Yeah but it’s generally not allowed for you to live in another country. Significant tax implications for the company so they’re not going to be chill about looking the other way if they know. Individually breaking some tax laws, but also working on a tourist visa could give you issues/complications as well.

Probably get away with it for a while, maybe indefinitely as these are things that would be hard to catch, but I’d be super uncomfortable living with that as my status quo. For a cheeky month or two as an extended working holiday? Sure.

Eh it’s phrased badly (in edit would just delete “still”), in part because I initially wrote rotation player but didn’t want to limit him that way he’s definitely shown that he’s good already, and rewrote that sentence without much though. What I mean is that I do see Ayo as a guy who will be a legit contributor and could still be so on a competitive/playoff team not just shining on a bad team.

Not sure if that ceiling is plus rotation guy, as a 4th/5th starter, or 6th man… too early to say!

It needed to come from the top. Both Newsom and Pritzker both have very real chances to win the next one, but could throw it all away if they become the guy that split the Dems to hand Trump an easy win.

In fairness Matas might not be ready from a strength and conditioning standpoint.

I think the best case scenario we're only bad for one or two, and then you bite the bullet on potentially losing the pick, but it hinges on lottery luck and finding a guy. Looks like we're heading into some classes where the prospects might at least be there.

If you slot a franchise centerpiece in here then we're pretty much ready to roll. Too early to say, but love Matas as a prospect for a 2nd/3rd option, and Coby's looking increasingly like a strong #2. Giddey's got that upside as well, PWill could be an important defensive cog and maybe develop into a 3rd/4th option and I'm still a believer that Ayo could be a real player on a good team... that's a lot of 24 and under talent with potential to be part of the rebuild.

Those guys won't all pan out into what I think is their best case, but if one or two do then it's a great team for a Cooper Flagg type to slot into. I think if you remove DeMar/Zach/Vuc we're just a slightly more talented version of Orlando in 2021-22 (the year before they drafted Paolo). I think Franz Wagner is probably the best comp for what we're hoping for Matas to turn into as a quasi-realistic upside. I don't think we'll be quite as bad as they were, but with the flatter lottery odds it doesn't really matter in terms of chances to get a top guy... just down to luck.

Super hyped, had zero belief that he was going to fall to us. Not only BPA, but a great fit for our needs.

I don't think it was working... Coby averaged 15pts and 4 assists next to Zach lavine last year but 20pts and 5 assists without Zach. The bulls had a losing record with Zach with 10 wins and 15 losses.

Here I meant in that stretch after Zach came back (so games 37-43). In those games Coby was awesome (averaged like 23 points and 5 assists on great efficiency). There was a lot of open discussion at the time on how Zach needed to make room for him and he was pretty open about finding a way (Zach's play was a bit up and down, but coming off injuries so hard to fully judge).

I wouldn't put too fine a point on it. We don't have a lot of great data, but Zach can be elite off ball and isn't actually that great of a decision maker. Coby's a much improved handler, but probably not ready to be a primary. I think there's some hope this can work out at least in the short term and if things are humming both those guys could get a lot of really easy looks.

I just wanted to make the point that Derozan and Coby did work really well together because they both brought a different element on offense.

Yeah absolutely. Love DeMar and I think his fit with Coby was great. His fit with Giddey is what would be horrific. Given what they've said in the past I think the FO went into the offseason planning to retool around Coby with DeMar in the picture to provide stability, but had to pivot when it became clear that nobody wants to take Zach without us paying for the priviledge. My theory is that the Giddey move was the first step in that pivot, we get a young prospect and they don't have to make a deal on Zach where we give stuff away to get off of his contract. It all makes sense if you think of it through the lens of "they have to convince Jerry we still might be good".

Lavine wants to be option 1...

I think he wants to be, but I also think he's shown a lot more willingness to share the rock than people give him credit for, that stretch I was citing above had him. Also unless he (and his agent) are dumb they HAVE to know that his only way out of Chicago to a team that's halfway decent is to make these things work.

For me if we go into the season with those three guys (and Ayo) it'll be the first real test of what Billy can do. All three can pass the ball and create and if things are moving then there's no need for people to be feeling left out. More than enough touches to go around, especially when you consider how little consistent offense we're getting from our frontcourt. If Zach is out there playing hero ball then you know that Billy's not in control/awake at the wheel and things are going to go badly.

