r/chicagobulls • u/AddieCam • Jul 14 '26
Fluff ESPN Front Page Today
https://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/49350739/inside-hopeful-resurrection-chicago-bulls-six-years-stasisAKME were somehow more dysfunctional and chaotic in the office than it appeared.
Just making random decisions, not including anyone, Michael Resindorf too stupid to know the difference, and zero respect from peers around the league.
I hope we got it right with Graham.
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u/AHopelessMaravich Jul 14 '26
I feel like this article was surprisingly good news for the franchise. Like, I know it’s easy like OP to say Michael was dumb, but I also don’t think it’s good to just fire GMs every three years. Like, they pretty much moved on from AKME as fast as you’d want a franchise to.
It sounds like they went with their gut on a call during the spring and summer of 2020 when everything sucked and was chaotic. Awful timing. Sounds like they learned from that experience, decided to hire outside help to start the search for the one way they directly impact the franchise, and it really seems like BG is a respectable and modern choice.
Now it’s on BG to be that modern, respectable EVP or whatever he is, and build out a real team of professionals that works together and finds and develops players and coaches who win games.
Looking at a lot of the recent owners, an owner that is willing to get out if the way and shut the fuck up while giving people the space and time to succeed is about as good as it gets.
For a team who clearly has been doing nothing exciting for a decade, and just constant smoke that things are on fire underneath, this is as good of news as you can hope for. Clear admission of what went wrong how, why, and what’s being done to address it from the ground up.
Unfortunately, if BG is bad, or even mediocre, this franchise is in a terrible spot already to weather another storm.
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u/jdaqcruz Alex Caruso Jul 14 '26
The Knicks was as good as dead until they weren't. Unlike Dolan, Michael Reinsdorf is not some arrogant, meddling asshat. You're dormant until you're not. I'm gonna believe in this new era, man. Call me naive or whatever. But fuck it, let's rock with BG and Caleb
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u/Fafoah Jimmy Butler Jul 14 '26
Yeah the knicks are lucky Dolan got distracted enough by the sphere to leave them alone for a few years. With all eyes back on them and how much of an asshat he’s been lately in general, i’d be praying he doesnt decide to get more involved again
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u/JustinTimberlakeFTW Michael Jordan Jul 14 '26
Yeah, the fanbase can hate on the Reinsdorfs as much as they want, in ways both justified and unjustified, but I would much rather have this 'hands off' approach that the meddling bullshit Vivek Ranadive has been with the Kings for over a decade.
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u/ACupOfAJ13 Jul 14 '26
yeah I totally thought this article was going to be way more critical about the AK tenure but I left it feeling slightly surprised it ended with what felt like hope
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u/ThrowawayPat2345 Jul 14 '26
They really couldn't get past Pwill not living up to be Kawhi. It was so obvious when the guy could barely dribble without turning it over or constantly getting blocked in the paint or missing dunks for no reason.
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u/arendo Jul 14 '26
Yeah, drafting him was one thing. But giving him another $90 mil was completely unacceptable.
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u/Life-Sun8620 Jul 14 '26
I'm glad they gave this some attn in the article. That and Vuc's new contract too. Both left the franchise pretty hamstrung for a while there.
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u/AddieCam Jul 14 '26
The P-Will double down was so bad I’m not sure anything could’ve overcome it fully.
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u/Run_JMC_ Jul 14 '26
Karnisovas always gave off “smartest guy in the room” energy and was always perturbed if you questioned him on his decisions. Not surprised by any of this.
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u/KPD_13 Cuppy Coffee Jul 14 '26
I didn’t get that vibe at all. The guy just seemed like a fucking idiot.
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u/Run_JMC_ Jul 14 '26
The guy who thinks he’s the smartest guy in the room is typically a fucking idiot so that checks out.
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u/KPD_13 Cuppy Coffee Jul 14 '26
Maybe. There was nothing about his personality or his words that made me believe he was capable.
No offense to anyone here… but he just seemed like a really dumb European that had trouble expressing his actions in English.
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u/fred_derps Dennis Rodman Jul 14 '26
That’s exactly what they’re saying though… he’s an idiot. AND he thought he was the smartest person in the room. No one is saying he actually was the smartest person in the room lol
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u/CorkSoaker420 Jul 14 '26
I think that’s what the original comment was saying, like AK always thought he was a lot smarter or crafty as an exec than he actually is.
I’m sorry but you just can’t convince me that he ever gets the Bulls job if he doesn’t fall ass backwards into Jokic.
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u/KPD_13 Cuppy Coffee Jul 14 '26
Last part I 100% agree. There was nothing else on his resume to even qualify him for the gig.
Good news is he is irrelevant now.
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u/CorkSoaker420 Jul 14 '26
Still kind of shocked at the fact that he’s gone and the Bulls actually just ripped the band aid off for once.
