Chicago Bull

As I’ve said before: the new non-SBNation BlogABull promises less. There's no posting minimum, and the NBA world right now is firmly focused on The Finals and not the second-division club from Chicago. I find it insane that CHGO is still cranking out a Bulls podcast every day.

There have been no real rumors, so aggregators mount up with stuff from the likes of Dan Bernstein and Joe Cowley, yikes.

All that said, it would be nice to at least get some discussion points up on the blog. I still find myself thinking a lot about this team even in the face of knowing that the people in charge have a default setting of ‘inert’.

I have had some of these thoughts already in my Notes page, which I recommend you also subscribe to instead of Twitter dot com.

In the wake of the Heat and Nuggets making The Finals, compounded by the moribund state of the Bulls, there's been a lot of consternation trying to read into Arturas Karnisovas's thinking. Like how he used to work for the Nuggets, a team that sorta used ‘continuity’, (though funnily enough this Denver Post profile on ‘how this great team was built’ doesn't mention him) or how the Heat were not that far off from the Bulls this past regular season in fact a close game away from swapping places in the postseason tournament. If one legit worries about this, you think AK should be fired for incompetence. I do, and I do.

Like mentioned, any ‘news’ has been sparse and flimsy. This includes Lonzo Ball talk. So flimsy I won't even link it! You have Bernstein saying the Bulls are operating like Lonzo is never playing again, but Cowley saying they are holding out for a miracle return. We know the team won't acknowledge anything public either way, so the tell will be if they apply for a DPE or Salary Exclusion. A 5th option I neglected in that (terrific) post is simply waiving-and-stretch Lonzo. So instead of $20.5M on the cap for the next two seasons, it'd be around $8.3M for the next five. They still could file for injury exclusion eventually to have it completely removed. I’m not clear if the Bulls would Bulls keep getting insurance reimbursement though.

Speaking of Lonzo, and The Finals, I am mad that AK and the Heat didn't do my fake trade midseason to give them Nikola Vucevic and get Duncan Robinson in return. Robinson had to have his lowest value at that point, now he just had a huge Game Two, and though a sieve on defense is the kind of movement shooter the Bulls need. The Heat are simultaneously ambitious yet cheap, so I don't think it's out of the question that they’d still trade Robinson this offseason just for financial savings. He has a nearly identical contract to Lonzo, but unlike Lonzo actually will play in an NBA game next season. I think there's something to the idea of allowing Miami to save room under the tax by moving Robinson and Victor Oladipo ($9M and also won't play after another knee surgery), and then allow them to waive-and-stretch Lonzo. All these ideas of trading Lonzo means the Bulls would be actually using their spending power to get out of it, something they have not historically done.

There was also some slightly-more-concrete rumor-ing by Shams on the Bulls working on an extension for Vuc while they can do so exclusively before he becomes an unrestricted free agent on July 1st. The numbers speculated (Shams had no numbers, so it's just speculation from other ‘observers’) I find bonkers. Similarly bonkers is the idea I’ve seen pushed by some observers that the Bulls should trade DeMar DeRozan to make Vuc better. Vuc imposes similar limitations on both sides of the ball, but DeRozan makes up for those by actually being very productive. Vuc is not reliable, he's a mid-level role player, and shouldn't be paid more than that. While true the "Bird Rights trap" means the Bulls can't sign a $20M center to replace Vuc, they can get a cheaper one who lets you spend (i.e. money under the tax) elsewhere unburdened by building around an aging, slow, mid-post center.

I haven't fully baked this theory, and it's likely impossible given self-imposed spending constraints (a lot of these theories are impossible! I still think about it though…), but it’d be nice to upgrade from Vuc to Kristaps Porzingis. Porzingis gets hurt more, and isn't as good of a passer, but he's better at what Vuc is only reputationally good at (threes) and is a far better rim protector. The Wizards have a new head executive, and like all hires in the league have been given the ‘highly-regarded’ label by Woj, which is meaningless but does suggest that they are going to make moves.

Speaking of the non-player rumors, interesting to see how coaching salaries have spiked and even assistant coaches moving make news. This cycles up and down, it seems. The Bulls are, of course, content with Billy Donovan. I have the crazy idea that there is more to coaching than the ‘adjustments’ of who plays backup center, but the Bulls don't seem interested in upgrading. While the team needs shooters (as Stephen Noh said in the excellent recent Cash Considerations episode, they need like 5-6 new shooters to try this offseason), they could also help achieve improvement schematically. You’d have to assume, say, Mike Budenholzer would improve the ‘shot profile’ AK was confused about in his post-season presser.

The Bulls also made no changes to their entire coaching staff or front office yet. Good job gets rewarded. Remember when current assistant Chris Fleming was a hot name for a head job? Is ‘Chicago Bulls’ considered a resume gap?