Blueprint for success: How the Bulls can build a championship team (Part 1)

Blueprint for success: How the Bulls can build a championship team (Part 1)

[Music] this is the Bulls Talk podcast and we got something cooked up for you today I am Tony Gil host for today and along with me is Casey Johnson Bulls Insider for NBC Sports Chicago and stats Guru Kevin Anderson how you guys doing living the dream Hony yeah love Ling the Conference Finals so far we got some surprises surprises yeah in there surprises Boston’s up to0 just like I said not not not in that one the other one W weren’t you the one who said definitively that you felt like Minesota defense would suffocate Luca and Kyrie oop long series man we got a ways to go my man that’s true uh Boston is uh by the way if halberton can’t come back and be 100% I don’t see any path for them yeah yeah definitely that’s not episode today’s episode not we’re not going to dive kind of we’re going to talk about you know ways for teams to get there right like you know every team’s goal is to win the Larry OB right but it takes a lot of work and and tough decision- making to get there so uh Bulldog you brought up this topic um that I think Bulls fans need to hear and be involved in and discuss so I’ll let you set it up and then we’ll go from there yeah so this uh kind of concept idea came about really a few weeks ago as I started to notice the the chatter in the Bulls sphere both on bulls Reddit and it’s certainly on Twitter about Demar de rozan specifically there there is a very large loud contingent of bulls fans who do not want Demar D rozan to return to this roster not because they don’t think he is still provides value to the team both on and off the court not because they don’t think that he is still a good player could contribute best player on the team there’s a loud contingent fans who don’t want him to return because they want to see the Bulls tank they want to see the Bulls fully embrace the reach for the bottom rebuild whatever you want to call it and they believe the only path for the Bulls to get back to a true Championship contending team uh certainly a a playoff team that’s going to get past the first round is to fully tank and do it that way then if you bring D rozan back their mindset is you can’t do that and it’s a failure and that this organization needs to choose a path so to speak and embrace the tank and so that’s how the the kind of starting point in my head was like wow this really a lot of people in a loud contingent of people um a lot of people even I respect to the media who’ have expressed this opinion and so just as kind of an exercise for myself I thought okay let me let me how do you build a championship team and so I was curious about the last I went back five years and as we know in the NBA there have been five different NBA champions in the last five years we’re going to get a six different NBA champion this year and in the last five years how were their rosters constructed were they were they homegrown were they built bya free agency via trades and I was curious I looked at each of their acquiring and how they basically got each player within the year that they won an NBA title and there’s a very noticeable Trend that I picked up on is that none of the last five NBA champions had a player that they drafted in the top five play for them that year in the playoffs that they won a title now there’s one slight caveat to that the Golden State Warriors drafted James wisman second overall but he missed the entire season that they most recently won their NBA title and so he didn’t play that year didn’t play in the playoffs wasn’t a contributing member to their championship team that season so none of those teams none of the Warriors anybody else drafted a player that they drafted in the top five now they certainly wore players who were drafted in the top five on those rosters and on those teams but just not by those teams the the Lakers for instance had three first overall picks on their roster when they won the title on the bubble and so like there certainly is is their value in getting a first overall pick sure is there value in a top five player absolutely but in terms of how you build a championship team what path is it to to get there and so none of those teams drafted a player on their own and I also went a little bit deeper and I went back first overall picks because certainly the goal of any organization who tanks is get the first overall pick you have your your best selection of any player out there and hypothetically you get the best player in the draft doing that I went back 40 years in the last 40 years in the NBA teams that have picked first overall have only won a title within 10 years of making that first overall selection three times again first overall pick winning a title within 10 years which is a pretty large window I think a lot of us can argue that you’re your window for winning um probably is less than 10 years at that point but three times only um first time was you know in the last 40 years aij won to the Houston Rockets they won a title 10 years later in large part because Michael Jordan had retired but they still won the title um the next team