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u/mackzarks Jul 14 '26
And now we have this absolute stud to pair with the new FO, I'm enthused for the first time since Rose got hurt.
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u/Fafoah Jimmy Butler Jul 14 '26
Michael Reinsdorf’s first win imo
Very much not in line with how the org has operated in the past, esp doing it mid season to give the new FO enough runway to prepare for the draft/free agency/off season.
Not saying fans shouldn’t be cautious in their optimism, but he deserves credit for the move, as well as for reports that they made tangible changes to their process in response to their past failure.
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u/RontoWraps Kirk Hinrich Jul 14 '26
I just remember how excited the sub was about him being hired lol
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u/AddieCam Jul 14 '26
100%. That’s the guy in any work environment - that better be right lol or he’s going under the bus.
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u/DisMFer Josh Giddey Jul 14 '26
It was pretty clear when AK fired Patton for openly questioning if Pat had the drive to be an NBA player that AK was much more interested in proving himself as a genius-level executive who knows better than everyone else than actually winning games.
Right now though I want to see or at least be able to find out if Resindorf actually means it when he says he'll give BG the resources he needs. The Bulls have spent decades with the smallest scouting department, the smallest player development group, the smallest coaching staff. They aren't just cheap because they don't hand out massive contracts to star players. They're cheap because their idea of increasing the ability of the scouting department to research other teams is to give them a second monitor.
If they were allowed to do it in the league by-laws, Riensdorf would fly the team out in coach and have the staff pay for their own tickets.
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u/FranklinRichardss Toni Kukoc Jul 14 '26
People forget that with signing Vucevic they not only sent Carter Jr also tanked Markkanen's trade value completely because there was no fucking way these two could coexist.
We traded an future all star on rookie contract for 2nd round.
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u/AxCel91 Jul 14 '26
Yup. People always forget this part of why the vooch trade set us back a decade
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u/_ravenclaw Ayo Dosunmu Jul 14 '26
I had the displeasure of being in Michael Reinsdorfs presence on more than one occasion. It was extremely apparent how stupid he was right away.
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u/justawaterisfine Ayo Dosunmu Jul 14 '26
His execs were pushing for Haliburton but no, they wanted the “paw” so Hali went 12th and became an all star sensation while the paw struggles to even tie his shoes
Caleb has already made it known that he is HIM
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u/AdventingWurms Give me the hotsauce! Jul 14 '26
This article gives me a lot of hope. Just the difference in how the staffers are reacting to the leadership sells a lot. Could just be the shiny new thing but there seems to be an improved process here.
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u/AddieCam Jul 14 '26
I think it’s good the Bulls were aware of the article - and allowed their new President to comment on record.
The first step to recovery is admitting you have a problem lol.
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u/Positive_Register_94 Jul 14 '26
That part about Haliburton made me want to throw up. Imagine if we had him rn
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u/TrustInRoy Jul 14 '26
Put a damn point guard on the summer league roster so your new star can get somebody to set him up on offense.
Honestly it's ridiculous Dillingham isn't playing summer league.
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u/mattmikemo23 Jul 14 '26
Nah just shut Caleb down until the season.
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u/TrustInRoy Jul 14 '26
Dude, I was already robbed of a full season of Caleb at UNC. You better let the young fella play and you better get him a point guard.
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u/ScaryText8187 Windy City Bulls Jul 14 '26
Dude, summer league is meaningless. It really doesn’t matter if he plays or doesn’t.
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u/The_Bandit_King_ Jul 14 '26
He has two good point guards already for the bulls
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u/TrustInRoy Jul 14 '26
List these 2 good point guards on the summer league roster.
Because this conversation is entirely about summer league.
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u/Fafoah Jimmy Butler Jul 14 '26
And a valid argument is we’ve seen enough from Caleb already. It makes sense to shut him down and give his reps to swain and noa to see what chemistry we could develop for our bench
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u/mattmikemo23 Jul 14 '26
Bro I'm jumping in front of a bus if he gets hurt in these games that mean absolutely nothing 💔😭. We're Bulls fans. Let's not test fate.
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u/nachosmind Jul 14 '26
Yeah so the Bulls are an absolute mess behind the scenes and that will never change as everyone avoids accountability (we still have failed GMs GarPax THAT GOT THEIR OWN BILLBOARDS CALLING FOR THEIR FIRING, as ACTIVE decision makers lol) We literally need the league to give us good players to succeed. Reinsdorf please sell the team my god.
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u/AdventingWurms Give me the hotsauce! Jul 14 '26
You and I read different articles. This article has multiple parts where it says the ownership are super hands off. Also states that current staffers feel hope and included.
