Chapter 1: What is discussed at the start of this section?
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The views and opinions of Layla Rahimi, Marshall Harris, and Mark Grody should not be taken too seriously. Especially when they give advice. Do not take Marshall's analogies literally. Especially when it comes to Russell Dorsey. The sports thoughts of Rahimi, Harris, and Grody may change at any time. It's just sports. Okay, thanks, bye! Rahimi Harrison-Grody, 10 to 2 on 104.3 The Score.
It is our friend Paul Pabst, host of the Tailgate Saturday mornings. I see you are traversing the entire bay. How is that going for you, Paul? Well, you know what's weird out here? They have these driverless cars, and they're like, they're not Ubers.
Yeah, Waymo. Marshall, I had no idea about Waymo. I went to cross the street the other day, and there was a car with no people in it. I'm like, I had a staring contest. I didn't know what to do. Hey.
What is the deal with the smart car? How smart is that? Those things are tiny. Can you even drive them in traffic? I'm so smart. E equals MC squared. I drive a smart car. That's not smart in my book. Are you going to try a Waymo? I've been in a Waymo. I was in one in Phoenix. It's an interesting thing. It's pretty standard for people out there, though. They're used to it.
I got to tell you, I'm old school. I'm like a Chevy Nova 3 on the tree. I like old school cars and people, but I'll try to embrace this this week and get back to you.
You're not driving this. It's a death trap. We have breaking news.
Oh, I like this, Paul. I can't believe it. I love this.
Paul, the Bulls have made a trade.
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Chapter 2: What are the implications of the Bulls' recent trades?
I have so much belief in him.
Yeah. Yuki did win the jump ball.
Listen, AK. All 5'8 of them. Listen, AK.
And you know what? I'm not 5'8. I got miles to go before I get to 5'8. Shortest player in Bulls history out here winning jump balls over Kasper Jakotunis. I have a message for AK right now. AK, do not waste Yuki's window. You hear me? Don't waste it. Is this what backup is like? I know it's Casperus. I just like to call him Ghost because I see Casper and I just stop there. Call him Ghost.
I like it. It's okay. On behalf of Illini, who I adopted because... They're the public school, and they disappoint me in various sports ways at times. I felt like I had to say it. Illini, by the way, looking good. But that's not why we... We've got a freaking Illini on this show. Yeah, we actually... Kendall Gill, that's right. We could ask him about those Illini.
We will talk to Kendall later in our show at 125. And in the meantime... This is something. Like, you're not wrong in putting that in there, Tyler, that the Bulls are back up because they had three straight years of no activity. Then we see... You're starting to see the direction. And rather than pivoting a kayak for this team, it does feel like they're turning a barge.
Yeah, it's just a slower, more deliberate process. Like, for example... A lot of NBA GMs, you know that they're good for at least two trades basic at the trade deadline. You don't necessarily know who they're going to trade. You just know it's going to happen. That's not the case with the Bulls.
And while they have talked about their direction and they said as much after the trade deadline last year, Draft picks, as we know, weren't the priority when it came to first rounders. You know, we've talked about that. However, we didn't necessarily know the exact direction. I go back to when Arturas Karnashova said he wanted nine or ten good players. You know, formidable players.
Higher than role players, but not necessarily your nucleus of stars commanding super maxes. So how does that look? And for them, partially, it was last year... collecting and gaining control again of their first-round pick, who they used on Noah Essenge. But they got it back.
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Chapter 3: How do the Bulls' trades impact their roster direction?
appropriately when it came to figuring out what the Bulls wanted to do. But I look at it as simply as this, Marshall. The money will dictate, A, how teams value players. Giddey's the most important to the Bulls. That's why he's getting paid the most. Nikola Vucevic was the second most important to the Bulls at $21.5 million.
And you have to organize it by big rocks in a jar versus little rocks that fill it in.
So moving Vooch, which was something that shocked you and I yesterday, because I didn't think it was going to happen, especially for a guy like Anthony Simons, who, by the way, on a side note, probably indicates what I've been thinking all along, which is Tatum is likely back for the Celtics sooner rather than later. I don't think it's as aggressive as the February timeline.
I do think perhaps maybe it's late March or April. Like, do they feel like that is reasonable? What's the hurry? You literally just need to have Tatum come back soon enough that he can integrate or really just reintegrate because everybody knows who Jason Tatum is for the playoff push. Right. So they've been doing enough to stay in their respective mix. There's no question.