San Antonio Spurs which I don’t even think should really qualify for this discussion because they had a very good team in place with a Hall of Fame Center and David Robinson on the roster he happened to get hurt missed the entire season the Spurs got very lucky in the lottery and drafted the best power forward to ever play the game in Tim Duncan Hall of Famer as well and they went on a dynasty run as we all well know about the Spurs and what they’ve done for that uh stretch of time from when they got Tim Duncan and Beyond um and the last team the third team to do that that was Cleveland Cavaliers though ironically it’s not because they drafted LeBron James first overall they didn’t win a title within 10 years of drafting LeBron um they actually got it because LeBron came back and so like even in my mind there’s a little bit of like do they even qualify because they got LeBron back from Miami in free agency and they had a stretch of time in which they actually had the first overall pick three or four years Kyrie Anthony Bennett and Andrew Wiggins and it wasn’t until they were able to flip Wiggins for Kevin long they actually put the correct pieces together for LeBron and so those are the only three teams the last 40 years to pick first overall and win a title within 10 years and making that pick and so the the overarching jumping off point for this discussion is in today’s NBA especially with the lottery odds being smoothed out how do you truly build a championship level team and is taking a path and the right way to go so that’s the that’s the jumping off point for this and that’s the discussion and certainly um I’m very curious what any of our viewers and listeners think so for anybody on YouTube like please let us know what you think not only how to build yeah give hop in the comments like give us let the let us know how you think the Bulls should build a title Contender uh but certainly overall how you think that a a modern NBA team what their path their best path is to building a title so that’s the jumping off point there well I have comments so I’m gonna start but I I actually don’t even know where to start because I have so many comments but I’ll just I’ll say this first of all I’m glad you mention the lottery odds flatting out because as far as tanking being the best way to uh re uh approach a championship building team as the Detroit Pistons how tanking worked the last two seasons lot of pain up in Detroit for two straight fifth place finishes in the NBA draft lottery so there’s that cautionary tale secondly great job on the research Bulldog but I’m going to call a little BS on it because we’re in a new collective bargaining agreement era which has yet to be seen the full effects I know you know that I’m not just I’m not just having some fun with you y um this new collective bargaining agreement is really gonna try or test uh franchise’s ability to build teams and essentially one approach just generally speaking would be obviously to get Star level power uh one to two players have a lot of good contributors on rookie seale contracts then sprinkle in a couple middle class the middle class is largely going to go away in this new Collective margain Agreement which we’ll get into in a seconds third of all asterik 2011 12 Bulls they would have won a championship if Derrick Rose hadn’t got hurt yes casy yes okay I love it and then lastly as far as just letting D Demar D rozan walk for nothing no no no no no if you were gonna tank for Cooper flag the time to start doing this was a while ago selling off assets a while ago Alice Caruso maximizing his value Andre Drummond at the deadline getting some second round picks letting Demar D rozan Walk For Nothing continues uh what has bedeviled this franchise and which is why they’re in the current state that they’re in it’s letting assets depreciate to their diminishing returns if you let demard Rosen walk for nothing you are not a cap space Team all of a sudden this offseason you are still over the cap now Aid in trade we can talk let’s let’s let’s explore some possibilities if you don’t like the number that dear Rosen wants or can get from another team but letting him walk for nothing to me solves nothing and it continues the errors um not errors but the the path it continues the path that this regime is taken which is to hold on to their assets and until they become depreciating assets so um there you go that’s uh that’s my initial Salvo at in this long long convers that we need to have I love that the Bulls should have been team number four within that we that was part of our what if podcast that we did uh last year right yeah yeah that was that was part of it um I think from the uh when a fan base and I think organizations I think they pay they may pay a little bit of attention maybe not too much uh but when a fan base is asking or warning a tank situation I think that is a resist visual effect of not trusting the people that are making decisions because uh the general thought about tanking is the worse we are the better chance we have of get of acquiring a better talent in the draft where they have where that star or Star potential star Talent player has to come to your team um for the