On the other hand, these briefings and Cowley's claim on that CHUGGO podcast that he's suddenly interested in "getting his message across" suggests that for some reason, Karnisovas suddenly cares about what the public thinks of his (lack of and bad) moves. This undoubtedly leaves Bulls fans confused and frightened, like cavemen hiding during a solar eclipse, as the org even giving lip service to what their customers think is about as rare and astonishing as the moon blocking out the midday sun.
I'm doing kremlinology here and it's probably meaningless but one can hope that the team's true analytics (ticketing) are starting to show some worrying trends.
I think his only true plan is selling Michael Reinsdorf whatever line of bullshit he can at any given moment.
This translates into getting the word out in public because the public discontent and confusion has gotten so obvious that probably other owners and billionaires that the Reinsdorfs associate with have started to clown on him.
Like, last week when Donovan publicly said he didn't know WTF was going on, I think that might have opened some eyes. Last I heard, Donovan actually talks to the Reinsdorfs, so if he was saying that publicly, what do we think he is saying privately?
I think privately Donovan is saying "nice rebuild you got here, would be a shame if you had a respected coach (more respected than your basketball ops president) leave because he didn't have more job security"
Cowley was also on his own podcast (I know...) with David Kaplan (I KNOW...) and I'm not so sure it's Arturas himself who cares so much more, but Eversley (unnamed but I'm assuming) trying to distance himself from this mess
AK and the team-fed reporters are telling us that AK has a secret plan that will be executed this offseason that will be successful due to all of the conversations he had at the trade deadline.
They've transcended incompetence and gone straight to insulting our intelligence.
That Gottlieb quote is like a parody of pro-tankers. One of the reasons being pro tanking gets a bad name is because a small number of people act like it's almost this deterministic mechanical process "well see first you get bad, and then getting good follows right after that". But tanking is still something an executive can be good or bad at.
I think people get that in sports sometimes you have to take a step back to go further forward. Like even casual fans understand that. But I think what people ultimately want is competence from the executives of the franchise they follow. Which is something the Bulls cannot give their fans.
Fans want this team to pick a direction. For some fans, that means tanking.
But no one…I repeat NO ONE wants this team to be an embarrassment. That’s why fans are booing. This front office is building a product that’s embarrassing to the NBA.
You can tear down without completely humiliating yourself in the process. Plenty of teams successfully reset their roster ever year. It can be done. The problem is AK can’t do it. That should be the story any Bulls reporter focuses on.
Yes. This team isn't young and bad. They are a fucking mess and bad. Also, you don't start tanking NOW. Bulls screwed up easy tank jobs for a chance at Luka and now Flagg. Gottleib's post is dumb-insulting.
Bill Simmons: "I think I would take every single team in the East's future over that of the Chicago Bulls. Charlotte, all the Brooklyn pics, even Philly has Maxey and hopefully some tradeable assets... I would rather have every other roster in the East over Chicago's. I don't even know what their #1 asset is... Honestly even Jordan Poole is better than anyone on the Bulls."
He's being hyperbolic as Matas is clearly the best asset, but he's not totally off base. The Bulls' "young core" is one player. Vuc might start on a good team, Coby and Ayo would be sixth men at best. Everyone else is low-end NBA talent. So you have one intriguing rookie, 3 decent players, and a bunch of guys who are replacement level or worse.
The Bulls' draft capital consists of only their own first round picks, a 2025 second rounder from SAC and no seconds in 2026 or 2027. They turned Zach, DDR and Caruso into Josh Giddey, who no doubt will be re-signed to an exorbitant contract.
There is no silver lining here. The only hope lies with lottery luck. Is "luck" the secret plan?!
Luck is 100% the secret plan. And if the Bulls somehow win the first pick this year, I will absolutely believe the NBA gave them the pick for the ratings.
I hate to keep beating the same poor dead horse, but $50 million total per year to PW and Giddey for the next 4-5 years with no chance to offload it is WAY worse than Zach's contract. We'll be completely sunk.
I'm starting to think this team's only hope of a turnaround is continued bad ratings that force Adam Silver into making some radical decisions. One of those radical decisions being forcing Jerry to sell the only team in the third largest market to someone who actually wants the Bulls to be about basketball again instead of money.
I don’t think Adam Silver cares about basketball, so there’s no chance the league does anything to the Reinsdorfs for basketball reasons. Hate to be the “it’s all about money” guy but that’s really the only logical thread in this whole mess. The Reinsdorfs make money despite themselves, the league makes money, so things keep on rolling as they are.
Not necessarily. Poor ratings don't make the league money. Silver may not care about basketball but he cares about a good product because a good product makes money. There's a good argument to be made that one of the most storied franchises in the NBA would make the NBA far more money if that franchise was actually trying to be good at basketball.
