I didn't think I could be more done with this team but here we are. Can you call it "reaching a new low" when you've just been on one long interminable decline?
What's even the fucking point with this team? Here's what they'll do because none of the Reinsdorfs can be bothered to spare a single brain cell on building a winning team:
- Draft a long guy with no skills
- Pay 15-20% of the cap to your own guys coming off rookie deals
- Pay 20-25% of the cap on C-tier free agents that no one else is bidding on
- Throw a max contract at anyone who overachieves for 40-ish games
- Repeat forever
Looking around other social media platforms, I'm pretty much seeing NO ONE still defending AKME. This is late stage GarPax levels of despondency. This team sucks, the "plan" fucking sucks, the ownership sucks, and it will be this way until a once-storied franchise is nothing more than a pathetic footnote in history.
I think it's funny that nobody even wants to do the deep dive in how bad Karnisovas is. The Ringer, etc. just mentions them in passing, even when they're talking about the rare trade they actually participated in, and they make confused noises and move on to actually interesting talk, which the Bulls are not.
GarPax was kind of a Plan 9 From Outer Space bad. Showgirls bad. The AKME Bulls are like... one of those algorithmic Netflix movies that have a guy you kinda remember from 10 years ago and a plot where something explodes every 4.7 minutes.
I’ve commented before (I think elsewhere) that though I call myself a Bulls fan, I don’t really care whether they tank, because (unless they luck into a can’t miss prospect, which would be unlikely) they don’t know how to draft, or they don’t tank, since either way they’re going nowhere - so am I really still a Bulls fan? At least now I have the luxury of rooting for other teams that are more credible.
This happened for me during the Vinny Del Negro Era. I remember moving into my then-fiancée’s apartment and being super excited about the third year of the Kevin Durant Era of OKC and rookies James Harden and Serge Ibaka. Second season of VDN.
It was a great season where OKC came out of “nowhere” to win 50 games. The Bulls made moves and were excellent after that, but allowing myself to follow “The League” and the players really freed me up much more to enjoy pro basketball.
The only thing that kept me following the Bulls was the community at BlogABull, and they’re still technically my favorite team. But loving the league and the sport just for the sport itself is fun.
Lol I'm sort of lucking into not caring due to just other priorities. 3 kids take up either my time or the television screens as it stands, and Everytime I put on a bulls game my kids gripe because it's "sooo boring" and ...I get it. The bulls have not been a competitive team in their lifetime, why would they care.
So not watching games has become easier. And even blogabull, why I love this community, I just no longer have anything to say. We've seen all of this before. We knew it was coming...find a comment of mine from 5 years ago and it's still true and likely negative.
I think this whole Luka Lakers thing just has now completely destroyed my love for the NBA. It's whatever....I'll pay attention to the team here and there in case they decide to actually care....but I figure until they show me they care, I won't.
I do generally agree that the entire rebuild is doomed regardless if AKME is running it
...unless they get the #1 pick, if Flagg is a can't-miss, then even AK can't miss. I wish there was a way to passive aggressively ask AK about this dynamic, where fans are rooting for failure because it takes decisions out of their hands
I am so indifferent towards this team. I expected them to barely do anything and they fulfilled that prophecy so hooray. I can't even be mad anymore, what's the point. looking forward to having an all guard roster for next year
i absolutely know that, we all do. i'm just saying that AKME is so ineffectual it almost makes the previous regime look palatable which we all know they were not
This is so fucking tiresome. Any half-interested fan who has played 2K or fantasy basketball could do a better job. I hate this organization. If they end up in the play-in again I might just become a fucking Cavs fan.
I've floated the idea of running an online GM manager challenge, where people compete for the opportunity to replace AK. Reinsdorf should love it because people could pay to enter and he could charge people to watch the actual competition.
And beyond that, it would draw in an entirely new crowd... kids who are into video gaming, but not real world sports.
"I’m no longer upset at AK’s brutal press conferences or the Bulls’ media corps inability to get more out of him to where I’ll do a fisking of them anymore. The man is a dimwit. There are always attempts at good questions to get him to be accountable, and he literally doesn’t understand them. And I don’t think that’s an act. It shows a lack of respect for the audience, and thus I have no respect for him. Any media member that is granting him respect because of his position means they don’t respect themselves."