most part I mean they can cause a big fuss demand of trade all that but that typically doesn’t that’s abnormal but typically the in that draft class they have to sign to your team in the current draft system that we have so if a fan base is wanting the team to be actively worse it’s we don’t trust you to be able to maneuver well enough to get the adequate amount of talent to build a roster on your own um and that should say something that should say something to uh or uh to the organization like wow like fan base really doesn’t trust us to to weigh through these very difficult Waters of building building a championship and the the thing that is taking out of my our hands in order to do that is to lose and let the draft everything that we do um and that’s that’s kind of my my first point on on from the fans point of view why they want the tank um and the general premise of what you were wereing bringing up in terms of okay you draft a top pick or top three or four pick you may not necessarily well the numbers to bear bear in mind you probably won’t win a championship because it’s only happened you know single digit amount of times um but the whole point of winning a championship is you need at least right one generational talent and then you need another like 15 to 20 top player in the NBA to build on that it’s how do you get there is is the thing is you do it via draft you do it via trade and you do do it via free agency um the Bulls haven’t done well overall in free agency in grabbing uh a top tier free agent here um because of where they usually are slotted seven or so they usually miss out on that top tier Talent um and they really don’t pull the trigger on big big train for the top tier Talent with the risk of losing them um just because it’s just not how the organization has worked over the last few years of of acquiring so if they aren’t really good at any of the the three ways to acquire the talent it’s going to be very very difficult uh to build that championship roster um and and that’s kind of where I I’ll I’ll leave out and then we continue the conversation but the whole thing is how do we get two top 25 two top 20 players on this roster and as much as people hate Darren Mory that was his thinking the entire time he’s been an executive I need two top 20 top 25 players on my team for us to have a legit shot and he chose to do it via Trader free agency and he did that very very aggressively and I can’t hate on that that thought process because it’s absolutely what you need to win a championship so the way the Bulls are kind of going about it where they kind of like yeah okay we want to we still want to be good but you know we know we need a talent but what time is goingon to come be here it it’s very very difficult and very very frustrating so for the fan it’s like just tank bro just tank and then we’ll take our chanes there because we don’t trust you to do the other stuff and it’s important to note right now that the teams left in the postseason in the Conference Finals that Boston Vinnie and Dallas were largely built through top tier Talent at the top of the draft and so you know certainly this isn’t a it never works or doesn’t work um we talk about historically in the last five years it’s likely going to change um you know I don’t think any see the Pacers winning the win the title The Four teams left so um it’s it’s that will Trend will not continue into a six season uh in that regard um and then Tony I I think it’s also important to note that we’re talking about best path and not only path and and what I what I wanted to kind of push back on The Narrative of this is the Bull’s only path to get back to the contention right because there are a lot of different ways you build a team certainly you look at Minnesota right now they would not be the team that they are they would not be in the Western Conference Finals if they had not made the trade for Rudy go bear like just flat out they certainly had the talent at the top of the draft with Anthony Edwards and Cat uh but goar is really what flipped that switch to make them an elite defensive team and certainly we’ve seen that carryover in this postseason like they don’t they don’t beat Denver in that game seven without goar and his contributions out there and Jaden McDaniels as well um and so when you talk about like building a team we’re talking about what’s the what’s the best way and not necessarily saying you can’t win or can’t build a team that way I want to read something that uh Sam Quinn who writes for CBS Sports uh you know because I thrown this out there a couple weeks ago on Twitter and he had a extremely thoughtful and eloquent response to the path to building and I want to read what Sam had written uh let us kind of respond to that and get my thoughts on on that as well so Sam uh wrote there is no reliable way of building a contender that’s sort of by definition we have 30 teams fighting for one trophy so almost everything is low percentage move tanking tends to be the highest percentage move among those options you need stars to win the most reliable way to get stars is to draft them the best way to draft them is to have access to the widest pool of prospects available