Full press conference: Chicago Bulls GM Marc Eversley speaks on selecting Noa Essengue

Full press conference: Chicago Bulls GM Marc Eversley speaks on selecting Noa Essengue

how you doing good all good thanks guys for hanging out um I know it’s late it’s been a long day for a lot of you but I appreciate you uh hanging around um before we open with questions just want to take a moment to address the Billy situation um and I’ll talk about the draft and the team um going forward um I’m sure you all have questions as team policy we don’t discuss contracts publicly but what I can say is how much we value Billy both as a coach and as a person he’s a Hall of Fame coach who brings a steady presence and deep commitment to player development that helps reestablish our style of play he’s someone who sets the tone in the building every day with how he shows up how he communicates and how much he cares you guys work with him every single day and I’m sure you see it as well tonight we drafted Noah Sangu small uh power forward from France and we’re really excited about him this past year he played in for in Germany he’s the second youngest player in the draft he’s a skilled power forward who has the ability to score the basketball he’s excellent in transition and he can play well above the rim he’s got great hands and he’s got great feel for the game and we’re looking forward to welcoming him to the Chicago Bulls family we’ve said it before but it’s worth repeating we are in transition we took a step back this season to reposition and retool and while we don’t know exactly what next year’s roster will look like we’re encouraged by the early progress and the direction that we are heading over the next 18 months through the draft tonight free agency and with financial flexibility coming in 2026 we believe we are setting ourselves up to take meaningful steps forward we know we have a lot of work to do we know it’s frustrating when change doesn’t happen overnight but we’ve seen encouraging growth from our youth from our young core and we’re going to keep pushing building something great making it last it takes a long time takes planning patience and doing the hard work without taking shortcuts there may be tough moments along the way but we believe in this path and we appreciate the fans and you all sticking with us as we take that next step with that I’ll take your questions hi Mark casey Johnson with Chicago Sports Network uh can you just kind of take us through the the pre-draft process with Noah like when you guys first scouted him how much contact you had with him leading up to tonight so the first time I saw Noah was last September he was 17 years old um played in Portland um that’s the first time I saw him live um you know obviously our international scouts saw him play at the youth level several times um but we’ve seen him live many times we’ve watched a lot of tape on him and you know we’re excited about you know his ability to come in and play our style of play um you know I think the coaching staff is excited about him and we’re looking forward to see him here in Chicago mark how you doing joe K Chicago sometimes um first thing just to clear up the Billy thing meaning you’re not taking any questions on whether he was extended or not is that that statement that’s correct okay uh the second part with Noah how much before that leading up to that pick how much talk was there about trying to move up how much was there as far as you guys manipulating things to or or were you guys fine at 12 and that’s a guy you guys mocked and thought that you would get we um we looked at several options both moving up and moving back um we were in contact with three or four teams prior to us um but as we kind of saw the board coming down when it got to 10 and 11 we felt comfortable that the player we wanted was going to be there for us uh Drew Stevens with the bigs mark in giving you your latest contract extension what did Michael compliment you on and what goals has he set for you and our tourists moving forward so as I stated earlier we’re not going to talk about contracts tonight per team policy sure but it’s not about the contract it’s about you know what do you feel like you guys did well and what does he want you two to kind of focus in on and shoot for moving forward so with respect to you know expectations for us it’s to continue to build on what we’ve built so uh as I mentioned earlier um we’re a team in transition and you know we’re all about bringing in young dynamic athletic players who can play the style of play that we want to play um you know and I think at the end of the day if we continue to do that you know we’re going to build a team that’s going to compete on a yearly nightly and yearly basis mark uh in regards to Noah when you kind of look at development for him this year I know last year we saw kind of a little bit of like the slower approach with Montas what do you envision especially with his age as kind of an appropriate timeline an appropriate expectation for what he can contribute from day one so in terms of his development he’s going to have a off-c court development plan and an onc court development plan being only 18 years old you know growing up in France you know there’s going to be a period where he’s going to need to assimilate to you know not only how we do things here in Chicago but really how we do things here in America um we’re going to put together an off-c court plan that helps him adapt to his new environment both on the court and off the court and that’s going to start as early as this weekend jamal Collier from ESPN uh Mark just with respect to the contracts why sort of the lack of transparency both Billy and and kind of you and Arturuses why why lack of transparency about discussing that again it’s it’s just team policy uh you know you’ve been here longer than I have and you know that’s always been the case it’s something that you know the team just doesn’t comment on uh Cody Weston with the score i think you got 12 players under contract if you resign Giddy I think that’s 13 so with that kind of as the basis just how much roster turnover do you guys expect to have this off season so we’re going to look at pre uh sorry we’ll look at the second night of the draft tomorrow night we have 45 we need to make a decision at whether we’re going to select that you know pick or not um you know there’s always an option to two-way or trade up trade back or completely get out so if we get out tomorrow night you know we’ll be at 13 and then we’ll look at free agency so we’ll continue to look at different options um whether that’s trades um free agency next week or in a couple weeks um and you know we’ll continue to tinker with the roster and that so for the second round drafting and stashing a player overseas is in play for you guys as an option potentially it’s potentially an option yes john when you look at at John Greenberg the athletic when you when you are looking at SNA what kind of player do you see i mean do you guys have projections of current players now that you see he could develop into when when you see a guy this young like what’s your imagination where does it take you i see him as a two-way player who can impact the game both offensively and defensively um his ability to get to the free throw line and play downhill is super intriguing to us um I think he’ll be able to be a versatile wing defender um you know I I think he his game is a little bit similar to Matas in that you know he can face up he can post you up he can get out on on the break um you know his game’s just very versatile you like having that kind you like having that kind of um I don’t want to say repetition but you know like you say if his games like Madus you like having that kind of those two guys with the same skill sets i do i do i like the length the versatility um you know the ability to be switchable on defense those are all intriguing uh qualities i know you talked about the process you guys have sort of to build the team out but I just curious what your takeaway was from watching Indiana and watching the the way they the run they made to the finals they’re not a team with a bunch of superstars and such made this run and then the injuries that have kind of happened at Tatum that open up the East and such just what do you take away from the way the playoffs you know does that make you guys inclined to be more aggressive or inclined to change a plan when you see how the conference shapes out i think the thing I take away from Indiana is just their style of play um they continue to come at you over and over and over they play fast um in spite of what the score is what quarter it is um you know and I think that’s kind of how we played a little bit this year they’ve got a bunch of players who can play on both sides of the floor and that’s exactly what we want to build here in Chicago is players who are versatile both offensively and defensively you can’t hunt any of their players everybody can guard everybody can defend everybody can run everybody can make a shot mark Matt Zan from CBS Chicago jamal touched on it a little bit but does the fact so many injuries in East it seems like the conference is a little more wide open does that change at all the way you attack this off season feeling like there’s almost a window open at this point there’s definitely um you know more opportunities for teams to take a jump um you know there’s certainly teams who have taken a step back um I think for us we need to remain diligent and pragmatic about how we build this um we don’t want to skip steps and I think sometimes when you do skip steps expectations kind of build and you make mistakes and I don’t think we want to do that uh Will Got CHDO just on that um in terms of timeline and process um how how do you kind of view the timeline of where things are headed in terms of getting back to a point where you’re maybe in the playoffs you know earnest or in the top four um is that going to be something that you think is going to be like a more you know multi-year process or is that something that you think you’re going to try to kind of get to more rapidly i think we’re just going to continue to focus on player development and you know we’ve established a style to play offensively i think the next iteration of this is really identifying who we are defensively and how we can improve um you know for our young players I’ll use Modis as an example modis second half of the season was terrific i think everybody in the room would agree how does he now respond to being on the scouting report what is he doing this summer to work on his game knowing that he will be on the scouting report and I think to a man everybody on the roster needs to take that type of mindset how do I get better this summer how do I continue to support my teammates um and I think if that’s the mindset you know we’re not going to put timelines on it i don’t think that’s the the approach mark Joe Collie sometimes again um I know you you brought up the Pacers enough that there’s a comparison one of the things you said is you can’t hunt guys on their team your team there’s guys that can be hunted that was shown by Miami that was shown so A how big of a concern is that and B the question I’ve asked for the last couple years you guys keep talking about you know building depth building depth but at the end of the day you still need that dude where are you guys going to find that dude how do you It just seems like you guys don’t have a plan to land that kind of guy i think there’s different paths Joe i think you know internal development is the way we’re going to attack that um you know I think if you look at you know somebody like Modis last year nobody thought he would finish the year he did now I’m not putting any kind of undue expectations on Modest but um you know there’s other players in this building on this team who if they continue to develop continue to work on a daily basis they may get there and we have the resources in place the coaching staff player development to support that but the mindset is still not going to be you need as talented a top pick as you can get and you have to do what you can to put yourself in that position i think we just need to continue with our internal development plan and you know at some point you’re going to be able to turn that and I don’t know when that is or what that looks like um I understand where you’re going um but I don’t think we’re going to take that path mark on the one hand Matt has obviously played 80 games last season you kind of know what you have on the other hand he likes to play basketball i assume he’s going to be at least practicing with the summer league uh team will he also play in Vegas plan is for him to play with the summer league team sorry go to training camp with summer league team he will play we’re just not sure how many games he will play mark have you guys hired a new director of player development or a shooting coach we have not are there plans to we have promoted somebody internally to join the player development crew um we’ve got four guys who we have the utmost confidence in to continue what that program has been able to establish um if there’s any indication of how well they’re doing we’ve had 10 to 12 guys in the gym every single day um our gym is alive right now the notion um that our players want to work and we’ve created an environment to where they want to work is something that we’re very proud of our gym is busy every single day and it’s a direct reflection of Billy’s guidance overseeing that player development um department and you know I’m really really proud of what they’ve done thus this summer