This is so true. There actually were some relevant questions this time. He just completely dodged them, but as you say it appears as much likely that it was because he didn't understand them rather than a subtle strategy to remain secretive.
It's always funny to me that AK believes Billy is this fantastic coach, yet also Billy could not handle any change in the locker room or not having 9 guards
The Chicago sports reporters really suck. Do any of themSheepshead. understand the details of the draft pick the Bulls got back in the Lavine deal? Here's Julia Poe:
"their haul included full rights to a 2025 first-round pick they were already on track to retain".
That's it? Maybe she doesn't know that if the pick was not conveyed this year, it would have rolled over to a top-8 protected pick the next 2 years? And then a 2nd after that?
Rick Morrissey even said yesterday that we "didn't even get a first round pick" for Zach. For the same reason, I think. His brain didn't absorb that even if our pick this year is top 10, the likelihood was that the Spurs would have got the pick in 2026 or 2027.
If that is the brainpower of our reporting team, it's no wonder they can't figure out how to ask AK a compelling question today. Sheesh.
Bulls VP Arturas Karnisovas: "There's different structures that you can try to get to a championship. There's 2-3 star players and then a lot of role players or you can build it as 9-10 very good players."
He says they're building toward the latter model.
Holy hell, he literally has no clue what he’s doing.
Maybe the 2004 Pistons? That's the best argument for actual champions. That Hawks team that had all 5 starters in the All-Star game a few years back is another example, though they flamed out in the playoffs. Still, even if you grant those examples, then that's only two "very good player teams" in the last 20 years that were good.
Yeah, those are good examples. My first thought was the Mavs team that beat the Heat, but I guess Dirk would have technically been considered a star at the time.
Yup that Pistons team may not have had first team all NBA superstars but they had awesome defense and enough players who could score too. The bulls suck on defense and certainly don't have Wallace, Rip, Billups to get buckets.
When is last champion that didn't have some really good defenders?
I counted it up once and the 2004 Pistons had like 16 to 20 all star appearances between them. We were talking about this on discord the other day, player analysis in those days was just so primitive that guys who had just a rudimentary openness to it (Dumars, Paxson, etc.) could dominate other GMs in transactions before they were both eclipsed. Rip Hamilton was tagged as a poor defender and finesse scorer in Washington (really). The Celtics worked out Ben Wallace as a SF because that's what he looked like when he stood next to other centers. Chauncey was the ultimate late bloomer and having been on so many teams at his age gave him an unsavory sort of reputation.
ESPN has article full of his quotes and it does not make him or Bulls look smart at all. He said basically you can build a team with couple stars and role players or 9-10 really good players and the latter was what they were doing. Which I take as they have no idea, as they still do not have enough players with skills or draft picks to get them. It seems they continue to over-value their guys; who would start on a championship Team? And have no clue how to build one. Nobody is winning without Talent and Bulls role out average or one way players
Who on the Bulls could crack the starting lineup on a conference finalist? Coby is the only guy who strikes me that way. Maybe Matas in a few years. That's the end of the list. If the plan is to be strong 1-10 I guess all they need to do is find 8-9 more above average NBA players for their rotation.
"Although Chicago stood pat on any additional moves, the team believes it laid the groundwork for a trade in the offseason, sources said."
This is from Jamal Collier but Cowley posted it first with almost EXACTLY the same language, and he did so hours BEFORE the presser:
"Not what Bulls fans want to hear with deadline less than an hour away, but told a good amount of calls AK made today were focused on groundwork for the summer. They need a team to get an itch for that to change in about 50 minutes and counting."
Clearly the media has been briefed, which is hilarious. Why on earth would a reporter care what these clowns say rather than what these clowns do?
This is crazy. Every person that covers this team was apparently briefed and despite almost universal fan criticism, years of history, having functioning brains, etc. everyone is publishing it totally uncritically.
