Noa Essengue BOUNCES BACK and Arturas Karnisovas SPEAKS | CHGO Bulls Podcast

Noa Essengue BOUNCES BACK and Arturas Karnisovas SPEAKS | CHGO Bulls Podcast

What up, Bulls Nation? We are here in Vegas. It’s your Bulls summer league live. It is day three for us. The Bulls fared better, but still lost to the Kings yesterday. We’re going to break it down. Solid bounceback game from Noah Asen. Plus, AK spoke during the broadcast, little interview with the broadcast crew. He had a lot of interesting things to say about Josh Giddy, Kobe White, the future of this team, and the goals he is setting forth. We’re breaking it all down with our friend Junior Po of the Chicago Tribune next. [Music] [Applause] [Music] No one can see me. What’s going on B? Welcome in CI B summer league live coming to you from the very hot desert. I’m back that is big day BWL sports will go on the end perfectly qu still despite the heat will gole and joining us the incomparable Bulls beat reporter for the Chicago Tribune. Subscribe to the trip so you can read all of her great reporting. Follow her at by Julia Poe. our friend Julia Poe joining us in the building. Making his track off the strip to come to our little bunker here in the desert. Welcome to our humble digs. How are you feeling? I’m doing great. It was uh it was wonderful to have Will have to come out and like open the gate to your compound here. We have a we have a full in front of our We don’t let any rip wrap in here. Absolutely not. Somehow I’m here. So, and you are as is our queen of the controls, Katie, obviously on the side couch. Our queen of the social media, Emma, also rocking. She’s got the leftover pizza ready to go. Uh, all right. So, day three for us here in Vegas. The Bulls 0 and2 so far, but after a 44 point blowout loss in game one, a solid response that Billy Donovan the third talked about after that ugly one. We got to wear this. They did. And Modest gets the day off. more focus of course on their 12th overall pick, the rookie Noah Asen who had a rough first outing, but Big Dave a near double double in the first half. He finishes the first half with 10 and nine. Unfortunately, of course, left in the second half with that quad kusion. Doesn’t sound too serious, but we sat here yesterday and said, “We thought Noah was going to be a project. Looks like an even bigger project.” But how do you feel like he responded after that? I mean, it’s why I said yesterday I’m giving him grace. You know what I’m saying? after that first game like it was a horrible game obviously but it’s your very first one in the summer league playing against NBA talent I’m going to give him grace on it I was I expected him to be better in that second game he was much much much better in that second game just the aggression that he played with I love the rebounding lets you know the aggression that he played with because he immediately had six rebounds in the first quarter had four points six rebounds and a block in the first quarter like he was out there to perform um he didn’t I like that He has a shooter’s mind in a sense that doesn’t matter if he hits it, airballs it, breaks it, he’s on to the next one. You know what I mean? And he’s like, “Fine, okay, it missed it. I’ll do it again next time.” And I really like that. That’s a great thing to have at such a young age where it doesn’t uh bother you. But man, he really showed again for me defensively, you know what I’m saying? Just as far as how he does I’m watching his feet, you know what I’m saying? And how he defends up the floor, that is literally how you teach it. And he’s just really good at it. And yeah, the offense was just much better. It was really sad that, you know, he got that little injury, but glad to hear it was nothing uh super serious, but no, it was good. And we needed to see that. Bulls fans honestly needed to see that. Yeah. Julie, what do you think about just not only his game yesterday, but the contrast from the first game where everything was like moving really fast and just didn’t really feel like he had I don’t want to say he wasn’t playing with ever, but it just the impact and Billy talks about like feeling him on the court. It didn’t feel like that was there in that first game. Yeah, I think that first summer league games are always a great kind of like test of just the physical profile of a player because all of these guys are young, but there’s young and then there’s like young young. There’s young and then there’s children. Yeah. And I mean like with Noah just with his age, even that difference between I think it’s like a 9month difference of how old he is right now versus how old Montas was in the same position. That’s a lot of time. And so I just think it’s not surprising that he came in there and he looked like his hands and feet are still a little bit big for his body and he didn’t know where things were going and he looked a little overwhelmed and he even said that he was like very surprised by the physicality afterwards. So I think game one not surprising to me at all. Game two, I was uh I think like moderately pleased with how much he improved everything that he could control because like the shot is not going to get better in summer league. There’s a lot of pieces of like technical stuff in his game that’s not going to get better in summer league, but all the things that could have gotten better, he improved. So, I think that’s a great sign. Yeah, definitely. I I want to know what you feel about him defensively because it wasn’t like it got better. You know what I’m saying? But it felt like there was a switch in the confidence he was playing with though defensively where in the first one he was just, you know, oh, this is what I do. I know I’m good at it. I’m going to do it. Did you notice that as well? Yeah. I don’t even know if it was confidence. I just felt like he was speeding up how quickly he was able to read things. I think he was just