverage because there's no internal pressure to maximize value, so there's no urgency to trade at all
I also think Coby and Ayo should be really desirable, even with expiring contracts, because they make so little and are fairly plug-and-play.
In the garage sale analogy, it's like these other teams could use a toaster and that would mean AK could sell one, but AK has leverage because he doesn't need $2 (it's just $2 and he has this whole house!) so won't take it for the toaster even if it gets thrown out before the next garage sale
and I don't think they're a .500 team. They're like a 35 win team that has a bunch of lucky clutch wins so far.
they're not as bad as when they had Jones/Okoro/Smith out, but no NBA team can plan based on their top 8 being all healthy. Jones (and to a lesser extent, Collins) is out again already. We saw it last year when they went 15-5 but had a bunch of injuries, and the team wasn't actually that good but got Ws. And they were not competitive in the play-in.
I *kinda* disagree with you, though not fundamentally. I think maybe they're marginally better this year as a team than in previous years, when every year (as you have noted with regularity), the majority of the league has given up trying hard to win games sometime around late Feb/early March. And nothing I see is gonna keep that same NBA pattern from repeating, so I'm convinced they'll land around .500. The Bulls are who the record says they are, even if that's sort of confounding and makes that sports cliche feel absurd. Luck? To a degree, but if you knew someone who inexplicably found more lucky pennies than anyone else, you might come to realize they spend too much time crawling around on the sidewalk with a magnifying glass or spending their weekends at the beach with a metal detector. You might say "hey, you might want to get a more lucrative hobby." The Bulls are that guy.
And health is exactly why I mentioned a huge "if" (no formatting tools here to bold it or increase the font size). Obviously you can't plan around everyone being healthy, but there are some of the top 8/9 guys that seem more critical than others.
AKME obviously underplays the significance of looking overmatched against the Heat in the play-in, but at the risk of feeding into the AKME narrative I will say that we were missing the exact guys we needed to make that game competitive. Ayo and Tre Jones were both out, Ball (who had done some good things earlier in the year) was out, which would, I guess, be something akin to Okoro being out this year. Giddey came back from his forearm/wrist injury for that game and didn't look like himself (which to some confirmed his 2nd half surge was a mirage, but this year seems to have disproven that -- the Heat game was an outlier).
I think we can survive any ONE of our 3 centers being out, but not two of them. I think we can survive ONE of Okoro/Ayo/Jones being out, but not two or more of them. We can survive -- nay, we will THRIVE -- with Pat out (4-0 without him this year). And we can survive Coby or Giddey being out more easily than we can survive seeing them play heavy minutes being hobbled/rusty. How we look the rest of the season is all going to depend on this calculus.
I suppose it's too far to assume you'll always have 3 rotation guys hurt. But I don't know it really seems like they have a different definition of depth. Their depth means they can handle a starter missing time. But they are not deep to where a deep bench player can play at all.
If the injuries mount to the point where Pat, Dalen, Julian have to play, that is by definition too many injuries. Case in point vs Miami they held out Josh Giddey (nothing to see here, per Dr. Donovan), Jones was out, but THEN when Jalen Smith left mid-game that was the straw
I wouldn't be surprised if Zach Collins doesn't return this season, or at least they shouldn't count on it. Turf toe is nasty business.
They are a team who is relatively well built to sustain a regular season, that is to go .500 due to their relative depth. And unfortunately it kinda aligns with what the Reinsdorfs want. But there is very little upside and they can't win in the playoffs as they lack star power. I'd be happy to be proven wrong.
as far as what the Reinsdorfs' want, I looked it up and the Bulls were 7-3 (I guess 7-4 now after Lakers game) when going into the game as home underdogs
it's a longstanding Reinsdorfian ethos that they'd rather have a scrappy team providing entertainment nightly than a betting favorite.
It sounds to me the Bulls will have multiple offers for Coby and Ayo. They just need to say yes to the best one. That doesn't sound too hard.
