Brilliant!!! Especially the end about Primo. Chicago sports writing hasn’t been great and I’m-depth since I’ve been an adult (this century), but it’s just terrible right now. If the New York media is brutal to its sports organizations, then the Chicago media is just an oiled-up hand job.
KC Johnson tweeted that the Bulls had waived Primo a few hours after signing him, so I guess it was a training camp thing... Although apparently there is some expectation that he'll play for the Windy City Bulls.
This is one of the occasions where talking about identity should matter quite a bit to the team. Usually it's just pre-season pabulum, sure. But teams usually don't organize themselves around a player as weird as Josh Giddey. It does seem to me that if the Bulls are to reach the best version of this team, they will probably have to be a weird team with a distinct identity. Not predicting that they'll pull it off. Just saying that if a competent brain trust were working on this team, notions of team identity probably would be top of mind.
I agree with this. The Bulls have lacked any sort of identity probably since the Rose days. What are they supposed to be? Even the rebuilding teams with Hinrich, Gordon, Nocioni and Chandler had an identity.
Not saying creating an identity will make them good or anything like that, but at least it'll give them direction. Direction is something this team hasn't had since the Jimmy trade, and even then, it clearly didn't know what its direction was when Jimmy was becoming a star.
the rebuilding teams with Hinrich, Gordon, Nocioni and Chandler had...Hinrich, Gordon, Nocioni and Chandler
the identity comes from the best players. Bulls don't have that because they just traded away two, one they want to ship out of town, and their best chance of getting a best player is being terrible and lucky
I do agree with TheMoon that Giddey-up ball is the identity they likely seek. But they are bad at fully committing to it, and of course communicating it. They still think they need to pretend Zach LaVine is important, and pushing the idea for the 4th season in a row that Zach can really play well off-ball if he wanted to.
Now, if they bench Zach game one I'll believe them
#TeamInteresting is going to have a rude awakening in November, after which they'll go back to sleep because a 15 to 20 win team is almost never "interesting." They're bad, and bad basketball can be funny but not if you're a fan that is rooting for the comedians. If they play uptempo, they won't be very good at it, and will be playing matador defense on the other end and will show a total inability to properly execute on either end. That's what bad teams play like. It's Billy Ray Denzel Valentine Washington taking pull-up hero ball 3s with 19 seconds on the shot clock.
This team in particular is not going to be the rare exception because they players are not particularly young or talented. You could say the Spurs were "interesting" last year and you'd be right. They lost a lot of games with an absolutely fucking amazing generational talent who can make it from the 3 point line to the paint in one and half steps. You can squint until your eyes are closed and not see anything like that again, and you won't see anything like that here.
30 wins at least. This team isn't that bad. What's interesting about this team is the things we don't know yet but are optimistic for:
1) Are LaVine's minutes pure sabotage or integrated and effective.
2) Is the summer work gonna show for: Coby, Ayo, Dalen, Phillips
3) Do they Coby/Ayo led vibes take hold?
4) Does Zach defer to Coby down the stretch?
5) Does the team play together offensively or defensively?
If these questions are answered negatively then at least we got rotational minutes drama, with a deep bench of hungry pros fighting for their pro lives and at least one rookie whose minutes will be magnified.
I can't see this team bottoming out as hard as the Denzel/Boylan team. That team relied on players named Satoransky, Thaddeus, Chandler and Arcidiacono. Clearly worse (and younger) at every level of the roster.
You think so? Because I would take even the 2020 version of Zach/Markkanen/Wendell/Coby/Satoransky over 2025's Zach/Pat/Vuc/Coby/Giddey. Archidiacano started 4 games that year and was 11th on the team in minutes/game.
"2) Is the summer work gonna show for: Coby, Ayo, Dalen, Phillips"
Are you trying to make me sad or cheer me up with the gift of laughter.
Edit: Also that starting 5 in 2020 must have had an average age of around 23? 24? Way younger. The Bulls bench now is "young" because it's filled with their own (thus far) failed draft picks.
