Chicago Bulls Disasterclass
Are you kiddin' me? (The One That Didn't Get Away XIV)
In this series I want to highlight a thought I had during the new season, one I couldn’t shake and just had to write down. This time it’s just to vent about my Bulls.
After years of not wanting to sell, the Bulls started to trade: For 2nd Round Picks. In a span of 7 days they amassed 9 2nd Round Picks, which, i can only assume, need to be sold for Cash, which Reinsdorf is a massive fan of. I’m pretty convinced his 2k Player is named Cash Consideration and he wins all seasons with him.
Just to be clear: There were multiple reports over the years that the Bulls hat 1st Round Pick offers for certain players. Let’s take Caruso as an example. They traded him to the with the most picks, didn’t get a single back, just to receive Giddey, who the Thunder didn’t want to play and then won a Championship. (I’m not saying that Giddey is a bad player, i’m saying the process was bad.)
This season everything changed. After a lackluster season, we started trading. At last, but soon after we got hit with this message:
The Bulls and Hornets amended the Coby White trade after a physical showed White had a left calf injury and would have to miss time, league sources tell
. Hornets are now sending two second-rounders (2031 NYK, 2031 DEN) to Chicago instead of three.
Okay, up to this point the Coby-White-Arc went like this:
He was supposed to be on a minutes limit. Played 30 Minutes
Missed the 2nd game with an illness and/ or right calf strain
Played Game 3, but didn’t start
Missed Game 4
Started the next three games (31, 35, 29 minutes)
Missed one game for injury management
Missed two more games with a left calf tightness
Played 11 games
Got injured, played every other game
…You get the point. Clearly he wasn’t ready, his injury history was acute, which begs the question: Why, my dear Bulls, WHY did you play him at all that much? Just to trade him for two seconds? Y’all want to tell me, they played an injured Coby for two second rounders?! Come on…
ANYWAY. In that same span of trades we acquired Jaden Ivey, who came back from an egregious injury himself and couldn’t find his rhythm on the Pistons roster. His knee was the MAIN issue for the disinterest league-wide and even if the Bulls didn’t give up much, they still got a man praying to God after a few games, because he saw what the Bulls are doing: Being clueless. Look at this beauty:
“Recently acquired guard Jaden Ivey shockingly became the odd man out. […] The Bulls put themselves in this situation with a bizarre deadline that saw them welcome four guards who all warranted playing time.
Nevertheless, Ivey seemed like a priority. Selected Top 5 in the 2022 NBA Draft […], he represented the kind of piece a rebuilding team would normally hope to evaluate as a future building block. Wes Unseld Jr.'s decision to keep him off the floor, though, went directly against that sentiment.
To be clear, Ivey was available to play and stated that it was a “series of things” that went into what he referred to as the first DNP-CD of his career. [...] Donovan said he was available and could play. Soreness was a concern after.”
Welcome to the City, Jaden. You might not even have to look for a house…
BUT we are not done: Bulls went and got a Guard. One of many: Anfernee Simons. And not long after it was revealed:
This trade got the Bulls below the Luxury Tags, because, as the saying goes:
BULLS DON’T PAY THE TAX!
If you have to, you roster 100 Guards with injury concerns.
Now, Chicago paid a 2nd Round Pick and didn’t evaluate Simons’ medically, because the injury is believed to have appeared from an earlier injury that didn't heal completely in training camp. TRAINING CAMP. Do you understand what’s happening here? Because i don’t.
Let me summarize:
How come we have an injured player, trade him away, he gets checked and a 2nd Round Pick in that trade was removed from the deal, yet when we trade FOR a player and PAY a 2nd Round Pick, we don’t get to keep it. Are we that incompetent? And that's the Chicago Bulls in a nutshell: A franchise so committed to cutting corners that they'll play an injured player through a grueling stretch just to flip him for two second-round picks, picks that will probably be sold for cash anyway. A front office that was savvy enough to get a pick removed from a deal when their guy failed a physical, but apparently couldn't be bothered to run the same due diligence when spending one. They didn't rebuild. They didn't retool. They just… reshuffled the deck of broken pieces and called it a plan. Somewhere, Jerry Reinsdorf's 2K player named Cash Consideration just won another championship. Must be nice.