Yes, we need to separate the value of the trade itself (a 1st rounder plus Lavine and his contract gone is win/win) from Karnisovas' drafting acumen (2 straight great-looking prospects!) and Donovan's coaching of the vets we picked up (or maybe the credit should be to the players).
All in all we are in a much better spot than we were a year ago. (And I agree Kings FO deserves our thanks too. Just like Presti owes a debt to Morey (Here, take some draft picks along with CP3 and Horford!) we need to appreciate the value of a good trade partner.
Chicago w/ LaVine and Miami right meow w/ Tyler Herro are kind of in similar situations when talking about high-volume players who give you little defensively. I don't know how eager Miami is to commit long term to a ball-stopping chucker inside of their free-flowing funhouse at present moment. I think their currently first in pace. They were 27th last year. They're getting a shot up in 12 seconds on average. It's fun.
Miami's own Dan LeBatard Show is already pondering trade possibilities for a 25-year-old "all star" who averaged 25 PPG last year. Why? Because when teams slow you down in the playoffs, and actually care about things like transition defense and pay attention to all of your secondary actions, and throw sand in gears, is Tyler Herro or Zach Lavine the #1 option you want to shove money towards?
It seems like they're content, like I am, to watch "fun" regular season basketball, with the gigantic caveat that it won't be near as fun when teams actually give a shit about playing both sides of the court.
I get what you're saying, yet it provides even worse context for the Bulls because the Herro-led Heat, which yes they stink, absolutely steamrolled the Bulls in a must-win game
It's six in one hand, half a dozen in the other. Neither team has a large margin of error. I don't think either of them have teeth. Though they're all smiles in the first week of this regular season.
Like, if you play good offensive basketball without Tyler Herro, what's the incentive to pay him a shit ton of money to be a few steps above a traffic cone defensively? Meanwhile, Heat Reddit is all like: we're doing all this without our best player! And Bulls Reddit is like, we're doing all this without Coby White!
Chicago has routinely beat the life out of me at this point, such that I don't feel the need to languish the thought that both Coby White and Tyler Herro are great sixth men masquerading as important pieces to important teams. And I'm content to call this week's goings-on fun and will ride this ride until I'm forced off of it, which is to say, come playoff time, if they pumpkin their way into it.
Oh god. You should see the Florida Gators subreddit. This time last year they were calling for Todd Golden a horrible hire and that he needed to be fired because the team lost in the first round of the NCAA tourney due to horrible officiating. Then he proceeded to win the tourney this year and he's being hailed as a brilliant hire (which is a good take).
In football, they were calling for Billy Napier to be fired and now that it's happened, no coach is good enough except Lane Kiffin. And Kiffin went from their perfect coach to untouchable after defeating Oklahoma and now being a shoe-in for the tournament, which means he wouldn't join the team until after the transfer portal.
Watching Zach play, and tracing his NBA career arc, I'm reminded of one thing: Gregg Popovich is an incredible coach, and possibly even underrated due to his bristly public persona.
If you look at the roster of the 2020/2021 US Men's Olympic Team, it wasn't all that fearsome in retrospect (when compared to other "Dream Teams", at least). But Zach was playing big minutes for a gold medal-winning squad and, more significantly, actually looking like a winning player on the court. That transformed version of Zach may have been a bit "oversold" by observers at the time, but it remains true that we never saw anything like that from him before that, or since.
Maybe I'm missing the point, but is this implying that Zach was motivated to play that way in order to get in the good graces of Rich Paul? If so, why didn't Klutch encourage him to keep playing that way after the Olympics, if that was going to be the best way to boost his stock among NBA teams, fans, advertisers, etc.?
I think part of it is that Zach had no leverage over Pop.
Remember the shit fit that Zach's people threw when he was benched one time for genuinely terrible play? There was no way the Reinsdorfs were going to allow that to paint the Bulls in a bad light and hurt sales. So Billy was forced to let Zach do basically whatever he wanted.
