AKME stands pat

[Guru]

[youtube][/youtube]

They tried to trade them aggressively.

Didn't get what they wanted.

No one is a free agent outside of Tre Jones

They will once again try to trade them aggressively in the offseason.

As someone who likes the entertainment of trades I would have loved a complete blowup.

As someone who likes game theory I don't get how anyone is mad. They aren't losing 1 asset.

This summer/next season they are going to have 82Million in expiring contracts plus all their picks

Who cares about cap space? We don’t have any assets worth anything.

No stars are signing with Chicago and rightfully so. This is a completely unserious and incompetent organization.

Who cares about capspace? Every team. Thats why these pieces are all worth more in the offseason

[Guru]

My positive spin is it was an absolute miracle to get rid of Zach with no long term salary coming back. That's enough for me. I wish Vuc was never given his contract or traded for, but I'm not surprised tha basically nobody wanted to trade for him. I'm not really mad about that.

I think they were thinking of trading Coby then saw how bad our offense was last game without Coby.

What good does trading Zach actually do for us though if we aren’t tearing completely tearing. He was actually living up to his contract again this season.

If we are gonna push for 35 wins either way at least he was fun to watch. Getting our pick back is great, but if it will be be outside the top 10 it’s not much to get excited about.

As of right now there is a decent chance that trading Zach does absolutely nothing to really improve our future.

We will lose more games without Zach, we will save 60M without Zach

[WindyCityBorn]

[youtube][/youtube]

They tried to trade them aggressively.

Didn't get what they wanted.

No one is a free agent outside of Tre Jones

They will once again try to trade them aggressively in the offseason.

As someone who likes the entertainment of trades I would have loved a complete blowup.

As someone who likes game theory I don't get how anyone is mad. They aren't losing 1 asset.

This summer/next season they are going to have 82Million in expiring contracts plus all their picks

Who cares about cap space? We don’t have any assets worth anything.

No stars are signing with Chicago and rightfully so. This is a completely unserious and incompetent organization.

Who cares about capspace? Every team. Thats why these pieces are all worth more in the offseason

No one is giving us any 1st round picks or stars for cap space.

[MrSparkle]

9-10 very good players?

How about 1?

OK , I guess Lonzo counts. Except he is on restricted minutes. Honestly, I'd say we have 0.

Matas might become very good. Maybe Giddey becomes very good, although it's hard to be very good when your weak side is very bad.

Ayo and Coby are statistically behind the young versions of Derrick White, Jrue Holiday or even George Hill - other utilitarian guards who had strong careers as 3rd-5th options.

Vuc is so very good that he couldn't net a 30th pick.

This idea would be cool if we had a few prospects over the league-average mark. They're all below average, compared to their peers. Our rookie just missed the Rising Stars game. Like the rookie before him.

[drosestruts]

I don't know. What do you think they were negotiating? From reports, it had to be something.

Mk0 pointed out that maybe the Bulls could've traded Vucevic in a deal for Nurkic (who went to Charlotte for Micic and Martin...Suns gave up a first round pick too).

I was referring to the Warriors.

Suns couldn't trade Nurkic for Vuc due to bring over the apron, they can't take back more than the send out and they can't aggregate their own players in a trade.

Nurkic for Vuc was not possible.


Suns attached a 1st to move Nurkic

Pelicans attached a 2nd to move Theis

Valancunias was traded for cap space and a 2nd round pick (makes $11m less then Vuc)

These are the three comparable trades to Vuc in my opinion.

1. I'm not attaching value to send out Vuc

2. I'm not taking on contracts longer than Vuc's

3. Vuc is a net negative. He's been a negative player in each of the past 4 years. If you're worried about Vuc "ruining a tank" don't be, we have 4 years of evidence showing we're plenty capable of losing the minutes in which Vuc is on the floor.

If you wanted expiring contracts or draft assets for Vuc, the other trades made today for big men show that was highly unlikely given his skill and contract size.

[drosestruts]

If we're all gonna live in a land of high expectations not based in reality I'll join you guys and start hoping Vuc takes a buyout

[SalmonsSuperfan]

Can’t hate AK for standing pat on Vuc. We just saw what some very good centers were traded for (scraps). I think Vuc is clearly better than Val and Nurkic — and has been his entire tenure on the Bulls.
I stand pat thinking the Vuc trade was practically the only good move this front office has made. Re-signing him too.

