Marc Eversley wants to make the Chicago Bulls cool again

Chicago Bulls general manager Marc Eversley has many goals in mind as he begins re-shaping the historic franchise.  Among them…Making the Bulls cool again.

We may be nearing three months of a complete sports shut down, but the Chicago Bulls are the one organization that has managed to actively stay in the public eye.  Between the Michael Jordan documentary every Sunday night and the rebuilding of the team’s front office, the Bulls have found themselves trending on twitter more the any other sports franchise.

The current relevancy of the once storied franchise is an ideal situation for newly hired general manager Marc Eversley to walk into.  Before Eversley entered the NBA by way of the Six, he rose up the ranks of Nike, where he ran marketing for the sneaker juggernaut in Canada.  Eversley’s marketing background has helped him understand the importance in cultivating relationships, as well as, shape his perspective on why a historic brand like the Chicago Bulls needs to matter to the culture.

In his first one on one interview as GM, Eversley explained to NBC sports Chicago’s KC Johnson that the Bulls had the strongest brand in the league during the dynasty years and that one of his goals in his new position is to make the brand “cool” again.

We don’t know if the NBA season will resume this year or if the Bulls will be a part of the resumption if it does, so the first opportunity for Eversley and Karnisovas to put their stamp on the team may be through the NBA Draft.  So lets for a minute ignore fit and look at a few prospects that could reignite “cool” back into the United Center.

California native LaMelo Ball is by far the coolest player in the draft and it’s been that way for the last four years. In December of 2016 as a member of those esteemed Chino Hills teams that included Lonzo Ball and potential top 10 pick Onyeka Okongwu, Melo pointed at the half court line and then brazenly let it fly. Wet. Was it a good shot with a full shot clock in the middle of the game? Absolutley not.

Was it cool? Hell yes.  Anyone who went to play pick up ball or watched a high school practice in the next few weeks would tell you how many people in those gyms were imitating the 16 year old.  Melo has the balls (no pun intended), the flash, the one court style, and the social media presence to immediately impact the team in a way not felt since a young D-Rose laced them up.

Ball is youth culture in the form of a hooper. Whether the Bulls’ new management thinks that his talent matches his bravado is another story, but nobody in this draft resonates with the culture like Ball.

You can’t mention cool in this draft without shouting out Dayton Flyer Obi Toppin.  If you wanted to know what a young Amare Stoudemire would look like playing in today’s NBA, look no further than Obi 1. Toppin’s on court movements were so similar to Amar’e it was almost eerie. The big man has Amare’s post game, face up game, smooth stroke (extended to the 3pt line), and that same hunger to put you on a poster.

Oh and he also threw down a casual between the legs in game dunk.  If we’re talking cool…I can’t imagine many basketball related things cooler than watching Obi Toppin and Zach Lavine running the wings on a fast break looking to demolish whatever unfortunate soul that decides to stand in their way.

Our last student in our masterclass of cool is Georgia standout shooting guard Anthony Edwards. Edwards is a 6-foot-5 walking bucket that is barely old enough to drive a car.  The dude is built like a freaking tank, may have had the best poster dunk of the season in his game vs Vanderbilt, and comes in ready made with a dribble and shot making package that would make even the most bearded among us jealous. Sure he’s a weird fit with Zach and Coby, sure he wasn’t the most efficient dude, sure he wasn’t always locked in defensively, but I’ll be damned if he wasn’t the most fun college player to watch when he had it going.

When he’s hot he leaves you feeling absolutely helpless. Edwards is a ball of clay waiting to be molded into a potentially league leading bucket getter. What in the bloody hell is cooler than that?