Its officially over. Bulls probably won't draft anyone of note in June. Currently 9th worst record in the league. Of all the things that GarPax/Hoiberg should be fired over this is it.

None of the other things that they have done are as egregious as this stupid shit. They were set sweet when they were 3-20. All they had to do is stick to the damn gameplan (If they ever had one).

They went out of their way to show the world that they were too ethical to tank only to reverse field and attempt to tank. This is the dumbest shit i've ever seen.

Anti tankers you win. Hoiberg/Garpax detractors you win. If ever they'd shown forethought this would be it. Now they are destined to be fringe players for playoff spots going forward.

This is your life Charlie Brown. I hope all of the anti tankers are happy now.

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I gotta admit, this Bulls tanking season is a complete disaster. One potentially stud top 5 pick would be such a nice addition to this solid young nucleus. Now, it's back to basketball hell.

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The Bulls haven't done anything wrong, and they won't do anything wrong.

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The GarPax apologists are the ones who the question should be posed to first, prior to anyone on either side of the tanking debate.

What will probably happen is one of the big names will slip to where they are and they will select someone else or trade the pick

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"He is a loathsome, offensive brute
--yet I can't look away."

They’ve been mismanaged from the coaching and FO spots for awhile now. The FO and Hoiberg have good reason to be launched. Them not meeting some dumbass “tanking” goal this season is literally the last reason for that though.

Dunn, Markannen, and Lavine are great core pieces. Portis is a very intriguing player. Through injuries, bad contracts, and bad coaching rotations this season has gone as poorly as possible.

If Dunn, Lauri, and Lavine had been healthy all year long this would be a 40 win team with its three best players under 23 and a lottery pick.

I don’t like the front office and I especially don’t like Hoiberg but there’s reason for optimism.

Also I feel the need to repeat that dependency on drafting high is for weak front offices(I know we probably have one currently) and it doesn’t even work out then for those teams.

Tanking isn’t the answer. A competent GM and head coach are, and a lot of that ties back to the owner.

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Fare you well, fare you well
I love you more than words can tell
Listen to the river sing sweet songs
To rock my soul

You would have blamed them regardless. If they tank you'd blame them. If they failed at tanking (as they have) you still would blame them. As per usual you haven't taken a position on the actual issue while it occurred in real time. You simply position yourself as the board's greatest monday morning Quarterback. Your Parker Lewis can't lose styled arguments are old now.

Your entire angle is simply to bash GarPax regardless. You have no credibility because you really don't take a position other than that.

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This makes no sense. As i've previously stated the Bulls tanked in order to be in position to land Jordan. The 84 draft was probably the greatest in the past 50 years and everyone knew it at the time. The Bulls were in position to make the playoffs and wrote off the season in Dec.

Fast forward to this year. Its funny how everyone wants to proclaim the Philly tank a failure. Based on what exactly?

They are positioned to land the 3 spot in the east. This in spite of their best player missing back to backs and being on a minutes restriction early in the season. This in spite of the No. 1 pick missing the entire season. This in spite of their GM making dumb move after dumb move.

This the first year that any of the core players that resulted from tanking will actually have suited up. They are positioned to be major players in the East for years to come. Yeah tanking doesn't work.

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I’ve disagreed with LTG in the past but this is the dumbest nba post he has ever written.

He’s blaming Hoiberg and GarPax for not losing enough games for a top 5 pick this year when the only reason they are in contention for a top 9 pick is due to injuries to three guys GarPax acquired and all look to have high potential.

The only other thing to say is they should’ve benched Mirotic or traded before he started playing well, in which case you would have got next to nothing instead of a late mid round first pick. Which should help with a rebuild!

This is a bad one for you LTG. Lose/lose. A strange game. The only winning move is not to play.

_________________
Fare you well, fare you well
I love you more than words can tell
Listen to the river sing sweet songs
To rock my soul

It’s funny you started this out with “makes no sense”. This post is fucking gibberish as a reply to the post you quoted.

Please try to stay on topic in your own thread.

_________________
Fare you well, fare you well
I love you more than words can tell
Listen to the river sing sweet songs
To rock my soul

My position was that a front office that necessitated a tank job and full rebuild due to their own bad decisions shouldn't have been given the keys to that tank job, nor should they have had the discretion to determine whether or not to even tank in the first place. GarPax's years of failed retools should have resulted in precisely zero faith that they'd be able to tank successfully in the first place.

Teams have been wheeling out their weakest lineups all year, yet none of them have been so sloppy and blatant as to get warned by the league like the genius front office here. The Bulls ostensibly came into this season with intentions of tanking yet refused to deal Lopez before the season, were unable or unwilling to deal Lopez or Holiday during the season, and sat by while Mirotic helped them rack up wins left and right before being traded. The drama about tonight's loss specifically is a bit overstated (the hilarity isn't though ) because the Grizzlies are a historically bad team. But the effort that went into trying to secure this loss has been absent for the vast majority of the season (including many of the losses to other tanking contenders since the all-star break) despite the supposed vision and grand plans of the front office.

