Among the Bulls initial plans will be to seek permission to interview Denver Nuggets general manager Arturas Karnisovas and Toronto GM Bobby Webster, among other candidates, sources tell ESPN.
Karnisovas (under Tim Connelly with the Nuggets), Bobby Webster (under Masai Ujiri with the Raptors) and Chad Buchanan (under Kevin Pritchard with the Pacers) have appeared successful in their supporting roles. Karnisovas, Webster and Buchanan are perfectly logical candidates to lead a front office. It’s encouraging for Chicago that those three are getting consideration, raising the level of the talent pool.
But this will also be an interview of the Bulls.
How much control will their new top executive get? Paxson will reportedly maintain some power, and COO Michael Reinsdorf isn’t going anywhere. Management will reportedly even ask candidates to keep an open mind on coach Jim Boylen.
How patient will ownership be? After nine straight seasons without a losing record, Chicago is in its third straight miserable season. The Bulls didn’t grasp how far trading Jimmy Butler would set them back, and their rebuild – already longer than expected – isn’t necessarily close to finished. A new general manager will be starting fresh. Yet, Bulls owner Jerry Reinsdorf is already years into his agitation.
How much will the job pay? The Bulls have earned a reputation for cheapness. That’s why it was difficult to buy rumors of Chicago chasing Thunder general manager Sam Presti. And apparently, the Bulls won’t.
Darnell Mayberry of The Athletic:
Chicago will not pursue OKC's Sam Presti or Toronto's Masai Ujiri, according to sources, and does not plan to go player agent route.
The NBA playoffs have a familiar format – four rounds, best-of-seven series, games in front of fans at home arenas.
But the coronavirus, which has forced the NBA into an indefinite stoppage and disrupted life around the world, makes that untenable. Don’t expect the league to wait until that’s workable, either.
But even that comes with major complications, especially containing coronavirus from undermining the entire operation. It could be a long time until its safe to hold games, even in a centralized location without fans.
It could be so long… a traditional playoffs could be back on the table. Though I find that unlikely, I’m still not convince people have a proper understanding of how lengthy this hiatus could be.
Everyone wants to finish the season. The playoffs are the NBA’s most lucrative time, and it feels right to crown a champion.
So, it’s good the focus is on alternative formats. It’d be naïve to expect business as usual when the NBA resumes.
Listen, I don’t have to sugarcoat anything. DeMar DeRozan is not happy in San Antonio, OK? The offense is not running as smoothly as one should think with a guy like him in the lineup, and there are problems are there, right? And so you have to decide if you’re going to take that money of if you’re going to come back to a situation that’s just not suitable. I mean, it didn’t work. They got the deal done. It’s over. I mean, the experiment is not working.
This report came before the NBA’s coronavirus shutdown, which could significantly decrease next season’s salary cap. That makes DeRozan (and everyone else with a player option) more likely to opt in. Base on the prior report, DeRozan is willing to stay in San Antonio for the right price. It’s increasingly likely that option-year salary is the right price.
DeRozan is a good player whose scoring – and, at times, passing – can be central in building decent offense. But he has a tandem of deficiencies that make it difficult to fit him onto a good team:
1. He doesn’t shoot 3-pointers to space the floor.
2. He doesn’t defend adequately.
That means his team must surround him offensively with other outside shooters. That’s doable.
His team must also surround defensively with other sound defenders. Again, that’s doable.
But it’s difficult to do both. Players who both shoot 3s well enough to attract attention AND defend well are obviously scarce.
Though DeRozan definitely has fans around the league, it’s another thing for him to expect an offer next offseason that justifies declining his player option. He and the Spurs could be stuck in this imperfect arrangement another year.
Raptors president Masai Ujiri worried about coronavirus in Africa
Toronto Raptors president Masai Ujiri is worried about the places currently hardest-hit by the pandemic, and especially worried about the places that haven’t been hit yet.
Ujiri told reporters on a conference call Wednesday that he’s been in contact with some leaders in Africa, plus has spoken with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau about his talks with other African heads of state about their level of preparation for the new coronavirus .
“I think a lot of leaders are ahead of it, and the ones that aren’t are starting to pay attention because this is an unknown, this is an unseen enemy, and we have to really, really pay attention,” Ujiri said.
Ujiri is of Nigerian descent and founded Giants of Africa, a group that organizes camps and other events to use basketball as a way to promote education and growth for children on the continent. He says he’s unsure yet if his programs will go on this summer as planned.
“We’re just concerned about people, about health, about listening to what the directions are going to be moving forward,” Ujiri said.
