Rahimi, Harris & Grote Show - Julia Poe: Bulls' front office is relying on luck for its plan

Episode Date: February 5, 2026

Leila Rahimi and Marshall Harris were joined by Tribune reporter Julia Poe to discuss the Bulls’ recent flurry of trades and to detail how a good deal of the organization’s plan appears to rely on luck these days.

Rahimi, Harrison Grody. Could you imagine Lovey Smith doing the whole good, better, best thing? And saying bleep the Packers. Come on, guys, good better best. Never let it rest. I'll see you on Tuesday. Middays 10 to 2 on 104 3, the score. He's got 18.

And all the way to the cup and a vicious, right-handed slam, I-olde-Dose-Subble, in the grill of Pete Nance. Yeah, that's just running the floor. And unfortunately, Iyo Dissumu is no longer a Chicago Bull. That courtesy of our Bulls Radio Network. We now go to the Circus Sports Illinois hotline. Download the Circus Sports app today to talk about I.O. And more as the Bulls are busy at this trade deadline.

It is the Bulls and Skybeat writer for the Chicago Tribune. Julia Poe, who joins us from Toronto and she's on Twitch. Twitch.tv. slash The Score Chicago. Hey, Julia, thanks for joining us. Hey, guys, how's it going? I just had to make sure I had not also gotten traded while this is happening. It's been a pretty crazy day here.

Julia, you would fetch a first rounder. Let's not get it twisted. Several, multiple first rounders. No second round picks for Julia. We're not taking in those protected picks either. We want the straight up thing. We want our entry into the lottery. Speaking of, Julia, are the Bulls tanking?

It looks, certainly looks like it. I mean, this is, this is as big of a deadline dump as I think a team can really do. You know, looking at the list right now, they've got, I believe, eight players total have been sent out. They have sent out the majority of their expiring contracts. And this is what a nosedive looks like. You know, you take a lot of guys that are on expiring deals and you get them moved. Some of them kind of going for a lower price tag than I think the Bulls necessarily would have wanted. and you trade arguably one of your top three best players to the team that is chasing you for a play in tournament spot.

I think that counts as, you know, committing to at least a short-term tank. Yeah, Julia, that's what we're trying to figure out because we brought this up in our 10 o'clock hour of the show, and that was fresh off of the news about, I'd assume, of being traded away. Part of a trade involving four second round picks and Julian Phillips, and we were even discussing whether or not that was selling a little bit low when it came to IOS value. You know, what do you think of the return? Yeah, I think that the first three moves of this deadline, there's been six total. I think the first three, which were the Vucovich trade, the herder trade,

and then tagging Emmanuel Miller into that three-team deal with Sacramento for the second rounders, all of those made a lot of sense to me. And then about midway through the week, I think the bulls have veered in a direction that I am struggling to follow. I think that the return on Iodosumnu was much lower than what there was ever an understanding of the bulls trying to get for him. I think that the return for Kobe White was a little bit lower than and just different than what was expected for the bulls to go for. And I straight up don't understand. I know it's a smaller one, but I straight up don't understand the Dalin Terry trade for Yabu Sele. So I think things have gotten a little bit convoluted here, a little bit messier,

maybe than preferred. And that makes this whole idea of doing a short-term tank. It makes it sting a lot harder and a lot worse when the players that are being traded away are players like I.O. and Kobe who have meant so much to this franchise. Yeah, Julia, that's a point that we were making too was remember this time last year at the trade deadline when Arturis Karnasovas talked about getting nine or ten. What we gather was, depending on the word you want to use, formidable players, better than role player players, really good players. He said really good, I think. Yeah, really good.

You know, formidable, whatever you want to say that that's higher than role player, but not max contract. It's essentially how I took it. When you consider that message that he gave based on now what we're seeing, you know, how do you compare and contrast the two? Yeah, I think that when you look back at kind of the timeline of the last year, it's confusing. I think if this is where the Bulls were always going to end up, up, which is not investing in a long-term future with Iodosunu, with Kobe White, even just with

Vucovich not being usable in terms of, you know, this is a season that is now being thrown away. If this was always going to be a throwaway season and always going to be a season about truly just fully investing in the future, why weren't these trades made a year ago? Why was, you know, I don't want to say wasting time because maybe that's a little bit harsh, but why was there this wavering over the summer and at last year's deadline of kind of needing more time to figure out if I.O. and Kobe were going to be these investment pieces. It was very clear at this point last year that they were not, that they were always going to be building block pieces, that their future was definitely not cemented, definitely not for sure, certain the way that maybe