not even a step slow. I think that things were happening to him in that first game in a way that they were starting to happen a little bit more like in concert with him in the second game. I just did not think that he looked like he had to be reactive. He seemed to be able to actually tell, oh, you know, if this screener is coming, I have to do XYZ rather than letting himself get like hit by a body and then go, oh my god, I got hit. Okay, now I have to go somewhere. So that’s I mean, that’s just summer league. It’s why this is so much like it’s it’s not great basketball all the time, but it’s very informative basketball if you kind of watch those growth patterns from game one to game two. So yeah, I was I was encouraged by that as well. Sure. What’s your sense of like how much just talking to like Billy Donovan the third and Noah and Modis and some of the players that we’ve been able to interview like what’s your sense of how much stock they are putting into their performances here? Because I think for us it’s like we can look at the things big picture and be like okay we’re seeing progress here or like he is this amount ready to play basketball compared to what we thought but like obviously the terrible game one is not going to determine his entire career and and we saw improvement but like how much do you get the sense that they putting stock into the big picture as opposed to just the outcome of a specific game or play? I I don’t know if it’s necessarily I think that summer league is going to be taken apart as like a package by the entire Bulls organization. I don’t know necessarily if they’re going to take that and be like, okay, this informs how ready he is to play at the start of the season. I think it’s more like, okay, here is the entire package that we need to give him to work on. you go like he has to go back to Paris and then move back and get fully moved in. And during that time, here’s everything that we want him to work on before preseason. And then how he improves from the end of summer league to the start of preseason is going to start informing, okay, like he has to go to Windy City for the first month versus we’re going to keep him around and have him like travel with the first team. We’ve seen them kind of make all those decisions with Montas last year. And my full expectation is just whatever the timeline was for Montas, double it for Nella. Just kind of given where he’s at. I do feel like there’s something to be said for the progress itself. Like he put himself into the game early. I felt like the last game to your point, he just kind of like I was saying the other day like he wasn’t just like a step behind, he was like a play or two behind. Um and that’s like to be expected for an 18y old. I he’s going to be like a year younger than a lot of draft picks in next year’s draft. So, I am giving him plenty of time at that. But like the fact that there was progress, the fact that we saw him be productive in a professional German league, I do think that there’s some positive signs there. Um, and just the pace of the game and the speed of the game and the physicality of the game. I think that’s uh just an adjustment period. But uh Dave and I were talking about the quote you just brought up about him being a little bit surprised by the physicality of the game. What did you make of that? Just hearing him say that. I Okay. So, I It’s rare that like players kind of admit that. For real. Yeah. Absolutely. I think so. Part of the thing with Noah, just with talking with him with a couple of the one-on- ones that I’ve had with him early, is that the language barrier does sometimes mean that you have to take like the actual words that he uses with a grain of salt because he’s actively translating in his head from French. So, that is part of it. Um, but I know I I’m not really that surprised by it. I think that is the approach that he’s going to take to articulating all of his thoughts and feelings. I think kind of through this rookie season, Mas was very much like, I’m not afraid of anyone. I’m going to be the best player ever. No one can take me. Love that. Was like almost like saying it so that he himself would believe it. I feel like like I think he does believe it, but like he was just speaking it into existence. whereas Noah was like more kind of uh candid about like yeah I’m very skinny guys that like talk is so I don’t think that that’s super surprising I think it’s very reflective of what his personality is going to look like because I think he is going to be a little bit more interior and a little bit more willing to actually voice some of those things where like Montas if you ask him about oh were you frustrated by this were you disappointed by this do you think that this was bad he always is like going uptalk and that’s just kind of how he approaches like his own selft talk whereas Noah I think is a little bit more like he will admit those things so it’s not surprising but I think it has more to do with just like difference in personality. Sorry to hijack but I have one more just you mentioned the one-on-one that you did with him and I wanted to give you a chance to talk about the behind the scenes of that interview and what you thought about him and just kind of plug the story because I thought it was a really good feature. Yeah, Noah is a really interesting guy because, you know, he’s 18, but everything that you hear from everyone that’s working with him right now is how mature he is and how he feels like he’s 23, 24, 25. And a lot of that is because of kind of his upbringing. He was um raised in a family where it was basically just him, his mom, and his brother. And his mom’s a math teacher. His brother is 5 years older, went off to school. He was like only 14, 15. So Noah has been like kind of the man of the house for a bit and then he went off to Germany when he was 16, which Germany to is like I did have to look that up. Germany