The Chicago Bulls have taken plenty of heat for a confusing offseason that has left them in a familiar place somewhere between being competitive and tanking but committed to neither.
Everyone has taken shots at the Bulls and their front office, as the last few years have been a disaster of asset management that led guru Zach Lowe to ask "What even is this team?"
The biggest criticism is that the Bulls waited too long to trade DeMar DeRozan, Andre Drummond and Alex Caruso when it was clear to anyone that they weren't a real playoff contender last season.
Instead, they took peanuts in exchange, losing Drummond for nothing, DeRozan for little and Caruso for a flyer on Josh Giddey, a guy who was unplayable in last year's playoffs.
The Bulls' front office has cynically tried to rationalize this in a recent interview, but fans aren't buying it.
Chicago Bulls office tries to rationalize poor asset management
In a recent article in ESPN, the Bulls front office gave an explanation for their inaction that sounded more like a group trying to cover its tail:
"We just did not feel like it was the right thing for this team," Eversley said about moving pieces at the deadline. "You've got a guy in DeMar, for as much as he's done for our team or , for as much as he's done -- do you just sit there and pivot out and put those guys in a situation that's like 'What are we doing?' We felt like we owed it to the team to keep it together."
Sure.
It’s nice to believe the Bulls didn’t make the obvious moves out of some sense of loyalty to a group of players that never won a playoff series. They are acting like they would be breaking up the Jordan era Bulls, not a team that was never a serious playoff contender and even less so after suffering multiple injuries.
Let’s face it, the Bulls didn't hold onto this team out of some sense of loyalty, they did it to try and put a few games' worth of playoff receipts into Jerry Reinsdorf's pocket, so to act otherwise is disingenuous at best. Otherwise, why not add talent at the deadline? Why not actually try to win? We all know the answer ends in Reinsdorf's wallet.
This has been the status quo for a front office that is now pretending like their botched “rebuild” was part of a plan and not something thrust upon them by their own mistakes and an owner unwilling to go into the luxury tax even though the Bulls are the 3rd-larget market in the league and regularly lead it in attendance. I guess that loyalty doesn't extend to the fans.
The Bulls still have Zach LaVine and franchise-great Nikola Vucevic, so even their so-called rebuild is likely to end in the same result unless something changes.
The NBA is a business, and to act as if the Bulls did nothing for reasons other than dollars is just silly.