There is nothing dumb about it. They waited too long to tank and they sat on players that would have facilitated the tanking process. Lopez should have been dealt. I understand sitting on Mirotic and trying to get value for him. They could have dealt a few guys and shortened the minutes on other guys.

There are no franchise players on this team. I say that as a Lauri, Dunn, and Lavine fan. They have solid parts. That is about it.

Your contention that Philly's tanking or tanking in general fails is one of the dumbest comments and positions (of a great many made by you) currently being held.

You repeatedly state that it has failed yet you have nothing to base it on. It is also funny that you preach patience in other areas but not that one. You've rendered it a failure before they have actually finished the season.

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Yeah but i never recalled you commenting about tanking either way. When they were getting the doors blown off earlier in the season you bashed the hell out of them (predictably) for their inability to win. I remember stating that this was a lost/tanking season anyway so what did it matter.

They won just enough to get out of the top five pick and demonstrated that they were better than most anticipated and now you are bashing them for failing at tanking. You were never in favor of tanking anyway. You only take anti GarPax positions. That is the only play that you ever make.

I'm bashing them for screwing up the tank job. I have always been in favor of that. Even going back to last season. You on the other hand bashed when they did demonstrate vision. That is why i state that you lack credibility. You're bashing them for failing at something that you were opposed to anyway.

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Podium so far:

Gold: Zeph
Silver: LTG
Bronze: FF

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Rick Hahn is the best GM in baseball.

If there's more basketball talent than ever, how is drafting the 9th best player in his draft class a death sentence?

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Precipitous dropoff after the 5 or 6th pick. General consensus seems to be that it is a top heavy draft.

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Cheap Fucks should have taken the fine from the NBA and continued to sit guys. Actually they should have dumped them at the trade deadline or just outright released them.

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I agree with you a lot but don’t know if I agree or disagree with you here. I don’t agree with many decisions that GarPax has made.

I feel like a dumbass saying “GarPax.” I hate it. Sounds dumb. We don’t have a silly nickname for Theo and Jed because I feel like they knew and know what they’re doing.

Anyway, I do like what they got for Butler. I’m not sure the Thunder did better trading Harden or obviously the Pacers with George. Cleveland really fucked up with the Irving trade.

That said, I don’t know how good Lauri, LaVine, and Dunn are. I have more doubts about LaVine than the other two — only because I think I know what Dunn is and and Lauri has the highest ceiling. That scares me because it feels like the Bulls are pretty much obligated to pay LaVine a lot of money this summer. He’s a confusing player.

Also, yes it’s ideal to get a top 5 pick. Ayton is the clear #1 (don’t care about tonight, Sean Miller is an idiot not only for losing in the first round 2 of the past 3 seasons, but also ruining my 7 game parlay today —I just needed you to make some simple adjustments in the 2nd half Sean you motherfucker).

Kevin Knox looked great this afternoon. People slept on Steph Curry. Will Trae Young be available? The lottery’s in Chicago. If they land the 7th or 6th best odds, maybe they get into the top 3.

But yes, they should have pulled the trigger on Mirotic quicker. They should have traded Lopez. Tyreke shouldn’t have fouled Blantley. The NBA is so bad this year. Much worse than last. The Bulls would be in a top 3 or 4 position according to the standings last year. And I sort of feel sorry for “GarPax.”

I'm excited for GarPax to overtake their 4th rebuild of their Bulls careers in 4 years.

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I said that the decision to tank or not tank is insignificant if the same clowns are still running the show. And despite the fact that the revolutionary decision to tank was made, they still revealed their own clownishness yet again and appear to have alienated even the most ardent pro-tankers.

Uh what? At most I recall laughing at Hoiberg's inconsistent rotations, which were justified under the guise of "young player development" as much as just trying to lose as much as possible.
Wow, so maybe we should be praising GarPax for defying expectations! It's not a matter of being worse at tanking than other teams but instead the front office being better at talent acquisition! I love how quickly you can switch into full blown apologist mode for a front office that's never won anything when I correctly point out that they're the problem.

I've been consistently ambivalent about the decision to tank or not tank but thought it should 100% not be in the hands of the very front office that necessitated any kind of tanking in the first place. Look at the front offices of the teams the Bulls are "competing" with: the majority have been in power less than 2 years. The few who have been around longer are all generally on the hot seat. The only GM who's been around nearly as long as Paxson is Donnie Nelson, who, you know, actually has a title to his name.

This is one of the main problems with treating the mere act of tanking itself as some kind of panacea. It matters who's actually overseing any kind of tanking effort, which is why I find so many of your long asides about whether tanking is or is not the key to winning to be overly theoretical and somewhat beside the point. Generally if you've failed as a GM, I'm going to be a lot more skeptical about your decision as to when to start tanking and your ability to actually execute it properly. Someone like Hinkie made the decision to pull the plug on the treadmill immediately and was quite adept at dumping the guys that would result in an undesirably high draft pick for long-term assets.

