PG: 1-2-3 Cancun

[HearshotKDS]

So I have a bone to pick with most fans today who go back and forth complaining about everything.

We went thru 4 straight years of a "clearly tanked" team featuring Lauri, Wendell, Coby, Patrick.

But what did we do? Complain relentlessly about the direction of the team and were mad that we sucked year after year. It basically forced Pax to call it quits.

Now AKME comes in, makes quick win now moves. We then complain about it, and now people are going full circle asking him to burn it all the way down and be back to the 20 or less win teams.

Make up your mind people!

Its either you stomach an actual rebuild and not complain - no matter how long it takes.

OR go with the build internally, grabbing good free agents, and picking really well in the draft.

People want to tank one season, grab a franchise changing player, and go to contention in the next year. You in Lala land.

I dont disagree with your sentiment that fans generally need to accept the bumps that come along with whatever road they pick for team building. But unless im misreading your post I dont think the biggest issue fans had with the tanking years was complaining about direction - it was complaining about the execution. Guys like Mirotic and "KilDraftPick" cost the team lotto ball %s for whatever you think thats worth, just to wind up the next year in Europe or China while the Bulls picked JAG at 7 (or worse at 4).

[League Circles]

I'm now more open to letting Giddey walk and trading Coby, but neither should be a given or a must-do. It's just that committing to these two guys are major core pieces has an extremely small margin for error IMO. Need two very very good defenders with them and Matas, and both of those high level defenders would need to be capable offensive players too. Far easier said than done.

The first domino should be trying hard to make one or more bold trades prior to or at the draft, with Coby, Ball, and Ayo prime cards, as all three should have value and none of the three should be perceived as having a ton of untapped upside. I think our keep-low value guys are obviously Matas, but also to a lesser extent Smith, Patrick, and maaaaaybe Phillips or Terry if you squint real hard. These are all guys that have more potential value to us (by improving) than via likely trade.

Then when all that shakes out, only then do you decide what to do with Giddey and Jones. Plausible that Jones could possibly actually be a BETTER player than Giddey at less than half the cost. Food for thought.

[GoBlue72391]

So I have a bone to pick with most fans today who go back and forth complaining about everything.

We went thru 4 straight years of a "clearly tanked" team featuring Lauri, Wendell, Coby, Patrick.

But what did we do? Complain relentlessly about the direction of the team and were mad that we sucked year after year. It basically forced Pax to call it quits.

Now AKME comes in, makes quick win now moves. We then complain about it, and now people are going full circle asking him to burn it all the way down and be back to the 20 or less win teams.

Make up your mind people!

Its either you stomach an actual rebuild and not complain - no matter how long it takes.

OR go with the build internally, grabbing good free agents, and picking really well in the draft.

People want to tank one season, grab a franchise changing player, and go to contention in the next year. You in Lala land.

I dont disagree with your sentiment that fans generally need to accept the bumps that come along with whatever road they pick for team building. But unless im misreading your post I dont think the biggest issue fans had with the tanking years was complaining about direction - it was complaining about the execution. Guys like Mirotic and "KilDraftPick" cost the team lotto ball %s for whatever you think thats worth, just to wind up the next year in Europe or China while the Bulls picked JAG at 7 (or worse at 4).

Yep. Tanking/rebuilding wasn't the issue, the execution was.

In addition to what you said, having a 1 man player development staff, hiring the worst coach in modern history to lead the rebuild, botching the development of talented young players, creating a toxic internal environment, having a horrible league wide reputation for free agency, etc.

If we handled that era the right way things could have been different.

[LikeMike23]

But Luka and Kyrie are both ELITE offensive players.

Coby doesn’t have the handle, playmaking acumen, or ability to get to the rim/draw fouls like either of them.

Coby handles the ball better and gets to the rim more often than Luka. If you watch Luka in a Lakers uniform, you'll notice that he mostly shoots threes and mid-range jump shots. He rarely gets to the rim anymore.