As far as the off season there is a lot of leverage for a team with cap space bidding on a free agent against a team in the tax or close to it. If we bid an extra $5 million for a player, it may cost the tax team $20-25 million to match (plus apron issues).
my emotions are driving me to root for the Hornets to overtake the Bulls for the final play-in spot.
Because I don't think it matters in AK's head - he is still in the hunt for the postseason and owes it to the group or whatever - and they'll have a missed opportunity trade deadline and maybe even spend an asset to buy. and THEN if they miss the losers bracket in the losers conference??? that's just funny.
My standards aren't too low. I seldom bash AKME because everyone else does. I'm trying to take people away from the edge of the cliff.
The year they won 1 playoff game was the one where Ball, Williams and Carusu missed a lot of games. Then AKME stuck with that core, which he's now dismantling. You might get your wish next season when they could be very young, looking at the number of older players on expiring contracts. Maybe you could take credit for it.
Of the 10 teams with the worst cumulative records for the last 5 years, about half of them are now up-and-coming. Tankin' doesn't always work.
I was disappointed at last year's trade deadline, and might be again, but the real timeframe is the next 6-7 months. The tear-down should be complete by then.
"Of the 10 teams with the worst cumulative records for the last 5 years, about half of them are now up-and-coming. Tankin' doesn't always work."
And how many teams using a similar strategy to the Bulls are now up-and-coming?
Trick question!!! No other team in sports uses this current Bulls' strategy!
To underscore this, there are 123 teams in the four major North American pro sports leagues. Of all 123 coaches, Billy Donovan is I think currently the 13th longest tenured. Among those 13, it's interesting to look at how their teams have performed in their tenures. And it's also interesting to see how many coaches hired since Billy was hired have taken their teams to incredible regular seasons, playoff runs, etc. and are now fired. That includes the firings of TWO of the five coaches who've won NBA titles since Billy was hired! And he's one ONE playoff game in that time!
To be fair to Billy, I think a lot of his mediocre results are due to the teams he's been given during his tenure in Chicago. I don't think Billy is an all-time great NBA coach but I also don't think he's bad. He basically hasn't had a single season with a team that actually properly fits together.
With that being said, I still can't figure out why Billy is so accepting of his current position. I would have assumed any self-respecting coach with as much success as he's had at both the collegiate and NBA levels would either demand his front office do more to provide him with better players or tell his front office he's leaving and they can kick rocks.
I think Billy is a really good coach. My only real point is that by this time in any other coach's tenure (across all of pro sports), a team has an idea of whether this is working or not. Or the coach moves on because they don't want to go through a reset (which is what you were alluding to).
Exactly my point LOL.
It's true that tanking doesn't always work. Even "The Process" which many consider one of the most authentic, transparently strategic tanks ever -- but also a very long and arduous journey for Philly fans -- didn't really work as the 76ers haven't even made it back to the Eastern Conference Finals since the Iverson years.
But you lost me when talking about the core in 2021-2022 (the narrative that Lonzo's absence was the reason they didn't keep lighting the world on fire has since been disproven by everything we've seen from those players). And you especially lost me when mentioning Patrick Williams, who did play in that Bucks series blowout. The Bulls are around 20 games under .500 since PWill was drafted. But they're around 70-58 in games he's missed, including 4-0 this season.
It didn't have to take 4 years to tear down that "core". There was precious little evidence that "core" was ever going to succeed, and certainly no major moves were made to bolster that "core". The only examples in modern sports history of teams hanging on to failed cores this long have been post-championship runs, and that doesn't usually work out either. Even the 2015-17 era Cubs core, who went to three straight NLCS and won one earth-shattering World Series that makes those guys heroes for life in this town, was completely dismantled just a little over 4 years after they raised their banner at Wrigley. And despite 53-man NFL rosters, only one Patriot from the Tom Brady dynasty (their long snapper) remained on the team at the start of 2025. Now they're heading for a Super Bowl with a whole new set of guys, and the Bulls are still committed to Vooch, Pat, and host of other guys who have never come close to winning a first round playoff series.
