Chicago Bulls 2016-2017 Budget-Friendly Pre-Season Press Conference

[garbageman]

There is no video this year. There isn't even a podium. It's just a stack of milk crates. With no fanfare, Bulls GM Garbage Man takes the stage wearing a barrel held up by suspenders. He steps up to where the microphone should be and clears his throat before yelling really loudly.

GM: Can everybody hear me alright?

Not everyone can as is evidenced by the lack of attention that his yelling causes. Some media in the front row turn to look, but even a few rows back, there are some reporters who are struggling to hear and some who don't know anything was said at all. Garbage Man tries to do that thing where you whistle really loud by sticking your fingers in the edges of your mouth, but that doesn't work because he doesn't really know how to do that.

Instead, he grabs the milk crate on the top of the stack, exits the stage, and parts the rows of reporters like he's some sort of barrel-wearing Moses.

GM: Alright, everybody. Circle around.

The members of the press sheepishly acquiesce, given no other option but to leave. To be fair, some of them do leave.

GM: Sorry, we're trying to save money here, so we'll leave the flash and sizzle for the courts. Got a little spend happy this offseason.

Garbage Man sets the milk crate down and stands upon it, giving himself at least some platform around the remaining press.

GM: Anyway, welcome to the 2016-2017 Chicago Bulls press conference. Last season ended with a disappointing round one loss in the playoffs. We spent most of the offseason fully expecting to step back and reset our tax bill, but sometimes the best laid plans to do nothing go to waste. The free agent market was way more interested in coming to Chicago than we anticipated, so we took advantage...a little too much advantage...and now I have to make it look like we're spending no money at all so our accounting team or the IRS doesn't come after me. Let's take a phase by phase look at what happened this offseason.

Garbage Man signals to a group of interns off to the side. One turns on a box fan and the other opens the exit door.

GM: Does anyone feel a little bit drafty in here?

Garbage Man pauses for a beat, but appropriately, receives no laughter.

GM: Anyway, we traded two picks to move up in the draft to select John Guy out of Maryland. We like his no-nonsense name as well as what he can bring to the game with his inside scoring and free throw shooting.

Another signal to the interns. They jog over to the crowd and start handing out little slips of paper. Some of the press sigh or shake their heads. One guy even balls up the paper and throws it on the ground. Garbage Man notices.

GM: You might want to hang onto those! Those are valuable coupons redeemable for one free...agency.

Garbage Man chuckles. Nobody else does. A couple more people leave.

GM: Right, uh, anyway. The biggest news for us in free agency is that we used our cap space to get a wealth of new players. We're very excited to bring Spencer Hawes and Goran Dragic to the club. We knew it would be unlikely to win the Durant sweepstakes, or even the Jordan or Rose sweepstakes, but we were able to work out contracts with our three highest rated free agents: Spencer, Goran, and Danilo Gallinari. Unfortunately, that put us a lot further over the tax bill than we would have liked, but we believe we reached a favorable compromise by trading Gallo to the Nets for Carmelo Anthony and future assets.

A snap of his fingers, and the interns approach GBJ on both sides, each armed with a pair of scissors. And with a couple coordinated snips, the suspenders are cut and the barrel crashes down to the ground revealing the Garbage Man wearing nothing but two carefully taped, homemade signs with just the letter 'R' drawn on in Sharpie.

GM: This segment of my press conference is rated R for Restricted...Free Agency.

The press is really starting to thin out at this point, though some of the remaining members seem more enthused than ever.

GM: In any case, a lot of players wanted to come to Chicago in RFA. Only two of them did. We welcomed back Jared Sullinger, but more notably, we were able to obtain one of our two realistic targets in Thomas Robinson. Robinson hit training camp ready to go, and we think he'll be a monster on the boards this year. We're really excited to have him join the squad. In any case, I couldn't think of any clever but cost effective visuals for training camp or preseason because trains--even model trains--are expensive, and seasons are more conceptual, so I'll open the floor up for questions.