I'm of the mindset that putting players around other good/smart players makes them better rather than letting them run the show with a g-league squad. So that's the first thing I'll say.

I don't think his touches have to go down (as long as DeRozan is gone) and I don't think the Zach is part of the long term plans, so it's not like I'm saying this has to work forever, but rather just something that we live with for at most a season (ideally just until the deadline). Right now I think Coby works best next to a true point guard, so putting him next to a real distributor should be helpful. Zach will have to be a little bit more off-ball than he'll probably prefer, but honestly he was willing to do that in the short set after he came back from injury last year and it was working reasonably well.

Did it hurt Shai's development to have to share the court with CP3 and Dennis Shroder? Certainly not. I'm not saying it's 100% the same thing, but that team found a way for literally all three of those guys to take more shots than they did the year before and was coached by <checks notes> Billy Donovan. If there was ever a coach that would love to find touches for a three guard lineup it's him and unlike that OKC team we actually prefer it if the defense suffers to the extent that we lose a bunch of games to keep our pick.

I'm slightly concerned about Ayo not having as many opportunities as we would have liked to open up for him (if a LaVine trade was there), but with Caruso gone he's still at least where he was last year on the depth chart, and hopefully we will eventually move on from Zach so that he can claim that bigger role for at least part of the season and next year.

Honestly if you want to tank, but also want to try to keep/develop Coby this is probably one of the best paths.

That lineup could be incredible offensively, but will aboslutely not be able to defend anybody. There will be so much less pressure on Coby, but with DeRozan gone he shouldn't need to take a huge step back in touches. My guess is that his counting stats hold steady and efficiency go up, at least to start the season. We'll be like a poor mans version of what the Pacers were pre-Siakam. If Vuc remembers how to shoot and Zach looks healthy they'll both pump their value and our trade options open up... a few teams will also be more desperate with inevitable injuries/etc. Jerry might be anti-tank, but if we've already lost too many games to contend then a mid-season blowup HAS to be on the table.

It's a feature not a bug. We're tanking this year, just doing so in a way that isn't super overt because Jerry doesn't like that.

TBH if that's true then it's probably the closest path AKME are allowed to take to what most of the fanbase is looking for.

I'd bet that there's huge overlap between the people clamoring on here to get after that sweet sweet #13 pick and the people in the other thread complaining about how we shouldn't even extend the QO to PWill... those picks lose all their value to these people the second you drive them off the lot.

If they let DeMar walk and then trade Zach mid-season for positive value after he gets off to a hot start (in part due to playing next to the best passer he's seen here) then I'll tip my hat to AKME's creative way out of this mess we're in (even if it's one of their own making).

If they resign DeMar and give Coby/Ayo/PWill a back-seat role in pursuit of an 8 seed then maybe it's time for me to get more into hockey.

why they thought that word applied.

The word does apply in a very literal and precise manner.

I just looked at it. They use synthetic control which essentially tries to make a "synthetic Texas" by weighting data from a pooled sample of other states (maybe they work on a sub-state level... I didn't read past the abstract, but same idea). Trying to see how much deaths would have moved in a place with the same characteristics as Texas that did not recieve the policy. That's the "expected" change in death rates and you then compare Texas pre/post policy to understand how much it moved in ways that were not predictable given that statistical model (ie unexpected).

The point being that a lot of other stuff that might be timed with the policy either due to seasonal variation or spurious time trends (which could be linked to a billion things: demographics/climate trends/other changes in health care access/etc) so you do your best to figure out how much this death rate would be expected to move given all of those and then compare the policy impact to that expected value rather than just a naive pre-post shift.

It's a good bet in any statistical analysis that the mention of "expected/unexpected" probably refers to what's expected relative to the statistical model they estimate and should not be read as "what did we think would happen" which might be discussed by the authors, but is usually left to some discussion/conclusion where that's made quite clear (eg "our priors were" "we expected to find").

cost them picks that they could have attached to LaVine in a salary dump

But why do the bulls have to attach picks and dump his salary? Okay so there's no market for him, let him just keep playing out his contract in Chicago. His fit with Giddy is actually pretty good (unlike DeMar) so if you're Jerry and want to win games it's fine. If you want a tank then him being one of the most overpaid players in the league and not having any defense means that's on the table as well.

