Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
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If I interview someone and they're not sold on Billy and they're not sold on a Hall of Fame coach, they're not sold on a person who's won championships in college, who's gone deep in the playoffs with Oklahoma City, who I believe with the Chicago Bulls every year, given the team that he was given, I think he achieved really good results.
Not the results that we wanted, but that's not because of Billy. So if someone's not interested in Billy as our coach and if Billy wants to be our coach, and someone's not interested in that, then they're probably not the right candidate for us.
Chapter 2: What insights does Jon Greenberg share about Billy Donovan's coaching?
That was Michael Reinsdorf at his press conference two days ago talking about what he wanted in his team. And that was the edict, Billy Donovan being awarded, I believe, by management for actually being consistent. somebody who has a lot of perspective on this and can add further, not only perspective, but importantly, humor, is John Greenberg.
He's our next guest and is kind enough to join us here. Rahimi Harrison-Grody, the founding editor and senior columnist at The Athletic. He's at John underscore Greenberg on X, and he's also on Twitch, twitch.tv slash the score Chicago. John, how are you?
I'm doing pretty good. It's a nice day out, apparently, outside my office window. It looks nice, at least.
You know, John, I feel like this has been a good week, month, couple months for you specifically. You're a guy who sprays to all fields when it comes to the big stories. Bears Stadium, you got the sit-down interviews that you do at the beginning of the season, both with Chris Goetz and Jed Hoyer, and we always thank you for those. They're really informative.
And then you were also at the Michael Reinsdorf press conference. And, and, if that wasn't all, there's some fun humor to be had as well, like the Sox giving away a Pope hat. I feel like this is a good time for you.
I should probably be writing more then. But yeah, no, there is a lot of – there's almost too much going on. You're right. I mean there's just like a lot of stuff that – like I really didn't even – I didn't write about Angel Reese because there's just too much else going on. But yeah, this – the Reinsdorf presser on Zoom was pretty interesting because a lot of people did –
saw different things a lot of people were were angry at things they heard um it was the the clip you played i think you know really was the one that stood out to me yeah and and what was your response to that specifically understanding oh this is how you feel about billy donovan he seems to have the keys right now and it's just a matter of does he want to turn over the keys does he want to get a bigger and better rental vehicle what what does he want to do you know
Yeah, I mean, to run away from someone who loves him like that, I mean, my kids don't love me as much as Michael Reinsberg loves Billy Donovan. It's like – it's kind of crazy because they did not – the Bulls did not love Phil Jackson like this. I'll tell you that much. That was the one thing that stood out to me.
I actually thought some of the other stuff in Michael Reinsberg's talk with us was actually interesting, and I wish we would have been in person, and I wish we would have had a longer –
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Chapter 3: What are the Bulls' management's expectations for their new lead executive?
Instead, he said, basically, this is Billy's, you know, Billy's role, Billy's job. He can take it as long as he wants. And I even emailed Michael to follow up on that. And to follow up on something else he said that I wanted clarification on to be accurate. And he said his point wasn't just that, like, his point basically to me wasn't that Billy takes precedence over everyone, right?
And that Billy makes the decisions. It was that he didn't see how someone could come in and take over and not want to keep Billy, right? which I still don't agree with. Like, I think anyone you would hire would respect Billy Donovan, obviously. I mean, who wouldn't respect him? But like people have different philosophies.
People might want a coach that aligns more with their thoughts on basketball. Like, I don't think that's, you know, out of order to maybe respect someone, but maybe not want to employ them.
Well, and I appreciate you letting us know that you wanted to follow up with him when it came to, I think, the severity or the intensity of Reinsdorf comments when it came to that, because that's what we were trying to figure out. And I said this in transition, John, yesterday with Lawrence Holmes and Matt Spiegel, that if you know the Reinsdorfs as a hirer, you know, as an employer,
They are loyal. That is the understatement of the year, perhaps. And I feel like Michael probably saw it as punishment would be firing Billy Donovan for what I think he doesn't deem punishment for the job he had done. And not that it's naivete necessarily, but just that's how they've operated. You would know better than I, having spent more time here.
No, I think you're right. I mean, and I think it's just... Kind of speaks to what we see as low standards, you know what I mean? Just like his – he's like, oh, he's done a good job here given what – you know, the players he's had. Well, I mean, the players aren't actually – listen, he's had some rosters that were disjointed 100%, but he's had talent. I mean, like he's had plenty of talent.