How much money the owner of the team makes doesn't necessarily equate to how much money the league is making off of that team.
I don't think the ratings for the Bulls matter. Local ratings don't factor in to the national TV deal that brings in the real money. And not being on nationally televised games doesn't change the Bulls' share of that cash. What happens with CHSN is irrelevant to the league.
The Knicks were allowed to be a basketcase of a franchise from roughly 2003-2020. If Stern and Silver didn't push the team in the #1 media market to get it's act together, then why would the Bulls?
To be clear, I don't actually think it would ever happen. I was saying I think it might be the best chance the Bulls had at ever being good again, which was more an indictment of this team's current ownership and front office's priorities than it was me saying I thought there was any chance Jerry would be forced to sell.
I don't know what it would take to get me interested in watching Bulls games again, but it's definitely not going to happen with AKME running the team, which makes me care less and less about the NBA in general. There's just no substance to this entire organization. The people running the basketball aspect are both stupid and condescending, which reveals that nobody actually cares what happens because what happens in basketball games will never affect their paychecks. It's just a rent seeking operation at this point. It's gross.
I've found it WAY more entertaining in the last month and especially the last week than it was early in the season when they were winning games on Brunson's shot falling out of the cup and the sugar high of a razzle dazzle offense. Going down 70-29 in the first half of a game is like the Bears' 73-0 win. It's Fontecchio breaking down guys off the dribble. It's mythical. And the team's apparent diktat to their employees to talk up the roster and the org is so detached from reality now that it sounds amusingly deranged.
It's true that they sound deranged. These dummies are going to give Giddey a stupid contract and then be surprised at fans' disgust. As long as there's a ball rolling out there with "NBA" on it and 12 guys in Bulls uniforms they're going to continue congratulating themselves on a job well done, like you couldn't hire a literal wino out of the gutter on west Madison St. to do whatever the fuck it is that AK supposedly does.
That was seriously underwhelming from Matas. I feel bad for him since he's a likeable kid, but I'm fine with the Bulls getting minimal press this weekend.
He'd hardly played when he was named to the contest and his notable in-game "dunks" that I can remember have been basically what any tall player would have gotten. Being a shotblocker with a nice touch from deep is rare enough. It was a marketing pick and I couldn't understand why, of all the players, they picked him. Guess his agent is juiced in.
I get that they're trying to shake things up with how boring the All-Star games have been lately, but this tournament thing was quite possibly the dumbest thing they could have done. There's no way it'll be back next year.
1. Have the in-season tournament championship game over all-star weekend. It already "doesn't count" in the standings or stats. The big money aspect should be even more emphasized, like giving each player on the winning team a car from a sponsor and MVP gets some kind of LVMH one-of-a-kind custom made trinket.
2. Dunk and shooting should stay, all stars need to participate in one or the other or they forfeit their status. Lower sponsorship built into these things, it's nauseating to have the rules changed to fit in a reference to Doritos.
3. "Rising Stars" fills a niche and is easy to understand, so that can stay. Add college players, G-League players and international players to it too. "Skills" is something complicated and it's not clear what it even means so dump it.
4. Have a game if you want but you don't even need one. There really can't be anything dumber than gathering together the best at a game and then having them play a completely different game.
Once AK jams up the Bull's cap space with the nucleus of DeRozan, LaVine, Vucevic and Ball and it doesn't work out, then there isn't that much AK can do to get out of the mess. Can't just make the contracts magically disappear. My only criticism is the Giddey Caruso trade. Am sure there were other offers or just don't trade Caruso at all.
"Once AK jams up the Bull's cap space with the nucleus of DeRozan, LaVine, Vucevic and Ball and it doesn't work out, then there isn't that much AK can do to get out of the mess"
He could have gotten out of that mess by literally not extending Vucevic lol
As Gran said, AK didn't have to extend Vooch. As a matter of fact, just about everyone thought they should have let him walk. He also could have traded Zach and DeMar before that or anytime after and chose not to until he had zero leverage.
The only contract he was stuck with was Lonzo's. Saying he couldn't do anything is just lazy.
For sure. But if they had traded Zach and DeMar and let Vooch walk, I would have preferred for them to just hold onto Lonzo's contract instead of saddling themselves with his money for even more seasons.
Summary: we will get nothing and we will deserve it.
On the other hand, these briefings and Cowley's claim on that CHUGGO podcast that he's suddenly interested in "getting his message across" suggests that for some reason, Karnisovas suddenly cares about what the public thinks of his (lack of and bad) moves. This undoubtedly leaves Bulls fans confused and frightened, like cavemen hiding during a solar eclipse, as the org even giving lip service to what their customers think is about as rare and astonishing as the moon blocking out the midday sun.
I'm doing kremlinology here and it's probably meaningless but one can hope that the team's true analytics (ticketing) are starting to show some worrying trends.