to France is like being like, “Oh, I live in Missouri and I went to like Illinois for so it is it’s not like quite the same thing, but it is still, you know, he he went somewhere else. He went away for uh two years. He was like cooking for himself and taking care of himself. And this is a guy who really does kind of I think for a lot of Americans it’s very easy to be like oh he’s from Paris like oo la look at this guy be like so bougie and he’s actually like yeah exactly h um but he actually really does not have like that kind of background and this is someone who is really seeing this as an opportunity to like he wants to retire his mom he wants to elevate his family out of the level of discomfort that they had growing up and so I think again I think at an age where like my mom is still dropping me off at high school like he’s going to play professional basketball in Germany. So the exactly and no he’s you know he’s cooking for himself. He’s uh he’s a guy that like he likes to draw in his free time. He designed his own forearm tattoo. He’s like a very like artistic like I said kind of like interior guy. So it’s a little bit of a different maybe vibe than some other players that have been drafted by the team recently. Yeah. Julia’s just the best at features. So go check that one out in the Tribune. Like really good story. There you go. Katie just threw it in the chat. And speaking of what else Katie threw in the chat is a poll. If you’re hanging out with us on YouTube, how you are feeling as a Bulls fan about Noah Asen through his first couple of games, great, good, skeptical, or bad, no shame, however you cast your vote. Uh, shout out to everybody hanging out with us. Hit that like button if you’re there. Make sure you also subscribe to the H Sports YouTube channel. Uh, Matt Legend, one of our regulars, said he was impressed with the aggressiveness of Noah’s rebounding. Uh our guy Clem, French Bulls fan, saying we said from the start, no one needs to improve his shooting. It’ll take time. What he can bring straight away is what we saw last night, energy, rebounds, and defensive awareness. And I think like go when you were talking about the way that the game was too fast and too physical for him in that first game. And that was part of what led to the seven turnovers we saw. I like one of the things I liked about the way he bounced back yesterday, he kept that aggressiveness on the boards, but he lost a little bit of a dramatic energy that led to a lot of those turnovers. Like don’t try and do too much too soon. I know it’s summer league, your first game after getting drafted as a lottery pick, you’re trying to make a name for yourself. Like you can have that aggressiveness on the boards while also just kind of taking a step back and realizing like what can I control right now? What can’t I control? Yeah, there was only like a couple of times where you saw him like put the ball on the floor and he was like about to do too much and one of them he just he got off of it. He realized what was happening and he got off of it. A couple of them uh resulted in free throws. He was great getting to the line seven times. That’s like one of the I think most crucial indicators for him was like his free throw rate in atm was like incredible for a guy who’s that skinny who doesn’t really handle the ball finds a way to get contact and drop fouls which is really impressive. Um, and the rebounding, like he just immediately got two offensive rebounds in the first couple of minutes. Uh, grabbed another one, had a tip in, and I feel like he just kind of settled after that. And that was a big step forward for him after having a bad game to find a way to insert himself, give himself a little bit of confidence, um, and then just go from there. So, uh, obviously he played well in the first half and then, we didn’t mention it yet, but left in the third quarter early on. Um, I thought he like stepped on someone’s foot, but I think he uh ended up banging knees. Yeah. And was out for the remainder of the game with a knee cont uh knee contusion. Am I getting that right? Quad. Yeah. Um I I still can’t tell if he got a knee to the quad or a knee to the knee, but it was he took a knee to something. But it sounds like just dayto-day. And that he I would not be surprised if he is back on Monday. Yeah. No, I was really impressed. I think also watching him go coast to coast like he’s awesome in transition, but watching him handle the ball going coast to coast, it was like in three dribbles he was at the room. Yep. And just I didn’t realize how long the strides were uh on him, but even doing that and then hitting with the Euro step. Like you could just really see the comfort he has when he’s in transition. When he’s bringing it up and trying to create, it’s not really the same yet for him. I’m sure they want to get to that level, but just seeing that he does have that comfort and confidence handling the ball in transition was good for me because he was getting it ripped up every single time down the floor in that first game. So impressive. Yeah. Uh shout out to Felipe Cruz in the chat. He said, “Let’s feel Bulls.” I believe from Sa Paulo, Brazil. AK is getting global with his burners. You guys look at that. Uh I’m much love to you, Felipe. Thanks for tuning in. Um so, you know, two games in. We’ll see. You know, we’re still waiting on an update, right? As far as Noah and whether or not he’s going to be available to play tomorrow. And Modus. Yeah. And and Modus who said for their game one on Friday, I’ll play it Monday. Obviously, if it’s up to Modis, like dude, he was he did not sit down during that entire game yesterday. He wanted to play yesterday. Let’s hope that, you know, it was just a minor they I believe they called it a quad contusion when they officially announced that he would not return midame last night. You know, it would be a shame if we just saw those two