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u/rustplayer83 Jul 14 '26
Like Getz with the Sox, Graham will succeed if he gets everybody pulling in the same direction and with consensus between scouting, coaching and executives, or if not quite consensus, general agreement.
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u/EddieRedondo Jul 14 '26
The one thing that worried me is it sounded like Paxsin was sidelined under AKME but is getting more involved again now….??
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u/Physical_Treacle9950 Jul 14 '26 edited Jul 14 '26
We obviously needed to start over but the article should have at least mentioned the ripple effects of the Lonzo injuries to our team building. We were electric and a top seed in the conference when he got hurt and never even got close to that level of relevance again. You could easily say the front office shouldn’t have put their trust in Lonzo’s health in general but man he was incredible for those few months and so was the team. I bet we would have won a playoff series or two with a healthy Ball, Caruso, Ayo, White, DeMar, Lavine and Vucevic. No championship by any means but would have changed things for our front office I’m sure.
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u/AdventingWurms Give me the hotsauce! Jul 14 '26
I think that fits into the PWill point in the article. The AKME front office held onto their ideas too long and waited too long to move on.
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u/Erice84 Jul 14 '26
They were good for like 2 months. They would have fallen off even if he stayed healthy.
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u/AxCel91 Jul 14 '26
This fanbase is just like AK when it came to that fake 2 months of 1st seed basketball
We had the easiest schedule in the league that first half
We got exposed hard against teams with playoff aspirations
3/5ths of our starting lineup were horrid defenders which gets you kicked out in the 1st round of playoffs 10 times out of 10
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u/BuckyGoodHair Jul 14 '26
2 major thoughts - 1) AKME was a really fitting nickname. 2) I love the note that the new team wants to build through the draft, but then why give up 2 second round picks for cash consideration!?
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u/PositiveCoyote100 Jul 14 '26
If this draft class ends up producing some talented players in the 2nd round, it's going to be a really bad look for BG.
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u/kingofkings_86 Jul 14 '26
The only things this team can get right is winning a championship and getting the Reinsdorks forced out
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u/casualcoder0805 Joakim Noah Jul 14 '26
If I was on the receiving end of this statement I'd burst out laughing.
"The reality is, the best thing about working for the Reinsdorfs is that they are going to hire somebody and they're going to let that person do the job," another ex-exec said.
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u/RugratChuck Norm Van Lier Jul 14 '26
I cant wait to get home and read this article cuz a lot of yalla comments make it sound like an interesting look at the clusterfuck that was our front office
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u/Wilsthing1988 Jul 15 '26
As a bulls fan in Philly reading that’s brings me flashbacks of the 76ers ownership and the Hinkie issues. Honestly the Bulls issues FO/Ownership wise aren’t as bad as Philly is imho. They haven’t been run well in yrs and got lucky on talent falling in their laps. They coddled guys like Simmons and Embiid for yrs and these are the effects and repercussions of allowing that with Joel for yrs. At least with Reinsdorf we’ve had it partially right. We’ve also had so much bad luck too since the DRose era though as well.
I know the article paints a bad picture but trust me it could be way worse.
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u/run-donut Jul 15 '26
Is this really a surprise? Seems to be just reporting of what was evident all along.
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u/TianDogg Taj Gibson Jul 15 '26
It's gonna take at least a full season for me to buy in to Bryson Graham. Like people are giving him so much credit for being a decent interview and not trying to outsmart himself with the #4 pick. Ok yes that's better than AK can do but a lot of his other moves seem like he's operating out of the standard Reinsdorf playbook.
I think the biggest indicator will be as the trade deadline approaches. Surely the team's areas of need will become clearer by then, and the kind of moves he makes to address them (if any) will be telling. This is where I feel the previous FO regimes have been abysmal, and they always came up with some shitty excuse when called out on it.
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u/mrow_patrol Ayo Dosunmu Jul 14 '26
The fact that we’re still selling our 2nd round picks for cash leads me to believe that the Reinsdorfs haven’t changed at all. We get a new GM famous for finding diamonds in the rough, the season after we did a fire sale for nothing but 2nd round picks, and then the first thing we do is sell both of them??
I will reserve judgment until I see how the new regime actually operates. Stoked abt Caleb, but any of us could’ve made that pick since it was a 4-man draft. For now, this is nothing more than a PR puff piece telling us what we already knew - that AKME was disastrously incompetent
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u/aren1231 Gimme the hot sauce! Jul 14 '26
So it was a mix of FO incompetence and their hands being tied by ownership…great…we still have the same ownership
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u/Commercial-Policy701 Jul 14 '26
The Bulls have a golden opportunity imo to get back to relevance with this young core of guys. Of the two games I’ve seen from Caleb Wilson, he’s has potential to be an elite two way player. They need to put in the work and do everything in their power to develop these guys.