I think his only true plan is selling Michael Reinsdorf whatever line of bullshit he can at any given moment.
This translates into getting the word out in public because the public discontent and confusion has gotten so obvious that probably other owners and billionaires that the Reinsdorfs associate with have started to clown on him.
Like, last week when Donovan publicly said he didn't know WTF was going on, I think that might have opened some eyes. Last I heard, Donovan actually talks to the Reinsdorfs, so if he was saying that publicly, what do we think he is saying privately?
I think privately Donovan is saying "nice rebuild you got here, would be a shame if you had a respected coach (more respected than your basketball ops president) leave because he didn't have more job security"
Cowley was also on his own podcast (I know...) with David Kaplan (I KNOW...) and I'm not so sure it's Arturas himself who cares so much more, but Eversley (unnamed but I'm assuming) trying to distance himself from this mess
Excellent.
AK and the team-fed reporters are telling us that AK has a secret plan that will be executed this offseason that will be successful due to all of the conversations he had at the trade deadline.
They've transcended incompetence and gone straight to insulting our intelligence.
That Gottlieb quote is like a parody of pro-tankers. One of the reasons being pro tanking gets a bad name is because a small number of people act like it's almost this deterministic mechanical process "well see first you get bad, and then getting good follows right after that". But tanking is still something an executive can be good or bad at.
I think people get that in sports sometimes you have to take a step back to go further forward. Like even casual fans understand that. But I think what people ultimately want is competence from the executives of the franchise they follow. Which is something the Bulls cannot give their fans.
That was a display of ignorance from Gottlieb.
Fans want this team to pick a direction. For some fans, that means tanking.
But no one…I repeat NO ONE wants this team to be an embarrassment. That’s why fans are booing. This front office is building a product that’s embarrassing to the NBA.
You can tear down without completely humiliating yourself in the process. Plenty of teams successfully reset their roster ever year. It can be done. The problem is AK can’t do it. That should be the story any Bulls reporter focuses on.
Yes. This team isn't young and bad. They are a fucking mess and bad. Also, you don't start tanking NOW. Bulls screwed up easy tank jobs for a chance at Luka and now Flagg. Gottleib's post is dumb-insulting.
And Wemby.
Bill Simmons: "I think I would take every single team in the East's future over that of the Chicago Bulls. Charlotte, all the Brooklyn pics, even Philly has Maxey and hopefully some tradeable assets... I would rather have every other roster in the East over Chicago's. I don't even know what their #1 asset is... Honestly even Jordan Poole is better than anyone on the Bulls."
https://youtu.be/kowAhkaV47g?feature=shared&t=2485
This is especially funny because Bill was bizarrely a fan of the Bulls roster and the pace they were playing at during the start of this season.
He's being hyperbolic as Matas is clearly the best asset, but he's not totally off base. The Bulls' "young core" is one player. Vuc might start on a good team, Coby and Ayo would be sixth men at best. Everyone else is low-end NBA talent. So you have one intriguing rookie, 3 decent players, and a bunch of guys who are replacement level or worse.
The Bulls' draft capital consists of only their own first round picks, a 2025 second rounder from SAC and no seconds in 2026 or 2027. They turned Zach, DDR and Caruso into Josh Giddey, who no doubt will be re-signed to an exorbitant contract.
There is no silver lining here. The only hope lies with lottery luck. Is "luck" the secret plan?!
Luck is 100% the secret plan. And if the Bulls somehow win the first pick this year, I will absolutely believe the NBA gave them the pick for the ratings.
I hate to keep beating the same poor dead horse, but $50 million total per year to PW and Giddey for the next 4-5 years with no chance to offload it is WAY worse than Zach's contract. We'll be completely sunk.
GarPax struck gold on a 1.5% chance; since Rose left in 2016 getting lucky again has always been the plan.
Every trade and draft since then is for role players that complement a star who never arrives.
I'm starting to think this team's only hope of a turnaround is continued bad ratings that force Adam Silver into making some radical decisions. One of those radical decisions being forcing Jerry to sell the only team in the third largest market to someone who actually wants the Bulls to be about basketball again instead of money.
I don’t think Adam Silver cares about basketball, so there’s no chance the league does anything to the Reinsdorfs for basketball reasons. Hate to be the “it’s all about money” guy but that’s really the only logical thread in this whole mess. The Reinsdorfs make money despite themselves, the league makes money, so things keep on rolling as they are.
Not necessarily. Poor ratings don't make the league money. Silver may not care about basketball but he cares about a good product because a good product makes money. There's a good argument to be made that one of the most storied franchises in the NBA would make the NBA far more money if that franchise was actually trying to be good at basketball.
How much money the owner of the team makes doesn't necessarily equate to how much money the league is making off of that team.