Josh Giddy or Modis Bezellis is. I do not understand why this took so long. And I really do fear for the Bulls that they just lost a lot of value by kind of waiting a year and rolling the dice and just kind of continuing to pump the brakes in this way that has been, you know, really a calling card for Arturis Karnasovas throughout his entire time in Chicago. Julia Poe joining us from Toronto where the Bulls will take on the Raptors tonight. We don't know exactly who's going to be available in the starting line. Maybe you can clear that up for us. Julia, of course, the Bulls and Sky B-Writer for the Chicago Tribune.

Who was there at Shootaround? and who is available as far as you know? Yeah, it is going to be a little bit of a skeleton crew, which has become very familiar over the last week. One interesting note is that Jaden Ivy is there, was able to shoot around, will be available tonight. We were able to speak with him, just get to know him a little bit better as an introduction today.

I heard a lot of good things from him just about kind of how he's approaching this process, but they're going to have to call in reinforcements. You know, Mack McClung is in on a two-way contract right now. Yuki Kawamura has been playing a decent amount of minutes. This is very much just kind of a grinded out, get through type of situation as the Bulls try to get the calls in, get these deals over the line and then get guys into town. Anthony Simons was another player who was at shoot-around this morning, and although he couldn't

speak with us because the deal was not through at that time, that is another player who is physically here in Toronto and could maybe be available. Okay, so this is where I'm confused, because I'm assuming that Simons could still be flipped. I'm assuming Ivy is a guy who is going to be here because he is a restrictive free agent. They can control his future. So walk me through this. Help me understand why the Bulls, if this is a tank, why get these players, specifically Simon's who I'm really focused on here.

I think he's a better offensive weapon than Kobe when healthy. And I think he's healthier than Kobe White is right now. It feels like they could still win a whole bunch of games with the guys that they have right now coming back in these deals. Yeah, I think, like you said, there's a little bit of time left. The Bulls are still active. They're going to be active right up until the moment that the commissioner says pencils down at three o'clock today. So that is something to just kind of keep in mind and keep an eye on. I think that you're definitely right that there is, I think, Ivy Simons are two players who are a good example of, you know, definitely players who can make an impact early on.

But I still think that when you look specifically at what they've done to the front court, and kind of where the front court is at right now, bringing in some players like Dillingham, like Dyingang, who maybe have just not been able to play very much at all in their young careers. These are situations where I do think that you're seeing the Bulls take a significant enough step back that they believe that they are going to be able to duck out of the playing tournament. But you're not wrong. This is the problem with doing all of this, the deadline.

They won too many games at the start of the year to make this a very effective tank job. Like they just can't lose enough games. I was looking at kind of the standings of that earlier. All they're doing is improving on the margins. All they are doing is moving up in the lottery as much as they can if they were committing to a tank job here. But they're not in a good situation where they can really fully like nose dive down and be competing for solid odds in the top four. And that is a really frustrating position to put yourself in. It's just that middle ground.

It's a lot of middle ground in Chicago. No, it is, Julia. And it also just, part of this is, I think, the move, the Daly and Terry Tray that you brought up, that Nets back a center who I guess would be, would he be the starting center in this case for this team? Or do you think that ends up being Lachlan Ulrich? Like, I understand trading for a position of need. But in doing so, I think they also communicated how they feel about some of their draft picks when you consider the return. You know, that's one that I want you to dive a little deeper on with others.

and just think out loud as to what that that was, I get it, but then I also think it's a shift when you consider how you're valuing your players or how you understand the league values them and then what you plan on doing with picks like that. Like even though Essenge comes to mind when I consider how they move Dailen. Yeah, like I said, I don't understand that one. I really am looking forward to our conversation that media will get to have with Arturis later today. I would love to get a little more insight into that one. It does not make sense for a variety of reasons.