Not surprised by Lonzo being ruled out. Darnell's tweet yesterday about Billy saying he wasn't sure if Lonzo would play but thinks his ramp up isn't close to being done sort of gave that one away. I'm genuinely curious if Lonzo will play in the first game of the regular season.
The Gary Coleman doc on Peacock is a laugh riot. When he's on his death bed and his ex-wife who may have killed him takes a selfie and sells it to the tabloids, I was in stitches. :(
Update for the CHSN (chosen? chisen?) channel: DirecTV, Astound/RCN and U Verse have made deals with them and added it to their line-up. So that's a thing.
I looked at my cable and they're airing it in the old NBCSportsNet slot.
I just saw Zach drive 1-on-3, ignoring a shooter in the corner, and missing the layup, in the 2nd quarter of a pre-season game. I feel like I'm reporting a UFO.
Billy calling a timeout 90 seconds in after the Bulls go down 8-0. Pat dribbling off his foot the first possession of the game. Zach passing up a wide open three and trying to dribble into traffic.
Anyone who believed DeMar was screwing over the young guys is an idiot. With that being said, I'm happy DeMar isn't on the team anymore. It was time for both sides to move on.
I have to pull back and anti-shoutout a particular holder of this opinion. I don't think it's any meaningful consensus anymore that Pat is being held back by circumstance
the 'Organizations win Championships' podcast, with WSCR's Dan Bernstein and his mini-me son, never let up on this. Don't listen!
It's hard to quantify. If the Bulls manage to trade Vooch and Zach this year and Pat is basically forced into being the third scorer, obviously his stats are going to go up. But that doesn't mean they're going up because he's been held back the past four years. They're just going up because he's getting more shots.
That's what I feel like so many people don't understand. They point to games where Pat was forced to be more heavily featured in the offense and say that's what he'd produce every night if he weren't stuck behind DeMar but it's not true. It just means he'd be forced to take more shots and therefore would make a few more shots.
I'd like to see Pat featured more heavily in the offense, but it's not because I think he's secretly better than he is and just hasn't been given the opportunity to show it. I think Pat's biggest problem is his confidence. He's got a bunch of other problems, but none of them are even worth addressing if he can't fix his confidence issues. Putting more of a load on him on offense would force him to either gain the confidence he needs or wilt under pressure and it'll become clear the guy will never be more than a decent 3 and D guy off the bench.
If he gains that confidence though, then you know you've got something and you can start working on his other issues - dribbling, creating off the bounce, hands of ice, etc. To me though, running him out as the fifth option on offense for his whole career just doesn't make sense. It's clear he's not going to go seize the opportunity so you need to shove it in his face. He'll either sink or he'll swim, but at least it'll give you direction.
The amount of blow-bys already in this game is truly incredible. The Bulls very well could have the worst defense in the league this year. And I expect their offense will be bottom 10 as well.
Yeah, the inside is just getting carved up. Even when Chicago had a "big" lineup out there, there's a real Globetrotter feel to this and the Bulls are the Generals.
To be positive, Buzelis is doing his best, better than should be expected especially considering how slight he is, although he kind of looks like Tatum O'Neal in "The Bad News Bears" and that's getting me in my feelings
Can't shoot (4/22) Can't defend (Zach LaVine off ball specials) Dalen Terry is out of the rotation, Jevon Carter is out of the rotation, gotta keep that rotation tight (9) in the first game of the pre-season.
Honestly, the second half was fairly fun to watch the young guys show their stuff. All of Matas, Dalen and Julian looked fairly good. Terry's shot is still awful but he has some great defensive instincts and ridiculously long arms. Phillips's play is more subdued than Dalen's but he's probably more effective because he can actually somewhat shoot. Then Matas looked like he was already an NBA player last night.
Obviously it's the first preseason game and a lot of their minutes were against the Cavs' scrubs, but I liked what I saw from all three of those guys. THT was kind of fun to watch because apparently someone told him to bowling ball his way to the hoop every possession. It wasn't effective, but it was certainly entertaining! He and Duarte are pointless on this team with how many guards we already have. Unfortunately we didn't get to see the Round Mound of Rebound Jr last night.