I would rank Coby and Kyrie's playmaking abilities and ability to draw fouls as equal. Coby averages 4.1 free throw attempts and 4.5 assists per game. Kyrie averages 4.3 free throw attempts and 4.6 assists per game.

I agree that Luka is a superior playmaker and that Kyrie has better ball-handling skills than Coby, but Coby excels in certain areas compared to them. Coby has made over 200 threes for two consecutive years, while Kyrie has never done that in a single season. Additionally, Coby's FG%, 3PT%, eFG%, and FT% surpass Luka's numbers.

Whether you like it or not, Coby is an ELITE offensive player who excels in some aspects at the same level or better than Kyrie and Luka.

[DASMACKDOWN]

I dont disagree with your sentiment that fans generally need to accept the bumps that come along with whatever road they pick for team building. But unless im misreading your post I dont think the biggest issue fans had with the tanking years was complaining about direction - it was complaining about the execution. Guys like Mirotic and "KilDraftPick" cost the team lotto ball %s for whatever you think thats worth, just to wind up the next year in Europe or China while the Bulls picked JAG at 7 (or worse at 4).

Honestly it was more my rant about the press conference. Joe Cowley was making my blood boil.

Even as far as the draft. We all realize all drafts are not built equally.

When you realize, people are complaining about a process that they can not control (lottery), while also making a case for a guy they we don't know who we will draft, you realize how insane it is.

You cant please everyone but it eventually becomes a hive mind. The real truth is, people want results quickly.

Cowley called GarPax completely incompetent too so there is that. And they were doing the tank job. That was kind of my point.

Since there is more than "one way" to become a contender, I get irritated when people act like there is only one.

For instance, Sacramento Kings have missed the playoffs 19 times in the last 20 years. They have had more than 20 lottery picks in that span.
OKC's best players are not #1 picks. So it goes back to you have get lucky.

My hope is the Bulls get lucky regardless what direction we choose.

[sco]

But Luka and Kyrie are both ELITE offensive players.

Coby doesn’t have the handle, playmaking acumen, or ability to get to the rim/draw fouls like either of them.

Coby handles the ball better and gets to the rim more often than Luka. If you watch Luka in a Lakers uniform, you'll notice that he mostly shoots threes and mid-range jump shots. He rarely gets to the rim anymore.

I would rank Coby and Kyrie's playmaking abilities and ability to draw fouls as equal. Coby averages 4.1 free throw attempts and 4.5 assists per game. Kyrie averages 4.3 free throw attempts and 4.6 assists per game.

I agree that Luka is a superior playmaker and that Kyrie has better ball-handling skills than Coby, but Coby excels in certain areas compared to them. Coby has made over 200 threes for two consecutive years, while Kyrie has never done that in a single season. Additionally, Coby's FG%, 3PT%, eFG%, and FT% surpass Luka's numbers.

Whether you like it or not, Coby is an ELITE offensive player who excels in some aspects at the same level or better than Kyrie and Luka.

I think your perspective is fair. I would disagree from the vantage point that I think you are factoring what Coby did post-Lavine. I watched him and had similar optimism but if you go back and look at how many/few of those 20pt games were against either tanking or resting teams. The answer is ~80% of his good stat games were against false competition...Kyrie is flawed, to be sure, but he puts up those numbers against good teams too. When Coby played good teams of late, he struggled like he did last night.

The reality is that he is an average starting talent. And look, that's not the worst thing...certainly not on his deal. But those type of guys are the ones that you need to trade before you sign a $20M+ deal with. Having 2 such deals (Coby and Pat) has the opportunity cost of not signing a MAX player.

[drosestruts]

15 assists and 17 turnovers will pretty much doom anybody.

Wondering how plugged in Haslem still is with the Heat organization. On the pre-game show when discussing Giddey he said as a team you either have to take away his scoring or take away his playmaking. Giddey scored 25 points but only had 4 assists, looks like the Heat went with taking away his playmaking.