But that means that they are going to move some pieces while they have this flexibility ahead of now tomorrow's trade deadline. So for the Bulls, again, they're faced with, number one, Simons is on an expiring deal. Jaden Ivey is on an expiring deal. But are they going to do what they did, like, say, with Josh Giddey, who was also on an expiring deal, and try to build what they think is a core?
And is that core enough to actually compete and, dare I say, qualify for a actual playoff series in the East? Not this year. Yeah, I think they're positioning themselves to be able to make a playoff push. Maybe this year still. I know people are going to think I'm crazy after watching the Bulls go down by 25 points at the half in back-to-back games for just the second time in franchise history.
I know they're going to think I'm crazy. But once they get players over 5'8", players over 6'3", on the roster that are not named Lachlan Ulbrich... they might have a chance to make a put. The East is really bad. It's really bad. That is the hard part about trying to figure all this out is that you had to let the air out of the balloon. Like you had to rip the bandaid off, say whatever you want.
You are going to have to get worse to get better. So trying to do that in a graceful or slow way is not the way of the league. And we see that you can shorten that timeline, to use an AK phrase. You can shorten the timeline of tanking. The Oklahoma City Thunder showed you. But they did this in a much more deliberate and aggressive process.
You know, acquiring so many draft picks, trying to hold on to other ones. The Paul George trade is really what started them on the path to therefore winning the title last year. So, you know, it got painful before it got better, but the Bulls haven't really done that.
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Chapter 4: What are the potential consequences of the Bulls' moves?
You know, that's a lot, a big reason why a lot of players get him. So I say that to say, okay, Of course this is going to make him feel a certain way. It's hard to play the game when you don't know if you're even going to be playing for the same team after that's the only one you've known. And you remember how they talked about him when he first got here. Jim Boylan would call him an athlete.
That's a way of saying you don't necessarily know where you were supposed to put him. So then he worked on his skills to try to help that be defined. Well, yeah, he's clearly now defined as a combo guard who is deadly from three, although I think the mental side of this has taken its toll on Kobe White. Just in the last week plus, right, Layla?
Every time I watch him, he looks like a guy who's pressing. Understand this. As much as he's grown as far as skill, efficiency over the last couple of seasons specifically, this year his average in points is down 18.6. His turnover's up to a career high, three turnovers a game. And he even had
last night listen it's it's been bad he's five for his last 27 from three right you could see the threes he was taking they weren't just like barely off they were there's some bad misses out there and he's shooting a career low 34.6 from three i think he needs that fresh let this be over this saga let me get my fresh start and and get on with my career i think that's where he is right now
Well, and that is part of this, is when you have the feeling that you didn't fit in the team's direction for, oh, I don't know, at least a year. How would that not weigh on anybody? I mean, the public comments from Arturis Karnaschovas talking about fitting a certain window and we're going to have way more flexibility. You look at your own contract.
Oh, my contract will be up in that time period that AK is talking about. Well, and then positionally, look what happened. Who did they acquire more of? Guards. Guards. So that would make it make sense. Now, here's the thing, though. Here's the rub. Is that number one? I think his numbers are partially down because of the calf issue that he's had.
And we've seen how calves and Achilles are very much a problem in the NBA injury-wise. It's why we're talking about Boston trading away Anthony Simons, right? It's why the Indiana Pacers aren't the same without Tyrese Halberton. The numbers may be a bit affected by the fact that he's still not 100% yet, which would make it make sense.
And we know he's not because he's had to sit for this twice now. So I take that into consideration. But altogether, the Bulls have also had situations where I think like, for example, last year, I thought that they were going to flip Kevin Herter and Zach Collins. They did not.
So they may think that they can flip other people, but I don't necessarily know that they'll be able to as quickly as they would like. Well, they certainly had their chance to flip Zach Collins in the offseason. They won't have a chance to flip his expiring contract now because he might not even play this season. So that's one miss from AK. But you could see why that happened.
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Chapter 5: What were the highlights of the Bulls' recent trades?
What does she know? Well, what you forget is that I worked here every day for over a year previous to that. And in that time, Kevin, Casey Johnson was on our show. And it was, I believe it was the day of the trade deadline. And it was in 2021. And we had found out that Arturas Karnaschovas had traded for Nikola Vucevic. And Dan and I went crazy.