Yes, again Poe apparently was misunderstanding the value of the 1st round pick the Bulls got back from SA:
"Karnišovas listed three types of assets the Bulls targeted throughout the past year, prioritized in this order: draft compensation, young players and flexibility. But they have been able to acquire only the bottom two priorities, missing out on opportunities to amass draft capital both last summer and this week."
Of the four picks that SA sent out in the Fox-Lavine deal, the Bulls pick was better than any of the 3 that went to the Kings.
ok but she's talking about the last year of moves, they have only gotten their own pick back (I do agree it's more valuable than some believe - as if the Bulls would intentionally keep it protected for next 3 drafts) and one second rounder
I wish we knew what the Warriors offered for Vuc. I doubt it was anything that anyone on this board would have been excited about. Looney, Moody and a 2nd rounder, maybe?
An expiring, a cost controlled young guy (who probably isn’t that good but is okay) and a 2nd (or maybe 2) plus improving draft status/more strongly picking a direction is not that bad for a 34-year-old center who apparently nobody else wants. Exciting? Nah but there is never gonna be an exciting Vooch trade.
And the “fun” part about lamenting Vooch’s trade value is that we can blame AK for that too since he gave an aging center 3 guaranteed years at $20M per year while fielding a mid team with little upside.
Maybe there will be some team that steps up with a “big” Vooch offer this offseason but I’m just struggling to see any team that desperate to do it. Even the Dubs I’m guessing would still not even tho they need a center upgrade. Maybe im wrong but I’ll believe it when I see it.
I truly don't understand this apparently obvious (according to them) belief that Vucevic's trade value is going to somehow be meaningfully higher in the summer. Even as an expiring, he's going to be making $21M next season as a 35-year-old center who's one of the worst starting defensive centers in the NBA. Why would any team interested in him now all of a sudden be willing to pay more in the offseason. Who is PINING for 35-year-old Vooch? Even the Warriors...like are they really going to give up a 1st for him then? I just don't see it.
With Collins and Huerter, they now have like $90 million in contracts that expire after next year, so why Vuc would be relevant or even particularly useful in that context is a mystery. They could have pulled the trigger on a trade and even if they got long term money back, they'd still have $70 million+ in expirings next year.
Online hype aside, I'm not sure I believe anyone in the league wanted Vuc under any circumstance. No playoff contender is going to have him on the floor in the 4th quarter of a game. Golden State isn't a stupid organization. They didn't want Vuc, get real.
I actually do think they did. Have you seen their other options?! But they certainly weren’t going to give up a first for him. All the reporting out there suggests the Bulls would have only traded him for a lightly protected or unprotected first. Ian Begley even claimed they wouldn’t have taken a first if it was protected and turned into multiple seconds down the road.
I'm a bit skeptical, partly because we know for sure now that Karnisovas was working the media to give the impression of how active he was and damn your lying eyes, but more importantly Golden State has never really prioritized this type of player. Kerr has been playing Post lately (after he destroyed the Bulls but has never looked that good again), but tbh Kerr seems to have lost the plot. I've kind of never seen a coach with his resumé and a veteran team like this run through so many junk plans and change a mostly healthy lineup seemingly every game.
But whatever the case, you're right that they weren't giving up a first for a type of player they've never really valued that much.
I think I found it and that the source is AK. He mentions a "private conversation with some of the media" at 6:30 in response to Cowley's 1st question:
"No, what I said that in our also private conversations with some of the media, you know, that if, you know, the next 30 games we're going to be out of the playin..."
(Word salad is verbatim.)
With this context AK also looks kind of pissed that Cowley is mentioning it. He sort of emphasizes "private" and throws in the word "also," as if to say, "Uh, you're not getting the zoom link next year buddy."
perhaps. I have heard from Cowley that there was a big media scrum preseason that was off the record (and thus I think AK was hurt by his statements being brought up, lmao)
but then this morning heard KC Johnson say that there was another such meeting when they were practicing at USC. So maybe it was then as well
and there was ANOTHER one after the press conference, though that may have just been KC with the team's network
So what this means is they held a meeting with media, on background and not for attribution, before the deadline even arrived and with a presser scheduled for a few hours after. The message of this call was don't panic, we didn't do very much, but we "laid the groundwork" through a series of phone calls for doing much more this summer. It was only to be attributed to "sources."