I’d have to watch it again, and won’t, but the Bulls shot an abysmal 35% from the floor. No assists for bricks.

Maybe they took away his playmaking, maybe they didn’t. I don’t really know. But there’s probably more to it than raw assist numbers.

Yeah that was the other thing I've been wondering. Aside from a few standout defensive plays, in my memory we got decent looks.

So could just be more of a case of shots didn't fall than anything else.

[DASMACKDOWN]

Yep. Tanking/rebuilding wasn't the issue, the execution was.

In addition to what you said, having a 1 man player development staff, hiring the worst coach in modern history to lead the rebuild, botching the development of talented young players, creating a toxic internal environment, having a horrible league wide reputation for free agency, etc.

If we handled that era the right way things could have been different.

I do agree with that. Pax should have been fired twice with even the thought of hiring Jimbo.

[CROBulls]

From reddit:

Last 5 seasons record for the Bulls
39 wins 43 losses
39 wins 43 losses
40 wins 42 losses
46 wins 36 losses
31 wins 41 losses
**** yikes. Mediocrity purgatory.

But next year gonna be different!

[KissedByaRose1]

I dont disagree with your sentiment that fans generally need to accept the bumps that come along with whatever road they pick for team building. But unless im misreading your post I dont think the biggest issue fans had with the tanking years was complaining about direction - it was complaining about the execution. Guys like Mirotic and "KilDraftPick" cost the team lotto ball %s for whatever you think thats worth, just to wind up the next year in Europe or China while the Bulls picked JAG at 7 (or worse at 4).

Honestly it was more my rant about the press conference. Joe Cowley was making my blood boil.

Even as far as the draft. We all realize all drafts are not built equally.

When you realize, people are complaining about a process that they can not control (lottery), while also making a case for a guy they we don't know who we will draft, you realize how insane it is.

You cant please everyone but it eventually becomes a hive mind. The real truth is, people want results quickly.

Cowley called GarPax completely incompetent too so there is that. And they were doing the tank job. That was kind of my point.

Since there is more than "one way" to become a contender, I get irritated when people act like there is only one.

For instance, Sacramento Kings have missed the playoffs 19 times in the last 20 years. They have had more than 20 lottery picks in that span.
OKC's best players are not #1 picks. So it goes back to you have get lucky.

My hope is the Bulls get lucky regardless what direction we choose.

Cowley was asking all the right questions. Not sure i get what you mean at all.

You can't control the lottery results but you can control putting yourself absolutely in the best position to win lottery and time and time again he hasn't done that and on top of that it's just SO blatantly obvious this guy has no plan or no clue. Tanking doesn't guarantee you anything but you're literally defending a guy who's strategy is just praying that a superstar comes here via FA if you don't want to tank. He made win now moves right away after we tanked for 4 years and the results were we went 195-215 with one playoff win.

Caruso/Lavine/Vooch/Derozan who were all under contract and had some form of value netted us

Josh Giddey, our own damn draft pick back and Jones/Heuerter who we were too stupid not to flip and are both expiring this year and dont project to be part of our long term future.

I'm not dumb enough to think every move we make is going to hit but when you CONSISTENLY just exhibit malpractice in not at least giving yourself the best shot to improve like this clown does over and over again there's zero excuse. Fans have every right to be livid right now and if you want to ask us to be patient then you damn better start fixing the process in which we rebuild this because this aint working even a little.

[Red8911]

What the heck is Billy Donovan is still doing here?

Would be nice to pick up a tougher couch like Mike Malone or even Budenhozer but we all know hall of famer Billy Donovan isn’t going anywhere unless he himself decides to move on to something else.

haha if you've ever been upset that Billy doesn't play Matas enough you'll LOVE Mike Malone.

A big reason he was fired was his stubborness in refusing to play the young guys.

That’s nonsense. Don’t forget how that team started with mostly young guys and don’t forget he won a championship.

Now on a veteran team (Denver) that’s aiming for another ring it’s obvious that young players won’t get a chance and to be honest they don’t have any promising young players right now anyway.

