Bulls Podcast #35

May 15, 2019 admin Podcast Comments Off on Bulls Podcast #35

It’s the Chicago Bulls Podcast 35 with Marcus Couch, Wyse Black and Kenyatta Wright and we’ve got our NBA Lottery Results Roundtable and the current “State of the Bulls Fan”.

Welcome to the Bulls Podcast, coming to you from BullsPodcast.com. This is where we bring you the latest news, reviews, rants, rumors and opinions on the players, coaches and front office of the Chicago Bulls.

And we’ve chosen our most frequent guest to drown our sorrows with. It’s Friend of the Show – Kenyatta Wright. He’s a columnist for Hypefresh.co and administrator of the Bullseye Facebook group. Kenyatta, Welcome once again to the show!

We’ve got several topics for this episode. Including:

  • NBA Lottery Results Roundtable
  • State of the Bulls Fan right now

NBA Draft Lottery Breakdown

In a somehow unrealistic turn of events, the Chicago Bulls fell 3 slots in the NBA Draft Lottery and will receive the 7th pick in the draft for the 3rd year in a row.

John Paxson didn’t need to be talked off a ledge on Tuesday night.

There was no cursing from the Bulls vice president of basketball operations, no screams of conspiracy, not even an ounce of panic. Rather, Paxson was very calm just minutes after the 2019 NBA Draft lottery, in which the Bulls fell to No. 7 after finishing with the league’s fourth-worst record.

“First of all, it’s not catastrophic,’’ Paxson said. “It starts with what the league did last year in changing the odds. You look at what happened [Tuesday], I mean seven, eight and 11 jumped into the top four spots, and New York, who had the worst record ended up third. I think the league is probably pleased with why they went this route and how it turned out, but for us you always hope you get lucky, but again it wasn’t our turn to get lucky.

“I’m very convinced we will get another really good player at seven. We do our work, we’re going to try and find a guy that does what we like.’’

That’s not all they’re going to try, though.

For the first time in a while, the Bulls’ brain trust will keep a very open mind with this pick. That could mean trading it for a proven player, specifically a point guard.

In the past, the Bulls have been very confident in their scouting, so have relied on the best-available-player mentality.

The Sun-Times reported last month that one scenario the Bulls would explore, and had a dialogue about during the season, involves Lakers point guard Lonzo Ball.

The Lakers were one of the big winners in the lottery, moving up to No. 4, but Murray State point guard Ja Morant, expected to be picked second, will no longer be around to make Ball expendable. Giving the Lakers No. 4 and 7, however, does give them options, whether it’s packaging for a trade or building with youth around LeBron James.

Paxson wasn’t ruling out any scenario.

“I always talk about looking for the best available player, but we’re going to keep a real open mind with this pick in terms of going whatever direction it takes us,’’ Paxson said. “Whether it’s a fit, whether it’s best player, talk about possibly moving it for an established player if that makes sense, so there’s a lot of things we can do, and we’ll explore everything.’’

That’s not what Bulls fans wanted to hear, considering their dreams of Zion Williamson and the No. 1 pick were crushed quickly.  Now, a trade or free agency is basically the only path for a change at point guard, especially if the stock of Vanderbilt point guard Darius Garland continues to rise.

Either way, the conversation about what to do with this consolation prize of pick #7 will be a continual debate for Bulls fans from now until draft day on June 20th.

 

State of the Bulls Fan:

Let’s face it. It’s really tough to be a Bulls Fan these days. Coming off a horrible 20 win season, the Chicago Bulls could not cash in with all the efforts of the tanking that we had to endure.

Television viewing and game attendance plummeted over the course of the season. If you were watching at home, the empty seats were very noticeable. Even the sound of the crowd was very different from what we’re all used to. There was a time very recently where the UC crowd would be very vocal in encouraging the Bulls team and also expressing their displeasure over a seemingly bad call. Those days seem to be absent in the current times.

With obtaining the 7th overall pick of the draft, fans feel cheated by the league. We’ve had the same 7th pick for 3 years now. Two years ago we were blessed with Lauri Markkanen at pick 7 combined with Zach Lavine and Kris Dunn in exchange for Jimmy Butler. Last year we were blessed yet again with Wendell Carter Jr at #7. So it seems that #7 was a good pick the last two years, but not good enough for this year.

That may not be the case in reality. There are some outstanding diamonds in the rough that will be available with the #7 draft pick. While we don’t have a full scouting report on who we can get, there’s a safe bet in predicting that someone that’s not in the current draft top 5 will potentially have a better career than what Zion, Ja or Barrett might have. There will certainly be someone not in the top 5 who will get more rings than the other guys. We just have to find them.

Luck in the draft lottery is NOT a strategy for winning. It’s just like playing the Mega Millions or Powerball. It’s a lot of lofty dreaming before that inevitable moment of disappointment you get when you don’t win.

So while it’s very hard to be a Bulls fan right now, we all know that the young core that we have on the team will get better. They will put some winning streaks together and be back in the playoffs. Probably sooner than we all think. We can all howl at the moon and curse Gar/Pax for everything they have done to potentially derail the franchise, but overall they’ve put together a pretty good team with a bright future for many years to come.

Let’s all just take a slow deep breath and enjoy the moment. Enjoy the fact that from this point forward, the Bulls are in it to win and not tank. No game is going to be played to lose. Our guys will be allowed to play to win.   

 

Kenyatta Wright links:

 

Wyse Social Links:

 

 

Marcus Social Links

 

Everything show related you can find @bullspodcast. Please make sure you are connected with us everywhere we are.

Also remember to check out our compilation website where you can get all of the Bulls Podcasts from every single Chicago Bulls show out there over at http://bulls.fm

If you can’t remember any of these, you can check out our show notes for this show over at our website, which is BullsPodcast.com where we have all the links we mentioned in today’s show.

Remember we’re just 36 days away (June 20, 2019)  from the NBA draft.

Until next time, Thank you for listening everyone, Go Bulls!