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Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
Rahimi Harrison-Groovy. Midday's K-2. On Chicago Sports Radio.
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 Billy wants to be our coach, and someone's not interested in that, then they're probably not the right candidate for us.
That was the declaration from Michael Reinsdorf yesterday when he spoke about firing Arturas Karnaschovas and Mark Eversley.
Chapter 2: What recent changes occurred in the Chicago Bulls' front office?
This is Rahimi Harrison-Grody on 104.3 The Score, and we go to our hotline with somebody who not only covers the NBA, but also wrote an excellent article on the Chicago Sky for The Athletic as well. Angel Reese's trade, another example of Chicago Sky's inability to hold onto stars. Shakia Taylor joining us. Shake, thanks for being on. Thanks for having me, guys. Oh, we love having you shake.
She's also on Twitch, twitch.tv slash the score Chicago if you want to see Shakia. Yes, see Shakia and her glasses and her beautiful hair and just making me look like an absolute slob here on this Wednesday. And the flawless skin. Yeah, all of that. The filter that does not need a filter. Basically, Shakia looks like the opposite of Chicago pro basketball right now.
Is that too strong of a language to use, Shake? I kind of love it. Because I know you have people all over the country who have been texting you, your coworkers, your friends, fellow W lovers, and they're like, what is going on in Chicago right now, correct?
Oh, my God. I fell asleep on the couch and woke up to my phone buzzing with people talking about just the state of Chicago basketball. Like we are chaotic to the rest of the country.
That's such a bold, knowing compliment. You look so pretty. You look like the opposite of the state of Chicago basketball. she is aesthetically pleasing. Chicago basketball right now is not as pleasing. I want to start, before we get to your article about this guy, let's start with what's most recent.
You, like we know, and I feel like you were, you covered a team that was mentioned as an example by the previous Bulls management. Yeah. Arturis Karnaschov has talked about the Pacers. That was where the origin of the, we want to have nine or 10 very good players, really good guys, whatever you want to call it, non-superstar contracts. That was the example. You covered the Pacers.
You know how that goes. You cover the best practices throughout the league.
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Chapter 3: How does Shakeia Taylor assess Billy Donovan's coaching performance?
I want to start with this. When news of this broke, I know that you know this better than anybody. The Bulls were trying to do something that wasn't being done in the NBA. How do you put into context what the plan that Arturas Karnaschovas and Mark Eversley had and how it was looked upon by the rest of the league?
I feel like everyone in sports has said the same thing over the last two days, right? Nobody really knows what the Bulls were doing. I feel like the plan was kind of flying by the seat of their pants from season to season. It didn't really give we're trying to win. It didn't really give we're trying to please the fans. It definitely didn't produce any positive results in any direction.
I think the Bulls for the last at least decade have been trying to find their compass and they're not in alignment. And so therefore, there's no direction. And the Pacers, as an example of that, I think it's kind of funny. Because for the Pacers, what I saw being around them for the entirety of the 2025 NBA playoffs was that it's cultural.
And I think we could use both Chicago basketball teams as an example of this. Culture starts in the front office. Culture starts with a foundation. If you don't have that, it's not gonna just magically blossom in the locker room. It's not gonna magically happen on the court.
Chapter 4: What led to the Chicago Sky trading Angel Reese?
Culture starts at the top. And I don't think the Bulls established any sort of culture to get them going in a good direction.
Shaq, it's so interesting that you bring that up because given what you just said and given what you heard Michael Reinsdorf saying about any potential head basketball person would have to be comfortable basically with Billy Donovan remaining as the head coach, that seems like a non-starter for most people who would be considered as frontrunners for a job like this, correct?
It's another moment of the bulls telling the sky, hold my beer, right? When the sky decided to hire Teresa Weatherspoon, they did not have a GM in place. Then they hired a GM, right? So, People aren't in alignment and it's always predicted that like, hey, this probably isn't going to work out if your hires aren't in alignment. We've seen it in football. Now we're seeing it again with the Bulls.