Maybe they do this all the time, but the quality of reporters is now so bad that they all used exactly the same language, and Cowley was insolent enough to mention the call.
But I don't think so. Preparing his remarks in advance and reading them verbatim also suggests an uncommon concern with "shaping the message" before it got out. After years of treating the public and press with contempt, they (Arturas, at least) seems very concerned with what people write and say about him right now.
Update on this mystery: Cowley has a podcast with Dave Kaplan (I deserve hazard pay) and re told this story and it was definitely not Arturas himself. But it was a unified message with what Arturas was saying to the rest of the front office
Not that I link Cowley anyway but he clearly was (no pun intended) cowed by this source. Even after asking pretty antagonistic questions and acknowledging AK had a terrible press conference, Cowley still was willing to give them the offseason
Keep in mind Cowley also thinks Vuc is good, so that informs his opinion that there's gonna be this huge Vuc trade this summer 🙄
This is so stupid. So a team didn't want to trade for Vuc now, when he could help them with a playoff run right away, but they would be willing to trade for him in the summer? Does "laying the groundwork" just mean that AK finally got all of the other GMs' phone numbers?
> But then when they do the actual talking, and make their actual moves (or lack thereof) it becomes, actually, not confusing at all. This is all going according to plan, the plan just sucks.
This is a great point. They're telling us over and over (well... once a year) what they plan to do. You can look at the roster itself and we can argue over which of the 2 or 3 bad options they will take, but they're all going to be variations on essentially awful plans.
So I’m just going to throw this question out there: Does AK… ever actually pay attention to other teams in the league? Or does he only pay attention to the Bulls and only sees other teams when they play the Bulls?
Because the only explanation for how he could be so clueless on what his team actually needs is if he just genuinely has no idea how they compare to the rest of the league.
Like when the playoffs are going on, he must just be sitting at home and watching reruns of 80s sitcoms. It’s the only explanation.
The Vucevic nonsense aside, what the fuck are these guys doing with this backcourt? They apparently had a lot of interest in Coby (KC said at least 7 teams called) and seemingly could have gotten a lot for him, but nothing. KC says they want to keep Ayo. KC says they want to keep Tre Jones (really?!). Lonzo just got extended. I assume they're re-signing Giddey because AK isn't admitting that mistake. Jevon Carter is still under contract next season. So is Kevin Huerter! What is going on here?!
NEW POST (on the same old shit) https://www.blogabull.com/p/no-need-to-spin-arturas-karnisovass
I didn't think I could be more done with this team but here we are. Can you call it "reaching a new low" when you've just been on one long interminable decline?
What's even the fucking point with this team? Here's what they'll do because none of the Reinsdorfs can be bothered to spare a single brain cell on building a winning team:
- Draft a long guy with no skills
- Pay 15-20% of the cap to your own guys coming off rookie deals
- Pay 20-25% of the cap on C-tier free agents that no one else is bidding on
- Throw a max contract at anyone who overachieves for 40-ish games
- Repeat forever
Looking around other social media platforms, I'm pretty much seeing NO ONE still defending AKME. This is late stage GarPax levels of despondency. This team sucks, the "plan" fucking sucks, the ownership sucks, and it will be this way until a once-storied franchise is nothing more than a pathetic footnote in history.
I think it's funny that nobody even wants to do the deep dive in how bad Karnisovas is. The Ringer, etc. just mentions them in passing, even when they're talking about the rare trade they actually participated in, and they make confused noises and move on to actually interesting talk, which the Bulls are not.
GarPax was kind of a Plan 9 From Outer Space bad. Showgirls bad. The AKME Bulls are like... one of those algorithmic Netflix movies that have a guy you kinda remember from 10 years ago and a plot where something explodes every 4.7 minutes.
Need an update!
https://www.theringer.com/2022/11/28/nba/chicago-bulls-zach-lavine-demar-derozan-nikola-vucevic
Update is they got worse by not doing anything really after going all in and failing to realize they were not good
Battlefield Earth 2: AKME's Transition
Dammit that's so apt!
