Jimmy Butler invited to USA basketball minicamp: report

A team that is optimized to win the NBA championship in the short term.

 

A team with their championship window open then.

 

Define exactly what that means.

 

Exactly what it means. As constructed, they are a contender.

When the window is closed, they are no longer a contender. The Bulls window is yet open, but it's closing approaches, IMHO.

 

If "window open" means that there is a realistic chance of winning the NBA championship, then it would only make sense to build a "win now" roster if the window is currently open.

Last season was the best chance with this group, IMO. Paxson decided to play PR games in the press and smear the head coach. An unforgivable act.

The window is still open though, but yes, its closing. If Noah can bounce back and we can get another great season (or just a playoffs) out of Gasol, then yes, the window is open. That's why the Bulls should be focusing on optimizing this roster and worrying less about the development of a guy like McDermott.

Funny thing is, I don't hear anyone here saying that McDermott has great NBA player upside.

I also don't hear anyone around here saying the Bulls are actual NBA Championship contenders anymore.

These are the issues with trying to do "win now" and "win later" at the same time. Its hard enough to do just one well.

 

Agree.

We did it without much contribution from Doug last season; if the team feels he's worth more on the roster than as trade bait this season, I'll give them the benefit of the doubt.

 

Sure, but it will be hard for him to make much of an impact with Snell and Dunleavy on the roster as well, unless he clearly shows he's better and earns meaningful minutes.

 

>Shrug<. They play the game in real life, on real courts, with real basketballs, and not with conjecture.

Lets see what develops first.

 

The issue with this mindset, and it is the passive Paxson mindset to a T, is that if McDermott remains lousy, Snell is still like he was last year and Dunleavy takes a step back due to age or is just the same, neither "win now" or "win later" is accomplished.

Paxson has been "lets see what develops first" for 13 years.

Management is paid to conjecture and to be correct in their analysis.

Once again, its unclear what the Bulls are trying to do. "Win now?" Develop McDermott, which is "win later?"


Cavs proactively acted when they traded Wiggins for Love and also made other bold moves, and they made the Finals last season and are the odds on favorites to win the title this season. Yes, Lebron is Lebron, but the bold moves the Cavs made can't be understated.

Like you said, we'll see what happens. Noone here seems to be confident enough to think the Bulls are NBA Title contenders though, so that speaks volumes as to the job being done.

 

"...the Bulls were a whisper away from getting to the NBA Finals."

 

Right. And Paxson's smear campaign didn't help matters. Was Paxson focused on winning a title last season? No. He was focused on "winning" a PR war, which he ended up looking foolish in anyway. Terrible.

If Paxson gets credit for that, Thibs does as well BTW.

Seems that without Thibs, the Bulls are slinking back to the Paxson Bulls miserable NBA middle. Not even the diehard fans on this forum consider the Bulls actual NBA title contenders this season.

 

That's logical.

They play the game in real life, on real courts, with real basketballs, and not with conjecture, K4E. No way to know that until the games have been played.

>shrug<

We shall see what the next season or two brings.

 

Think the Philadelphia 76ers will win the title in the next two years? I don't.

See the problem with that type of thinking?

 

They aren't a contender. No one in their right mind thinks they are.

But Chicago, based on the talent on the roster and the results achieved in the past, is generally thought of as one.

How do we find out?



Yeah, we roll the basketballs out and see what they can do.

 

Or you could proactively act and give your squad the best chance possible to win a title during a "win now" season.

That means no season harming smear jobs and set the roster up to "win now".... not also be trying to develop rookies with seemingly dubious upside to being with.

The Paxson way is to just roll the balls out there and shrug a lot, that's for sure.

 

...and they may have done just that with their off-season moves. I know you disagree, but that doesn't mean it ain't true or can't come true.

 

...it also doesn't preclude the use of (rare for the Bulls) in-season trades to tweak and adjust the roster.

 

I can't recall how you felt about the Ben Wallace signing and subsequent Chandler-P.J. Brown trade, K4E. It was anything but "wait and see." It was completely ballsy and win right damn now.

 

I was quite upset once it became apparent that to sign Ben Wallace it meant the Bulls were going to dump Tyson Chandler, as I thought that Tyson Chandler was already a "win now" player at the time, and turned out to be even better than that.

That sequence of moves turned out to be one of the more terrible sequences of moves in Bulls history.

Once Cap Space is built, the mindset is that you have to spend it on something. I've come to disagree with this mindset as it seems to lead to bad contracts more often than it does to good ones, but its wasn't really any kind bold move to build Cap Space and spend it. Trading Chandler was a salary dump, and an awful decision.

That was also just poor player evaluation, as the core of Hinrich-Gordon-Deng-Nocioni clearly wasn't the core of a NBA Champion. The window was closed. It was never open.

 

I don't think I entirely agree with the use of the phrase win now / win later players.