The Ringer NBA Show - What Makes a Mid-market Team Desirable? | The Answer

Episode Date: October 15, 2021

Chris and Seerat discuss how mid-market teams make themselves desirable for star players, and then they focus on how the Phoenix Suns and Chicago Bulls built their rosters and what their futures hold. Hosts: Chris Ryan and Seerat Sohi Production Assistant: Isaiah Blakely Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Let's up everybody. I'm JJ John Gstromski. And I'm Jason Gough, and if you haven't heard, the ringer has gone local. I'm bringing the fire. I'm bringing the rain from the big apple with my show, New York, New York. And I'm reping Shy Town with my new show The Full Go on All Things Chicago. We've got episodes three nights a week with all the reaction to the local teams and guests. Plus bonus episodes around all the big games and storylines.

So whether you're uptown, downtown, downtown, in the burbs, or a transplant. Make sure you follow New York, New York, and the full go on Spotify or wherever you get your podcast. Hello and welcome to the Ringer NBA show. My name is Chris Ryan. It's the answer. I am joined as always by Siritt Soey. What's up, Siritt? How's it going, Chris?

I'm doing well. Today we are doing a tale of two cities. We are going to be talking about the Chicago Bulls and the Phoenix Suns, but specifically we're going to ask the question, what makes a midmarket team desirable? And I'm sure somewhere out there, many Chicagoans just said, who are you calling midmarket? Who you calling?

who you call it mid-market. But I think that it's worth having a conversation about, you know, if you're outside of the New York and L.A. Nexus of the NBA, if you don't have a Janus-type superstar to attract additional talent, if you're not sitting on a boatload of picks, whatever it is, if you're just like one of those kind of mid-tier mid-market teams, how do you make yourself desirable to the next free agent class,

to anybody who might want to be agitating for a trade out of, say, Philadelphia or why? Washington or Portland. How do you get into those sweepstakes? And generally, how do you run your franchise from the middle? So I thought that this would be a fun thing. You have a lot of interesting thoughts today. I can't wait to get into. So do you want to start with Chicago or you want to start with Phoenix? Let's start with Chicago. And let's start with what you said about the big market. This has been your your passion project, I think. The Bulls have been your preseason passion project. They definitely have. I actually, I used to be a Bulls fan. And like, after you know, watching the new front office sort of like clean out the muck of the Gar-Pax era,

I don't know if I would ever become a fan again. I just don't know if I have the emotional capacity in me. It's just been like, it's been a long 10 years. But I'm starting to just like, I'm a little bit sentimental about the Bulls. So yeah, it's like, let's, let's jump in. Let's jump in. I think like your point about the Bulls being considered a big. mid-market team is really interesting because it kind of gets to what I want to talk about today, which is the fact that our idea of what a large market is is like very skewed. Like in the lexicon of like, you know, of NBA language, I guess. The Bulls aren't necessarily considered a big market, even though they're the third biggest

market in the NBA. Like you kind of have like New York and L.A. and like the two teams there. And then you even get Miami, even though Miami is not a large market. at all, but we obviously know it's attractive to players and pretty much anybody who's ever been alive for obvious reasons. And then you also have, you know, you have some teams like, you know, like the Golden State Warriors who started to be considered a larger market. Kind of like we started to finally clump in like the entire Bay area, which then like obviously makes them a larger market. Whereas, you know, before the Steph Curry era, I think people would have called the Warriors a smaller market, even though like, The geography doesn't change at all, right?

So there's a ton of teams like that. I watched it with the Raptors. They went from, you know, considered a small market team to now there's a consideration of the fact that even though they're in Canada, they are like I think a top five or six TV market. So yeah, it's really interesting how these things shift over time.