They gotta trade him for something eventually, right? Get better value than what they got for Zach which was exclusively a salary dump. Neither one should be a salary dump. Then the contradiction is still “decent players, bad record, bad draft” when it ought to be “bad players, bad record, potentially good draft”.

[Indomitable]

Read on Twitter

Our organization is hilarious. People actually think there is a plan. They are living in hope.

[cocktailswith_2short]

This team needs Flagg in the worst way . Id be a godsend for him to come here as opposed to Washington . I'll be pissed after every win from here on out.

[Indomitable]

We've still done nothing in terms of picking a damn lane

We're one of the youngest teams in the league. The direction is pretty clear.

Do you think it's a good direction? How many of the teams young players project to have all-star level ability (or close)?

Right now the team is stuck in mediocrity and I don't see them getting out any time soon.

We have a bunch low end young guys.

Besides Matais does any of them have a chance at being an all star.

We have a bunch young role players with very little upside.

Our young players are not versatile and besides maybe 2 of them project to be two way players.

[Indomitable]

I hear this a lot. Do ppl think Washington and Brooklyn are in better spots?

I'll take that one and put a resounding yes to it:

Charlotte has something building and some exciting players to watch: Ball, Miller, Bridges, Green, Mann and a high pick (they just need time like the Pistons)
Wizards have some nice building blocks as well: Coulibaly, Sarr, Carrington, George and just got rid of Kuzma, and a high pick coming, if they found a way to move Poole they'd be in a great spot, some younger role players that are movable like Kispert

Bulls have: Buzelis and that's about it, we don't have a single other piece to be "excited" about, we have 14 role players

Agree with everything except Charlotte. Trading Mark Williams for a high floor low ceiling guy, a future pick in the mid 20s, and a swap that won't be used boggles my mind.

So getting rid a center and probably guaranteeing your pick is a top 4 pick.

Charlotte did a smart thing. They are load with 4 players I would love to say we have. Plus they chose a direction.

[pipfan]

I wanted White moved more the Vuc (him too)

But, I'll still watch. I like Ayo, Ball and Matas a lot. I am STILL rooting for PWill to become a legit player. I'm not a big fan of White or Giddy, but they're not bad

I think we end up around #8-11 in the draft. We can pray for lotto luck

[FriedRise]

What does a "very good player" even mean? A fringe all star? Because if that's the case, we don't even have 1 and by his definition, we're supposed to have 9-10? That's lunacy.

Honestly, I kinda expected this the moment he brought back Lonzo yesterday. Dude just doesn't want to tank, and it doesn't look like he knows how to put together a roster that can compete either. I'm generally anti-tank, but I get that that's the only path for us to get back to one day contending again. A player like Zach is maybe the 3rd best player on a championship team, and right now, we don't have anyone close to his caliber lol. Like, what are we doing here?

[Indomitable]

Read on Twitter

I guess mediocrity it is

When the VP spews such idiotic drivel & nonsense which is easily proven false by just looking at every championship team, the fault now lies with ownership. AK is a basketball moron, and so the problem lies with his superiors who haven't fired him and worse keep extending him. Our core problem is the same as it always was, the ownership group. They're the ones who hire the FO.

I mean ownership is always in the crosshairs of the Chicago fanbase, so to say I agree would be the biggest "duh" ever.

That said, AK either thinks everyone's dumb as **** or he's the one that's dumb as ****. If he truly believes a 9 - 10 role player team is a path to a title then he doesn't know what he's doing and should be fired immediately. You have 1 example in 75 years where this is true. Or 1 example in the last 45 years aka, modern(ish) NBA. Maybe 2 depending on how you view Tatum/Brown.

Let's wrap this up guys. Move on.

2 teams did that. The Seattle team with Dennis Johnson did it to in the late 70's.

[ShouldaPaidBG]

My positive spin is it was an absolute miracle to get rid of Zach with no long term salary coming back. That's enough for me. I wish Vuc was never given his contract or traded for, but I'm not surprised tha basically nobody wanted to trade for him. I'm not really mad about that.

I think they were thinking of trading Coby then saw how bad our offense was last game without Coby.

What good does trading Zach actually do for us though if we aren’t completely tearing it down? He was actually living up to his contract again this season.

If we are gonna push for 35 wins either way at least he was fun to watch. Getting our pick back is great, but if it will be be outside the top 10 it’s not much to get excited about.

As of right now there is a decent chance that trading Zach does absolutely nothing to really improve our future.