games, especially considering the second one was so much better than the first. So, let’s all cross our fingers and hope we get to see some more of Noah Asen uh here in Summer League. And speaking of which, uh, we’re going to dive a little bit deeper and break down the different parts of Noah’s game with something we do out here in Vegas called Heat Index, his work on the glass, his shooting, all aspects of his game, drawing fouls. We’re going to break it down and grade it out uh from a gradient scale of how freaking hot it is out here. I’m sweating, sweating inside in the air conditioning. But before we do that, let’s read some ads, shall we? Hit that like button. Make sure you subscribe to that C Show Sports YouTube channel. Tune in some ads. We’ll be right back with some more deep dive on Noah, plus breaking down AK’s press, not press conference, interview from the broadcast yesterday. I know today’s show brought to you by Sunnyside Censory, your home for judgment free cannabis shopping. A place for all kinds of visitors are welcome to explore, discover, and purchase a wide array of high quality products. It’s your onetop shop for all of your cannabis needs because Sunnyside has an expertly curated menu with over 100 different strains to choose from. That’s right, I said 100. Plus, they offer easy online ordering and instore pickup. Get in, get out, get on with your day and your summer vibes. Even if you’re a pro, they’ve got you covered. Again, 100 strains on their menu, new ones added on a daily basis, and an expertly curated menu from their staff. Check out the wellness advisor staff mix collection. Visit sunnyside.com for bright day including 50% off your first three online purchases. 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He wants to go to Vegas, but he can’t because he gets lost because he’s 16. Don’t get bit, y’all. Empire today is what you need. Clear upfront pricing, that all-inclusive pricing. Plus, you can schedule installation as soon as the next day. There are flooring experts, dedicated flooring professionals whose focus is on flooring every single day of the week. You can schedule a free in-home estimate today because some things are just better at home. CHGO listeners, you can receive a $350 discount using this promo code. CHGO. You heard me right. $350 discount. CHGO is the promo code. Restrictions apply. Visit empiretoday.com/chgo for full details of 588 to 300. Back empire today. Boom. Well, I I know maybe toss Julia. Julia, how’s your empire jingle? Like, do you have like I don’t know if I have one. I don’t know if I have one yet. I wasn’t told to prep this. You guys, I’ll work on it. I’ll work on some harmonies for you guys. I’m going to really come in and hit that like alto. It’s going to be really good. I wonder when the last time somebody was named Biff was. That’s such a 1950s name. I feel like number 16y olds. I think Biff is 16 working at the big box store. Noah’s age 16 going to play for old I was picturing Noah good basketball player working in the department we’re rolling along bowl live covered summer league in Las Vegas pig Dave goat and of course our guest the one and only Julia Po of the Chicago Tribune all right guys so let’s dive a little bit deeper into what we’ve seen from Noah in these first two games fans obviously a lot riding on this 12th pick we’ve We’ve also seen uh some action from other players that were kind of in that zone of mid to late lottery. I’ve seen a lot of Bulls fans lamenting uh passing on Carter Bryant who has looked solid especially on the defensive end through these first couple of games. But so hey, the pick is the pick. Noah is our guy. Let’s dive a little bit deeper with what we’re calling the heat index out here in Vegas. A gradient scale of what we’ve seen from different parts of his game. Katie, if you want to toss that up. Uh, and where do we want to start? Let’s start somewhere positive. Okay. Rebounding. Rebounding. Yeah. I mean, he did have a double double yesterday and four of his six rebounds came on the offensive glass. Honestly, I think the best thing I’ve seen Noah do offensively through these first two games was that offensive rebound and step through put back he had yesterday. It was just like really strong like positioning on the offensive glass and using his length to snare that rebound away from the defender. I can’t remember who it was, but he was doing his best to box Noah out. But as as lanky or dare I say, no offense, scrawny as Noah is, he still has some instinct to get positioning on the glass. Yeah. And that was one of his four offensive rebounds. Like I think that’s one of the things I’ve been most impressed by so far. And that’s what’s impressive to me is a guy that skinny of getting that many rebounds in the way that he did. It wasn’t a physical thing that he did. Like it was just really fluid and kind of smooth how he was in there. It was watching him use his IQ to kind of do that. If you watch all the great rebounders, they can do the physicality, but most of them have a real smoothness. It’s the Dennis Rodman. Exactly. You know, I’m going whatever. However you want to do it, but they can get physical, but that came kind of later on. But you have to have that mental for it. his IQ, you know what I’m saying? Knowing where the ball was going and then knowing when to cut inside to get that rebound like he made his presence felt kind of doing it that way. And I and to do it all in the first quarter and I thought that that was really impressive when I looked up at the board. I was like, “Wait, six rebounds? That’s for real in one quarter?” Like it was just really impressive to see him um do that knowing the work that he was doing on the defensive end as well. And I think like obviously the 10 rebounds is a big number, right? Like that’s if you are anybody getting 10 rebounds in a game, that’s a good sign. But he did it in 19 minutes. Like he left the