And the Bulls, the Bulls are very interesting. So we're going to talk about the Bulls and the Suns. The Bulls are a team that always kind of punches below their market weight. Not all of that is your fault. The weather is obviously a real thing. And it's also not necessarily, even though it is a big market, it might not be like, necessarily like the most attractive to a young person. Now please, no, like nobody in Chicago come after me. Like, let's just, let's just leave it as it is. But at the same time, I think Bulls fans have always had the sense that this team should be like far more

attractive than it is and it never quite has been other than in the Jordan era. Yeah, I think that we're talking about a couple of different things here. There's a television market, which in this day and age, I don't even know how much that actually matters anymore. You know, I think in a league pass era, in an era where there's national games three to four nights a week in an era where most people can just look at their phone and watch Lamello Ball highlights or watch Brandon Ingram highlights or watch Jalen Green highlights or watch guys on the G League ignite highlights. There's really not this barrier to entry where you have to be in New York, Chicago or Los Angeles

to get any kind of national platform. That being said, I think we still have like these kind of older ideas about like there are certain big muscle cities out there and that they somehow deserve, whether through historical traditions like Chicago and Jordan and being basically like the cream of the NBA crop for the better part of a decade, or just because we think they have like a kind of reputation within the country of being big. You know what I mean? And it's sometimes it's a chicken and the egg thing. It's like Detroit was the heartland of like the sort of heartbeat of American industry for a very long time. Then it's not. But then it kind of feels like it is again because

the Detroit, the Detroit Pistons. And then it's not. And, you know, I think especially when you're looking, uh, when we talk about midmarket, we're often talking about the middle of the country, you know, and it was interesting to kind of look at, um, say like the buck. So when we were, when you first brought this idea up that we wanted to talk about midmarket teams, I kind of went through the Bucks rosters over the last decade, you know, and just to see what, what they were as a, as, as, as, as, as, as, like, a team. If, if you don't have Janus, like, what are you selling? What are you sort of trying to do here? And it's really, you know, as much as, yeah, it's custard. It's, it's, it's good beer. I don't even know if the, if the craft beer scene was alive and well back in the early 2010s. But I'm, when you go back to, like, say, year two,

Janus, it's pretty, it's pretty slim pickings on that team, on that, on that, on that Bucks team when it's still Jason Kidd, I think Jabari's rookie year that is like 15, 16. And you're just kind of like, oh, wow, like this is Michael Carter Williams. This is like, this is Chris Copeland is on this team. Like I don't even, I wouldn't, how did we get from in 1516 to the championship team in 2021? It's like, well, it's the honest. It's got to be this generational star. It's got to be somebody who can kind of transcend whatever limitations either the size of the city has or like you were saying with Chicago. Maybe some of the kind of things that people are like, I don't really want to live in Chicago in the winter. You know what I mean? I don't really want to live in Detroit in the

winter. I don't really want to live in Milwaukee in the winter. You have to have somebody who shines bright enough to warm it up. They also have an interesting thing that I think, I think there are small markets who do a really good job of playing into their identity and also in attracting whether it's free agents or players that they trade for or draft that would be into that type of lifestyle. Like Chris Middleton, for example, like, all that dude wants to do is, like, I don't know if he smoked cigars, but, like, I just imagined him this entire summer, like, in Charleston, like, on the beach smoking cigars and, like, just chilling. Like, maybe he has a dog or something. Like, that dude just wants to hang out, you know? He wants to relax.

Drew Holiday also, like, seems like we had, like, like, the feature. I wasn't here at the time, but, like, Haley O'Shaughness, he wrote a huge feature about Drew Holiday and just. like him just being like a chill dude. And like, I think it was like what, like his cabin or farmhouse or something like that. And like, you know, they drafted Middleton in the second round. They traded for Drew. Like the bucks are impressively homegrown. But they like, they play into into who they are.

And there are smaller market teams that do a really good job of that. I think Denver is one of those teams where like, it's interesting. Like Iguodala in his in his book wrote about how. he loved Denver after leaving Philadelphia because it was like this place where he could just like grab a coffee and walk around and like nobody would bother him and he could go for a hike if he wanted and he just had this like nice insular life where he just trained and there weren't a lot of distractions and like you know I think like on on some level like obviously like there's like young people that have a lot of money want to do a lot of different things with it. but like there's also that side to it where like if you if you advertise yourself as that then I think that you can attract that type of element um and you can also like you know the the nuggets have also kind of like I don't know how much of this is intentional but they've also drafted kind of guys that are like that I think the grizzlies have drafted guys that are like

very connected to the places that they're in and are like from smaller areas like John Morant going to Murray State um so it's really interesting And those teams are small. I think they're like kind of below what we would consider like the suns and the bulls, right? Like they are definitely smaller markets. But I'd say like a team like Denver in the last five years has made itself significantly more attractive. Even the 10 years has made itself like significantly more attractive than I think like even a team like the Bulls has been for free agencies, which is really interesting for preagents, which is really interesting. So how much do you think that that has to do?