I’ve commented before (I think elsewhere) that though I call myself a Bulls fan, I don’t really care whether they tank, because (unless they luck into a can’t miss prospect, which would be unlikely) they don’t know how to draft, or they don’t tank, since either way they’re going nowhere - so am I really still a Bulls fan? At least now I have the luxury of rooting for other teams that are more credible.
This happened for me during the Vinny Del Negro Era. I remember moving into my then-fiancée’s apartment and being super excited about the third year of the Kevin Durant Era of OKC and rookies James Harden and Serge Ibaka. Second season of VDN.
It was a great season where OKC came out of “nowhere” to win 50 games. The Bulls made moves and were excellent after that, but allowing myself to follow “The League” and the players really freed me up much more to enjoy pro basketball.
The only thing that kept me following the Bulls was the community at BlogABull, and they’re still technically my favorite team. But loving the league and the sport just for the sport itself is fun.
Lol I'm sort of lucking into not caring due to just other priorities. 3 kids take up either my time or the television screens as it stands, and Everytime I put on a bulls game my kids gripe because it's "sooo boring" and ...I get it. The bulls have not been a competitive team in their lifetime, why would they care.
So not watching games has become easier. And even blogabull, why I love this community, I just no longer have anything to say. We've seen all of this before. We knew it was coming...find a comment of mine from 5 years ago and it's still true and likely negative.
I think this whole Luka Lakers thing just has now completely destroyed my love for the NBA. It's whatever....I'll pay attention to the team here and there in case they decide to actually care....but I figure until they show me they care, I won't.
They just need to replace AK with Kirk as head honcho, and you'll be back commenting every day with long posts :-)
You are........n't wrong....
I do generally agree that the entire rebuild is doomed regardless if AKME is running it
...unless they get the #1 pick, if Flagg is a can't-miss, then even AK can't miss. I wish there was a way to passive aggressively ask AK about this dynamic, where fans are rooting for failure because it takes decisions out of their hands
This press conference cemented for me the conclusion that there is no hope. AK has no idea what he is doing and ownership is OK with it.
I am so indifferent towards this team. I expected them to barely do anything and they fulfilled that prophecy so hooray. I can't even be mad anymore, what's the point. looking forward to having an all guard roster for next year
UGH IT LIVE
Please don't ugh if live. Boycott y'all, it's quite literally all we have left
You know it's bad when you say you know what....maybe GarPax wasn't that bad after all
No, they were dogshit.
i absolutely know that, we all do. i'm just saying that AKME is so ineffectual it almost makes the previous regime look palatable which we all know they were not
This is so fucking tiresome. Any half-interested fan who has played 2K or fantasy basketball could do a better job. I hate this organization. If they end up in the play-in again I might just become a fucking Cavs fan.
I've floated the idea of running an online GM manager challenge, where people compete for the opportunity to replace AK. Reinsdorf should love it because people could pay to enter and he could charge people to watch the actual competition.
And beyond that, it would draw in an entirely new crowd... kids who are into video gaming, but not real world sports.
"I’m no longer upset at AK’s brutal press conferences or the Bulls’ media corps inability to get more out of him to where I’ll do a fisking of them anymore. The man is a dimwit. There are always attempts at good questions to get him to be accountable, and he literally doesn’t understand them. And I don’t think that’s an act. It shows a lack of respect for the audience, and thus I have no respect for him. Any media member that is granting him respect because of his position means they don’t respect themselves."
This is so true. There actually were some relevant questions this time. He just completely dodged them, but as you say it appears as much likely that it was because he didn't understand them rather than a subtle strategy to remain secretive.
Based on how leashed the hosts are on CHSN, I'm expecting that it's going to get even more bleak.
KC Johnson: "Arturas, many compare the Bulls' momentum to that of a runaway train. Why are you so popular."
"Tell us more about this 3.5 year plan that you're now slowing while still being hopeful of making the playoffs."
He said they're still "charting" the plan. And these 30 games will make a difference. That's not how planning works!
Omg they're totally learning the team again.