I know FO wants to deal him and I personally think it's time, but it would be an aboslutely braindead move to force that issue if it doesn't accomplish one of those two potential goals (getting better or speeding up the rebuild).

One of the potential ways to read the tea leaves of this Giddey trade is that the FO has been making calls all around the league on LaVine and determined that they can't move him so they're going to hold onto Zach for at least the start of the season and let DeMar walk. Zach's biggest offensive flaw is that he's not a great primary ballhandler, but he's actually pretty good off ball with his ability to shoot/cut (the latter ebbs and flows with how locked in he is). So far Coby is kind of similar, but I have more hope for his primary distributor role to develop. For now Giddey works well with Zach and Coby as secondary playmakers and we know that Billy loves to run three guard lineups (and with Giddey's size can convince himself it's not even three guards). If you (like me) believe that a huge part of AKME's incompetence is the fact that they've got to sell every move to Jerry as a "win now" play then I could imagine them bringing that concept to the table to justify moving one of the best guys on the team for a younger prospect.

I think there's a decent chance that we have an awesome offense while losing the vast majority of games, which might be a best case scenario for next year.

The question is if building around Coby is the right move at all (I don't think he'll ever be a "star" -- very good yes but not a star), but he's what the Bulls got so might as well try.

Definitely agree with this. I think he should absolutely be on the table for the right price if it's possible to "blow it up" since Jerry would never do that I guess it's a moot point, but I'm always surprised how many people want to get a complete tear down while also keeping our most valuable asset off the table.

Big changes for sure, but I just don't believe that Jerry would allow a full rebuild so I'm guessing that AKME has sold him on moves that will keep us out of the playoffs this year, but that will keep butts in the seats. An exciting young point guard is one, bringing back DeMar might be another (I also don't see why he would other than $$$... hopefully if it happens it's 1 year or 1 + Team Option). My suspicion is that they're prioritizing existing players over picks for exactly that reason: they can sell Jerry on "this player has proven skills and could be helping the team in year 1/2", rather than future picks that it's not a guarantee he'll even live to see conveyed.

Honestly I've been pro-retoole to try to max our 2025 pick without committing to a multil-year tank yet and I think this trade does that beautifully (even if the value is not at all even for us). Giddy's a good gamble, but because of the defense we drop from the play-in team bracket into the bad-not-abysmal tier. With Zach on his way out I think the FO will make moves that keep us in that range and hopefully pull the trigger on some deadline moves that take us into that bottom bracket to close out the season.

If we hang around 25-30 win pace up until the deadline and then trade away anyone who's a positive and not under 25 then I think we can probably get decent lottery odds.. especially with some of the other bottom 10 teams (SAS/Memphis) probably looking to be more relevant and ones like Charlotte and Detroit, having the talent to be in a similar boat in terms not hanging around the very bottom if they can have any injury luck at all.

My perfect world is that Zach gets moved to Utah to bring back Kessler (idk how) and we let DeMar sign with a contender so that the starting lineup is something like:

Coby/Ayo/Giddey/PWill/Kessler

That team is young and fun, but absolutely doesn't win more than 25 games unless one of those guys finds a much higher level. If the gods bless us with Cooper in the 2025 draft then you start trying to add veterans and can make a go of being the fun non-playoff team in 2025-26 and something more serious from there. If not assess who's in the long term vision and who's not and move from there.

I think it's a sign that they're "retooling" but not doing a full teardown. Hopefully that means losing a lot more games next year to keep our pick while still claiming to be competitive and trying to quickly get back to winning after that.

With a little luck and the right moves with Zach (traded this summer), Vuc (traded by the deadline), and DeMar (either sign and trade or brought back on a team friendly and potentailly traded at the deadline?) it might work out. We'll see if AKME can ever make a trade that brings back more value than it sends out...

Honestly it's true that the Bulls should have been able to get a pick in there... maybe that's only a second, but Caruso is a game changer for OKC and I have to believe that Presti would have recognized that if we were negotiating from a position of any strength.