having the highest picks gives you that wide pull there are specific teams and circumstances in which there are better paths than tanking if you already got somebody of note through other means or you can reasonably expect to make good use of your cap space the Bulls are not one of those teams they’ve operated effectively with no long-term plan for the last few years tanking for all the misery that comes with it at least represents an actual long-term plan and that’s again the quote from Sam Quinn writes for CBS um and his thoughts on just kind of like the the concept there there are three things that um I wanted to like kind of put out there and push back on to that narrative and three things that which I believe why tanking is really not the answer number one we’ve hit on this a little bit it’s the lottery odds being smoothed out right this is not like it was 10 years ago in which you had a you know a extremely strong chance if you finish with the work Rec in the league to at least get a top three pick right like Casey already referenced Detroit Detroit 14 wins this season are picking fifth Charlotte 21 wins drop three spots Packer picking sixth Portland 21 wins picking third picking seventh drop three spots back um you go back to the last five years it feels like Detroit and Washington are in a Perpetual tank they’re they’re they’re always tanking um you look back at Philadelphia they are probably the the founding fathers of tanking in the NBA with their approach and they were successful in their tank in that they got access to top tier Talent the top of the draft but they drafted Ben Simmons and Markel folz first overall as part of that tanking process you didn’t draft Jason Tatum like how would things look differently in the entire landscape of the league had Philadelphia took Tatum instead of fols right and so it’s not just about the the getting access to the top tier talents making the right decision with that Talent um so again Lottery lottery odds smooth out it makes a lot more difficult now to tank and guarantee yourself a top three pick or top two pick or whatever it might be um a lot of teams are going to tank and like I think I I would say winning 21 games is a tank right now it’s not winning just 14 games uh but winning 21 games is fully embracing the tank to win 21 games and pick six picks seventh like come on like like you imagine going through a season like that and picking seventh um and so that’s part of it three it’s just the odds the luck there’s too much luck involved with that to to say hey we’re gonna tank and get lucky um the second part of it is to me I don’t think you can fully understate the impact that consistent sustained losing has on an organization front office band base players players on your roster right because that’s what tanking does you are consistently sustained losing it is bad for everybody and to go in from an organizational standpoint essentially saying we’re going to be B had for whatever number of years um that that the impact you have on the players already on roster and your fan like it’s just is it’s very very bad and the last point I’ll make regarding to tank is it’s not a light switch you cannot go hey we’re gonna tank for this one year you’re not gonna catch lightning in a bottle and have David Robinson out have a horrible year and then flip a switch and get the first overall pick with Tim Duncan that that is that is going to happen once in our entire lifetimes you was that was pure luck um that they got those things lining up for San Antonio good for them uh but in today’s era of tanking you can’t flip the switch and say we’re only good tank for one year we’re only good tank for two years because you’ll look up and you’re the Detroit Pistons your your tanking is inevitable and it is going on forever and so you can’t just go we’ll tank for two years and and flip a switch and do it it’s not how it works um so th those are my three main points to like the why taking is a bad idea I’m curious what you guys think in regard to what I said and what Sam wrote and and overall like how how teams move on from that well I I I know I think we’re gonna do two parts on this topic but I and I know we’re gonna get into Bulls ideas uh maybe part two but I it also should be emphasized briefly here that has has this management team inherited a tanking rebuild and blew it up to compete and has been consistent ever since with its desire to remain competitive so we should start with the premise that this is not going to be happening regardless of what we what we think in what what realm have they has Urus carnish and Mark everley ever given any incling that they’re in up for a full rebuild or tank it’s just not gonna happen so that should be um stated um but yeah I I mean you know tanking is it’s it’s fun to say it’s easy to say oh yeah let’s this tank rebuild Cooper flag the reality is is much more painful and much more difficult to pull off it takes a lot of luck and look you know building any Championship Contender takes a certain element of luck you need Player Development you need health you need lots of things to go your way but I don’t know um tanking to me is just kind of a fun concept but a painful