I don't think the ratings for the Bulls matter. Local ratings don't factor in to the national TV deal that brings in the real money. And not being on nationally televised games doesn't change the Bulls' share of that cash. What happens with CHSN is irrelevant to the league.
The Knicks were allowed to be a basketcase of a franchise from roughly 2003-2020. If Stern and Silver didn't push the team in the #1 media market to get it's act together, then why would the Bulls?
To be clear, I don't actually think it would ever happen. I was saying I think it might be the best chance the Bulls had at ever being good again, which was more an indictment of this team's current ownership and front office's priorities than it was me saying I thought there was any chance Jerry would be forced to sell.
Pitch perfect.
I don't know what it would take to get me interested in watching Bulls games again, but it's definitely not going to happen with AKME running the team, which makes me care less and less about the NBA in general. There's just no substance to this entire organization. The people running the basketball aspect are both stupid and condescending, which reveals that nobody actually cares what happens because what happens in basketball games will never affect their paychecks. It's just a rent seeking operation at this point. It's gross.
I've found it WAY more entertaining in the last month and especially the last week than it was early in the season when they were winning games on Brunson's shot falling out of the cup and the sugar high of a razzle dazzle offense. Going down 70-29 in the first half of a game is like the Bears' 73-0 win. It's Fontecchio breaking down guys off the dribble. It's mythical. And the team's apparent diktat to their employees to talk up the roster and the org is so detached from reality now that it sounds amusingly deranged.
It's true that they sound deranged. These dummies are going to give Giddey a stupid contract and then be surprised at fans' disgust. As long as there's a ball rolling out there with "NBA" on it and 12 guys in Bulls uniforms they're going to continue congratulating themselves on a job well done, like you couldn't hire a literal wino out of the gutter on west Madison St. to do whatever the fuck it is that AK supposedly does.
Told anyone who listens, once the Bulls trade LaVine now the Bulls have no one who can create their own shot off the dribble.
Wish the Bulls had traded White and Giddey instead. The Caruso Giddey trade was terrible. OKC had demoted Giddey out of their starting lineup.
Bulls should have at least made Giddey available to 'lay groundwork' and see who would be interested in him this offseason.
Looking at his draft class, Davion Mitchell and Quintin Grimes were just traded for vaguely neutral value
man this skills crowd is pretty lame
That was seriously underwhelming from Matas. I feel bad for him since he's a likeable kid, but I'm fine with the Bulls getting minimal press this weekend.
He'd hardly played when he was named to the contest and his notable in-game "dunks" that I can remember have been basically what any tall player would have gotten. Being a shotblocker with a nice touch from deep is rare enough. It was a marketing pick and I couldn't understand why, of all the players, they picked him. Guess his agent is juiced in.
I get that they're trying to shake things up with how boring the All-Star games have been lately, but this tournament thing was quite possibly the dumbest thing they could have done. There's no way it'll be back next year.
1. Have the in-season tournament championship game over all-star weekend. It already "doesn't count" in the standings or stats. The big money aspect should be even more emphasized, like giving each player on the winning team a car from a sponsor and MVP gets some kind of LVMH one-of-a-kind custom made trinket.
2. Dunk and shooting should stay, all stars need to participate in one or the other or they forfeit their status. Lower sponsorship built into these things, it's nauseating to have the rules changed to fit in a reference to Doritos.
3. "Rising Stars" fills a niche and is easy to understand, so that can stay. Add college players, G-League players and international players to it too. "Skills" is something complicated and it's not clear what it even means so dump it.
4. Have a game if you want but you don't even need one. There really can't be anything dumber than gathering together the best at a game and then having them play a completely different game.
Once AK jams up the Bull's cap space with the nucleus of DeRozan, LaVine, Vucevic and Ball and it doesn't work out, then there isn't that much AK can do to get out of the mess. Can't just make the contracts magically disappear. My only criticism is the Giddey Caruso trade. Am sure there were other offers or just don't trade Caruso at all.
"Once AK jams up the Bull's cap space with the nucleus of DeRozan, LaVine, Vucevic and Ball and it doesn't work out, then there isn't that much AK can do to get out of the mess"
He could have gotten out of that mess by literally not extending Vucevic lol
I mean damn John
As Gran said, AK didn't have to extend Vooch. As a matter of fact, just about everyone thought they should have let him walk. He also could have traded Zach and DeMar before that or anytime after and chose not to until he had zero leverage.
The only contract he was stuck with was Lonzo's. Saying he couldn't do anything is just lazy.
could've waived and stretched Lonzo too , but that would only add spending power which they don't actually want
For sure. But if they had traded Zach and DeMar and let Vooch walk, I would have preferred for them to just hold onto Lonzo's contract instead of saddling themselves with his money for even more seasons.