game early in the third quarter and I I just don’t think you fall into that many rebounds. Like he really was fighting for it. I do think he has kind of a knack for the ball in terms of understanding where he needs to be and uses his length well. Um and yeah, I mean if you down to 36 minutes, it’s like 17 18 rebounds in a game. I think that can be a real strength of his especially on the offensive class. like the Bulls have kind of prioritized that um basically every other year years ago was Andre Drummond was all like a big part of the Bulls offense because they needed to get extra possessions to try to make up for the fact that they weren’t shooting any threes. Um last year just with the transition it wasn’t as high of a priority because they needed to get back uh in transition defense because that was a real weakness of theirs. But I don’t know, I feel like with Noah out there, they have an opportunity to turn that back into a strength. And you saw just four offensive rebounds in 19 minutes is like really impressive for that for that kind of a player, especially somebody who is so like I mean, even he was saying overwhelmed physically by the just the quality of the opponent. And offensive rebounding too is that is an area where someone who is undersized or young and kind of still growing into that into that body. That is somewhere that you can excel even if you are kind of struggling with other physical aspects. Cuz so much of it is not like it’s not you boxing your man out. It’s not you necessarily musling through someone. It’s knowing, okay, I’m here. They’re there. The shots going. Here’s where I need to go. And so I think that that’s again when you talk about like controlling what he actually can fix in this week of summer league, that I think was like probably one of the things that stood out the most to me. Yeah. And offensive rebounding too. It’s just like a different skill than defensive rebounding. So maybe did we separate those out? I can’t remember. We could talk about the other one. Yes, we did. So, we gave him on the scale of blue to fire emoji. The scale consisting of a we we also just found out I can apparently not see the difference between colors. So, we have we have a blue, we have a yellow, we have a orange, we have a red, and we have a fire emoji. So, that’s the scale. And we gave him a red. So, four out of five on the offensive rebounding and a three out of five, right? Can I see that correctly? Yeah. on the defensive rebounding. The offensive rebounding to me is again different skills, but like those are like aggressive plays. You have to go out and make the plays. But even with the defensive rebounding, it wasn’t those like I mean years ago, Russell Westbrook was getting criticized for like the team just letting him get the rebound so that he could push the break. It wasn’t that. He was getting up, he was chasing them down. Um and I and I feel like it was almost as if he was, you know, implementing some of that offensive rebounding skill into the defensive side, which I think is pretty impressive. So on, you know, similar lines to the defensive rebounding, let’s now talk about the rim protection, which was another one of the stronger grades that we gave Noah through his first two games. Another red basketball. We’ve seen a couple of blocks from Noah so far uh that have been uh the the chase down block was like really impressive. Chad for our guy RG uh DMVR videographer, he was there shooting some stuff for the Bulls game yesterday. He had a great slow shot of that block and you see the reaction time and the length of Noah when he made that block and like okay AK clearly has a type and we’re going to talk about that a little bit later when we break down 88 in game interview but like when you see him be able to make defensive plays around the rim like that as a Bulls fan it’s encouraging because we have been lamenting a lack of rim protection here for how many years now? Oh, it’s been 83 years before. It’s been a long time. No, seeing that at in addition to what everything that he did well in that game, but seeing that, knowing that that’s what he does well, man, honestly, my brain, I was like, this is really, really good and impressive, man. Like, knowing you know play good on defense and that’s what you can hang your hat on, but then actually seeing it in action and knowing that the chase down blocks are a part of it. So, it could be a guy who’s just good defensively and bodying you up, you know what I’m saying? Getting to the man on on both side could be like a Alice Caruso or something like that. But knowing that aspect of it, too, that no, I can wipe this away as well. If it if we’re down four and the team steals the ball and they go out in transition and try to score and he’s running with them, I got a good chance that he’s going to reject that and get the ball and bring that momentum back on the other side of the floor. So, those that’s how my brain was working when I saw that. just really great and a good thing to have for a young man who has such a, you know, off game in it first. Yeah. And there’s different types of shot blocking like the chase down like LeBron James, you know, chase down artist stuff is awesome and that’s just like see ball go get ball and that’s a valuable skill. But I also thought there were some plays there where he like contested with verticality like got somebody to, you know, dump off to the other block and then he like rotated over there and and altered that shot too. So, um I think as we’ll talk about with like the awareness and IQ section, I think it’s still moving pretty fast around him, but the fact that he’s able to make some of these plays I thought was really impressive and I think it’s really cool like listening to both both of you all like you have brilliant basketball minds and you can break stuff down, you know, for people that they might not have seen. But what’s great is when