Bulls are in a totally different situation than the Nuggets, the core is young. Any coach would need to play them including Matas.

[LikeMike23]

But Luka and Kyrie are both ELITE offensive players.

Coby doesn’t have the handle, playmaking acumen, or ability to get to the rim/draw fouls like either of them.

Coby handles the ball better and gets to the rim more often than Luka. If you watch Luka in a Lakers uniform, you'll notice that he mostly shoots threes and mid-range jump shots. He rarely gets to the rim anymore.

I would rank Coby and Kyrie's playmaking abilities and ability to draw fouls as equal. Coby averages 4.1 free throw attempts and 4.5 assists per game. Kyrie averages 4.3 free throw attempts and 4.6 assists per game.

I agree that Luka is a superior playmaker and that Kyrie has better ball-handling skills than Coby, but Coby excels in certain areas compared to them. Coby has made over 200 threes for two consecutive years, while Kyrie has never done that in a single season. Additionally, Coby's FG%, 3PT%, eFG%, and FT% surpass Luka's numbers.

Whether you like it or not, Coby is an ELITE offensive player who excels in some aspects at the same level or better than Kyrie and Luka.

I think your perspective is fair. I would disagree from the vantage point that I think you are factoring what Coby did post-Lavine. I watched him and had similar optimism but if you go back and look at how many/few of those 20pt games were against either tanking or resting teams. The answer is ~80% of his good stat games were against false competition...Kyrie is flawed, to be sure, but he puts up those numbers against good teams too. When Coby played good teams of late, he struggled like he did last night.

The reality is that he is an average starting talent. And look, that's not the worst thing...certainly not on his deal. But those type of guys are the ones that you need to trade before you sign a $20M+ deal with. Having 2 such deals (Coby and Pat) has the opportunity cost of not signing a MAX player.

Coby White's 44-point career-high came against the Orlando Magic, which has the second-ranked defense in the league.

Coby's struggles against the Heat had more to do with being double-teamed than anything else. When Coby is double-teamed, the Bulls need set plays or go-to actions to run. It's understandable that the Bulls didn't have this in place this year because, going into training camp, Coby was the third scoring option behind Zach and Vuc. I believe this will be addressed in training camp next year, so I'm not worried about it long term.

[boozapalooza]

AK alluded to having financial flexibility this offseason and adding a big FA. Any thoughts on this FA class? It looks historically bad at first glance. Myles Turner as the top FA. Yikes.

At the deadline it was mentioned AK laid groundwork on a couple of trades for this offseason, presumably with Vuc or maybe Ayo. KC signed off on this. We’ll see. Didnt seem like Coby or Giddey were going anywhere based off todays presser.

If NBA doesnt rig the lotto to get us a top 4 pick, I don’t see how we will be able to make any major moves this offseason. Run it back and hope Matas can develop into Giannis 2.0 I guess.

[sco]

Coby handles the ball better and gets to the rim more often than Luka. If you watch Luka in a Lakers uniform, you'll notice that he mostly shoots threes and mid-range jump shots. He rarely gets to the rim anymore.

I would rank Coby and Kyrie's playmaking abilities and ability to draw fouls as equal. Coby averages 4.1 free throw attempts and 4.5 assists per game. Kyrie averages 4.3 free throw attempts and 4.6 assists per game.

I agree that Luka is a superior playmaker and that Kyrie has better ball-handling skills than Coby, but Coby excels in certain areas compared to them. Coby has made over 200 threes for two consecutive years, while Kyrie has never done that in a single season. Additionally, Coby's FG%, 3PT%, eFG%, and FT% surpass Luka's numbers.

Whether you like it or not, Coby is an ELITE offensive player who excels in some aspects at the same level or better than Kyrie and Luka.

I think your perspective is fair. I would disagree from the vantage point that I think you are factoring what Coby did post-Lavine. I watched him and had similar optimism but if you go back and look at how many/few of those 20pt games were against either tanking or resting teams. The answer is ~80% of his good stat games were against false competition...Kyrie is flawed, to be sure, but he puts up those numbers against good teams too. When Coby played good teams of late, he struggled like he did last night.