Here’s what Chicago Bulls general manager Marc Eversley said after the team drafted Noa Essengue in the first round of the 2025 NBA Draft.

Subscribe to FOX 32 Chicago: https://www.youtube.com/fox32chicago?sub_confirmation=1

Watch FOX 32 Chicago Live: https://www.fox32chicago.com/live

FOX 32 Chicago delivers breaking news, live events, investigations, politics, entertainment, business news and local stories from Chicago and across the nation.

Watch more FOX 32 Chicago on YouTube:

FOX 32 Headlines: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL2-nR6U1joOT92lWD_QLYoNijiDo9uYaP
Good Day Chicago: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL2-nR6U1joORm02SSjflpEVzL0ydEqeFu
Special reports and stories: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL2-nR6U1joOTGGgDx9B31HcT9IM60Al0-

Download the FOX 32 Chicago News app: https://fox32chicago.onelink.me/KNQ9?pid=social&c=youtube&af_web_dp=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.fox32chicago.com%2Fapps

Download the FOX 32 Chicago Weather app: https://www.fox32chicago.com/apps

Follow FOX 32 Chicago on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Fox32Chicago/
Follow FOX 32 Chicago on Twitter: https://twitter.com/fox32news/
Follow FOX 32 Chicago on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/fox32chicago/

Subscribe to the FOX 32 Chicago newsletter: https://www.fox32chicago.com/newsletters