with Yokich and how much of it do you think it has to do with the fact that Colorado is beautiful? I'd say both, right? Like Yokic is like kind of like a perfect fit in that city. I went down there like a couple years ago and like I heard that like

all Yokic and his brothers did was like go to this like beautiful park. I can't remember what it's called now and play spike ball. Like that's like all they did. And like that's like kind of like just like who he is and like I think like it Probably once your star is like that, then you can kind of start, like, I think, building a team that, like, mentally is in that space.

You know, the Denver situation is also similar, I think, to the Utah situation in that I think you probably have to find guys who really are going to want to stay there and really want to buy into the idea of, like, yeah, Utah is maybe not where I dreamed of living when I was growing up. but this is like actually a good place to raise of family. Quality of life is pretty high, you know. And in, especially in the case of Utah, I would imagine you're pretty aware of the fact that the jazz are like the lifeblood of that city. The one professional team in Salt Lake City and in Utah itself. So you're probably like the only show in town outside of like Utah college football and college basketball. So that's got to be like something that you weigh when you go into. to it. It's also cultural differences. Yeah, to say the least. But I think that Utah probably

looks for players who are going to understand that coming in. You know, watching them kind of, I've been watching with interest over the summer as a couple of bigger NBA reporters, not the least of which Jackie McMullen and Brian Windhorst haven't said, like, Donovan Mitchell is not as losing patience in Utah, but have just been like, watch this space. You know, and I think that there's a lot of Donovan Mitchell to the Knicks kind of like wish fulfillment out there or wishful thinking out there, but that Donovan would be the guy who, you know, Utah would love to have like be the next Carl Malone in terms of as like a lifelong jazz player. But, you know, who knows how long he wants to be in Utah. Like who knows whether or not he wants to take his stuff, his career somewhere a little bit bigger. to get back to the Bulls, their offseason was really interesting

because I think that there was a little bit of bet hedging going on with the way that they put their team together. At once, making their team a little bit more attractive for Zach Levine to want to stay and also preparing for life after Zach Levine if they decide they don't necessarily want to commit the farm to him, right? Well, Zach Levine situation is interesting in and of itself, because, I mean, so he signed with Clutch this summer, which could also just mean nothing.

Draymond Green signed with Clutch and then re-signed with the Warriors. You know, Clutch has kind of become like an interesting bogeyman just because we happen to know who they are. They're kind of like the Kyrie Irving of the NBA. And so they, yeah, so just the fact that they're a whispers, though, at a time like this, like when they have, like, added, they added DeMarre de Rosen, they added Lonzo Ball, two free agents, which is notable because this team doesn't attract free agents.

And like, let's get into the history of that a little bit. So after, I mean, we've all watched the last dance. The last dance and everything that happened after, it was very recent history to, let's say somebody like Kevin Garnett, who said something along the lines of like after the way that they did Jordan and Pippin and just like breaking up that team, like if you could treat the biggest dynasty of all time like that, like how are you going to treat me?

Like that was kind of like the reputation that the Bulls had for a while to the point that like in 2010, when they were trying to get Dwayne Wade, who was from Chicago to come over, Wade basically just played them, like stalled them out because they knew that they were huge free agent players too. Re-signed with Miami. Chris Bosch obviously signed with Miami.

LeBron signed with Miami. Amari to New York. A whole bunch of free agents in that class. decided not to go to the Bulls, and the Bulls got Carlos Spouser, who was, like, a big free agent at the time, but, like, not, like, the guy that, like, you were really going after.

Sure. And that was, like, that was probably, like, the most success that they had in free agency up until this summer. There was a Jimmy Butler situation, which, you know, I think now looking at... Like, let's... Like, the other thing is interesting.

Like, Jimmy Butler never wanted to be traded from Chicago. He just wanted to run Chicago. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, I think he wanted Fred, like, he definitely didn't want Fred Hoiburg coaching him. And they chose Hoyberg, but they also chose, like, not to pay him. They decided that he wasn't worth a Supermax, which, in hindsight, like, big oops. And, like, that is something that I don't think is, like, I think it's reasonably fresh in people's mind. And also, like, Jimmy's a popular player.