That just seems like a really poor decision to start with. Hey, you can come here, but you get no say so about who's hired to be coach. I think if you're going to clean house, you clean house. You start with a full slate. You don't clean the kitchen and not sweep the floor, right? Like you do the whole thing. My mom would be really proud of me for saying that.
I'm proud of you for saying that. That's good work out of you both. And I think that that's a good point. We haven't even, as much as we've talked about it, and I know we will with you as well, the lack of, and I think you put this really well in your article when you said, it's not just by choice. Sometimes it's by force that the Sky can't keep their star players.
We haven't touched much on the Teresa Weatherspoon situation as a whole. What was your take on that? Do you look at it any differently now that Angel Reese has also left the building?
No, I still view it the exact same way, even though we will never fully know the inner workings of that situation, right? Why Spoon was out of there in a year. There's, you know, been rumors that it was a locker room culture situation, but I still feel the same way that Spoon, The Sky are constantly undoing their own decisions, right? Like they make a decision and then they want to flip it.
And that's exactly what I think happened with Spoon. They made a decision, then they undid it a year later. with Angel Reese. They made a decision to trade up for her in the draft. Now they're undoing it. Both of these teams, to me, just have no compass. They have no sense of direction. So every year, it's trying to find a new direction.
If you're standing in the woods and just spinning in circles, at what point do you stop? And readjust and recalibrate and figure out, like, what do we want from this team? What do we want to see on the floor? And consistently with the Sky's decisions, at least over the last decade specifically, it has been letting a star walk.
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Chapter 5: What are the implications of the Bulls' management decisions on the team's future?
They treated they treated the Angel Reese story like she was being punished. And that is not what is happening here. And Angel Reese went to a contending team in the dream. They had a huge turnaround last year. She's going to a market that will embrace her. That team already was working on, on an identity.
And in the meantime here, you know, think about the Angel Reese and Caitlin Clark game getting national attention last year. That was on national TV. Every time the sky played the fever, they were at the United center for two games and, There was a reason that they wanted to pick up networks, wanted to pick up those games, and why it got sent to a bigger venue.
Caitlin Clark by herself, you could argue, yeah, that goes to the United Center. Are people going to be as excited about it, though, because they want to see that rivalry? Are networks? That's an example of why this was so big to the people who actually consume the WNBA.
Not only that, but... how bad of a look it is for people to say free a star player as if she was in prison and then for them to celebrate that she is now free right like i do this thing sometimes where you know i scroll social media just to see what people are talking about and be careful out there people
Celebrating, you know, like I literally saw a post that said, what do I do with my injury sky gear now that I'm getting dream stuff like this is the area of fandom we're in now. People follow players. So you're losing. a pretty good amount of young folk who would potentially pay attention to this guy because they were bought into this girl while the sky were losing.
Keep in mind, you had motion while you are a bad team. And thinking about a person like Angel saying, I just want to win, right? Like that's essentially what her complaints were. She wanted to be in a winning environment. She wanted to be on a team that, prioritize the players and prioritize winning. And she questioned a few decisions.
I don't think that people take those sorts of comments to heart when you look at the league broadly. We're at a time where the W is growing tremendously in multiple directions. And so to see a team that just sort of seems to refuse to invest in positive ways, that's kind of a downer, right? Like, the league is expanding.
You have all these new teams and they're coming with great training facilities and, you know, A-plus staff. And then you have this guy who... what are they doing? Right? Like, I guess in that context, you don't think Angel was wrong. And now you send her somewhere where she's going to have all the things that your players still don't have.
Shake. This is always a great conversation. Thank you for shedding some light on both what's going on league wide in the league with the NBA. And then also what's going on with this guy and Angel Reese. This has been great. Thanks for having me. Thank you for being our compass as we try to figure out Chicago basketball over and over and over again. Thanks, Jake. Amen. That is Shakia Taylor.
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