"when we added Tre Jones, that was difficult"
It's always funny to me that AK believes Billy is this fantastic coach, yet also Billy could not handle any change in the locker room or not having 9 guards
The Chicago sports reporters really suck. Do any of themSheepshead. understand the details of the draft pick the Bulls got back in the Lavine deal? Here's Julia Poe:
"their haul included full rights to a 2025 first-round pick they were already on track to retain".
That's it? Maybe she doesn't know that if the pick was not conveyed this year, it would have rolled over to a top-8 protected pick the next 2 years? And then a 2nd after that?
Rick Morrissey even said yesterday that we "didn't even get a first round pick" for Zach. For the same reason, I think. His brain didn't absorb that even if our pick this year is top 10, the likelihood was that the Spurs would have got the pick in 2026 or 2027.
If that is the brainpower of our reporting team, it's no wonder they can't figure out how to ask AK a compelling question today. Sheesh.
Bulls VP Arturas Karnisovas: "There's different structures that you can try to get to a championship. There's 2-3 star players and then a lot of role players or you can build it as 9-10 very good players."
He says they're building toward the latter model.
Holy hell, he literally has no clue what he’s doing.
I wanted someone to follow up on that and ask him the last time a team won the championship without any stars.
How how many very good players do they have currently? He probably thinks they are half the way there when hard pressed to find 1-2
Yep that's the more relevant question to me as well
Maybe the 2004 Pistons? That's the best argument for actual champions. That Hawks team that had all 5 starters in the All-Star game a few years back is another example, though they flamed out in the playoffs. Still, even if you grant those examples, then that's only two "very good player teams" in the last 20 years that were good.
Yeah, those are good examples. My first thought was the Mavs team that beat the Heat, but I guess Dirk would have technically been considered a star at the time.
I should think so, he won MVP a few years prior
Yup that Pistons team may not have had first team all NBA superstars but they had awesome defense and enough players who could score too. The bulls suck on defense and certainly don't have Wallace, Rip, Billups to get buckets.
When is last champion that didn't have some really good defenders?
I counted it up once and the 2004 Pistons had like 16 to 20 all star appearances between them. We were talking about this on discord the other day, player analysis in those days was just so primitive that guys who had just a rudimentary openness to it (Dumars, Paxson, etc.) could dominate other GMs in transactions before they were both eclipsed. Rip Hamilton was tagged as a poor defender and finesse scorer in Washington (really). The Celtics worked out Ben Wallace as a SF because that's what he looked like when he stood next to other centers. Chauncey was the ultimate late bloomer and having been on so many teams at his age gave him an unsavory sort of reputation.
In fairness, it's only 9-10 because most will get injured anyway.
ESPN has article full of his quotes and it does not make him or Bulls look smart at all. He said basically you can build a team with couple stars and role players or 9-10 really good players and the latter was what they were doing. Which I take as they have no idea, as they still do not have enough players with skills or draft picks to get them. It seems they continue to over-value their guys; who would start on a championship Team? And have no clue how to build one. Nobody is winning without Talent and Bulls role out average or one way players
Subtext: The NBA playoffs are so fucked that even a dogshit team like ours can dream of making it in and GETTING SOME EXPERIENCE.
I am, once again, asking for Adam Silver to relegate the Eastern Conference
Who on the Bulls could crack the starting lineup on a conference finalist? Coby is the only guy who strikes me that way. Maybe Matas in a few years. That's the end of the list. If the plan is to be strong 1-10 I guess all they need to do is find 8-9 more above average NBA players for their rotation.
"Although Chicago stood pat on any additional moves, the team believes it laid the groundwork for a trade in the offseason, sources said."
This is from Jamal Collier but Cowley posted it first with almost EXACTLY the same language, and he did so hours BEFORE the presser:
"Not what Bulls fans want to hear with deadline less than an hour away, but told a good amount of calls AK made today were focused on groundwork for the summer. They need a team to get an itch for that to change in about 50 minutes and counting."
Clearly the media has been briefed, which is hilarious. Why on earth would a reporter care what these clowns say rather than what these clowns do?