Now you can definitely break down AKME's moves (signings, picks) and find some good ones in there, and you can make the (valid) case that ownership dictates the Bulls' entrenchment in mediocrity, but we've had enough time with this regime to be able to call a spade a spade. It's not AKME-bashing, it's just facing reality.
"But you lost me when talking about the core in 2021-2022 (the narrative that Lonzo's absence was the reason they didn't keep lighting the world on fire has since been disproven by everything we've seen from those players)."
I don't understand this. What disproved that Lonzo was the linchpin for that team?
To me what disproved it was witnessing how far removed most of the guys on that team were and are from "winning players". They had a nice run for a couple of months before Lonzo s injury but Zach has proven himself (over and over) not to be a winning player. DeMar has the clutch gene and I love his heart and passion, but his teams don't really win because of him. PWill is not good. Vuc is Vuc. Caruso was/is a winner but more of a role player on that team (and on his current team).
Lonzo isn't a magical being. He's never been a true star in the NBA. His mere presence on the Cavs this year hasn't transformed them into something greater (quite the opposite, in fact). Sure, he was more athletic then, and the Bulls were better with him than without him, but a team of the guys mentioned above was never going to be elite or a title contender, Lonzo or no Lonzo.
And yet, AKME spent 2+ years clinging to that same "core" (and still hasn't fully moved on) based on that myth that that 2021-2022 team was a special, elite group that was just missing a catalyst or spark. Objectively we'll never know what would/could have been, but in my mind the myth of Lynchpin Lonzo has been thoroughly debunked.
You have some interesting takes sometimes, but I am not buying any of this one. Caruso was a starter on the Bulls. DeRozan was a winner with Lowry on the Raptors. And Lonzo was a great playmaker and a really good defender. You haven't debunked a damn thing, you are just spouting off.
Caruso started 18 games in that magical 2021-22 season (most of them after Lonzo went down). By far, the most starts he made in a Bulls season was 57 when the Bulls went 39-43 in 2023-2024 (with basically that same "core" without Lonzo, but a much-improved Coby White). DeRozan has had a great career overall and some very good seasons with Toronto. But I'm not sure how anyone can see look at how his Spurs, Bulls, and Kings teams have performed and say he was able to transcend mediocrity (Lowry was the leader of those Raptors teams that kept flaming out in the playoffs, and finally got his title after DeRozan was swapped for Kawhi). Lonzo pre-injury was a great teammate, and he brought solid defense and playmaking as you mentioned (not to mention three-point shooting). The team was better with him making solid contributions. Nowhere did I disparage him.
You are free to believe what you want to believe about the so-called "myth" -- again, there's no way to know what would have happened if Lonzo didn't get hurt; maybe those Bulls capture the top seed in the East and win a title? All I'm really saying is that it's hard to think of another comparable situation in the NBA (or any other sport) where a team lost their 4th or 5th best player and it totally derailed their franchise for the remainder of that season and the next two-plus seasons after that. Yes, Zach was also battling injuries during that time period...but is "healthy Zach would have gotten us over the hump" a hill anyone wants to die on, in retrospect?
Basically, if the core of that '21-22 Bulls team wasn't good enough to overcome the loss of Lonzo, maybe they weren't really that good to begin with? Or if Lonzo alone WAS worth something like 8-10 extra wins (plus playoff wins) over the course of a season, that would probably make him the BEST player on that team, right? So why would the Bulls have continued treading water and moving forward with that same core knowing (as they did) that their most critical player in Lonzo, who had previously struggled with multiple injuries, was facing an uncertain return to his playing career? If Lonzo was really the only thing holding that squad together in your mind, then you should feel equally angry at AKME for continuing to "run it back" without him. And if he wasn't the ultimate "glue" guy, and really just a great complementary piece of the "supporting cast", then why couldn't those core guys win without him? Applying Occam's Razor, my "debunking" is simply stating the simplest explanation -- they had a hot start in Lonzo's first year, and were due to start cooling off even before Lonzo got hurt.