reality and hard to pull off and the the Bulls fan isn’t you know dumb right like I think they’re choosing to want to go that path despite knowing the flatten ODS despite knowing that you can draft seven every year every time you you you quote unquote tank and they’re choosing to want that path and again it goes back to I don’t think they trust the talent evaluators and it goes into that part um Jason we talking to Jason and he mentioned this golf and he’s like we still it still has yet to be seen if they can be great talent evaluators um with their draft picks with their talent acquisition uh to build a contending team and and I tend to agree that I I don’t there’s enough evidence for them to deserve that trust from the fan base that they can parse through uh the draft and KC mentioned earlier with how the new CBA is going to be you’re going to need to be strewed in that draft room you’re gonna be able to need to find Talent wherever you’re drafting in both picks the first and second round uh in order to build up an adequate uh uh roster um because there there will be no quick fixes uh to this so when you draft in the top 10 and you draft dalen Terry and he’s had a bunch of stance in in the G League that’s not good now you know it’s still not over yet obviously to see what he is but so far it it’s not it hasn’t been what you would have expected from again he was still a seventh overall pick um so there’s still uh we still gotta see that Patrick Williams right uh they locked into probably getting him on a good deal but you’re not supposed to be thinking that way with your top four pick that you got a you know a steal uh on his next contract like nobody wants to think about that Julian Phillips has shown promise we all can agree with that I’m excited to see what he grows into uh but they have to trade back into the draft like to take him so it’s they don’t have a lot of and Casey I’m pretty sure you’re going to delve into that a little bit the Bulls they don’t have a lot of uh assets right now that they can use uh to build up and how how they evaluate talent uh on the Bulls is it’s making it very very difficult for them to climb out of this uh hamster whe of mediocrity right now um and and until that part gets addressed no matter what option you use right to to build a championship team tank uh free agency or whatever if you can’t spot talent and make tough DEC decisions all of it is is useless all of it is useless uh Casey also mentioned I know I’m referencing KC because I trust Casey’s uh thoughts uh but he mentioned a couple podcasts before just about hey if if the Bulls aren’t going to tank that’s absolutely not what they’re going to do the best case scenario on how to how to do this is looking at the Indiana Pacers and what they and what they’ve done they traded an all NBA player in damont sabonis he made the all NBA this year uh and they’re now in the Conference Finals and where are the Kings they lost in a plan like making those decisions those key decisions of we need to trade away this asset right now at the peak of his talent in order for us to maybe take a side step to take a different route in this Maze of winning a championship and it I don’t know if the Bulls decision makers are able to do that part yet to be able to identify a talent that hey we’re not going to win with him ultimately so we need to get move off of him now um and I think that’s the very very difficult part of of watching them maneuver uh trying to build a contender yeah that’s sa bonus trade is is one of those rare examples of a team a trade that really benefited both teams uh but yeah Indiana I mean they’ve drafted very well obviously you got a lot of young uh guys on rookie contract that are contributing mightily to that conference finalists um and then they’re in a position where you know they can expend draft capital for seum in the trade for two reasons they’ve got already got enough young contributors you can’t you know have too many um rookies on your on your roster or young players on your roster and then it’s also historically a place is not always attracted Prime free agents so seaka in essence you’re trading almost for a free agent there they’ve got a sign him this Summer but that all all sides point to that happening so the uh you know in Indiana’s a an example of a franchise it really has never tanked I mean they’ve always tried to stay competitive they did have that slight dip a couple Seasons back but then they immediately got back in the 4 win category and look they’ve taken again we’re talking about luck right I mean they took they took advantage of some injuries to the Knicks to win that series but they still won the series they’re in the Conference Finals um you know it’s funny you mentioned that Patrick Williams uh draft because that is the last time they jumped up in the lottery people forget they went from seven to four that year that that was like when the Good Vibes were still rolling the management regime had just come in and win the lottery and move up three and here we go it’s a fourth pick and possibly a three-player draft but um but anyway uh yeah it’s um the flip side of you know trusting this Talent evaluation is they’ll always