One of the few remaining reporters raises his hand...

GM: Oh, one last thing...I was hoping that this abandoned warehouse we rented for pennies on the dollar to host this conference would have a trap door in the floor so I could REALLY "open up the floor" for questions, but if everyone just pretends that's what happened, I'd really appreciate it.

[ballsohard]

How much of this franchise upheaval was about making the Bulls your beautiful mess compared to just making the right moves for the franchise?

[JNR]

GWR: You've got to be in championship or bust mode, right?

[garbageman]

How much of this franchise upheaval was about making the Bulls your beautiful mess compared to just making the right moves for the franchise?

Really wishing this place had that trap door right now. I was told it would have it. I'd escape through it instead of answering your question, but since it doesn't, I guess I'm stuck here.

Anyway, it is nice to have a lot of freedom in the offseason. The last few years of the Bulls success have been nice, but we were never at a point where it was nice enough to justify incremental changes. Still, I'm convinced that this build of the team can be the best Bulls team to date if we can figure out how to get all of our new talent on the same page early on. Hopefully, my beautiful mess--despite leaving us in some financial straits for the foreseeable future--overlaps with making good moves for the team and the city as well.

[false9]

You've got some interesting young pieces in Guy and LaVine. Any chance you'd move them for a "win now" player?

[NOLa.]

I'm not even sure what the hell happened with your team over the course of two weeks, but it looks good on paper. Preseason however did not. Did you see anything you wouldn't have done that the game set you on Recommended?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[LoCo89]

Pretends to fall into trap hole, proceeds to ask question in a trapped in a hole voice

Uhh... you seemed to come in guns blazing at RFA and never really let up the gas from there into free agency. Man this is a deep hole... What makes your organization so attractive to all of the leagues Centers and Power Forwards? Please send water into hole in floor

[garbageman]

You've got some interesting young pieces in Guy and LaVine. Any chance you'd move them for a "win now" player?

I'm not sure a win-now player exists at that price point, and I'm thinking that at least Zach LaVine is ready to help this team win. He'll factor into our regular season games a little more than you saw in pre-season as our 6th man to provide a versatile scoring punch off the bench.

[garbageman]

GWR: You've got to be in championship or bust mode, right?

Are there any other modes?

[garbageman]

I'm not even sure what the hell happened with your team over the course of two weeks, but it looks good on paper. Preseason however did not. Did you see anything you wouldn't have done that the game set you on Recommended?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I'm not too worried about preseason. We had some tough games against the Hawks and the Warriors, two of the best teams in the league, and our other two losses were by a possession...which hopefully is something we'll do better at when the games actually count. I think there's plenty we'll need to do differently in the regular season, mostly on the defensive end, but the easy adjustments we've discussed internally are all offensively focused to see how far we can push a team with plenty of scoring options who can contribute in different ways.

[garbageman]

Pretends to fall into trap hole, proceeds to ask question in a trapped in a hole voice

Uhh... you seemed to come in guns blazing at RFA and never really let up the gas from there into free agency. Man this is a deep hole... What makes your organization so attractive to all of the leagues Centers and Power Forwards? Please send water into hole in floor

We've got really tall ceilings here in Chicago

[PaulyP]

Odd-looking man in a trench coat stands to ask a question, upon close look it appears to be Deron Williams in disguise

I have a question, how much of the gap between you and Indiana have you closed up? Do you think presently you are better than the Milwaukee Fryes...I mean Bucks

[WigNosy]

Most of the Bulls' recent success came due to the flowering of Danilo Galinari into a star - do you feel by trading him away you may have traded away the heart and soul of the organization?

[Bowtothebill23]

You have a stacked team that is talented enough to compete for a championship. In your opinion, what is your team's biggest weakness particularly when it gets to the playoffs this season?