No, that is not the simplest explanation, it is the most complicated, full-of-questionable-conclusions explanation, that someone could come up with.
But in retrospect, sure, AK took some big swings to put together a good team and it didn't work out. He maybe should have known Ball was not going to recover from his knee injury, and that Vuc was not going to keep playing at an All Star level. He also definitely should have picked someone other than Pat Williams in the draft. But he stuck with the group, didn't blow it up and start over. We probably would be better off now if he had done that.
I have to agree with Waveland. Obviously we'll never know if Lonzo was the missing piece, but it does seem unlikely. That team's starting five was essentially Lonzo, Zach, DeMar, Caruso, and Vooch. I'm sorry, but that's likely not a starting five that gets you far in the playoffs. Lonzo and Caruso are/were amazing defenders, but they can't make up for three terrible defenders.
And it's not like they had some amazing bench. Alize Johnson got serious minutes that season. Their second unit mostly consisted of Coby, Ayo, Pat, DJJ, and Tony Bradley. Not a great second unit.
It's also important to remember how fluky the start of that season was due to COVID. That's not to say the Bulls weren't affected, but just that teams were so in flux to begin that season.
The Bulls had a terrible record against playoff teams before Lonzo got hurt that season and were basically just beating up on all the bad teams. It seems unlikely they would have magically bucked that trend come the playoffs.
But ultimately we've gotten way off topic. The original point was that core didn't work out and AK took way too long to move on from it. I'm not sure there's much disputing that at this point.
DeRozan and Vuc were not terrible defenders at the time. I am really not sure how you grade players on defense, you need to explain your methodology to me sometime.
Lavine, Derozan and Vuc were all All Stars. You probably agree Ball would have been an All Star too if he had stayed healthy. So four All Star level players in their prime is a pretty good core.
Good teams beat up on bad teams, that's not a flaw to do that. And good teams play even with other good teams. I am not arguing they were championship contenders but they were an ECF level team with Ball.
Reinsdorf doesn’t have a quick trigger as evidenced by Jerry Krause for 19 years, from 1984-85 to 2002-03, the first 6 seasons and the last 5 seasons without a championship. After him, John Paxson was an execetive for 7 years and Gar Foreman for 11 years, without a championship.
No one's comparing Karnišovas or Eversley to HOF'er Krause, but AK, who will turn 55 this season, is reportedly signed thru the 2027-28 season.
Mixing my metaphors, it's a fool's errand to howl at the moon.
Krause was fired after attendance really started to soften at the United Center, and the same thing was true of Forman as well. That could be the real driver of AK's strategy: he gets to keep his job so long as people will buy tickets to watch a 39-win play-in team every year.
Yeah, I understand that take. I'd use different words. Every executive (or any employee) is given guidelines. I assume Reinsdorf (as many owners do) requires that the team has an attraction. The "paid writers" even acknowledge that some trades are made to put asses in seats. But I'm looking forward to the next core, not all of whom are all-stars or even difference-makers; some are role players. My list includes: Giddey, Ayo, Matas, Essengue, Smith, Okoro ... some others on the roster could be keepers, but others could be traded for picks or young players with an upside. They need some beef ... and what's it called, a potential MVP.
"After him, John Paxson was an execetive for 7 years and Gar Foreman for 11 years, without a championship."
??? I hope you know Gar Foreman wasn't hired to work as GM instead of John but to work WITH him.
I didn't pay that close attention back then; I thought they kicked Paxson upstairs. And today, IDK exactly how the duties are divided between AK-ME, tho I pretty much know their titles and pecking order.
Not changing the subject, but who really knows the decision making among the Bears: McCaskey, Warren, Pace/Poles, Nagy/Eberflus/Johnson? Why did Poles fix the OLine this season? Did he finally figure it out, or did Johnson tell him what to do, or maybe even McCaskey or Warren stood up?
There's also no 'splaining NBA games, where: the Bulls beat the Celtics (tho they did play in a prior OT, back-to-back game) but they lose to the Pacers; and a disproportionate number of games decided by last minute shots, as if the NBA profits the most from nail-biters.