Whoa. KC said it too https://nitter.poast.org/CHSN_Bulls/status/1887595864606269924#m
This is crazy. Every person that covers this team was apparently briefed and despite almost universal fan criticism, years of history, having functioning brains, etc. everyone is publishing it totally uncritically.
not Julia Poe, at least
https://archive.ph/krahR
Yes, again Poe apparently was misunderstanding the value of the 1st round pick the Bulls got back from SA:
"Karnišovas listed three types of assets the Bulls targeted throughout the past year, prioritized in this order: draft compensation, young players and flexibility. But they have been able to acquire only the bottom two priorities, missing out on opportunities to amass draft capital both last summer and this week."
Of the four picks that SA sent out in the Fox-Lavine deal, the Bulls pick was better than any of the 3 that went to the Kings.
ok but she's talking about the last year of moves, they have only gotten their own pick back (I do agree it's more valuable than some believe - as if the Bulls would intentionally keep it protected for next 3 drafts) and one second rounder
Darnell also was not uncritical
https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/6120372/2025/02/07/bulls-nba-trade-franchise-zach-lavine-changes/
I wish we knew what the Warriors offered for Vuc. I doubt it was anything that anyone on this board would have been excited about. Looney, Moody and a 2nd rounder, maybe?
An expiring, a cost controlled young guy (who probably isn’t that good but is okay) and a 2nd (or maybe 2) plus improving draft status/more strongly picking a direction is not that bad for a 34-year-old center who apparently nobody else wants. Exciting? Nah but there is never gonna be an exciting Vooch trade.
And the “fun” part about lamenting Vooch’s trade value is that we can blame AK for that too since he gave an aging center 3 guaranteed years at $20M per year while fielding a mid team with little upside.
Maybe there will be some team that steps up with a “big” Vooch offer this offseason but I’m just struggling to see any team that desperate to do it. Even the Dubs I’m guessing would still not even tho they need a center upgrade. Maybe im wrong but I’ll believe it when I see it.
Agree that it's fun to complain about the past. Also agree there is no exciting Vuc trade. In fact, I am pretty sure that the point of my post.
That wouldn't be exciting, but would be a good deal, and better than they'd get this offseason.
You know what I know isn't exciting? Keeping Vuc!
True. A bad deal would be more exciting than nothing.
I truly don't understand this apparently obvious (according to them) belief that Vucevic's trade value is going to somehow be meaningfully higher in the summer. Even as an expiring, he's going to be making $21M next season as a 35-year-old center who's one of the worst starting defensive centers in the NBA. Why would any team interested in him now all of a sudden be willing to pay more in the offseason. Who is PINING for 35-year-old Vooch? Even the Warriors...like are they really going to give up a 1st for him then? I just don't see it.
That's not how groundwork works. It must be curated, romanced, wooed before getting laid.
And 'expiring' is only useful when the other team wants to send you longer-term money. Which the Bulls don't want either!
With Collins and Huerter, they now have like $90 million in contracts that expire after next year, so why Vuc would be relevant or even particularly useful in that context is a mystery. They could have pulled the trigger on a trade and even if they got long term money back, they'd still have $70 million+ in expirings next year.
Online hype aside, I'm not sure I believe anyone in the league wanted Vuc under any circumstance. No playoff contender is going to have him on the floor in the 4th quarter of a game. Golden State isn't a stupid organization. They didn't want Vuc, get real.
I actually do think they did. Have you seen their other options?! But they certainly weren’t going to give up a first for him. All the reporting out there suggests the Bulls would have only traded him for a lightly protected or unprotected first. Ian Begley even claimed they wouldn’t have taken a first if it was protected and turned into multiple seconds down the road.
I'm a bit skeptical, partly because we know for sure now that Karnisovas was working the media to give the impression of how active he was and damn your lying eyes, but more importantly Golden State has never really prioritized this type of player. Kerr has been playing Post lately (after he destroyed the Bulls but has never looked that good again), but tbh Kerr seems to have lost the plot. I've kind of never seen a coach with his resumé and a veteran team like this run through so many junk plans and change a mostly healthy lineup seemingly every game.
But whatever the case, you're right that they weren't giving up a first for a type of player they've never really valued that much.
