Zach Lowe on the Bulls

[drosestruts]

A lot of Bulls discussion on the most recent Zach Lowe Show podcast.

On the positive side - Zach and Michael Pina are both very high on Matas Buzelis which is encouraging and nice to hear.

They both like Giddey and White but have questions about their next contracts. It's interesting that they'll talk about Coby and Ayo both being on great value deals and then later when talking Giddey's extension talk about how the Bulls never use their leverage with RFA for value deals and cite Patrick Williams, despite having two minutes ago talked about White and Ayo.

They do bring up Zion and both feel he's worth the gamble for Chicago.

Overall I feel there sentiment is just "we don't know", they like several pieces but aren't sure how far those pieces will take you.

From the brief Zion conversation it seems like they're of the opinion that if you're not fully commiting to a rebuild, that taking a shot now using picks and expirings is the best path.

Anyone else listen? Thought it was a good conversation.

[dougthonus]

They both like Giddey and White but have questions about their next contracts. It's interesting that they'll talk about Coby and Ayo both being on great value deals and then later when talking Giddey's extension talk about how the Bulls never use their leverage with RFA for value deals and cite Patrick Williams, despite having two minutes ago talked about White and Ayo.

The Bulls didn't leverage RFA on Coby or Ayo though.

Coby, going into RFA, was having his worst statistical season, he averaged 9.7 points per game with a PER of 12.5, and brought little to the table outside of scoring (probably still true). He then averaged 19.7 points per game the next year, largely playing well without Zach. His value radically changed after we signed him.

We didn't force Coby to go get an offer and match, we proactively agreed to him at peak market value prior to him signing, then he just significantly increased his market value. If Patrick Williams came out and averaged 20 points per game this year, would it have changed the way you felt about the way we handled the negotiation? The process with both guys was the same.

Same with Ayo, whom prior to RFA was basically playing at a vet min caliber, then had a really good year after signing. With Ayo, they didn't agree to him prior to RFA, but they also didn't make him get an offer, and ultimately signed him for more than anyone left in the league was going to pay him because everyone had used all their cap room already.

Good process doesn't always yield good results nor does bad process always yield bad results, but their process of paying over peak market for guys prior to forcing them to test the market is the process. I'd say that's a bad process and more times than not, it will yield bad contracts.

[LateNight]

Him saying “I think I’m about done” on PWill is hilarious… thanks for the breaking news

[Mk0]

Him saying “I think I’m about done” on PWill is hilarious… thanks for the breaking news

He was the last media member holding out hope. He liked his rookie season and thought there was a player in there. Got fooled into thinking DeMar and Zach were in his way.