Unless AK opts to resign almost everybody on the roster. I haven't ruled that out as an option. Then we keep going in circles for another few years.
I don't understand why people think AK is hard to read. He's trying to add more good young players. Pincus understands that. Every recent move AK has made has been to add young players.
He's also said a bunch of times he wants to be able to go 9 or 10 deep with good players. A lot of people don't agree with that strategy, which is fine. But he has been clear that's what he is trying to do.
I agree. I think what people find "hard to read" about AK is that everything he says he wants to do makes zero sense, so people just assume he actually has some secret plan. So they then go digging through what he says to see if they can find some hidden meaning when in reality he means exactly what he says. He's just dumb.
it's hard because he has the conflicting goal of maximizing his postseason chances. Moves like keeping everyone in the offseason (besides Lonzo-for-Okoro), and the creeping definition of 'young'. they're hard to read because you usually pick one or the other.
I guess more simply do you think AK is a buyer or seller? That it's a question by definition makes them hard to read IMO
Right now he is trying to buy young players and to sell his expirings.
Hopefully he is not focused on this season, I would not want him to sacrifice the future to get a few more wins this year. But I am not sure how he thinks about that, because ownership clearly prioritizes attendance.
So I could see him trading an expiring for a good role player on a good contract. Marshall fits that bill, although as you say he is a little older than AK might prefer. I think the primary goal is to use our cap space to upgrade our roster, but if we can get someone now that we like, we should do that.
Marshall should be a target of teams that are in contention and have established stars already. For the Bulls, he would just be another player of the same they already have 10 Marshalls on the roster.
I suppose it could be clear, if totally unrealistic, to say "AK is a buyer, he always is a buyer, and will try to acquire good young players while not giving up much which is why he makes so few trades"
kind of like "they'll do well in restricted free agency", I can't prove it to be false!
AK is a 100% a buyer -- he's a discount-rack, thrift store shopper always looking to score "finds". He's careful with his cash but financially illiterate when it comes to acquiring, saving, and spending draft pick currency.
Is the Lavine trade the only move he's made that you could call selling? In that he got some picks back and took on some "bad" salaries (that actually ended up being pretty good). I honestly can't think of any other move. I guess Lauri? Caruso/Giddey *should* have been a sell, but no need to re-litigate that one.
Where most of us see taking "bad" salaries, AK sees "guys who can help the team be more competitive". In this example maybe we're both right? Huerter and Collins are both overpaid and useful.
But per your question, besides the Zach trade, the Lauri trade was another outlier in that AK sold him for both a (protected) 1st rounder and a decent player. Whether moving on from Lauri was the right call in retrospect, I do know that everyone on this site was clamoring to get rid of him and I was a fan of the trade at the time. We did sell low on him but it felt like a decent return for selling low.
I don't think AK had any assessment of Jones, Collins or Huerter. They were just salaries to match. KC said right after the trade they were looking to flip all of them.
but AK may, at least should, have confidence that ANY healthy-and-merely-playable player can 'look good in their system', they play a high pace, egalitarian shot attempts, bench-heavy style.
the LaVine trade was good, and exactly what they should be doing more of. that it was only done in isolation makes it not as big of a win
He's definitely zagging while everyone else zigs on the draft pick thing.
and you can't argue with the strategy when he's been so successful
I’m not against that strategy in theory, but I don’t think that the Bulls front office can find 9-10 good players. This is their sixth season and they have almost nothing to show for it. They’re no closer to being a contender than they were when they were hired.
At the end of the day you have to prove it on the court, but I think we're getting there. Let's upgrade at two positions this summer and let our young core guys get better.
AK’s inability to decide if he’s a buyer or seller creates such a massive disadvantage for this team at the trade deadline. I think this has been an underrated problem for him every year.
Other teams have likely known if they’re going to be buyers or sellers for weeks now. That probably means they’ve already started to have serious conversations about trades. The deadline is likely just when they put their finishing touches on the transactions and make them official.