Dwayne Wade was a popular player, right? Like that reputational thing is now maybe with like Gar-Pax being out, which also took a while, could be changing. Yeah, for sure. Chicago has a lot of prodigal sons. There's always been this kind of weird hole where you think. I think so especially I don't know how much it is for somebody your age, but growing up, I think that there was still like a little bit of a more of a connective tissue between. where guys went to high school bat play high school ball where they went to play college ball and then even after that like where they might be interested in playing pro ball if they got the

chance down the line so um that i think has dissolved over the years like i famously remember you know all the kind of chatter about like the wizards being like players for kd and kd being like yeah i don't actually want to go home again you know what i mean like i didn't i don't really want to play where i left yeah yeah Right. And in a lot of ways, like, I feel like I'm not getting into his psychology, but like Kevin Durant seems a lot more like enthusiastic about Austin, Texas than he does the DMV in terms of like when you see him out, he's like, he's like still he's still reps for for the longhorns and still like follows their college football and college basketball teams really passionately. I know he loves the DMV, but like I don't think that he's like, it's my duty as a player to go play for the wizards and revive pro hoops in the Washington. DC area, right? Like, I don't think he looks at that as his responsibility.

Yeah, I think guys are now, and maybe this is, I mean, maybe this is just a larger, like, societal thing, too. Like, I think young people just want to move more than they ever have before. And they have, like, the means for it. And, like, it's just kind of something that happens more now. So you want to search for home in a way, right? Um, and I think that players definitely seem to reflect that. Like, there seems to be, like, this, this craving to, like, you know, just,

take the next step of the hero's journey like find out who you are in a different place it's just like a craving for honestly like probably like self actualization more than anything else yeah um which which I think kind of like can bring us back to Levine who has never had like an actual choice in where he's played and only ever

been in dysfunctional situations um so I guess the question kind of becomes like in this next year like can't end the year prior to that when you know Arturos and and and Everis Evertsley took over, hired Billy Donovan.

Is that enough time to clean up the muck and also show Levine like, hey, look, like, we have surrounded you with like some really solid talent. That might make us a little bit cabstrapped. Like, would you take, like, a little less money to play here? Or on the other end of it, it's like,

you know, they do have the ownership group. Like, it didn't necessarily change, but Jerry Rinesdorf doesn't run things as much as his son, Michael does. Is Michael going to be, as you know, is he going to pinch the wallet? Does Michael have Jerry's pin number? Like, is it? Exactly.

Is the pocketbook open? Exactly. Like, does he have like the same like spending limit? As, as Jerry? Like, does the card just stop working after you hit a certain point in the year? So those are like the two interesting things. And it kind of shows you like, I think A, how difficult it is for a franchise to really get out of the muck unless it like really cleans house. which the Bulls, I feel like, lucked into.

I don't think, like, Jerry was ever going to get rid of Garpex. Even, you know, despite the billboards, despite the embarrassment at All-Star, and just, like, how far the franchise had fallen. But they kind of, like, keyed into this weird opportunity where this might actually happen for them. Yeah, you know, I noted with interest today, the 538, some of their projections came out, I think, I believe, today for the season. and the bulls are projected to finish 10th on 538.

Yeah. Really? Yeah. So they don't think they're in top 40? And let's say that happens. Let's say Nate Silver gets to this prediction rate. And no, let's just say this 538 projection is right. And the bulls finish 10th.

In some ways, they might be able to say, hey, okay, so this didn't work. work. We have no defense. The guard rotation never worked out. It turns out Caruso doesn't look as good out from under LeBron's wing. It turns out DeRosen and Levine can't share the court, whatever, whatever, Vooch is just like an empty stats, calories guy. Let's just say all those things happen. Pat Williams days heard something. They can feasibly, I guess they could say it's time to tear it down and build it back up again. I mean, Chicago's right on the precipice of where very few teams want to be, which is paying a lot of money for an average result. Most teams are like, we'll either suffer being bad and keep our powder dry and try and get either that generational player

as a draft pick and have cap room and then hopefully things fall in the right order and we get ourselves out from the basement here. Or they're a top team and they've got great talent and they can kind of mix and match the PJ Tucker's of the world with whoever they have. Chicago's like right in the middle. And they're essentially where, I guess, Phoenix was a couple of years ago, right? Yeah, yeah. They're in a, they're in kind of a similar space to Phoenix. I'd say, like, probably, I mean, Phoenix has been weird, like, no one really, like, that