Billy & AKME got a partial buy-in from Zach by promising to trade him, but telling him he needed put in real effort, so they could find a trade partner.
yep, that's the narrative. Also I remember Zach being upset when Billy got his first secret extension because he was trying to do some force the coach out bullshit (this is a fuzzy memory, sorry if I made this one up).
I agree that's part of it, and I remember that situation making me sick. But it's not like the core reason Zach can't lead a winner is due to consistently poor effort. As a Bull there were many times you could tell he was really trying (like in close 4th quarter situations) and it just didn't work...often the harder he tried, the worse he looked! Whether it was Coach Pop or not (and I realize it's not exactly a hot take to acknowledge he was a great coach), there was a different version of Zach that we saw in the Olympics. Maybe it was also because he had no choice but to defer to the veteran stars on that team, and he was able to focus better without the pressure of being "the man"? He may be past his prime before it ever clicks for him again, but there was one coach/team that for two weeks made Zach look like a winner.
People are also confused by Zach because I think people don't generally recognize that passing is the most important offensive skill in the game, more important than scoring, and Zach is bad at passing. Being a ball stopper is just a part of that larger issue.
You know, for the record, as much shit as Zach gets-- and I've certainly been pretty brutal in my assessments over his career-- these days I still think even Zach is a winning player. Just not at 45M a year with implicit starting/finishing game guarantees. His career, finances aside, would have been much better served if the league didn't place so much emphasis on PPG over everything.
I do think there’s the potential for a winning player.
It’s fair to wonder how different his career would have been if he were never traded to the Bulls.
Being the centerpiece of the Jimmy Butler return gave him the label of “hopeful future franchise player.” GarPax essentially needed him to be that in order to justify that trade. And then bad habits developed as he was just asked to be the go-to scorer on a bad team.
Maybe if that trade didn’t happen, Zach would have ended up somewhere else and evolved into a well-rounded player on a perennially good team.
He still has several years of his prime in front of him. Hopefully he can spend at least some of them on a good team.
I looked at the Bulls' roster. Lachlan Olbrich's unsmiling eyes while showing a lot of teeth make him look like a stunned child despite the 'stache. I did not know who Trentyn Flowers was. Emanuel Miller strongly resembles another player, but it's not his brother Leonard.
Trentyn Flowers, another guy who played in Australia
I didn't bother writing up that addition because the Bulls are determined to never utilize their 2-way roster spots, even as a 'player development focused organization' they claim to want to be
Not surprising that the defense is bad there's how many years of Giddey and Vuc being bad at it? and Okoro and Jones are good defenders but not enough to cover for them right.
Not watching yet but I see Bulls got a ton of offensive revounds. I did hear that Sabonis had looked slowed by injury. Plus they're a very short lineup in general.
I just realized that the entire starting line-up for Sacramento has played for Billy Donovan. DDR & Zach with the Bulls, obviously. But Sabonis, Russ, & Schroeder all played for him in OKC.
Also, would anybody like to ask the Kings what the hell they’re doing? A starting lineup of Schroeder, LaVine, DeRozan, Westbrook, and Sabonis in 2025 is insane. They’re literally just wasting time with that team.
No separate game thread tonight, let's just use the comments in this here post.
Yes, we need to separate the value of the trade itself (a 1st rounder plus Lavine and his contract gone is win/win) from Karnisovas' drafting acumen (2 straight great-looking prospects!) and Donovan's coaching of the vets we picked up (or maybe the credit should be to the players).
All in all we are in a much better spot than we were a year ago. (And I agree Kings FO deserves our thanks too. Just like Presti owes a debt to Morey (Here, take some draft picks along with CP3 and Horford!) we need to appreciate the value of a good trade partner.
Chicago w/ LaVine and Miami right meow w/ Tyler Herro are kind of in similar situations when talking about high-volume players who give you little defensively. I don't know how eager Miami is to commit long term to a ball-stopping chucker inside of their free-flowing funhouse at present moment. I think their currently first in pace. They were 27th last year. They're getting a shot up in 12 seconds on average. It's fun.