When it comes to the NBA season, Ujiri said he’s hopeful play can resume. The Raptors won their first NBA title last season.
Tom Brady ends career in non-Patriot uniform? NBA legends been there, done that.
We will forever picture in our minds Tom Brady in a… Tampa Bay Buccaneers uniform?
Or maybe the lightning bolt helmet of the Los Angeles Chargers, because he pulls theKawhi Leonard and looks to elevate the little brother in the L.A. market to elite status on and off the field.
Here are a few of the NBA legends that didn’t finish their career in the uniform you’d expect (with honorable mention to Tony Parker in Charlotte and Bob Cousy in Cincinnati, which just missed the cut).
MICHAEL JORDAN
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The NBA’s greatest and most iconic player had the greatest walk-off play to retire on ever: In Game 6 of the 1998 NBA Finals, Michael Jordan stripped Karl Malone in the post on one end, brought the ball up, waited until there were less than 10 seconds left, drove hard to the middle of the floor, stopped and crossed back to his left, gave Bryon Russell a little shove, rose up and drained the title-winning jumper with 5.2 seconds remaining. It was an exit fitting a legend.
Then three years later, he came back and played two seasons with the Wizards.
The ultimate competitor could not get his fix working as a team president (and pushing toward ownership, something that happened years later in Charlotte), so he laced them up again. It wasn’t the same. Jordan was still good, averaging more than 20 points a game on some bad teams, and there were flashes of him being his old self.
But, for the most part, we as fans just want to block out those years and remember Jordan stepping off the court as a champion in Chicago.
HAKEEM OLAJUWON
Kent Horner/NBAE/Getty Images
The center with the best footwork the game had ever seen, the guy who brought two titles to Houston (and the guy drafted in front of Jordan where nobody thinks it was a mistake) ended his career doing the Dream Shake north of the border in Toronto. The Rockets had faded in the West since their championship years (behind a dominant Lakers team at the end) and were looking to move on, while Olajuwon still thought he had a lot to prove, so he eventually agreed to the trade. Houston got the Raptors 2002 first-round pick (Boštjan Nachbar was their pick) and second-rounder (Tito Maddox).
The Dream only played one season with the Raptors, but he was banged up, came off the bench a lot, and averaged just 7.1 points a game for a team led by the high-flying Vince Carter (then just 25). When Olajuwon retired, there was no question he would be pictured in the Hall of Fame as the greatest Rocket ever.
PATRICK EWING
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After 15 seasons in New York, leading the team to the NBA finals and dragging Jeff Van Gundy around on his leg, the Knicks icon that was Patrick Ewing was traded to the Seattle Supersonics in a four-team deal. The next summer, he signed as a free agent in Orlando and played there for one season. Father time was winning the race with Ewing those last couple of seasons, he started in Seattle and averaged 9.6 points a game, but was banged up (finger surgery) and coming off the bench in Orlando for 6 points a game. He went on to be an assistant coach for years in the NBA, never getting a shot in the big chair, so he jumped to his alma mater and is now the coach at Georgetown University.
He wasn’t the only Knicks legend shipped out at the end…
WALT “CLYDE” FRAZIER
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The best dressed Knick ever and current team color analyst was sent to Cleveland for the final two-plus years of his career (the Knicks had signed Jim Cleamons as a veteran free agent in 1977, and at the time that meant compensation had to go back to Cleveland, and Frazier was the guy). Frazier was not happy with the trade, saying being sent to Cleveland was like “being traded to Siberia.” Injuries and age were catching up with Frazier at that point, and he played in just 66 games across three seasons for the Cavaliers before he left the game, but he averaged 14.6 points a game in those contests. It was not that long before he was rhyming on the broadcasts of Knicks games and cementing himself as a legend in New York. A city that just fits him better than Cleveland.
KARL MALONE
Jesse D. Garrabrant/NBAE via Getty Images)
In 2004, Karl Malone — arguably the greatest Utah Jazz player ever, forever joined at the hip with John Stockton — came to the Shaq/Kobe Lakers to chase a ring, along with Gary Payton. At that point not even the glue of Phil Jackson could keep the dueling egos of the Lakers stars from spilling over, and the team’s role players had aged, but Malone was going to solve those problems, providing depth and a locker room presence. Malone played well that season — 13.2 points and 8.7 rebounds a game — when healthy, but he only played in 42 games that season as injuries caught up with him. Malone was exactly what those Lakers needed in the playoffs, but the injury that had him miss the NBA Finals gave Detroit the opening the Pistons needed to take the 2004 NBA crown. By the next year, Shaq was in Miami and Malone was on his ranch, retired, waiting for the call from the Hall of Fame.