I think once the sting of that fades then people will get in board that Giddey could be really good for us and at the very least will be an asset we can flip for more picks if we ever go into a full rebuild after he pumps his value on higher usage.

I mean he's coming off a low year where he had a pretty terrible fit with the team (he does everything Shai does... but worse). But if this was him before the start of last season he'd probably be a lock to go top five in this year's weak class. If you believe a change of scenery could at least get him back there (I do) then he's a good centerpiece of an AC trade.

Don't get me wrong, we should have gotten a late first or at least a second as well. AC should be absolutely worth that to OKC and I'm not sure how we didn't squeeze it out of them.

I think there's a strong case to hold onto Vuc for a bit unless somebody comes in with an offer. He's coming off a garbage season by his own standards and might be worth something small, but positive, (maybe taking bad salary back) mid season if he has a chance to bounce off of it. Maybe a contender with an injury even coughs up a 25-30 pick to make it happen in an act of desperation... though that seems like a long-shot best case scenario.

Also gives the league more time to adjust to the reality that $18.5M isn't actually that big a contract anymore. It's less than Malik Monk just got and that seems to be considered a great deal for the Kings.

Utah for a package that includes Kessler would actually be pretty cool in terms of accumulating young talent who are probably undervalued at the moment. I'd be happy to watch a team with: Coby/Ayo/Giddey/PWill/Kessler lose a bunch of games and get some nice odds for the Cooper Flagg draft. He'd slot in nicely with that group and we'd be on our way towards some relevancy much faster than expected if we could get that lottery luck.

I'm not happy with the value on the AC trade, but it gives me some amount of optimism on the direction of the team that I think is being missed here. Maybe I'm just being to hopeful, but here we go...

Preface: we aboslutely should have gotten some kind of picks back. A mid first feels "fair" but a second should have been what we negotated down to in desperation. For that reason AKME deserve the shit people are giving them for this.

That said: I think we'd be hard pressed to find a player/asset with more upside than Giddy as the centerpiece of an AC trade. The teams brimming with better options don't really want/need AC for next year, and by all accounts the most valueable pick that was ever on the table was something like #10 in this years draft... not exactly something that's even 50/50 in terms of producing a better player than Giddy.

I'm not saying his upside is crazy, but you don't get a <25 year old prospect with crazy upside for a >30 year old role player... no matter how good they are. You get either picks that are locked into a 15-30 spots and/or players like this with some established skills an a bunch of red flags. Maybe there's a better one, but I'd love to hear a realistic name if that's the case... the only other one that comes to my mind is Walker Kessler, who I think is better, but has a harder path to being more than what he is now (elite rim protection and not much else).

Giddy's 21 and has fairly elite playmaking skills in the half court, a herky-jerky game that somehow seems to work at getting him where he needs to go, and pretty good touch. For him to turn into a high level starter for a legit team he needs:

• A slightly more reliable 3 point shot;
• To draw/sell more contact to get his FTAs up;
• To be at least passable defensively.

Or of course any one of those things could get MUCH better, but that's less likely imo. I think the defense is the most difficult to imagine of the three. Touch around the rim/on floaters gives me hope that he can develope the three ball. I don't think he'll ever be high volume, but something like 35-40% on 4-5 attempts isn't wild to imagine. The foul stuff is hard to project, but he into traffic comfortably and gest his shot up so there's some hope there. The defensive stuff ... looks bad, but to be honest I haven't watched enough of his games to have a strong opinion on how hopeless it is. Anyone closing the book fully on it at age 21 is probably being hyperbolic though. He's got size for the guard position and high bbiq on the other side of the ball so if he gets locked in I have some hopes that he can at least learn to be someone who's not a huge negative on that end.

People on here acting like being played off the court while being relentlessly attacked by Kyrie and Luka means a 21 year old player will never be capable. That was an offensively incredible finals team. He was a solid contributor in their series win against NOLA. What I saw against Dallas doesn't fill me with confidence, but there's no way we actually get him if there weren't some red flags.

