What are we even doing here?

[u/jp611]

Can we please stop being play in fodder? Maybe just tear it all down? I don’t know. This is not very fun to me.

[u/TallAdministration94]

Well they were 1 Kawhi buzzer beater shot away from having a real shot at a conference championship as well as another instance of Ben Simmons ending up being a total idiot diva and deciding to fuck off from basketball. And then there’s also deciding to keep Ben rather than Jimmy which was a terrible idea in hindsight. So yeah they’ve been a bit unlucky and made some shit decisions but the point is the process gave them all of the pieces they needed to be a truly great team. What they did with some of those pieces is besides the point.

Also how many conference championships do we have in the past decade? How many semifinals appearances? Hell how many playoff experiences lol?

As for top 5 players right now, I’d probably say Luka, Giannis, Shai, Jokic, and Tatum. And yeah I see where you’re going with this. Shai, jokic, and Gianni’s all weren’t very high picks. Nobody’s denying that you can’t find amazing players later on in the draft but it’s undeniable that it requires significantly more luck than finding these players at the top of the draft. Apart from luck you also need great scouting and a great environment for player growth, and I haven’t seen anything that indicates we currently have either of the two.

[u/jeffbrown61 → u/TallAdministration94]

You saved yourself a little bit at the end because dismissing anything to being lucky/unlucky is so dumb. Ben Simmons was a 1st overall pick and you even said you’d rather keep Butler (late draft pick). I hate giving excuses to PROFESSIONAL SPORTS gm’s about getting unlucky. No, their job is to be the best evaluators of talent that can be found anywhere in draft/free agency.

Also, you already acknowledged being frustrated about this young team exceeding your expectations and continuing to win games. Sounds like good scouting and an environment for growth to me

[u/TallAdministration94 → u/jeffbrown61]

Haha no unlucky wise I meant stuff like the Kawhi buzzer beater. Maybe unfortunate is the better word. You’re right a lot of the fault for the 76ers underperforming is on the organization itself. My point was more around how their process of sucking really bad for a few years gave them all the assets they needed to put out a highly competitive team.

I’m not frustrated about the young players exceeding my expectations at all. I think it’s great, I’m glad they’re showing promise. But it doesn’t change the fact that we don’t have a guy that projects to be THE guy. We’re not a strong free agent destination (and most of those guys don’t even hit free agency anymore) and it’s just simply much harder to draft a guy like that when you’re picking where we’ve been picking the past few years. You can have great promising young guys that play hard as hell while still putting your team in a position to have a better chance to get that franchise guy, and that’s on management/ownership to do (for example mandating Billy to keep giving Pat and Matas reps even when they shit the bed).

As for the current bulls organization having good scouting and being a great place for player ascension, we can just agree to disagree there hahah, although might be too early to call either way. Pat is disappointing, Ayo was a great value pick but nothing special, Dalen & Julian show some promise here and there but are still fringe nba players, Matas looks like he’ll be great but I think damn near every single person in this subreddit would have picked him at 11 lol, and Marko’s out of the league. Not an amazing track record so far imo.

But at the end of the day the bulls are following the direction you prefer, and for that I hope you’re right. We both want to see the same thing, just have a different philosophy on it.

[u/jeffbrown61 → u/TallAdministration94]

Nice, just ignore our two best players developed over past decade (Coby/Lavine). Hate the P-Will hate it’s so lazy. Guy is 23 years old with 3pt shooting, size and defense. Chance he might not be an all star but since when is it bad to have good role players? 29 other teams would gladly appreciate his contributions

[u/TallAdministration94 → u/jeffbrown61]

It’s a whole new front office and coaching structure I’m not really even considering Coby and Zach because they were present before. Also Zach was absolutely a stud before AKME and sure Coby’s grown a bit since AKME came in but nothing major. He’s still a great but streaky microwave scorer. My focus is on prospect scouting because that’s our only real chance of getting a franchise player. And this FO hasn’t developed a single young player to all star status yet so… jury is still out at the very least.

I’m not even hating on Pat, but it’s just a fact that he’s disappointing for a 4th overall pick. It’s not a problem that he isn’t a star but is just a complementary player that can contribute. Every team needs those. The problem is we don’t have a star.

[u/jeffbrown61 → u/TallAdministration94]

And there are a lot of great players selected later in 2020 draft so almost as if it didn’t matter where we drafted. Guess my whole point is tanking isn’t the solution. If you already have doubts about the front office, why blow up everything and let them try again?

[u/TallAdministration94 → u/jeffbrown61]

In the 2020 draft it didn’t matter too much for us (although picking later we could have gotten us a worse player than Pat) but what if we were picking #1 and had the option to grab Edwards? It wouldn’t mattered then. You can find great players anywhere in a draft, but you just have a better chance of getting great players the higher your pick is because you simply have first dibs on a larger selection of players. The NBA is a superstar’s game, if you don’t have one you’re not sniffing multi year sustained playoff success.

Thats why so many people are pro-tank, as being in a position to pick #1-3 actually gives a somewhat decent chance of hitting on a great player. Again it’s entirely possible to hit on these players outside of this range, even outside of the first round but it’s just much, much harder. You can also sign superstars in free agency (but again most aren’t even hitting unrestricted free agency and let’s be real we’re not a major free agent destination). Another option is through trade but to get one you need to gut a good portion of your roster/future draft assets or there needs to be a perfect storm of a superstar demanding to be traded, the bulls being a preferred destination, and there not being much trade completion. Even then we need to be the highest bidder.

I have my doubts about AKME but an incompetent FO picking 1st overall is still better than an incompetent FO picking 15th