fans can see 2 plus two equals four. You know what I mean? When they can just see it simply and say, “Oh, I know that.” It’s not just like, oh, that guy’s a good schemed, you know, defender. No, he keep got there. He blocked the shot. You know what I’m saying? Where a guy was trying to score. So, that’s also an awesome thing. Uh, and so from uh perhaps to perimeter defense, we graded Noah just a just a middle of the road o orange basketballs a three out of five. I’ve seen some stuff I like from him. His footwork, at least as far as just being an 18-year-old, still, you know, very, very young. his lateral movement when he’s trying to and even a couple of times picking guys up full court in these first couple of games. Obviously, there’s still some work to be done, but I don’t know about you, Julia, what and what you’ve seen from Noah and his, you know, mobility when he’s tried to guard, you know, smaller guys, quicker guys around the perimeter. I’m encouraged while also knowing there’s work to do when it comes to his foot footwork around the perimeter. Yeah, his lateral mobility is probably a little bit further off than maybe like Mas was for instance at this time last year. But again, going back to the physical profile thing, once I saw how he moved around other summer league players, I was like, that’s completely fine. He just he literally just needs to get more comfortable at the height that he’s at right now and get a little bit more time playing at the speed. And I think that will be fine. I think like middle of the road is very fair. There were a few plays actually in that first game in the second half where he started getting into passing lanes a little bit more, started getting a little bit more disruptive where I was like, “Okay, that at least is starting to slow down for him.” I think the big question for him, he’s been build as being switchable one to five, which is obviously mostly buzzword whenever anyone says that like Alex Caruso can one to five and that’s like I don’t know him, Drew Holiday, and like no one else basically. Like that’s that’s a really hard thing to ask anyone to do. But I do think that just being able to, like you said, improve that footwork is going to be important. I think that’s going to be a work in progress. I think it’s probably going to be one of those things that you’re going to see him maybe get the short leash and get pulled out of games by Billy Donovan over it throughout this rookie season. And I think you just have to like not be worried about that. It’s going to be really normal growing pains project. Yeah. All right, moving through our heat index grades for Noah. Um, you know, I think it kind of goes along with some of the stuff on the defensive end that we’re talking about awareness and IQ. We gave him another middle of the road pack grade there with the orange basketball because I like I’ve seen good and bad as far as evidence of his awareness because I’ve seen him make some pretty heads up quick reaction plays when he’s playing on the weak side defensively. uh some help defense uh situations as you were just saying Julia getting his hands to passing lanes and then as go you were talking about early on uh like we also have seen especially in game one some examples of him being totally lost out there. So like how it’s kind of hard you know that’s probably why we ended up in the middle because we’ve seen I I’ve seen examples of both sides of the spectrum of like wow that was a really heads up play that Noah just made and then also like yo where was Noah’s head on that. Mhm. Yeah. I know we need a go-to break here shortly, but I I feel like overall the like there’s points in the game where he feels really locked in and then there’s points where it seems like he either loses attention or just like is a step behind. Um I think in particular like getting over screens is going to be a challenge for him just because he’s so like long and you know it’s hard to to fight through those. Um, but I I feel like I’ve seen enough there in terms of like the groundwork where he’s you you feel confident that he’s going to at least improve to being slightly above average and then, you know, you get some of those like highlight reel blocks in there or defensive uh deflections, whatever it may be, and that kind of elevates him up a little bit, too. So, I think there’s some real groundwork there. I don’t feel like it was really great yet, but you saw some of what he can be, and I think that’s kind of what you’re looking for in Summer League. Absolutely. and uh you know some some blue basketballs for the uh the three-point shooting. I like I mean come on like we know that the shot is a work in progress. Yeah, he collectively is one of seven through two games. He was one of uh three on Friday. He was 0 of four yesterday including couple of air balls, couple of ugly looking shots. One of the air balls did just graze the bottom of the net and find its way to was it Lachland’s hands? Somebody one of the teammates. It was a pass. It was an assist and an airball. You know, I don’t know how worried people are about the shot and just like let’s hope. And then and then of like I don’t want to dive into the whole like you know they fired Peter Patton. We all know what you know it’s it’s so bad right now that I’m not worried if that makesense. Yeah. That’s an all time quote. Dave come all the way back around horseshoe theory. We shall see how he develops that three-point shot. But so a great answer after two games. Like I was I feel better after game two than I did after game one. I could definitely say that. All right, with that, let’s knock out our second couple of ads. When we come back, we’re going to dive into what we heard from Bulls VP, our turos in that in-game interview he did with the broadcast crew. We are hanging out here CO Bulls summer league live. 