Cleveland had anything they wanted in the paint, either by driving untouched from the perimeter or through lobs. I think Mobley was something like 9/12 from inside the 3 point line, mostly from 3 feet or so. They built a 15 point lead or so and then just started shooting 3s because it's the pre-season and their starters were bored. Both teams shot atrociously from 3 point range.
I hope you didn't think by my comment that I thought they were actually good. I actually figured that we were running our starters against their scrubs because the Bulls were taking the game more seriously lol. I'm actually pleasantly surprised to see it was our young guys actually playing.
Brilliant!!! Especially the end about Primo. Chicago sports writing hasn’t been great and I’m-depth since I’ve been an adult (this century), but it’s just terrible right now. If the New York media is brutal to its sports organizations, then the Chicago media is just an oiled-up hand job.
KC Johnson tweeted that the Bulls had waived Primo a few hours after signing him, so I guess it was a training camp thing... Although apparently there is some expectation that he'll play for the Windy City Bulls.
this was in the footnotes. THE FOOTNOTES!
https://www.blogabull.com/p/the-bulls-sought-after-identity-is#footnote-anchor-5-149780890
My bad, I totally missed that and I even made sure to read the footnotes. Losing it in my old age...
Oh yeah. I ALWAYS read the footnotes.
It's always where the best gossip is in historical books and papers.
This is one of the occasions where talking about identity should matter quite a bit to the team. Usually it's just pre-season pabulum, sure. But teams usually don't organize themselves around a player as weird as Josh Giddey. It does seem to me that if the Bulls are to reach the best version of this team, they will probably have to be a weird team with a distinct identity. Not predicting that they'll pull it off. Just saying that if a competent brain trust were working on this team, notions of team identity probably would be top of mind.
I agree with this. The Bulls have lacked any sort of identity probably since the Rose days. What are they supposed to be? Even the rebuilding teams with Hinrich, Gordon, Nocioni and Chandler had an identity.
Not saying creating an identity will make them good or anything like that, but at least it'll give them direction. Direction is something this team hasn't had since the Jimmy trade, and even then, it clearly didn't know what its direction was when Jimmy was becoming a star.
the rebuilding teams with Hinrich, Gordon, Nocioni and Chandler had...Hinrich, Gordon, Nocioni and Chandler
the identity comes from the best players. Bulls don't have that because they just traded away two, one they want to ship out of town, and their best chance of getting a best player is being terrible and lucky
I do agree with TheMoon that Giddey-up ball is the identity they likely seek. But they are bad at fully committing to it, and of course communicating it. They still think they need to pretend Zach LaVine is important, and pushing the idea for the 4th season in a row that Zach can really play well off-ball if he wanted to.
Now, if they bench Zach game one I'll believe them
Is there anything funnier than Wendell Carter signing an extension for exactly $1 million less than Nikola Vucevic?
Yes, that WCJ sprained his ankle in his first game
#TeamInteresting is going to have a rude awakening in November, after which they'll go back to sleep because a 15 to 20 win team is almost never "interesting." They're bad, and bad basketball can be funny but not if you're a fan that is rooting for the comedians. If they play uptempo, they won't be very good at it, and will be playing matador defense on the other end and will show a total inability to properly execute on either end. That's what bad teams play like. It's Billy Ray Denzel Valentine Washington taking pull-up hero ball 3s with 19 seconds on the shot clock.
This team in particular is not going to be the rare exception because they players are not particularly young or talented. You could say the Spurs were "interesting" last year and you'd be right. They lost a lot of games with an absolutely fucking amazing generational talent who can make it from the 3 point line to the paint in one and half steps. You can squint until your eyes are closed and not see anything like that again, and you won't see anything like that here.
30 wins at least. This team isn't that bad. What's interesting about this team is the things we don't know yet but are optimistic for:
1) Are LaVine's minutes pure sabotage or integrated and effective.