ESPN article that came out, the one that Kevin Arnivitz wrote about the goat shit and all of that fun stuff. I don't need to go over all of that. But one of the things that was really interesting at the end of it was that there was... a perception within the league, like, you know, GMs and front offices will rank what they think the direction of opposing franchises are in order to figure out, like, you know, who they can work with for, like, you know, a certain team that might be contending for a championship. Well, they might be easier to get a first round pick from as opposed to, like, a team that's in the rebuilding process. And nobody could figure out the direction that the Sons were taking, right?

which is a problem in and of itself, like that being in that, like, middle space of, like, wait, are you guys, like, really trying to tank right now? Or are you going to, like, you know, delude yourself into thinking that you can make a playoff push with this team? And, like, that middle space, just to, like, bring it back to the Bulls for, like, before we move on to the suns.

Like, that middle space that they're in, like, the fact that, like, you're right, they could be a 10 seat. I'm definitely higher on them. I don't know. Like, I really feel like they have enough talent. Like, there's too much talent on this team unless, like, catastrophic injuries happen

for them to not make the playoffs. Like, you can have a really good offense and not play a lot of defense and make the playoffs in the East. Like, you know, as long as you have, like, competent players. Like, look at the, you know, like, they should be better than, like, the Wizards were last year. But anyway, like, that's not necessarily the point, and I think that's my point.

Like, if they can just, like, get out of the muck, and, like, you know, be a franchise that wins, like, let's say they win more games and they lose. That is, like, I just wonder, like, what the psychological impact of that becomes for the future of the franchise. Not even necessarily this iteration of players, because this iteration of players, like, there is definitely a ceiling on them. I'd say, like, the one thing that gives them a little bit more potential is the fact that, like, they do have, like, some really young players on the team. like Patrick Williams could really, I mean, that guy could evolve into anything at this point. He's obviously going to be very important to their defense this year. But like, if like, you know, five years from now, the guy is like, you know, like a poor man's PG,

I would not be shocked by, like, at all. If he's better than that, it still wouldn't be shocking. Lonzo's still only 23 crusos. So they have some like potential for, for improvement within the team. But largely they are capstrapped and they don't have a lot of first-ranked. round picks. Yeah. So they,

it would take like some luck for them to go from like being like a team that maybe wins a playoff round to doing more than that. But I wonder when a franchise is like this much in like just complete like beyond mediocrity, it's like something else. It's like like, like languishing. They're like languishing. Yeah. Right.

It starts. It's like where mediocrity can start to feel like. purgatory because as you were talking about the Bulls and what they could do this year, not ironically, I guess, but like in the circle of life, I was like, oh, the Bulls could be the Knicks. Like, the Bulls could have a feel-good city season where the entire town rises up. They get a great catchphrase, you know, feel the horns or whatever they want to do, like with like a logo.

And then, you know, we get like some great, some great fan content. from them in their first round playoff before they like get annihilated. Some good vibes. Yeah, right. They need vibes. They need vibes. Yeah. But unlike the Bulls, who very savvily have like kind of like surrounded this whole roster

with guys on two year deals who are easily packageable for a star contract even though they've got some, you know, they've got the Kemba like homecoming deal. And they've got Derek Rose. Revival and they've got Julius Randall playing himself into all NBA contention and all that, they actually are in a place where they can be super, super flexible and they can go and jump for a Beal or a Lillard or even whoever, Kyrie Irving, whoever they might be interested in

trying to get involved with. Where Chicago, it feels a little bit more like we've tied ourselves to this roster, right? Like this is DeRosen. We may have overpaid for DeRoson. they may have tampered to get Lonzo. And now they've got Levine who, seriously, like I'm saying, Levine is not taking five cents less

than what he thinks he can get on the open market, stay in Chicago. Yeah, probably not. I mean, have we seen a single example? You can, I mean, maybe it happens in the way that they structure the deal or something, but I cannot imagine him being like, yeah, I really believe in what my good friends

