Looking at the Bulls roster...

And yet they're winning ... somehow.

All due to Hoiberg's coaching prowess.

Hmmm. I looked up prowess because I thought suddenly it meant something different from what I was taught.
It doesn't.
Look man. I like you. But lay off the dope.

Bulls are the epitome of a mediocre team. Addition of Wade took them from about a 28 win team to a 40 win team. I can roll with that. The alternative would have been Jose Calderon and Mike Dunleavy. If you think this is bad.

Bulls are the epitome of a mediocre team. Addition of Wade took them from about a 28 win team to a 40 win team. I can roll with that. The alternative would have been Jose Calderon and Mike Dunleavy. If you think this is bad.

The alternative would have been proceeding with an actual rebuild that's going to have to happen sooner or later regardless, rather than wasting another year, missing out on desirable draft positioning, and giving free agents even less incentive to seriously consider coming here.

Full rebuild would have involved trading Butler. Are you in favor of that?

That's certainly what it would entail now but it wouldn't have this off-season, as guys like Mirotic hadn't had their value completely ruined like they have this season. Further, not signing Rondo and Wade would have actually opened the door to using resources to acquire younger and more athletic talent, as GarPax so often claim this team is missing.

Which young and athletic talent? How would it have been acquired? Rondo will be gone after this season and Wade possibly will be too.
None of the moves that the Bulls made last season have long term impact.
A full rebuild would have always included trading Butler.

Uh by using assets that were still actually valued by the rest of the league instead of hoping against hope that guys like McDermott and Mirotic would actually improve under the tutelage of their boy genius coach? By not spending cap space to acquire a ball-dominant point guard who doesn't fit well next to Butler, doesn't fit well within Hoiberg's most ingenious system, and doesn't play play defense (BTW said player according to most accounts was the primary target of the Bulls' enlightened front office before Wade just happened to fall in their lap)? By not potentially committing next year's cap space to Wade on some hope and a prayer that he brings in "other big names?"

And I would say these moves definitely have a long-term impact, specifically in the opportunity costs I mentioned in the original post. They put off a rebuild that's coming sooner or later for another year, they miss out on a more desirable pick in what looks to be a good draft, and the Rondo affair probably makes it even harder for the team to attract free agents in the future. Now the Bulls have no tradeable assets aside from Butler and maybe Taj on a one-year rental or Lopez. You're pretty much the only person I know outside of Reinsdorf, Paxson, and Forman who loves and apologizes for the treadmill this much.

Full rebuild would have involved trading Butler. Are you in favor of that?

If they don't sign Wade and Rondo which players were available in free agency? They'd have to fit under the cap which I can't remember at this point.
You still haven't provided an answer. It is easy to say they shouldn't have signed this or that guy. It's much tougher to say who they should have or could have signed. They turned Calderon and Dunleavy into Wade and Rondo. That is a vastly superior upgrade no matter how you look at it.

No full rebuild takes place without trading Butler. That will still be available at the end of this season. Taj will be off the books as well. You also overestimate the Bulls tradeable assets from last season.

Butler was the only one with value. The league knew Mirotic was a bum. They weren't tricking anyone with him

I make sense and so do they. You are providing a bevy of hypotheticals and none really make much sense. The Rondo Wade signings were mere stopgap moves designed to tread water for a year. It doesn't get you closer to a championship but neither does Calderon and Dunleavy.

Another thing. Desirable draft pick? What does that mean? Anything outside of the top 4 or 5 isn't that desirable. The Bulls with Butler probably get you outside of that.

You keep adopting this pose that Rondo and Wade were literally the best the Bulls could do in this offseason. It's not the least bit compelling since a)I'd be hard pressed to think of many worse free agent signings than Rondo this offseason and b)even if they were literally the best available, it's perfectly rational to suggest that maybe the Bulls still shouldn't have tried to pursue them.

Well they most certainly aren't fooling anyone now, which is why it makes sense that the dynamic duo in the front office are only now looking to move him. "Try to sell only at the very lowest" doesn't seem like a strategy for a successful business person but it appears to be the GarPax way. Taj being off the books at the end of the year isn't something to be celebrated either; what has made you the least bit convinced that this front office is capable of getting anything close to his quality (and yes I know you don't like him, which only reinforces my point), especially since it's not like he was on some kind of onerous contract anyway?

Simply repeating that a full rebuild can proceed at the end of the season just illustrates point that it could have been initiated this season. Does the concept of opportunity costs not exist in y
our world?

I bolded the most important part. Why the hell are you celebrating or justifying moves you yourself admit don't get you to a championship? Why should treading water for a year be seen as anything other than a waste of time? What exactly are the Bulls going to have to show for these "massive" upgrades at PG and SF aside from a meaningless struggle for the eighth seed and a worse position in the draft?


This is regarded as one of the more loaded drafts in the last few years and beyond that the top 8 are rated more closely to each other. There's no Lebron type standout but most agree that majority of the lottery picks project highly. I would think it would be useful to have a chance at landing closer to the top of that draft rather than treading water.