2) Is the summer work gonna show for: Coby, Ayo, Dalen, Phillips
3) Do they Coby/Ayo led vibes take hold?
4) Does Zach defer to Coby down the stretch?
5) Does the team play together offensively or defensively?
If these questions are answered negatively then at least we got rotational minutes drama, with a deep bench of hungry pros fighting for their pro lives and at least one rookie whose minutes will be magnified.
I can't see this team bottoming out as hard as the Denzel/Boylan team. That team relied on players named Satoransky, Thaddeus, Chandler and Arcidiacono. Clearly worse (and younger) at every level of the roster.
You think so? Because I would take even the 2020 version of Zach/Markkanen/Wendell/Coby/Satoransky over 2025's Zach/Pat/Vuc/Coby/Giddey. Archidiacano started 4 games that year and was 11th on the team in minutes/game.
"2) Is the summer work gonna show for: Coby, Ayo, Dalen, Phillips"
Are you trying to make me sad or cheer me up with the gift of laughter.
Edit: Also that starting 5 in 2020 must have had an average age of around 23? 24? Way younger. The Bulls bench now is "young" because it's filled with their own (thus far) failed draft picks.
Zach 25 -> Zach 29
Coby 20 -> Coby 24
Pat 19 -> Pat 23
Lauri 23 -> Giddey 22
WCJ 21 -> Vuc 34
Then to now is pretty damn bleak.
You've got about 5 hours to imagine that these guys improved significantly over the summer. Reality is a brick wall, but I'm gonna race towards it.
I'm more optimistic to them improving versus Zach LaVine changing, why would anyone expect that?
Yeah agreed, if Zach is playing, the season sorta hinges on how he plays and what he's trying to do.
I admire that. Adonai!
Here’s the answer key:
1) no
2) no
3) no
4) no
5) no
#4: I suppose Zach would defer to Coby if Zach was on the bench?
#5: Isn't the idea to play together for both?
This was a reply to CE below - still trying to figure this internet posting thing out.
UPDATE from pregame:
Josh Giddey is playing
Lonzo Ball will not
Not surprised by Lonzo being ruled out. Darnell's tweet yesterday about Billy saying he wasn't sure if Lonzo would play but thinks his ramp up isn't close to being done sort of gave that one away. I'm genuinely curious if Lonzo will play in the first game of the regular season.
"Lonzo Ball is not playing tonight" = "Generalissimo Francisco Franco is still dead"
It's comedy masquerading as news
Gosh, after reading the article and comments, I'll have to find something to cheer myself up. Maybe rewatching that Amy Winehouse documentary.
The Gary Coleman doc on Peacock is a laugh riot. When he's on his death bed and his ex-wife who may have killed him takes a selfie and sells it to the tabloids, I was in stitches. :(
Update for the CHSN (chosen? chisen?) channel: DirecTV, Astound/RCN and U Verse have made deals with them and added it to their line-up. So that's a thing.
I hear Adam Amin doing this baseball playoff game, Wonder who the backup PbP guy is. Probably Schanowski
I would pronounce it CHOH-sun, like the historical Korean dynasty: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseon
As far as I can tell, the entirety of Bulls traveling media tonight is: Joe Cowley, Chicago Sun-Times
Even KC isn't in Cleveland. Gotta get reps in on TV I suppose
Not sure if anyone is watching this preseason game but the early Billy time out just really hits the spot. Basketball is BACK
Yeah, that was nice. Right after not matching up in transition.
I looked at my cable and they're airing it in the old NBCSportsNet slot.
I just saw Zach drive 1-on-3, ignoring a shooter in the corner, and missing the layup, in the 2nd quarter of a pre-season game. I feel like I'm reporting a UFO.
Billy calling a timeout 90 seconds in after the Bulls go down 8-0. Pat dribbling off his foot the first possession of the game. Zach passing up a wide open three and trying to dribble into traffic.
How I've missed you, Bulls!