Miami's own Dan LeBatard Show is already pondering trade possibilities for a 25-year-old "all star" who averaged 25 PPG last year. Why? Because when teams slow you down in the playoffs, and actually care about things like transition defense and pay attention to all of your secondary actions, and throw sand in gears, is Tyler Herro or Zach Lavine the #1 option you want to shove money towards?
It seems like they're content, like I am, to watch "fun" regular season basketball, with the gigantic caveat that it won't be near as fun when teams actually give a shit about playing both sides of the court.
I get what you're saying, yet it provides even worse context for the Bulls because the Herro-led Heat, which yes they stink, absolutely steamrolled the Bulls in a must-win game
It's six in one hand, half a dozen in the other. Neither team has a large margin of error. I don't think either of them have teeth. Though they're all smiles in the first week of this regular season.
Like, if you play good offensive basketball without Tyler Herro, what's the incentive to pay him a shit ton of money to be a few steps above a traffic cone defensively? Meanwhile, Heat Reddit is all like: we're doing all this without our best player! And Bulls Reddit is like, we're doing all this without Coby White!
Chicago has routinely beat the life out of me at this point, such that I don't feel the need to languish the thought that both Coby White and Tyler Herro are great sixth men masquerading as important pieces to important teams. And I'm content to call this week's goings-on fun and will ride this ride until I'm forced off of it, which is to say, come playoff time, if they pumpkin their way into it.
Glad to hear other team's subreddits are just as dumb as ours!
Oh god. You should see the Florida Gators subreddit. This time last year they were calling for Todd Golden a horrible hire and that he needed to be fired because the team lost in the first round of the NCAA tourney due to horrible officiating. Then he proceeded to win the tourney this year and he's being hailed as a brilliant hire (which is a good take).
In football, they were calling for Billy Napier to be fired and now that it's happened, no coach is good enough except Lane Kiffin. And Kiffin went from their perfect coach to untouchable after defeating Oklahoma and now being a shoe-in for the tournament, which means he wouldn't join the team until after the transfer portal.
The number of bad hot takes is off the chart.
Watching Zach play, and tracing his NBA career arc, I'm reminded of one thing: Gregg Popovich is an incredible coach, and possibly even underrated due to his bristly public persona.
If you look at the roster of the 2020/2021 US Men's Olympic Team, it wasn't all that fearsome in retrospect (when compared to other "Dream Teams", at least). But Zach was playing big minutes for a gold medal-winning squad and, more significantly, actually looking like a winning player on the court. That transformed version of Zach may have been a bit "oversold" by observers at the time, but it remains true that we never saw anything like that from him before that, or since.
August 2021 - Zach LaVine signs with Klutch Sports
Maybe I'm missing the point, but is this implying that Zach was motivated to play that way in order to get in the good graces of Rich Paul? If so, why didn't Klutch encourage him to keep playing that way after the Olympics, if that was going to be the best way to boost his stock among NBA teams, fans, advertisers, etc.?
no I was making the (facetious) point that after he signed up with Rich Paul he didn't see the need to fit in a team to get a max contract
I think part of it is that Zach had no leverage over Pop.
Remember the shit fit that Zach's people threw when he was benched one time for genuinely terrible play? There was no way the Reinsdorfs were going to allow that to paint the Bulls in a bad light and hurt sales. So Billy was forced to let Zach do basically whatever he wanted.
Billy & AKME got a partial buy-in from Zach by promising to trade him, but telling him he needed put in real effort, so they could find a trade partner.
yep, that's the narrative. Also I remember Zach being upset when Billy got his first secret extension because he was trying to do some force the coach out bullshit (this is a fuzzy memory, sorry if I made this one up).
I don't remember that one, but I can believe it.