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They were taking the tempo on what AK and the Bulls are up to and he was taking the temp on, you know, how things are how things are going, how things are vibing here in Summer League. Not sure the thermometer works. Tap on the temperature. It’s it’s hot. It’s cold. I don’t know what’s going on, but so taking the temp on what AK has to say because as Bulls fans, we know we don’t get that very often. Maybe a few times a year and it was Mark Everestly, the GM who spoke on draft night. So we did hear from AK at his season ending press conference many months ago, but have not heard from him since. So he joined the broadcast crew during the Bulls Kings game yesterday and we heard a lot of familiar things. We heard the phrase last 30 games. for our pal Patrick Norton back in Chicago. Uh we heard we finished 15 and five. Another classic. It’s the new 14 and N or whatever. What’s the that one went platinum? Yeah. Uh he said he he said that they are in transition. Didn’t didn’t use the R word. We’re in transition trying to build around this young core, trying to add in the draft free agency. We’ll see what we do next year. Um Julia, what what stood out to you? uh listen to AK answer those questions for the broadcast crew. Well, besides the fact that if I have to hear 15 and five tabed one more time, I mean I that one frustrates me a lot because it’s especially when we’re working about like writing about this, it’s really difficult every time that that gets brought up to likely articulate to the reader how much that doesn’t matter because there’s like so many different reasons why it doesn’t. And quite frankly, an executive does and should know that. Um, I think it’s really like fair thing to bring up if you’re in like a end of your performance review and you’re trying to get your boss to like extend you or something like that, but I just don’t think it needs to be like publicly brought up anymore. And I don’t I don’t really understand why. Almost insulting. Yeah. Yeah. It’s it’s not even fair, I think, to the team itself, which like I think we’ve talked about a lot, like the buyin that that team showed last year, the individual, like the group as a whole. It was like impressive that they were able to stay that locked in for that late and they were asked to do some kind of crazy stuff. Great. It just doesn’t inform what they’re doing moving forward anymore. And so I think a couple things stuck out to me. The main thing that I kind of am still struggling with in this off season is defining what they think their young core is because I know that like Arturas, Billy, any anyone working with the team always talks about it’s kind of like Josh and Kobe. And I’ve talked to Will about this before of like I don’t understand what the path forward is if you think that is what you’re building around just with where we know they’re going price-wise and where they’re kind of at talent wise where both of them are I think we both think incredibly highly of Kobe. I think uh Josh showed a lot last season. They’re still supplemental like centerpiece players. They’re not I know I’ve been told by people within the Bulls front office that they have never seen Kobe as being someone that they would build with like in terms of building like around him. That’s not around. Correct. And so I don’t really understand how you can say that and know that and then still publicly your kind of like dialogue is always just being like, oh, we’re building around these players that we have publicly and privately said, but those aren’t players that you build around. So it’s like, okay, what what are we doing then? like where where are we going then if you are kind of like always saying multiple things that are in contradiction with one another and and you know bringing up Kobe and the way that he talks about him like that Katie I’m not sure if you have that gra we get the quote exactly right he was asked about the future of this team and Kobe and Josh you know because the broadcast crew was like well Josh obviously restrictive agent Kobe up for an extension uh AK said about Giddy and Kobe yes we love them both there’s ongoing conversations it’s just a part of the process hopefully we’ll see them both for a long time in Chicago. Um, so look, we know like Kobe was sitting there courtzside yesterday as well as their game on Friday. Josh Giddy, who based on people’s social media soothing is in Las Vegas, has not been their weapon with his teammates cheering on the young summer league bull squad. And people are kind of speculating as to why that might be as Giddy and the Bulls have yet to come to terms. And Kobe White, we all know, is due more money than an extension on his current deal. So when AK talks about it like that, it’s like, okay, is this AK being koi or is it him just really sometimes he does speak exactly what he means, right? Which can be frustrating in its own way to Bulls fans, but maybe the plan is we’re gonna come to terms with Josh at some point soon and then it’s Kobe’s turn to get paid and that’s our back court. like what do you make of that if that is what he’s trying to say? I mean I think the well first I think the like courtside attendance part of it is very awkward for these guys. Um Josh is in active contract negotiations. He’s not going to hang out courtside like of a Bulls game. We know that Kobe obviously like organized that LA workout which Josh was at. I don’t think that there is necessarily any awkwardness within that group but it’s just this is a weird part of the year for all of them. Um, that being said, I think the dynamic that you’re describing is interesting because when you look at kind of what I think everyone has heard about what the Bulls are prioritizing this off season, they’re trying to get Josh resigned and they have been open to at least hearing out offers on Kobe. And I think that I’ve talked about this extensively. The way that the Bulls move with Kobe is very interesting