the Bulls' sought-after "identity" is based on who plays, not how they play

plus the high-risk, low-reward signing of Josh Primo

It was brought up in the comments over the summer that this year’s Bulls team couldn’t be called boring while so much of the roster is still unsettled.

I suppose there is inherent interest in potential chaos, but as of now it’s still mere potential, because since media day there’s been nothing of note.

For example, Zach LaVine - thought to be a real flashpoint of controversy - is fully invested and ready to go:

"I committed to the Bulls when I signed my five-year deal. So until I'm not, I'm committed to the Bulls. I've always brought professionalism and consistent play, and that's what I'll continue to do. I love Chicago; I've always wanted to be in a place that wanted me, and Chicago showed me that.”

Oh, sorry, my mistake, that’s a Zach quote from the 2023 training camp.

Remember that one? Camp Nashville! Team bonding, offense was going to pick up the pace and spread the ball around and shoot more threes, Vuc offering the suggestion: “more Vuc?¹”…

It’s almost tough to remember what happened because NBA seasons are so long, with Chicago Bulls seasons - though technically ending earlier - feeling even longer, and the team officials are relying on that to try and memory-hole what happened: LaVine and co. were fully healthy, abandoned everything they talked about in camp during an opening night loss and had a team meeting afterwards, then went 5-13 over the next few weeks.

THEN LaVine got hurt, and the season turned around.

So maybe I am cynical, but I’m finding it hard to be convinced that this same plan will work out in their favor this time, somehow, with worse players. When KC Johnson says on state media that LaVine is “buying into what the Bulls are trying to do”, I don’t question LaVine’s sincerity as much as I pause and think ‘wait, what are the Bulls trying to do?’

Arturas Karnisovas and his media shield Billy Donovan tried to say that while they may not win they will develop more vague characteristics like ‘identity’ and ‘habits’ in ‘trying to win’. And this training camp was super critical because unlike the past few years these are new combinations of players.

Unfortunately, the hyped main cog in this theoretical engine, Josh Giddey, hasn’t been able to fully practice. No identity forging? No Bulls fault.

That’s been the entirety of ‘news’ the past week as the team preps for their first preseason game on Tuesday. It’s so uneventful I don’t even understand the business calculation of covering the team at all. You sit around for 1-3 hours while practice finishes up and then get told the degree of which Giddey and others weren’t fully participating. Put that information out on a platform that isn’t even paying you² and that’s it until the next day. This lack of information isn’t uncommon in the NBA nowadays, but most other teams are inherently interesting.

So we don’t know even if Giddey will play in the preseason game. I am inferring that the absence of information about Patrick Williams means he is ready to go. The other starters haven’t been announced, but will very likely include LaVine and Vuc.

If the Bulls were serious about building an identity surrounding a new style of play (plus develop young players and maybe conveniently guarantee you keep this year’s pick), it’d be Ayo Dosunmu and Jalen Smith in those spots. As I gathered from media day, they clearly don’t really feel that seriously about such things compared to their other goals, such as: making sure a trade of their vets saves them money, and being co-opted for The Knee-turn: A Lonzo Ball Story³

So I’m not buying any of these extremely small morsels of news coming from camp. We’ll see who Donovan plays, and that’ll inform us where their priorities lie.

Speaking of how futile Bulls media has become, as I’ve said before the team sees the upside in them being irrelevant to the point where they don’t have to encounter scrutiny. Thus how they can do something like sign Josh Primo, while never announcing it on their own press channels (just get KC to relay it), and there’s no demand or (from what I can tell) even a suggestion that the team comments on it.

I thought Darnell Mayberry⁴ and The Athletic’s social/headline writers were especially pathetic in this instance, publicizing a column implying they’d answer “why” the Bulls signed Primo but the article itself contained zero insight. I won’t even link it, it posited the generic concept of Mayberry figuring that the Bulls, as we all know, suck; and thus they certainly must be desperate in their search for talent to take risks like this. He did offer some editorializing calling it “purely a low-risk, high-reward proposition”, which is blatantly wrong: there’s an extremely low chance of a currently-injured guard making an impact with the big club⁵, so low that it’s actually lower than him being a recidivist.

I’m not even questioning the more nuanced attributes of this, like whether Primo should be afforded any opportunities, or what the Bulls owe to those vulnerable to sexual violence, but merely whether the franchise put in any extra effort or consideration. Did they do their own vetting of Primo? Did they just assume since the Clippers signed him last year there was nothing new/further required? Do they think The Chicago Bulls Organization is uniquely suited to help reform Primo as a person or player?

Did anyone covering this team bother to try and ask? Or is that so much more effort than thumb-typing “Billy says Lonzo did some 5-on-5” and we all can agree the Chicago Bulls aren’t worth the effort, certainly not this season.

1. reminds me: I really enjoyed Nate Duncan’s Bulls season preview with CHGO’s Will Gottlieb. Lots of good stuff, and then a very minor part especially delighted me where Will tried to express sympathy for Vuc - clearly he enjoys covering the guy on a personal level - and Nate rightly called out Vuc for having an overinflated ego

2. in some cases, you pay to use it!

3. Donovan even said that they are focused on Lonzo having a career, not necessarily with the Bulls. With so many favors to Klutch between this and signing Smith and a couple other fringe clients, why can’t they work out a LaVine trade where AK can’t?

4. who first reported the signing, who says we’ll miss Woj!

5. He was not added to the active roster nor given a Two-Way contract. Primo was signed and immediately cut with contract language that earns him a bonus for sticking with the Bulls GLeague affiliate.