The reality is that he is an average starting talent. And look, that's not the worst thing...certainly not on his deal. But those type of guys are the ones that you need to trade before you sign a $20M+ deal with. Having 2 such deals (Coby and Pat) has the opportunity cost of not signing a MAX player.

Coby White's 44-point career-high came against the Orlando Magic, which has the second-ranked defense in the league.

Coby's struggles against the Heat had more to do with being double-teamed than anything else. When Coby is double-teamed, the Bulls need set plays or go-to actions to run. It's understandable that the Bulls didn't have this in place this year because, going into training camp, Coby was the third scoring option behind Zach and Vuc. I believe this will be addressed in training camp next year, so I'm not worried about it long term.

When we played the Magic they were missing Suggs their elite guard defender. I discount that performance.

[LikeMike23]

I think your perspective is fair. I would disagree from the vantage point that I think you are factoring what Coby did post-Lavine. I watched him and had similar optimism but if you go back and look at how many/few of those 20pt games were against either tanking or resting teams. The answer is ~80% of his good stat games were against false competition...Kyrie is flawed, to be sure, but he puts up those numbers against good teams too. When Coby played good teams of late, he struggled like he did last night.

The reality is that he is an average starting talent. And look, that's not the worst thing...certainly not on his deal. But those type of guys are the ones that you need to trade before you sign a $20M+ deal with. Having 2 such deals (Coby and Pat) has the opportunity cost of not signing a MAX player.

Coby White's 44-point career-high came against the Orlando Magic, which has the second-ranked defense in the league.

Coby's struggles against the Heat had more to do with being double-teamed than anything else. When Coby is double-teamed, the Bulls need set plays or go-to actions to run. It's understandable that the Bulls didn't have this in place this year because, going into training camp, Coby was the third scoring option behind Zach and Vuc. I believe this will be addressed in training camp next year, so I'm not worried about it long term.

When we played the Magic they were missing Suggs their elite guard defender. I discount that performance.

The Magic shut down Trae Young without Suggs, but Coby got his career-high against them. You can try to discount it all you want, but it counts!

[sco]

Coby White's 44-point career-high came against the Orlando Magic, which has the second-ranked defense in the league.

Coby's struggles against the Heat had more to do with being double-teamed than anything else. When Coby is double-teamed, the Bulls need set plays or go-to actions to run. It's understandable that the Bulls didn't have this in place this year because, going into training camp, Coby was the third scoring option behind Zach and Vuc. I believe this will be addressed in training camp next year, so I'm not worried about it long term.

When we played the Magic they were missing Suggs their elite guard defender. I discount that performance.

The Magic shut down Trae Young without Suggs, but Coby got his career-high against them. You can try to discount it all you want, but it counts!

I respect your perspective but disagree. I'm not sure it matters though. We seem to agree that Coby is not a good enough offensive player to score efficiently against double-teams (which I call a viable #1 option).

And I'm not saying Coby isn't a good player. I think he's around average among starting SG. I just think that we can't afford to have an average SG who can't defend on this roster going forward and hope to contend. Main reason being that we still need a #1 option and more than likely, that guy will also be a below average defender, as most are. Also, Coby's $ may make it more difficult to fit a #1 option on the roster. The only way that Coby could be kept and have us contend is if we totally luck out and Matas becomes our #1 (possible, but not probable).

[2weekswithpay]

Coby handles the ball better and gets to the rim more often than Luka. If you watch Luka in a Lakers uniform, you'll notice that he mostly shoots threes and mid-range jump shots. He rarely gets to the rim anymore.

I would rank Coby and Kyrie's playmaking abilities and ability to draw fouls as equal. Coby averages 4.1 free throw attempts and 4.5 assists per game. Kyrie averages 4.3 free throw attempts and 4.6 assists per game.