and Chicago Bulls ownership are doing right now. So let me give them, a discount. He's not from Chicago. There's no hometown discount. Well, there's also, like, a heap of shit that he had to walk through and exist in this place, right? So it's not like he's going to have, like, all this trust in the organization, nor necessarily should he. Like, this is a new front office. And there's certainly, like, we can, I think we can already agree that they're better than Gar-Pax, but, like, we don't really know that much about them. And we also don't know the extent to which, even if it is a new front office, like, how much of it

is going to be controlled by ownership? Like, when, you know, when the rubber really hits the road, what's it going to look like. So, yeah, I mean, it's going to be really interested to see. Like, I would be curious what it looks like if, like, let's say, let's say the Bulls make, like, a solid second round showing, like, they lose, you know, I really don't, I don't see this team, like, I would, I'm, like, probably the biggest Bulls believer in the new universe. So you think they're in the play-in game mix?

You think that they get in, like, a good, yeah. Six-fifth, whatever, yeah. They have, they have really good, like, they signed a lot of really good players, and I think their defense is going to be, like, not good, but, like, I think, Alonzo Caruso front court and then Patrick Williams coming back, that's three plus defenders in your starting lineup. It's like, it's not as dire as it's being made out to be like,

Vooch can't guard a pick and roll for his life. And DeMara hasn't played defense in five years, but you know, it's enough of a balance for, like, the fact that like, they run. You had me and below. You had it. They run. Like, they'll run enough. They're going to be

so explosive on offense. Like, Billy Donovan is, is a great coach as well. Like, I think I believe in the fact that like he can construct the right offense. And so far with the amount that they're running and they're emphasizing running, like it looks like they are doing the things that they should be doing

and they're jelling really fast. And they have vets. You know, like they have a good mix of, like, vets and young players. I just feel like this is a good solid team. You know, it's not like a contender, but it's a good solid team. So let me ask you this.

Let's do a buck's son's comparison here. So if you say Levine is Booker, like the sort of not quite homegrown, but like, you know, pre-existing talent that is like a volume score. Let's say basically I think this really comes down to is de Rosen enough of a Paul substitute? Not necessarily in like what he does on the court, but like, you know, to the extent that we can even know these things. like, do you think he is like a culture changer enough? Like that he can be like, you know, this is how you get. I am to Marta Rosen and I know how to win a few more games than 500. You know, like, do you think he can help this team in the, in some similar ways to the

ways like Chris Paul came in and like the table was set and Chris Paul finished the meal for Phoenix? That's a really good like analogy. Even like I feel a little bit of shame of having my head in like both. these two teams without realizing they're essentially doing the same thing, which is like they're trying to make the guy they have happy by bringing in other people because they know that, like, how things were, um, wasn't working. I mean, obviously, okay, so like, let's start with a Chris Paul thing, right? Um, no. Like, Chris Paul is like a walking culture shifter. I think we saw that in O.K. C he's a very demanding person. Um, it's just in his personality to want to know the

details of every single thing and to try to, you know, get everything up to, up to, up to part. I'm sure that Damar is going to be a positive veteran presence for this team. And I think that's like probably necessary, but I don't necessarily think

that he can have that level of impact. Probably not the case for Lonzo or Caruso either. For the Bulls, I feel like it's more of like an on-court upgrade. Whereas Chris Paul and Monty Williams too, like

like that combination like I'll say like what I kind of heard about how things are in Phoenix is basically that like it's still like a pretty big mess but like Well we're starting to hear in the whole of the stuff about that. Exactly.

Exactly like Sarver is kind of like toned it down in terms of like his input we'll see how long that lasts. It'll last as long as until he has to make some decisions about how much money he wants to spend and whether he wants to get luxury taxed for this group of guys.