AK seems to wait until the deadline to decide what he MIGHT want to do and then tries to quickly make a deal happen based on the decision he just made. By then, it’s too late because teams are further down the road with other transactions.
This would explain why every deadline he acts like they did a lot of work when they actually accomplished nothing.
he should also be well down the road of knowing what Coby and Ayo want on their next contract.
but no it'll be a shrug and "we'll see"
Big 3 game series with Miami coming up
Bulls rumors: see how these games go before deciding to make a minor move at best
Heat rumors: trade for Giannis
Yep, it's interesting how different the franchises are. Heat have one of the best GMs, Bulls have the worst. Heat have one of the best destinations to attract players, Bulls have one of the worst. Heat have one of the best coaches. Billy is mediocre. Heat will spend whatever they can to build the best team, Reinsdorf saves war nickels.
Yet here they both are side by side year after year in play-in hell.
Jeremy Sochan interest was only rumored by AI-bot Evan Sidery, but it's more true that 1) the Spurs are interest in dealing him and 2) he's the kind of player AK would like in that he was drafted high, still young (22.7 years old) and stinks
https://www.hoopsrumors.com/2026/01/steins-latest-sochan-knecht-pelicans-kessler-towns-ellis-dinwiddie.html
Sochan stinks and he's a dirty, dirty player (been watching him since college and if you want a longer and more athletic Grayson Allen but with zero basketball skill, he's your guy!). I can't think of many players I'd want LESS than that dude.
One of the more humorous examples: https://www.cbssports.com/nba/news/grizzlies-steven-adams-says-spurs-jeremy-sochan-pinched-his-nipple-in-attempt-to-break-his-concentration/
now firmly on the Sochan train because it'd mean Pat Williams doesn't play
I can't think of a way Bulls get him though without giving up something they should be using for something better
Roster snapshot for tonight's Pacers matchup -> https://substack.com/profile/3012-your-friendly-bullsblogger/note/c-206672785
they're pretty much fully healthy (no Haliburton or Toppin all season, of course) and on paper may be as talented as the current Bulls. Also the game is in Indianapolis, so I could easily see a mild upset (Pacers +2.5) tonight. Or Vuc and Jalen Smith dominate their frontcourt, Buzelis plays 19 minutes, and easy Bulls W
interesting, Billy pulled Jalen Smith from starting lineup for Giddey. the lack of double-big likely works better against the Pacers. And there really isn't a great option otherwise, if you take Okoro out then no perimeter defender, and if you take Matas out people (deservedly) riot
yeah this is really trying my patience of watching Vuc-ball in 2026
look at the brains on yfBB!
I'm looking at the Hawks roster and they could have an easy deal with Milwaukee for Giannis. I think Risacher and New Orleans' pick would beat any other offers. Add CJ and Kennard expirings and a couple low level picks and you're done.
One of the writers on the Ringer threw out a possible Ayo deal.
OKC trading Dieng and two 1st for Ayo.....that seems highly unlikely on OKC's part but if that's a possibility.....
There's no way AK trades with OKC again without Presti absolutely fleecing him.
Watched for the first time and things seem to be par for the course. Back to my no-Bulls slumber. Anyway good news is we’re so hopeless that non-Bulls fans are writing about us!
https://pistonpowered.com/detroit-pistons-fans-will-laugh-bulls-trade-deadline-plans
I'm shocked Pistons players are over the indignity of tanking, just think how much better their development would have been in a 'all about winning' environment
With last night's loss, the Bulls are now 3-9 against the bottom 5 teams in the East. But I'm sure AK is still "gathering information!"
I am already mad that he's going to say (and he will say this genuinely, because he's a moron) that they had a good record against good teams but he "doesn't know" why they have a bad record against bad teams
Well, they're 6-8 against the top 5 teams in the East and West, so not terrible, but not tearing it up either. For a guy who's all about sample sizes, how about 17-23 over the last 40 games?