We were never cracking the top 5 regardless

Zach gone means development reps for everyone else, plus a team-wide mental shift.

[TheEndIsNigh]

I haven't seen this mentioned but IMO, the lack of a market is again an indictment of AKME's ability to negotiate contracts. Many, many people here said that Vuc's $20m per year deal was too much and as frequently happens, realgm.com was smarter than AKME.

Yep. They sign these contracts without letting a market develop first, and repeatedly find that they have overpaid relative to the players worth to the league. It's really damning on multiple levels. They can't properly evaluate player talent or the the market. So we get stuck with guys P Will for 5 years, who turns out to be such a bad value contract that we start talking about trading him in year 1. If he's not working out for us in year 1 of a 5 year deal, who in the hell else is going to take him for $20 million a year? We have some of the worst assets in the league, bar none. How many other teams on the league would continue to employ these clowns? The Bulls are just a disaster from top to bottom right now.

[burlydee]

Mk0 pointed out that maybe the Bulls could've traded Vucevic in a deal for Nurkic (who went to Charlotte for Micic and Martin...Suns gave up a first round pick too).

I was referring to the Warriors.

Suns couldn't trade Nurkic for Vuc due to bring over the apron, they can't take back more than the send out and they can't aggregate their own players in a trade.

Nurkic for Vuc was not possible.


Suns attached a 1st to move Nurkic

Pelicans attached a 2nd to move Theis

Valancunias was traded for cap space and a 2nd round pick (makes $11m less then Vuc)

These are the three comparable trades to Vuc in my opinion.

1. I'm not attaching value to send out Vuc

2. I'm not taking on contracts longer than Vuc's

3. Vuc is a net negative. He's been a negative player in each of the past 4 years. If you're worried about Vuc "ruining a tank" don't be, we have 4 years of evidence showing we're plenty capable of losing the minutes in which Vuc is on the floor.

If you wanted expiring contracts or draft assets for Vuc, the other trades made today for big men show that was highly unlikely given his skill and contract size.

There was a report that basically said Bulls thought they could trade him for more in the summer and they didn't think he would ruin the tank. Now, I think they should have trade him now. But I honestly believe they could be better with a center rotation of Smith / Collins just bc of the improved D. Since his hot start, Vuc has reverted back to the guy he was the last 4 years. His effort sucks. Perfect tank commander.

[WesPeace]

[youtube][/youtube]

They tried to trade them aggressively.

Didn't get what they wanted.

No one is a free agent outside of Tre Jones

They will once again try to trade them aggressively in the offseason.

As someone who likes the entertainment of trades I would have loved a complete blowup.

As someone who likes game theory I don't get how anyone is mad. They aren't losing 1 asset.

This summer/next season they are going to have 82Million in expiring contracts plus all their picks

Who cares about cap space? We don’t have any assets worth anything.

No stars are signing with Chicago and rightfully so. This is a completely unserious and incompetent organization.

Who cares about capspace? Every team. Thats why these pieces are all worth more in the offseason

What good FA would come here and sign with this cheap mediocre lost in space FO and below average coach??? To compete for maybe 5th seed and at besr 2nd round? We didnt attract good free agents since dinosaurus

[WesPeace]

If we're all gonna live in a land of high expectations not based in reality I'll join you guys and start hoping Vuc takes a buyout

You are out of reality sometimes if you are comparing Valanciunas, Nurkic and Theis to Vucevic in trades?!

Vucevic is still much better center than those 3 guys with doubled stats over theirs. So NO, its not comparable with other guys being shipped put with attached picks. Vucevic could net expirings and 2nd rounder,but AKME insisted on 1st rounder.

[WindyCityBorn]

What does a "very good player" even mean? A fringe all star? Because if that's the case, we don't even have 1 and by his definition, we're supposed to have 9-10? That's lunacy.

Honestly, I kinda expected this the moment he brought back Lonzo yesterday. Dude just doesn't want to tank, and it doesn't look like he knows how to put together a roster that can compete either. I'm generally anti-tank, but I get that that's the only path for us to get back to one day contending again. A player like Zach is maybe the 3rd best player on a championship team, and right now, we don't have anyone close to his caliber lol. Like, what are we doing here?

I have a feeling it might be a while before have another player good enough to the 3rd option on a championship. 3rd option is probably Matas realistic ceiling.

Shame Zach wasted his best years here and then got shipped to another terrible organization as a final f you. Maybe he can play for a good team once his current deal up.