He's had guys that can play. Now, you might say like putting Zach Levine and DeMar DeRozan on team – is not successful as we've seen here and in Sacramento, because their play styles don't really compliment each other. And the fact that when Lonzo Ball got hurt, they never really replaced him with a true point guard or at least someone to help Kobe White, you know, lessen the load on that.
Like Arturis didn't do a good job and they let him stick around for six years. I mean, you know, probably three years past his due date, two years at least. So, I mean, I just, I think they, Billy, I understand why they like Billy. I understand why a lot of reporters who cover Billy don't, you know, like Billy. It's impossible not to, but it's fair to say, like, he hasn't done a great job here.
I mean, not only have they not, like, they made the playoffs once. We know that, right? And that was the only year they had a winning season. But if you look at the years after that, they never even made it back to 500 after the first few weeks of the season. This season's the only one they've been even at 500 or, like, a game or two above past November. So, like...
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Chapter 4: How does Michael Reinsdorf feel about Billy Donovan's performance?
John, the problem is, though, he, in one breath, talks about how much he loves what Sam Presti has done in Oklahoma City. And in the next breath says, you know, as an organization, they do not embrace this idea of not trying to win all the games and have a winning season every year. Understanding... You have to take steps backwards. That's what anyone at Oklahoma City would tell you.
So how do you take those two thoughts and say this can be something that comes out in favor of the next exec who understands, unlike Michael Reinsdorf, what it takes to go backwards to go forward?
No, I agree with you. I'll say this. So earlier this season, the last time I was at a Bulls game was when Oklahoma City was in town. And I wrote a – it wasn't a very good column, but I wrote a column about – He has a high standard for his columns. It was fine. It wasn't anything groundbreaking.
But I wrote about Oklahoma City and I asked Mark, I can't even pronounce his name, Dagnalt or Dinal, whatever he is.
Dagnalt, yeah.
Dagnalt, you had it. Dagnalt. And that was Billy's old assistant who replaced him, by the way. And I asked him about Presti. And I kind of was trying to compare the two organizations. And I mentioned Rebuilds and whatever. And someone from the Thunder PR actually came to my computer, really nice guy. He's a big Cubs fan, actually.
And he came and sat with me and was like, you know, because Mark kind of disagreed with what I said about the Rebuild. And this guy said the same thing. He's like, if you look at what we did, it wasn't very long. It was two seasons. And guess what? We already had Shea. And they had like two other players that they already had when they went and they traded Westbrook. Right.
You know, they got rid of who was it was Westbrook and Paul George. Yeah. Those are the two big deals they made. Right. And he's like, if you look at that, we already had these guys. We had Shane had a few other guys. And then it was basically like two seasons. And then by then they were like third season. I think they made the playoffs.
But you got to go through those two seasons.
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Chapter 5: What challenges does Billy Donovan face with the current Bulls roster?
It's a must-read for me with Chris Goetz and with Jed Hoyer.
And then the Jed Hoyer one was hilarious because not only did we ask Pete Crow Armstrong about Jed messing with him and texting him if Caleb Williams was there when he got his number retired at Harvard-Westlake, but then also the tongue-in-cheek, whatever mood Jed Hoyer had with you when you asked about extensions and the Pete Crow Armstrong extension and the Nico one hadn't happened yet.
What were your takeaways from that sit-down now that you know what we know now about those two guys especially?
Well, I'll tell you this for sure. I asked him about that. I didn't know the Nico one was coming, but we knew the PCA one was coming. And Patrick Mooney, I was there with, was our writer, was working on it and trying to nail it down. So I asked him specifically about the PCA one. knowing that I knew it was in the works and knowing that he knew we knew it was in the works.
That was a little bit of me just try to see what he would say, which I do sometimes. Sometimes I don't know the answer. Sometimes I'm just like having a little a little fun with that. And of course, I know Jed enough to know he doesn't talk about it. So it's it's kind of fun just to make him squirm a little bit on the record. So I did not know the Nico one was coming.
And I was happy to see that because I like everyone. I like Nico. But yeah, I always enjoy sitting down with Jed. He is great. I didn't get to sit down with Getz this year. Kind of asked him a little late. And then the day I asked him to do it, the day I was at camp, because I go with my family for spring break, so I'm not there that long when they're actually there.
And he was busy signing Reese McGuire, I guess, that day. So you didn't have time for John Greenberg when you got Reese McGuire you're dealing with.
Because the Sox needed yet another catcher.
They did. They did. They like to cycle through them. And now they're doing a thing, fun thing where they cycle through 26 year old rookies, which is always a good sign when you have a bunch of 26 year olds making their debut. It's kind of fun for them. But I always enjoy sitting down with Chad. We always have a good talk.
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