Chapter 6: How did the Bulls perform leading up to the All-Star break?
And I believe we were both wearing black turtlenecks at the time, which was a strange thing because we always tended to match. And we were like, whoa! And everybody talked about it and they laughed. But that's how I felt. So I think, me, that this was his best day and his most effective day since then. And that's an easy one for me to say, but for the Midday Show listeners, if you know, you know.
Very specific of you. I'm going to be a little bit more specific. To the hour? To the minute?
Yeah.
For the career? Immediately following the Bulls' 125-118 win over the Kings on February 17, 2022.
Chapter 7: What is the significance of the upcoming NBA trade deadline for the Bulls?
With that win, the Bulls guaranteed they would go into the All-Star break in first place. You in first place? That was the peak of the Arturis Karnaschovas era. He is fighting so hard to get back to that. Don't know if he will. Clearly, he's been given an opportunity to do so. But that, to me, was the best day of the era because that was the day his whole realized vision came to fruition.
Unfortunately, that team did not remain 17 games over .500. They had won five straight at that point. That was when DeMar DeRozan became the first player in the 75-year history of the NBA to score 35-plus in seven consecutive games while shooting over 50% from the field? Wasn't there also... That was the stretch where that January... the game winners had happened.
The late December, early January. Yeah, he had some game winners in there as well. So that was it. That was the prime Bulls in the Karnaschovas era. AK. And ever since then, it's been quite downhill. Whoa! There it is.
Chapter 8: What are the implications of the Anthony Davis trade for the Bulls?
Hold on, but it went like this. So KC was talking and then suddenly he paused. And then Dan and I were like, wait, did we lose you to the Cylons? And then he's like, no, Arturis Karnaschovas just traded. The Bulls just traded for Nikola Vucevic. And we were like, oh my God, it's center. And then that's when we heard the whoa. Whoa. That's what happened.
Number two. What was your favorite moment of the Nikola Vucevic era, a.k.a. the Vucci main era? Shout out to Stacey King.
I mean, I was going to say it was that stretch that Marshall talked about where the Bulls at one point were in first place. And I'm pretty sure Chief Moosher, Danny, Danny Parkins. I'm pretty sure. And I'll ask him this in an hour. I think he made a bet on the Bulls to win the East at the time. Don't you guys remember that? Because the Bulls were not quite in first place when he made the bet.
I want to say this was about late November, early December-ish. And he was like, I'm going to put a bet on the Bulls to win the East. And then we're like, wow, that's a bold choice, Danny. But that was it. They were absolutely at that time where they were winning games. DeMar was hitting game winners. They were incredible. They were the cardiac Bulls. And the concept was fully realized.
They had had the center they wanted. Center was more offensively minded than defense. We know that. They had Lonzo Ball healthy. He was making everything go. He made it all make sense. DeMar was shooting well. Zach Levine was shooting well. Everything was great. And yes, they were a legit contender at that time in the East. It was at December 2021, January 2022-ish time.
So that was my favorite time of the Vooch era. That's when I feel like he got there and immediately you understood the picture that the Bulls wanted to paint. I like that answer. I just like mine a little bit more. Was it 2022-23? Is that what I'm thinking of? 21-22 is the stretch. It was 21-22? Okay. Yeah. They finished 10 games over 500 that year. Yeah, they made the actual playoffs that year.
They tied the series 1-1 and stole home court advantage from the Milwaukee Bucks. And then they lost the next three games in a row. So just giving an update. And also, by the way, did the Miami Heat game not annoy me more because it was the same Heat team that also just sent the Bulls packing in the play-in game last year?
Is that why the loss bothered me even more that they were down by as many as 54 points? And I was like, stupid Heat! Again? ! Really? They weren't even at full strength. I know. But neither were the Bulls, but still. Okay, I just wanted to get that out there. All right, so my Vooch moment, very distinct. Again, it's a post-game moment.
You may remember back on November the 22nd, I believe, the Bulls beat the Wizards, who were 1-15 at the time. 121-120, and Vooch hit a bunch of big threes down the stretch to help secure the one-point win. It was Ring of Honor Legends Night. And there was a post-game interview with the aforementioned Casey Johnson from CHSN. And Jalen Smith ran up on him trying to celebrate.
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