I'm just so glad DeRozan isn't around clogging things up for these Yung gunz
Anyone who believed DeMar was screwing over the young guys is an idiot. With that being said, I'm happy DeMar isn't on the team anymore. It was time for both sides to move on.
I have to pull back and anti-shoutout a particular holder of this opinion. I don't think it's any meaningful consensus anymore that Pat is being held back by circumstance
the 'Organizations win Championships' podcast, with WSCR's Dan Bernstein and his mini-me son, never let up on this. Don't listen!
It's hard to quantify. If the Bulls manage to trade Vooch and Zach this year and Pat is basically forced into being the third scorer, obviously his stats are going to go up. But that doesn't mean they're going up because he's been held back the past four years. They're just going up because he's getting more shots.
That's what I feel like so many people don't understand. They point to games where Pat was forced to be more heavily featured in the offense and say that's what he'd produce every night if he weren't stuck behind DeMar but it's not true. It just means he'd be forced to take more shots and therefore would make a few more shots.
I'd like to see Pat featured more heavily in the offense, but it's not because I think he's secretly better than he is and just hasn't been given the opportunity to show it. I think Pat's biggest problem is his confidence. He's got a bunch of other problems, but none of them are even worth addressing if he can't fix his confidence issues. Putting more of a load on him on offense would force him to either gain the confidence he needs or wilt under pressure and it'll become clear the guy will never be more than a decent 3 and D guy off the bench.
If he gains that confidence though, then you know you've got something and you can start working on his other issues - dribbling, creating off the bounce, hands of ice, etc. To me though, running him out as the fifth option on offense for his whole career just doesn't make sense. It's clear he's not going to go seize the opportunity so you need to shove it in his face. He'll either sink or he'll swim, but at least it'll give you direction.
And omg what MItchell just did to Giddey was fucking SICK.
The amount of blow-bys already in this game is truly incredible. The Bulls very well could have the worst defense in the league this year. And I expect their offense will be bottom 10 as well.
Yeah, the inside is just getting carved up. Even when Chicago had a "big" lineup out there, there's a real Globetrotter feel to this and the Bulls are the Generals.
To be positive, Buzelis is doing his best, better than should be expected especially considering how slight he is, although he kind of looks like Tatum O'Neal in "The Bad News Bears" and that's getting me in my feelings
Fuck this team. They are god awful.
I thought that was a good thing?
Can't shoot (4/22) Can't defend (Zach LaVine off ball specials) Dalen Terry is out of the rotation, Jevon Carter is out of the rotation, gotta keep that rotation tight (9) in the first game of the pre-season.
reading the above comments are funny seeing as now they're only down by 1? I can't imagine watching this shit, though.
I see Vuc got a double double ✊
Honestly, the second half was fairly fun to watch the young guys show their stuff. All of Matas, Dalen and Julian looked fairly good. Terry's shot is still awful but he has some great defensive instincts and ridiculously long arms. Phillips's play is more subdued than Dalen's but he's probably more effective because he can actually somewhat shoot. Then Matas looked like he was already an NBA player last night.
Obviously it's the first preseason game and a lot of their minutes were against the Cavs' scrubs, but I liked what I saw from all three of those guys. THT was kind of fun to watch because apparently someone told him to bowling ball his way to the hoop every possession. It wasn't effective, but it was certainly entertaining! He and Duarte are pointless on this team with how many guards we already have. Unfortunately we didn't get to see the Round Mound of Rebound Jr last night.
Cleveland had anything they wanted in the paint, either by driving untouched from the perimeter or through lobs. I think Mobley was something like 9/12 from inside the 3 point line, mostly from 3 feet or so. They built a 15 point lead or so and then just started shooting 3s because it's the pre-season and their starters were bored. Both teams shot atrociously from 3 point range.
I hope you didn't think by my comment that I thought they were actually good. I actually figured that we were running our starters against their scrubs because the Bulls were taking the game more seriously lol. I'm actually pleasantly surprised to see it was our young guys actually playing.