come back and they’ve been pointing to this for a while look what we did in the summer of 2021 we got creative we built a team that was leading the East Lonzo Ball’s injury befell us so that’s going to be the the flip side of the argument like you know we we can uh have a vision and that can work but that’s coming up on three years from now and that’s why it was so refreshing to hear our tourists in April say this group hasn’t worked I mean it’s the first time he’s acknowledged that changes have to be made because um I always said like this this the team was constructed in a three-year window 21 22 22 23 23 24 we’re at 23 24 you’ve got one playoff series one playoff Victory zero Playoff Series victories to show for it we got to see how creative they get this offseason when it comes to roster Tony you’re talking about the key to making money in the stock market it’s very simple you buy low and sell high and so like when you talk about trading player at their peak of their abilities which is really the peak of their value that’s the tough thing for some organizations to do and it’s something that the Bulls have historically struggled on is do they overvalue their own players right do they should they have moved on from Alex Caruso at last year’s trade deadline when there was reportedly a lot of interest in in from teams and getting him there certainly reportedly I reported as reportedly by KC that there strong interest in cruso so should they have moved on from cruso at that point now you even go to where we are now with kuso certainly this summer kuso has significant value and so are they going to revisit potentially moving on from him do you look at a situation in which we know they are actively trying to find a trade partner to get Zack LaVine do you get a much better deal for Zack LaVine if you include Alex Caruso and certainly when it comes to like assets and draft picks um there’s no one saying that draft picks don’t have value they absolutely do I mean there are there are teams this summer they’re going to have not only cap space but you look at what Oklahoma City has built you know certainly where they are they are certainly a title contending team they have some improvements they need to make they’ve got a lot of draft assets they they have the ability to go out and do what they see best see for the future keeping in mind the new CBA and the apron rules and certainly even the salary cap it’s going to be the amount of money that is going come to come into the league in the next several years with the new reported deal for with NBC uh potentially be on the table Amazon’s got a reported deal ESPN’s got a new deal um with the NBA the amount of money come the NBA we’re going to see a 10% cap increase essentially every single year for the duration of that new CBA um we’re we’re not going to have a Kevin Durant the Golden State situation they they change those Rules by the way in regards to how much the cap can go up um you might as well call it the Kevin Durant rol is why they changed it so there’s there’s cap increments they go up can only go up the max of 10% but that’s important to keep in mind for teams that are building a a team right now how much cap space do they have how much do they have work with what will they what will the current contracts they have look like in the new reality of a salary cap three years from now again that’s why it’s it’s very very important my annual reminder uh we do it every July but do it right now do not look at a player salary when you somebody signs in July look at percentage of the cap that is all that matters look at percentage of the cap because player salary does not matter if you every year we see a 10 million doll increase in the the salary cap which it’s going to be more we’re probably going to see a 14 to 15 million dollar increase a lot of these years um that’s important to keep in mind cap percentage not cap amount and so yeah Tony you talk about like Patrick Williams right like what do they do with him he’s a restricted free agent like that’s a key part of a potential team you know he has value as he is there’s certain people who want to pay him for his potential certain people want to pay him for who he is who he is still a very good player um and we’ll get into that in part two of like specific to the Bulls uh but there are there are a lot of lot of teams with different ways to build and you know the main point is tanking is not the only way and specific to the Bulls is not the way they’re going to do like as as Casey just mentioned we can talk about hypotheticals all we want we could talk about what the Bulls should do all we want what this front office will do is very very different any other angles you guys think we miss in terms of you know how to build a a championship roster uh as as we’re telling the fans look we’re going to get to specific to the Bulls in part two but we needed to kind of set the table uh for what we’re going to talk about with the bulls with this this current conversation so like the talent evaluators right like we talked about the you need to have top tier talent evaluators look at the current contending teams right look at the last five titles look at where