NBA reporter Jamal Collier joins the show to discuss his latest piece on the Bulls new regime

episode

Rahimi & Grote Show 20 min 4 speakers 3 chapters transcribed 2 months ago

▲ 0

Transcript

jump: chapters · speakers · find in transcript

Transcript

Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.

When did Jamal Collier first decide to investigate the Bulls' organizational decline?

Bryson Graham 0:01

We are in the rebuilding phase and we're extremely young, too. So that's how I define, you know, what the rebuilding phase, what a rebuilding team looks like. And I think that's where we are right now. I'm not going to be up here and mince words and say like we're further along.

Vinny Rotino 0:18

That is Bryson Graham letting you know what time it is in the Bulls organizational timeline. This is Rahimi Harrison-Grody on 104.3 The Score. We strongly recommend you check out the work that our next guest has done. It is Jamal Collier, who has been working on this story for what I can think is months. It is the headline on ESPN.com, good at the cost of great, how one of the NBA's most iconic franchises was lost to mediocrity. And if that headline isn't powerful enough, we've brought him on to talk about it. He joins us via our hotline. He is also on Twitch, twitch.tv slash thescorechicago. Jamal, first of all, congratulations. We know you had been working on this for a while.

Jamal Collier 1:06

Thanks, guys. I mean, it feels good to, like, get it out there, get it seen, have it well received. To hear you guys ranting, Layla, I really enjoyed your Tyrese Halliburton rant yesterday as well. So I appreciate you having me on and appreciate the plug for the story. You said it's months in the making and honestly, really kind of years in the making.

Vinny Rotino 1:25

The truth will set you free, but first it will tick you off.

Marshall Harris 1:29

No, but Jamal, seriously, when did you first have this idea of this type of story? And when did you start interviewing the 20 sources that you have that take a lot of research to put this thing together?

Jamal Collier 1:43

Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, you guys know that, you know, I think at some point in the last few months I had to I wasn't able to join you guys kind of in the weeds of this. You know, I think the this particular story, really, as far as like a look at the Bulls organization. I mean, at least last summer, for sure, going into last year, last December, I thought about it. So at least there had been some idea percolating for about a year that, you know, I was telling my editors in Boston ESPN of like, we need to sort of do a deeper look into the Bulls. And then this particular version, really, once the season ended and Arturas and Mark got fired and they were hiring a new front office, there was the urgency of it sort of really picked up in my head.

Jamal Collier 2:39

And really, I think, is the outline in the piece, like when the parallels happen. the parallels became so just eerie to me of where they were six years ago, you know, new front office coming in. And again, our tourists and Mark say what you want about how that turned out. But at the time, the hiring wasn't a, uh, people weren't questioning the hiring. This was guys who came in from strong backgrounds that were respected around the league, still are respected around the league. Um, They had the strong background. You had a new coach, Billy Donovan, Tiago, guys who were respected and came with a good pedigree. And then you had this jump from lower in the lottery to number four. And just like seeing that exact parallel and really asking the question of why should anybody trust this team to get it right?

Jamal Collier 3:26

Like what what should fans be actually optimistic and encouraged by six years later? That was really the big driving forward for me in the past few months, really since, you know, middle of April to really like try to figure out how to answer that question and try to figure out what went wrong and what anybody learned from the way the past six years went.

Vinny Rotino 3:49

Well, and I think it's inevitable to do that whenever you see, oh, look, yet again, they got the fourth overall pick. Oh, look, yet again, they're hiring somebody into a position they hadn't had before. Bryson Graham gets promoted from EVP. His position was higher than Arturis. Arturis was assistant in Denver, and Bryson Graham had a higher position. But the idea of this person has a lot of upside, they have a lot of potential – AKA got credited, as you know, for discovering Jokic. You know, how does that turn into Bryson Graham who wants to develop players?