Exactly. And which one of these guys, whether it's Aiton or Bridges, he's not going to pay. Because I don't think he's going to pay all of them. Exactly, exactly. And like we are at that place with Aiton right now where like there was some reporting prior to the season about the fact that like they weren't able to, you know,

come to a number that both sides agreed on. And that, so like there's a number of different things that happened. So essentially what I had heard was like basically just like, you know, Chris Paul and Monty are like holding down the fore. Like it is just like their force of personality combined with the fact that like now, you know, that is rubbed off on Booker. And it's also like Booker's always been a serious player. But I think like the younger you are, the less like sort of like global influence you can have on a team. And you know, James Jones is like doing a good job because he's being left alone. And that's like kind of the biggest issue with like the sons.

most of the son's bad decisions have been like somewhat influenced by like unsteadiness with like with ownership like I remember I was going back through like thinking about some of the bad decisions that they've made in the past and like that summer that disastrous summer I think it was like 2015 where they they signed they were in negotiations with Eric Bledsoe and then like in the middle of that they signed Isaiah Thomas well that was because like they weren't able to get like it was like the McDonough front office wasn't able to get like the money that they needed to make Eric happy,

but then they were starting to get afraid that he would leave. So as like in the middle of those negotiations, they started looking at other options and they thought that they might have to go with that. Then they end up being able to have Bledsoe, and everyone's like, why do you have three point guards on this team? Like Gron Draghi was also on this team, right?

And they end up trading Isaiah Thomas and like that whole situation. And not all of that is on ownership, but ownership was kind of the fulcrum of that mess. And I think that like what that can do to a franchise is it can start to make the authority of somebody like Monty Williams or Chris Paul a little less strong because like Aiton bought in last year. Like he came into training camp.

He was excited to play defense. He was thrilled to play with Chris Paul. He was like, you know, he was thinking about all the lobs that everybody else used to, used to catch. And he knew that it was going to be good for him. And he also, you know, went from like being like a number one pick. A number one pick that, by the way, like, you know, had to, had to, had to, swallow the idea of like, okay, I'm not going to be able to like prove myself that like I

should have been drafted over Luca Donchich, which he shouldn't have, but you know, like just or Tray Young. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. That like, you know, internally, that's like a thing for most people, especially if you're a professional athlete, like to be able to, you know, subjugate that feeling that I don't know if he has that feeling. I'm, I am assuming that he has that feeling. I would assume most people would. To be able to subject, subject like your own ego when like your reputation is in the place that it was. And like sacrifice touches and play defense for a team. It like in like a year that you could get an extension

and then to not get that extension, like I just wonder how much he'll want to buy in this year. Not maybe not Aiton specifically, right? Like they'll probably be fine just because they get to chase another championship. but that inconsistency in terms of like what you're asked to do and what you think will be the promise of that because ownership and in the front office aren't on the same page can make players not necessarily want to listen to what the coach wants them to do

or to like not really know like what is actually in their best interest. Right. Yeah. I mean, you know, when we started this pod earlier, we were talking a little bit about Chicago's, the reasons why somebody might now want to play in Chicago. You mentioned the weather. You mentioned, you know, I mean, I think also, like, there's probably a little bit of, like, the weight of the legacy of that franchise.

Like, as soon as you start playing well, it's like, well, you're not winning 67 games, though. You know what I mean? Like, and I think that that's a lot of it. But the flip side of that is that Phoenix is an incredibly attractive destination for NBA players. In fact, I think you,

you were saying that, like, a lot of guys have off-season homes there or they train there. So it's like, it's hard to, it's hard to have like a definition of what makes a franchise desirable at any given time. You know, like I think sometimes, I've been thinking a lot about this with Philly and the way that Darrell Morey's sort of handled the Ben Simmons saga to the extent that we're like able to know who did what, when. But I think that there have been past Sixers administrations who would have played the Ben Simmons situation much differently, whether it was Trade Ben as soon as possible

to get out from under a stressful situation or cave to some of whatever demands that he may or may not have had or whatever. It's just like Darryl Moore just didn't do anything and it seems to have worked out for the Sixers benefit right now. I don't know whether or not like a GM. I don't know how much guys out there

are like James Jones is really good so I want to go to Phoenix or James Jones is really good but I know that Robert Sarveord is a little bit of a kook so I don't want to go to Phoenix. I don't know how much of that stuff for wind isn't matter but I think the true story of what we're talking about here is Phoenix has gone from a joke to promising to a final team to now like are we sure they can keep it together in what 27 months like you know like in a little bit more than two years and so that's just a suggestion of how

fast things could change for Chicago yeah maybe maybe and I think that the bulls are in a really interesting spot because of like the positive aspects that they do have um i wonder i wonder how i imagine this is probably different for every player but like i wonder how the jordan aspect of it is like analyze is is it like well i'm never going to be the number one guy there so why bother or is it like wait it would actually be cool to play in this jersey because it is cool and i wonder if like even like something like the last dance, like gave, gave the Bulls,

like, maybe a little bit more cachet because, like, we all kind of just watched it. And, like, you know, there is, like, a weird sort of element of,

like, when you, like, there are teams that are cool in NBA history. And I wonder how much that matters. I think the Sixers are even one of those teams, too, where they're like,

they're cool. Um, and the Bulls are cool. And, like, you know, the Lakers obviously, right?