Hopefully this signals a direction shift:

Everyone on here says that Coby (and to a lesser extent Ayo) is untouchable. My hope is that the FO thinks so as well and are trying to rebuild/retool without doing a full on multi-year tank. I don't think Jerry would allow that, but honestly if you did then it's not clear how we get anybody of value to resign when their contracts are up (so what's the point of making them untouchable). If you want to build around Coby then you probably need to put in place some kind of visible blueprint towards relevance. Swapping Giddy for AC will absolutely lose us a bunch of games, but the offense could be dynamic and we could still be a fun team pre trade deadline before (hopefully) leaning into tank mode to secure top five lottery odds. There aren't as many bottom feeder teams so you don't have to fully commit day one to get there imo. Some vision for how this team might grow into something + a top pick + a decent free agency in 2025 should help solidify the case to keep Coby (who hopefully is even better by then).

Giddey's also been great at setting up big men for easy buckets. Given that I can't imagine Vuc has any market then part of that pre-deadline plan will be to have him feeding Vuc to pad his number so that we might be able to flip him for some kind of value. A team desperate for a big man who can at least chew minutes might give up a crap first if he's putting up an efficient 20/11. If his 3 point shooting bounces off his abysmal year and he gets some easy post touches set up for him it's not a crazy thought.

I assume Zach is gone pretty quickly.

Lonzo had three above average-to-elite NBA skills, roughly in order of how important they are to his game they're:

1. Transition passing/decision making;
2. Defense;
3. Spot up shooting.

I honestly think 1 & 3 are things that he's going to be able to come back and do at a really high level unless he just can't get up and down the floor. His size on the perimeter means he'll be able to get his shot up unless the defenders are draped over him and if they are then he's helping by stretching the floor. He's never been a great athlete which is why his half-court playmaking has always been pretty lackluster, because he can't break apart the defense once they're set. He makes smart decisions, but hasn't ever really been the primary guy in that context. The transition stuff is more about vision than about any athleticism.

The one looming question that determines whether he's going to be able to come back in the league is whether the step he's inevitably lost will make him a traffic cone on defense. He's smart and has size, but I think best case scenario we can hope for (obviously apart from a miracle where he's 100%) is that he goes from a plus to neutral on that end... at least in the next year or so, and possible he becomes a liability.

It's all gravy for the bulls if he plays at all. If you want us to be a playoff contender then the X factor of him contributing at least 80-90% to his old level in 20 minutes a game would be super helpful. If you want us to tank then even if he's a traffic cone he's going to be making opportunities for young guys to get out running, make smart plays, not hog the ball, establish a good culture, etc... perfect tank commander if he's the same guy on offense but unable to move as fluidly on defense.

Just because people (rightfully) point out that it's a position of need that we should try to address doesn't automatically imply that they think we should take them over BPA. This draft is a total crapshoot and none of us know shit, but we could argue for days over who BPA is at #11 and there's likely a wide gap between who you might project as BPA in the 24-25 season and BPA measured by projected upside five years down the line. The draft in 2013 was a "bad" class where MCW went #11 and won rookie of the year. Best players to come out of that class were selected #15 (Giannis) and #27 (Gobert). The bad drafts are usually chaos in terms of evaluating them ex post and I'd bet that this one is going to be the same. It's all well and good to say we should draft BPA but if any of us could reliably nail those calls we'd be getting paid big bucks by a franchise more competent than Chicago to be making these picks.

I think part of the lamenting on here about wanting a big is that the three late in the draft (Ware/Missi/Edey) who look like classic boom/bust picks and probably one of them ends up being a legit player.

Personally I'd like to see if we could trade down with either NOLA or NYK for their two later picks (obviously NOLA much better and therefore less likely). There's a few "NBA ready" guys who might be consensus BPA at #11 and I think it's reasonable to prefer gambling on some upside given the team's trajectory. Both of those teams are on the other side and prefer one guy that can contribute next year rather than some projects they can't give minutes to. We of course know that the Bulls FO would rather act like a playoff team so probably that's not their mentality going into this draft.

Or like how the Suns completely owned Minnesota all year?

jk, I totally get that it's not as simple as mapping who beat whom, just saying that Minnesota has increased their title equity by A LOT with what they've shown the last few weeks.