halberton was picked he wasn’t a top 10 pick look at where jic was picked look at where Giannis was picked right like you you’re talking about players look kawhai was picked um there is talent to be had in 10 and above like go back to the Patrick Williams draft right if you had a redraft which we did this exercise several months ago if you did a full redraft of that draft you would have three players drafted out outside the top 10 picked one through five like in the top five right Desmond Bane last pick in the first round he’d be a top five pick if you did a redraft significant Talent Bane is an awesome player Tyrese Maxi most approved Player of the Year probably should have been Kobe but would be a top five pick in that draft he was drafted like what I don’t even remember what a pick he was it was it was late 20s yeah 22 maybe um hurn certainly 11 Pascal seak 27 there you go like you know it’s just there is talent to be had all over the draft including this year’s draft which many people believe is not very deep in terms of the top tier talent but there’s talent to be had so like you talk about Tony top tier Talent evaluators you will get value at whever you’re picking if you’ve got the right people in place that can evaluate talent and then the next most important step develop your talent now the good thing is for me from Bulls fan we have seen the Bulls develop talent in the last few years specific to Kobe white IO dumu um even to a lesser extent we’ve seen some growth from d and Terry which from where he was picked to where he is is certainly good to see so like you need all that working together um to make a not just a title team but even a playoff team happen yeah I think that I think the RO my my last Point uh I would make is um you know I think the big thing is is bulog H at the front there’s no one Surefire way I mean obviously there’s it takes luck but there’s there’s no one magic solution to building a championship team and I think tanking is probably the one with the most risk quite frankly um and I think bulldog’s awesome 40 Years of research thatat kind of proves that out so now that we have made you guys a smarter uh fan base now we can we can dive into to uh specific to the Bulls what does a tourist Conor shows in our opinion uh needs to do to get the Bulls into that in head into that direction uh where not only you know they feel confident about uh you know their pathway but you as a bulls fan feel feels confident in the plan and what what’s going on so um can’t wait for that conversation uh gentlemen KC anything you got coming up in the writing space uh not this weekend it’s a holiday weekend so even beat Riders Deserve The Weekend off yeah I I wrote something about uh that’s on our website kind of tied into this conversation about how the Bulls have no all-nba players those teams were announced Wednesday and the work that faces management this offseason so similar themed items you can find that on our website but uh uh yeah I’m just going to be watching Conference finals basketball this weekend by the way could piggybacking that a little bit uh I love that all the voters votes and ballots are made completely public the NBA released that yesterday I love transparency um there are some wild opinions from some voters out there in terms of certain certain certain rewards and who gets what you can see who exactly felt like Alex cruso didn’t deserve to be on either all defensive team right he felt like who who gave um sabonis an MVP vote right like you see all that I love the transparency it’s very good all right you can check us on YouTube wherever you get your podcast please like and rate review and share please that helps us out a lot we appreciate you guys shout out to the YouTube Community we see you down there in the comments we appreciate you as well uh we’re going to catch you guys next time peace enjoy the Conference Finals we’re going to come back we may have some thoughts depending on what happens this weekend you know we’ll see all right uh this is this product has been brought to you by Toyota Let’s go places for Casey Johnson for Kevin Bulldog Anderson I’m Tony Gil we’ll catch you guys next time peace all right now that’s over I want to tell you the three keys to being a real Chicago sports fan it takes guts sacrifice and downloading the NBC Sports Chicago app when there’s highlights you can pounce on them them when there’s exclusive insights you listen and take notes and you won’t get blindsided with the push alerts so download it

Join hosts K.C. Johnson, Kevin Anderson, and Tony Gill on the Bulls Talk Podcast for the first part of a two-part series delving into the intricacies of team building and championship aspirations. In this episode, they explore the evolving landscape of sports strategy, from the diminishing effectiveness of tanking to the challenges of securing top-tier talent (1:30). They debunk tanking myths (7:30), unravel the mysteries of talent acquisition (13:00), and examine the Bulls’ decision-making prowess (24:00). Don’t miss this engaging discussion on what it truly takes to craft a contender beyond the confines of draft positioning.

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