I must note it's hilarious how your initial post credited Wade with elevating this team from the 28 win range to 40, yet you now want to argue Butler would singlehandedly keep them outside of the top 4 or 5 when 28 wins would have put them there last year.

To be honest I don't think Butler Calderon and Dunleavy gets you to 20 wins. 28 was high.

You seem primarily interested in bashing Paxson/Hoiberg. You offer no real solutions and gaming for an 8th pick in the draft really does nothing. The Bulls will probably still get a top 12 pick anyway Sacramento's.

The only player with value is Butler. Not Mirotic. Not McDermott. Not Portis. Not anyone.


You are merely employing the old Talk Show gibberish of hating everything and everyone. Wade and Rondo doesn't hurt anyone's trajectory. The guys they replaced aren't even NBA players at this stage of the game.

You don't even have a plan and the only thing you seem interested in is bashing Hoiberg/Paxson.

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Signing Wade and Rondo improved the team. Didn't "get them closer to a championship"but no move was going to do that. It was a weak free agent class. You also advocate keeping a damn malcontent (Butler). Is their really any doubt that he wouldn't have been on board with any sort of rebuild? He would have been holy hell to deal with in that sort of situation.

Either all in or treadwater with a 6th 7th or 8th pick. Nothing that the Bulls did last off season changes anything. It also gave them an opportunity to see whether Butler can carry a team. Obviously he can't let's cut bait blow it up and move on. If that means wacking Paxson and Hoiberg so be it.

I love how you complain that I'm primarily interested in bashing Paxson and Hoiberg when you have the most obsessive vendettas towards various Bulls and ex-Bulls of anyone who posts on this site. Everyone here is quite familiar with your opinions towards Thibs, Butler, Gibson, and Moore among others thanks in large part to how relentlessly you bring them up as objects of derision even when they don't have anything to do with the converstation. Even in this very post you suggest that the main lesson of these season is that Butler can't carry a team, a team whose roster construction you bash even more than me if the subject is Hoiberg's coaching abilities or GarPax's most unfortunate luck rather than Butler's playing abilities.

I will confess, I am guilty of criticizing Garpax and Hoiberg because the former have created this mess and the latter has demonstrated nothing of positive value when it comes to coaching. Yet apparently it's a non-issue whether any of them leave for you, inspiring ambivalence at best. The top priority evidently should be getting rid of the one player of value ASAP.

Aside from that, your post contained all the usual contradictions and leaps of logic. The free agent class being weak this past offseason is more and not less justification to start a rebuild in 2016 instead of tying up resources on the weak free agents available from such a class. You suggest the Bulls are a 20 win team without the Wade/Rondo signings (so I guess Wade will now likely account for over half their wins this season?) yet in the very next line suggest the Bulls would still pick outside the top 5 with such a record. You suggest the Bulls will still get a good pick this year thanks to the Kings but appear oblivious that that pick is still top 10 protected and it's not probable at all that they pick outside of that range.

The Bulls will probably still get a top 12 pick anyway Sacramento's.

Do you know how bad that draft protection is for the Bulls? If the pick falls within the protected range in the first round, it becomes a second round pick, still with overall slot protections, if the new pick falls within that protected slotting, the Bulls get nothing. Essentially, with how the Kings are playing (7th worst in the Association, meaning a chance of falling out of pick protection range is currently 0, because the lottery system won't let a team slide back that far), it is a 2nd round pick at best, and even then they might get absolutely nothing out of it.

An executive needs to get fired, just for that.

you beat me to this.

This should have been a tank year. Period. Rondo was an incredibly dumb signing, and then Wade falls in their lap and their coach tries to play him like he's 26 out of the gate. The point this year should have been to get a high draft pick. Period.

The tanking should have began last season.

you beat me to this.

This should have been a tank year. Period. Rondo was an incredibly dumb signing, and then Wade falls in their lap and their coach tries to play him like he's 26 out of the gate. The point this year should have been to get a high draft pick. Period.

Do you know how bad that draft protection is for the Bulls? If the pick falls within the protected range in the first round, it becomes a second round pick, still with overall slot protections, if the new pick falls within that protected slotting, the Bulls get nothing. Essentially, with how the Kings are playing (7th worst in the Association, meaning a chance of falling out of pick protection range is currently 0, because the lottery system won't let a team slide back that far), it is a 2nd round pick at best, and even then they might get absolutely nothing out of it.

An executive needs to get fired, just for that.

Sacramento has a chance to get outside of the top 10. Rudy Gay injury hurts but not to the prognosticators here. Rudy Gay doesn't really help teams so his injury is probably addition by subtraction.

Every team Rudy Gay has left has gotten better. I expect the Kings to make the playoffs now.

Sacramento has a chance to get outside of the top 10. Rudy Gay injury hurts but not to the prognosticators here. Rudy Gay doesn't really help teams so his injury is probably addition by subtraction.