Because it can't get lower? Did anybody offer anything positive to us? Or was it just a 2nd rounder and bad contracts?
It'll get lower in the Bulls having to attach a second rounder
The front office isn't that big. It's not AK. Remember Collier had a big article on Eversley from the summer.
Cowley's source is usually Michael Reinsdorf but I don't think that makes as much sense if it's going to three reporters
I think I found it and that the source is AK. He mentions a "private conversation with some of the media" at 6:30 in response to Cowley's 1st question:
"No, what I said that in our also private conversations with some of the media, you know, that if, you know, the next 30 games we're going to be out of the playin..."
(Word salad is verbatim.)
With this context AK also looks kind of pissed that Cowley is mentioning it. He sort of emphasizes "private" and throws in the word "also," as if to say, "Uh, you're not getting the zoom link next year buddy."
perhaps. I have heard from Cowley that there was a big media scrum preseason that was off the record (and thus I think AK was hurt by his statements being brought up, lmao)
but then this morning heard KC Johnson say that there was another such meeting when they were practicing at USC. So maybe it was then as well
and there was ANOTHER one after the press conference, though that may have just been KC with the team's network
So what this means is they held a meeting with media, on background and not for attribution, before the deadline even arrived and with a presser scheduled for a few hours after. The message of this call was don't panic, we didn't do very much, but we "laid the groundwork" through a series of phone calls for doing much more this summer. It was only to be attributed to "sources."
Maybe they do this all the time, but the quality of reporters is now so bad that they all used exactly the same language, and Cowley was insolent enough to mention the call.
But I don't think so. Preparing his remarks in advance and reading them verbatim also suggests an uncommon concern with "shaping the message" before it got out. After years of treating the public and press with contempt, they (Arturas, at least) seems very concerned with what people write and say about him right now.
what i don't get then is how he didn't say 'groundwork' himself. the man knows very few words, and understands even fewer
Update on this mystery: Cowley has a podcast with Dave Kaplan (I deserve hazard pay) and re told this story and it was definitely not Arturas himself. But it was a unified message with what Arturas was saying to the rest of the front office
Not that I link Cowley anyway but he clearly was (no pun intended) cowed by this source. Even after asking pretty antagonistic questions and acknowledging AK had a terrible press conference, Cowley still was willing to give them the offseason
Keep in mind Cowley also thinks Vuc is good, so that informs his opinion that there's gonna be this huge Vuc trade this summer 🙄
That groundwork is gonna get so laid oh yeah baby.
This is so stupid. So a team didn't want to trade for Vuc now, when he could help them with a playoff run right away, but they would be willing to trade for him in the summer? Does "laying the groundwork" just mean that AK finally got all of the other GMs' phone numbers?
> But then when they do the actual talking, and make their actual moves (or lack thereof) it becomes, actually, not confusing at all. This is all going according to plan, the plan just sucks.
This is a great point. They're telling us over and over (well... once a year) what they plan to do. You can look at the roster itself and we can argue over which of the 2 or 3 bad options they will take, but they're all going to be variations on essentially awful plans.
At least in 3.5 more years we'll exactly where we are now, on the brink of the edge of the playoffs picture.
Why did I just read that ESPN article?
Curate? What in the actual fuck is this guy on? What does he think he's curating?
So I’m just going to throw this question out there: Does AK… ever actually pay attention to other teams in the league? Or does he only pay attention to the Bulls and only sees other teams when they play the Bulls?
Because the only explanation for how he could be so clueless on what his team actually needs is if he just genuinely has no idea how they compare to the rest of the league.
Like when the playoffs are going on, he must just be sitting at home and watching reruns of 80s sitcoms. It’s the only explanation.
The Vucevic nonsense aside, what the fuck are these guys doing with this backcourt? They apparently had a lot of interest in Coby (KC said at least 7 teams called) and seemingly could have gotten a lot for him, but nothing. KC says they want to keep Ayo. KC says they want to keep Tre Jones (really?!). Lonzo just got extended. I assume they're re-signing Giddey because AK isn't admitting that mistake. Jevon Carter is still under contract next season. So is Kevin Huerter! What is going on here?!