Um, it could, if they end up, like, I think people crave stability, right? Like, you know,

more than anything else. That's essentially what we're talking about. I think people want to know what they can expect when they go to a new employer. And if the Bulls can give that, then, like, yeah, it could be, like, the next stepping stone to, like, really become a player in the East. Like, could they go from this team

that just really hasn't been relevant for the last 20 years, aside from a few playoff runs, to then being, like, a real destination, like, to be on the other side of, like, like you said, the Knicks, like, where they could do it probably right now. Like, you know, Evan Fornier is one of the most tradable contracts. Like, he's, it's like, he's kind of big, that contract was signed to be traded. So, so they could do it right away.

But like, with the Bulls, it's like, can you build enough? I don't know what it is. Like, it probably is just ability to then, in your next iteration, like, be a team. Like, be like one of the players in free agency, like the way that they thought. thought they might be in 2010 or 2014. Yeah, I mean, it's also a question of, as you go through all these elite teams, all the teams that we feel like are contenders, the Bulls have an amazing assemblage of guys who I would say are killer bees.

Like they are just like very, very good second level players. Levine, DeRosen, Lanzo, like Vouch, All-Star peripheral, all-stars, guys who, who have made all-star teams, guys who could make an all-star team, if things broke right for them. There is no person on that team right now, despite how good Zach Levine has been on losing teams and despite the fact that you won a gold medal,

that I would just be like, this guy can elevate us. This guy's ready to elevate this entire team to the next level. I could be proven wrong with Levine. You know what I mean? I definitely like his game a lot. And I think that he's been playing with pretty, he's been playing with players who are beneath his talent level for quite some time now.

I think that it'll be fascinating to see this kind of like all guards around Vooch lineup that they're going to be kind of running with the exception of Pat Williams and just see what they can get out of it. Yeah. Levine is like the Booker comparison with him is really interesting. I think those two guys have been like compared to each other quite a lot throughout their careers. Bookers, I mean, I don't think it's really a question.

I think he's a better player. maybe it is a question, but Levine is still incredibly good, and he put up all-star numbers last year. He had like 27 points, five rebounds and five assists. And it could be a similar situation to Booker where like the same numbers end up just making him look a lot better, right? And he'll probably, I mean, I don't know what it'll shake out as. He's obviously going to handle the ball less,

but he's also going to see a lot more free points. But whatever he shakes out at, if he's putting up those like spectacular numbers on a winning team then he also just does become like the max guy that you have to pay that much money to like the only thing that's separating him from that is is the win total so i'm actually kind of curious like if they end up being good like the reputational um change there for levin could be like pretty strong well we'll keep our eye on chicago all year i feel like this is going to be a really interesting litmus test sir guess what we get to do next week what talk about basketball like actual basketball For the majority of this podcast, we've either had only like two or three teams playing, you know, two to four teams playing because of the playoffs. Yeah. Or like we've been speculating about Ben Simmons.

So now we get to actually talk about real games and real basketball season tips off on Tuesday. Can I tell you even just like how fun this like this preseason has been just to like watch other teams. Yeah. Like yeah. Like this is this is the first time like with the podcast that I've actually like had to like pay attention to some level of what's going to on with basketball, like through the off season. And like, man, it's honestly, I'm not going to lie. Like, I think you kind of felt it too.

Like the Simmons stuff saved us, but it can be kind of a grind thing. You're like, okay, like, yeah, it's like, me, let's make this interesting, right? Like, we've definitely hit the point where now everybody is like, here's the obligatory Kyrie Ben update. But I was like, let's just not even talk about it today. Let's talk about, let's talk about our guy, Zach Levine. I'll see you Friday. Yeah.

So thank you to Isaiah Blakely for producing us. This has been the answer on the Ringer NBA show and the Ringer podcast network. See you next week for Real Hoops.