[garbageman]

Odd-looking man in a trench coat stands to ask a question, upon close look it appears to be Deron Williams in disguise

I have a question, how much of the gap between you and Indiana have you closed up? Do you think presently you are better than the Milwaukee Fryes...I mean Bucks

Hopefully all of it. Despite a lackluster offseason, we're hoping to take our first Division Title. However, the Pacers are still a tough team, and they're used to playing with each other.

As for the Bucks, I like my team better right now, but I'm biased. They still have Rubio, Kyrie, and Enes, and that triumverate is not to be taken lightly.

As for you, you look familiar. Did we go to college together? U of I? I was class of '06.

[garbageman]

Most of the Bulls' recent success came due to the flowering of Danilo Galinari into a star - do you feel by trading him away you may have traded away the heart and soul of the organization?

That was a tough trade, but at the end of the day, we felt like we needed to at least mitigate our tax situation a little bit or our future would be really in the red financially, which would lead to our future being really in the red in terms of winning and losing, too.

It's going to be a challenge to get a new group of guys on the same page, sure, but we feel like the pieces we've picked up are all seasoned professionals who know how to win and compete.

[garbageman]

You have a stacked team that is talented enough to compete for a championship. In your opinion, what is your team's biggest weakness particularly when it gets to the playoffs this season?

If I had to single something out, it'd be our depth. We don't want to ride our starters too hard, but aside from Zach LaVine, we don't have the same flexibility in terms of players who can fill multiple spots and be moved around to exploit different matchups. We're still looking to get solid contributions out of guys like Toney Douglas, Jared Sullinger, and even our rookie, John Guy. He's shown a lot of potential as a scoring threat down low, and we're excited to see him develop.

[Darth Vegito]

You have some high praise and expectations being heaped upon by various GMs around the league. If you don't get close to those expectations, could this be a one year experiment before you rip the team apart next off-season?

[NickMalone77]

Nick Melon; The Advocate: With bringing Melo on board, any aspirations to form the famed "Banana Boat" boys crew with Lebron and CP3 very on the block in Chicago?

[garbageman]

Nick Melon; The Advocate: With bringing Melo on board, any aspirations to form the famed "Banana Boat" boys crew with Lebron and CP3 very on the block in Chicago?

If they're willing to come play for mins.

[garbageman]

You have some high praise and expectations being heaped upon by various GMs around the league. If you don't get close to those expectations, could this be a one year experiment before you rip the team apart next off-season?

I'll almost have to. This team has to be good enough to justify paying those bills. We went hard after Goran and Spencer because we think they're the types of players who can anchor our team and take us for a deep run in the playoffs. If this doesn't work for us, it probably means that those types of players would do better being the final piece of an already set team that is close, but just needs one more star.

I'm confident, though, that this team will figure it out as the season goes along and grow into the force a lot of folks, myself included, are expecting it to be.

[Xist2Inspire]

With Danilo gone and so much new talent on your roster, who are you looking towards to provide leadership?

[garbageman]

With Danilo gone and so much new talent on your roster, who are you looking towards to provide leadership?

We hope that's a role Carmelo can take on. He's won a championship before, and he's been around the league on many successful teams...including several years alongside Goran Dragic on the Gorlando Magic. I'm sure cohesion won't be immediate, but I think the talent will make up for that, and hopefully the team only gets better from day one.

[TrayWithAnA]

I know the aim has to be for a championship, but where do you rank your team against the rest of the East?

[garbageman]

I know the aim has to be for a championship, but where do you rank your team against the rest of the East?

I don't want to jump the gun here, but I predict that we'll rank very highly. I think the Hawks are a lock for the top spot. Not only are they an incredibly deep, talented team, but they're in a division where everyone else is in some stage of a rebuild.

Realistically, we think we can win the division and be the second best team in the East, but I think the Pacers would beg to differ. I think it'll be close, and there are some longer shot teams out there who could wind up ahead of us, but right now, I think our roster is the 2nd best team out East, and we'll be working really hard to prove that.