I agree that Luka is a superior playmaker and that Kyrie has better ball-handling skills than Coby, but Coby excels in certain areas compared to them. Coby has made over 200 threes for two consecutive years, while Kyrie has never done that in a single season. Additionally, Coby's FG%, 3PT%, eFG%, and FT% surpass Luka's numbers.

Whether you like it or not, Coby is an ELITE offensive player who excels in some aspects at the same level or better than Kyrie and Luka.

I think your perspective is fair. I would disagree from the vantage point that I think you are factoring what Coby did post-Lavine. I watched him and had similar optimism but if you go back and look at how many/few of those 20pt games were against either tanking or resting teams. The answer is ~80% of his good stat games were against false competition...Kyrie is flawed, to be sure, but he puts up those numbers against good teams too. When Coby played good teams of late, he struggled like he did last night.

The reality is that he is an average starting talent. And look, that's not the worst thing...certainly not on his deal. But those type of guys are the ones that you need to trade before you sign a $20M+ deal with. Having 2 such deals (Coby and Pat) has the opportunity cost of not signing a MAX player.

Coby White's 44-point career-high came against the Orlando Magic, which has the second-ranked defense in the league.

Coby's struggles against the Heat had more to do with being double-teamed than anything else. When Coby is double-teamed, the Bulls need set plays or go-to actions to run. It's understandable that the Bulls didn't have this in place this year because, going into training camp, Coby was the third scoring option behind Zach and Vuc. I believe this will be addressed in training camp next year, so I'm not worried about it long term.

Doubled teamed? Coby is not bending defenses like this.

[pipfan]

Not sure if it was just a bad game, or Miami turned up their D and we struggled.

Maybe it's Coby or Giddey-having two bad defenders in your "core" is rough. I REALLY like what I see from VJ Edgecombe
Could #12 and Coby get us to #4?

[drosestruts]

One trend I find annoying here is how quickly we wave off or form narratives as to why anything that good happened didn't count/matter.

The Bulls had a good close to the season with lots of strong play and positive developments from a number of young players.

A bad loss to Miami doesn't change that.

Should we run it back with the exact same group and pretend we're contenders? No.

But there's good young pieces here that made big strides that should give the fan base some optimism moving forward.

My goal this offseason would be to try and use our abundance of expiring contracts, youth, and picks to acquire better talent:

- Zion
- Durant
- Cam Johnson (to a lesser extent, he's obviously not on the level of the above)

Or the opposite use those expirings to take on a large veteran contract if it comes with picks:

- Paul George

Maybe the new Celtics owners mandates they cut costs, i've got come expirings for you i'd happily trade for a number of their players.

We control all our own 1sts, we have the PDX 1st, we have a boat load of expirings contracts, and we have some good pieces

I understand faith in AK doing anything with all that may be limited, but we have the ingredients for a good offseason.

Letting our young talent continue to develop while playing alongside someone like Durant would be huge. I'd trade practically anyhting outside of Giddey and Matas for him.

[MrSparkle]

AK alluded to having financial flexibility this offseason and adding a big FA. Any thoughts on this FA class? It looks historically bad at first glance. Myles Turner as the top FA. Yikes.

At the deadline it was mentioned AK laid groundwork on a couple of trades for this offseason, presumably with Vuc or maybe Ayo. KC signed off on this. We’ll see. Didnt seem like Coby or Giddey were going anywhere based off todays presser.

If NBA doesnt rig the lotto to get us a top 4 pick, I don’t see how we will be able to make any major moves this offseason. Run it back and hope Matas can develop into Giannis 2.0 I guess.

AK also said he wouldn’t settle on mediocrity (play-in 3-peat loss to the Heat) nor reward guys for poor results (Patrick’s extension).

I would hope Vuc is moved. But I’ll believe it when it happens. AK operates with total laissez-faire attitude, like his head coach. Doesn’t seem to consider the dramatic consequences of not making some harder decisions sooner. Especially as they add up after 4 years.