GarPax meanwhile seem to have been on autopilot for the vast majority of the season and until the all-star break were comfortable with passively losing games, something that's a huge drawback when there were multiple teams actively losing during the entire course of the season. And before you bring up the Mirotic trade, I praised the return they got for it compared to the other deadline deals, but it's quite clear you don't believe the Pelicans' pick is a good enough trade-off for missing out on a top 5 pick.

So you admit to being the rather convenient "ambivalent" about tanking? Damned if you do damned if you don't is how i see it.

As far as inconsistent rotations go what are you talking about? The main reason that the Bulls were 3-20 was because guys (Mirotic, Dunn, Lavine, Nwaba) were injured and Portis was suspended. It had nothing to do with coaching and everything to do with talent. Again your position will always be that of anti management so why bother.

If anything this season has served as validation of a few things

1. The decision to whack Thibs was the right one. Guys like Barkley, Jet Smith, Pierce, and Jalen Rose have all questioned the coaching of Thibs.

2. Hoiberg can coach. Maybe not championship level but he is far from the worse coach in the league. Guys are developing under him and the Bulls rebounded after a disastrous start.

3. GarPax got the better of the Butler trade. Very few if any on here believed it at the time of the trade. Obvious now.

4. They fucked this tank job up.

Your diatribes about the alleged ineptitude of management are also off base.

This is the same team that I.D.d guys like Deng, Noah, Rose , Butler, and now Markannen.

Interesting how you gloss over all of this when providing critiques. I don't remember you touting the ability of Markannen either.

This same team that you bash for being inept plucked arguably the best player from last years draft. If not then no lower than 3rd.

They also drafted Portis with the 22nd pick. Do you care to go over a list of the guys drafted ahead of him? Something tells me you don't.

When you talk about "who leads" then that sort of thing can't be discounted. They have repeatedly demonstrated that they can draft. I'm not a Gar fan either.

Noah Vonleh also looks like a solid piece also.

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I don't want anything to do with Trae Young. NBA point guards are going to feast on him. They say Steph Curry and all i see is Dana Barros.

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Completely agree. Not to switch sports, but this is the biggest reason the collective Hahn blowjob by EVERYBODY is such a fucking embarrassment.

_________________
Fare you well, fare you well
I love you more than words can tell
Listen to the river sing sweet songs
To rock my soul

I'm sure if pressed neither you nor he could exactly tell the world what these terrible decisions necessitating a tank happened to be.

Derrick Rose's injury (which they couldn't control) is what necessitated the rebuild. Nothing else.

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Nobody tanked to get Jordan. You're rewriting history. The jewels of the draft were Hakeem and Bowie. No one gave a shit about some 6'6 shooting guard.

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Successful calls:

Kyrie Irving will never win anything as a team's alpha: check
T.rubisky is a bust: check
Ben Simmons is a liability: check
The Fields Cult is dumb: double check

2013 CSFMB ROY

They tanked to get a much higher draft position. That was the best draft of the past 50 years and everyone knew it at the time.

The person universally regarded as the best player in college at the time (Patrick Ewing) wasn't in the draft but there was speculation that he might go hardship.

Even if the Bulls truly wanted Bowie Jordan was no one's consolation prize. He was a 2 time college player of the year and the best player on the best olympic team in history(If you restrict it to college players).

The Bulls benched their best player in December and started 2 Rookies in the backcourt. They were 21-27 at the time of the Theus trade. They went 6-28 following the deadline trade of Theus. That was a tank job.

I'm pretty sure that you are unfamiliar with that period and only go off of what you've heard someone else say.

Tanking was rampant back then and it is the primary reason that the lottery system was implemented.

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You and FF are illustrating how ignorant you are about this. Prior to the lottery system there used to be the coin flip. The Bulls once lost the coin flip for Magic and ended up with David Greenwood.

The teams with the worst records in each conf would flip a coin for the number 1 pick. The Bulls finished 1 game behind Indiana for the worst record in the East or else they'd have been involved. Portland owned Indiana's pick.

The Bulls actually owned the second worst record in the NBA behind Indiana but teams from the same conf. couldn't be involved the coin flip. That is where Houston came in. Houston owned the 3rd worst reccord in the NBA but worst in the West thus they could be involved in the flip.

It is obvious that the Bulls were attempting to finish with a worse record than Indiana. They finished a mere one game back and probably figured that Indiana had more of an incentive to win since they'd relinquished their pick already.

It is obvious that you and FF are unaware of that history. Even if the Bulls wanted Bowie and failed it still doesn't mean that they didn't tank.

It still doesn't change the fact that they tanked and tanking placed them in position to draft Jordan.

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The question is did the Bulls tank to draft Jordan vs did the Bulls tank to get a higher position. You asserted the former and then argued the latter. Thanks for confirming that you are both confused and wrong.

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Successful calls:

Kyrie Irving will never win anything as a team's alpha: check
T.rubisky is a bust: check
Ben Simmons is a liability: check
The Fields Cult is dumb: double check

2013 CSFMB ROY

So your argument is that they didn't tank in order to draft Jordan? Is this supposed to be an argument against tanking?

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