I agree that's part of it, and I remember that situation making me sick. But it's not like the core reason Zach can't lead a winner is due to consistently poor effort. As a Bull there were many times you could tell he was really trying (like in close 4th quarter situations) and it just didn't work...often the harder he tried, the worse he looked! Whether it was Coach Pop or not (and I realize it's not exactly a hot take to acknowledge he was a great coach), there was a different version of Zach that we saw in the Olympics. Maybe it was also because he had no choice but to defer to the veteran stars on that team, and he was able to focus better without the pressure of being "the man"? He may be past his prime before it ever clicks for him again, but there was one coach/team that for two weeks made Zach look like a winner.
I can hear his chuckling through my screen #BullsPR https://pbs.twimg.com/media/G4YSxdHW8AASHzM?format=jpg&name=small
KC is the star of the team lol
People are also confused by Zach because I think people don't generally recognize that passing is the most important offensive skill in the game, more important than scoring, and Zach is bad at passing. Being a ball stopper is just a part of that larger issue.
::Zach smacks his own hands in frustration after no-hope pocket pass bounces off a defenders leg to other team::
You know, for the record, as much shit as Zach gets-- and I've certainly been pretty brutal in my assessments over his career-- these days I still think even Zach is a winning player. Just not at 45M a year with implicit starting/finishing game guarantees. His career, finances aside, would have been much better served if the league didn't place so much emphasis on PPG over everything.
Yeah, I think that's the main thing with Zach.
He's pretty good at some things (and pretty bad at others) but he's not worth 45m a year.
And it matters because it determines how much can you spend on the rest of the roster, his status on the team, etc.
I do think there’s the potential for a winning player.
It’s fair to wonder how different his career would have been if he were never traded to the Bulls.
Being the centerpiece of the Jimmy Butler return gave him the label of “hopeful future franchise player.” GarPax essentially needed him to be that in order to justify that trade. And then bad habits developed as he was just asked to be the go-to scorer on a bad team.
Maybe if that trade didn’t happen, Zach would have ended up somewhere else and evolved into a well-rounded player on a perennially good team.
He still has several years of his prime in front of him. Hopefully he can spend at least some of them on a good team.
I looked at the Bulls' roster. Lachlan Olbrich's unsmiling eyes while showing a lot of teeth make him look like a stunned child despite the 'stache. I did not know who Trentyn Flowers was. Emanuel Miller strongly resembles another player, but it's not his brother Leonard.
Trentyn Flowers, another guy who played in Australia
I didn't bother writing up that addition because the Bulls are determined to never utilize their 2-way roster spots, even as a 'player development focused organization' they claim to want to be
Flowers is pretty interesting. Only 20, 6'7", has some skill. Clippers wanted him to be a point guard. Don't know what happened.
I see Kings miss first 3 threes, the voodoo! Oh wait Westbrook took 2 of them lol
Good first half from Matas.
Yes, but our defense was terrible. I think we gave up 15 dunks.
Not surprising that the defense is bad there's how many years of Giddey and Vuc being bad at it? and Okoro and Jones are good defenders but not enough to cover for them right.
The funny thing is our starters were playing well. Kings made there move when our subs came in. They were too quick for us.
Ah I see that's not good our bench is supposed to be solid.
Not watching yet but I see Bulls got a ton of offensive revounds. I did hear that Sabonis had looked slowed by injury. Plus they're a very short lineup in general.
Wow Vuc dunked it!
Zach Lavine really do be the fakest like 20 plus PPG scorer of all time.
So the Kings went 7/28 from three #voodoo but that wasn't the reason they lost, you can't give up 126 to the Coby-less Bulls
#ZachDefense
Though...if kings hit league average from distance Bulls are 0-4 lmao
I just realized that the entire starting line-up for Sacramento has played for Billy Donovan. DDR & Zach with the Bulls, obviously. But Sabonis, Russ, & Schroeder all played for him in OKC.
4-0 is impressive. Matas is awesome.
Also, would anybody like to ask the Kings what the hell they’re doing? A starting lineup of Schroeder, LaVine, DeRozan, Westbrook, and Sabonis in 2025 is insane. They’re literally just wasting time with that team.
The funny thing is the Bulls tried to make that same Kings team a while ago.