Yabusele has a player option next year that he will absolutely pick up. He is 30, so he does not fit the timeline that the Bulls are trying to fit into of like 23 and under being the ideal age range with, you know, maybe up to 25, 26 also being cool and working in with that group. He's well outside of that. And I don't know how he fits in with this group. The Bulls have really enjoyed playing a double big lineup. They feel like that's the best version of themselves. are you going to lean into the best version of yourself if you are trying to maybe be a little bit less competitive?

I don't know. So I think this creates a very confusing lineup where they like playing Jalen Smith at the 4. They like playing Modis Bezellis at the 3. If you do that, maybe that means that you're committing to, again, a 30-year-old undersized center. I do not understand this one. I'm not going to pretend to understand this one.

maybe it will make more sense if different pieces of it, you know, fall into place. But I just think that that one's a real head scratcher, honestly. Julia, I'm just following me with this. I think they're playing a very dangerous game of roulette, musical chairs, hot potato, however you wanted to find it, because they think they can continue to make moves before 2 o'clock. I mean, we're less than 90 minutes away from this thing being over and done with. And if they don't, if they get caught holding the proverbial bag, it's going to be very bad. And I don't think AK Mark Eversley and company, they're not going to have good enough answers for what has transpired.

As you said, they start off with good, prudent, regular normal GM moves, and now it looks like they have devolved into something else entirely. Yeah, I think that we are now in the worst case scenario for any front office, which is they have to get lucky. And that is a thing that can happen. Teams get lucky very often. look at the Dallas Mavericks, but luck is going to come into play here, which is that they are going to be able to marginally improve their draft odds. And then if that hits, and then if they actually draft well, which as Lila brought up, is not necessarily the most proven thing in their track record so far,

if they're able to do those things, then I think fans by the end of the summer will be able to come away from this feeling a lot better. At this time, I think, and again, I know emotions, are not necessarily how you need to be making decisions here. But when you look at what some of these players, Kobe Y, IOT assuming, when you look at what they meant to the fan base, you want to at least be able to kind of point at it and say, look, I know this is heartbreaking.

We're going to miss these guys so much. But look at what we're doing with their value. Look at where we are moving the franchise with that. Right now, unless something drastic changes in the next 90 minutes, I just don't think they're going to have anything that they can point to, that the average Bulls fan is going to say, okay, that's worth losing Kobe and I.O. And that's a really, really tough spot to be in.

I think what you say makes a lot of sense. And those are the two people who I think a lot of people think of when they think about what this team looks like when it's been successful on the floor. Julia Poe, thanks for telling us who is available at shoot around anywhere. Who is there? Maybe not media available. But at least we know who's out there. Yeah, thanks, thanks guys.

I hope everyone's looking forward to my five minutes off the bench tonight. I'm going to get up as many shock as Billy will let me. No, shoot. Shoot to shoot. Do it. Hey, you know what I say? I got six fouls to give. So if you want to go ahead and take a few shots, I think together we will create some sort of team. Thank you, Julia. We've got this. Thank you guys. Appreciate it. That's Julia Poe. You can check out her work on Blue Sky.

She's also at the Chicago Tribune, of course, and she covers both the Cubs and the Cubs, the Bulls and the Sky for the Chicago Tribune. So now we at least know who's there. That's good. That's a step up. And the deal gets done. Simons is available. Ivy is available. And then the Bulls have way more firepower than they had yesterday or the last time out.

And you could argue with no fooch in the middle playing Olai defense. They could put together a better performance than you think. I'm not saying they're going to win tonight, but I wouldn't be surprised if they did. I mean, I get trading for a center because you needed one in Yabusele. But she's right. Like the age and the fact that that. option gets picked up. Again.

But they traded Dale and Terry. At 10 o'clock, I wasn't as worried as I am at 1242. That's what I'm going to say about it? As the timetable turns. Hey, what are two words that really get the people going on Rahimi Harrison Grotty? Crosby Max. Or? Max Crosby?

Yes. Oh, well, it's just the two words. You didn't say they had to be in a certain order. Yes, it's true, though. So guess who finally wrote about, well, not finally, but he, he, he, We've got the latest from him on Max Crosby. Is it Brad Biggs? Brad Biggs is spoken.

He has gotten a Q&A about this. And if there's one thing our listeners love, it's to try to acquire Max Crosby. So let's give the people what they want. Let's read and react to the latest from Brad Biggs about the possibility of Max Crosby coming here. Or at least we're just keeping tabs on him. Let's all just be nosy together.

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