to me because at this point that is the centerpiece of your team in terms of the locker room. And you don’t always need to make like decisions based off of that, especially when you’re not good. Like I don’t think part of the locker room matters as much when you’re team that’s not competitive. But Kobe’s the guy that’s organizing all of the offseason training sessions. He’s the guy that’s getting everyone together on the sidelines at games. He’s going to be at the majority of these summer league games. He does all of those things. He’s been moved around positionally every single year for years now. And at the end of the day, he is still like very not their priority, even if Archer says we love them both. Like there is a tier one and tier two in terms of who they’re prioritizing there. And so I think it just feels a little bit disingenuous the way that and and again that’s contract negotiations. I’m not saying that that’s like bad. That is just the business that everyone’s in. But I think it’s a little disingenuous to be like, “Oh yeah, we love both of them, but we’re really trying to get one of them back and the other one is not like we’re we’re picking up the phone if people call about him, you know, like it’s just and it’s so interesting because we’ve seen this story play out.” This is exactly what happened with Zack Lavine. It was we really like him. He he’s going to be a part of our core. We’re bringing in players that he can supplement with Demar and Caruso and BC and he’s going to be a big piece of that. we’re going to give him a max contract and then day one they’re going to start shopping him and it’s like are you going to just end up doing that same thing with Kobe because you don’t get a good offer that you feel really compelled about. So if we just sign him we’ll we’ll know at least he’s extended at least he’s got a longer contract and that will make him more tradable. But will it? We’ve seen the market for these smaller guards. I mean Cole Anthony just got bought out. I think Kobe’s a better player than that. But like they didn’t want him there because they would rather renegotiate and extend Jiren Jackson’s contract. We saw Jordan Clarkson get bought out. We saw C.J. McCullum and Jordan Pool just get swapped for one another. Nobody really is excited about building around these score first guards. And I think Kobe’s got an advantage in terms of his size. He’s not six feet tall. He’s not as much of a defensive target. And we saw him really excel. I’m not like trying to take away anything from Kobe. Um, but it’s just hard to build that way, especially when you’ve got another defensive liability in the back court. Building around two defensive negative players is a very challenging thing to do. Um, and so I wonder longterm how that works. But also just like reading the tea leaves of how the cap is working, what the league is looking like, I just don’t see a really good option out there for them to get excess value for Kobe. And I don’t see them making a trade in which they’re not getting excess value. They just haven’t been willing to do that. Um, as far as Josh, like I’m a little surprised it hasn’t happened yet. Uh, again, there’s no other options out there for him. And so I imagine what’s happened here is that the Bulls have made an offer. Josh Giddy’s holding firm at what he wants and it’s kind of a standoff and I don’t really know like if or when he’s going to come down from that or if the Bulls are going to come up from that. There doesn’t seem to be any reason to if you’re the Bulls because you’re under no threat of another team swooping in. Right. Exactly. Um, we saw we we didn’t mention talking about this, but like Jake Fischer yesterday, who was at the game, uh, tweeted something kind of interesting that I don’t know, maybe we can just briefly hit on here, but he he tweeted, “Josh Giddy is in Las Vegas, but has noticeably been absent from both Bulls games at summer league. Several veterans just sat courtside here. Certainly seems like an indication that negotiations between the point guard and Chicago are not trending in an amicable direction.” I felt like that was pretty strong. I feel like there’s nothing uh at least from what I’ve heard like strong as in like a a a long leap of speculation to make. Strong in the sense that like amicable things not being amicable doesn’t sound right to me based on what I’ve seen. I think it’s just like Josh knows this is his chance to get paid and he’s trying to get paid understandably and the Bulls are trying to get a good deal on a guy that they still want to keep around. Like I don’t feel like Archerus was lying when he said we want Josh to be here. I think it’s just a matter of what the number is. And I don’t think there’s anything wrong with having those negotiations as we’ve talked about. I think they’re playing it the right way. So, um I imagine something will get done. I don’t know when that will be. Um but I I’m also not ruling out the qualifying offer. I really do think that that’s I mean Josh is really seeming to want to bet on himself and it’s hard to blame him. He played incredibly ready for that victory lap if he didn’t qualify. All right. So, there was a lot to get to in this AK interview. So, let’s move forward. Um I know you also want to touch on disco. Dave, I’m curious what you think about this because we’ve talked a lot about these young guys that atheists drafted. He’s asked about uh his previous two late lottery picks being modellis and know both here on summerly grasser. Uh and Katie, if you want to throw that quote up, AK said it’s versatile wing, swings, long, athletic. Those are the kinds of profiles that we’re looking for. Looking at this year’s playoffs, it’s all about athleticism, length, skinny dudes. That’s right. AK said skinny dudes. mobile, versatile in terms of defensively. They can switch on you. So that’s the profile we’re looking for. Big Dave AK has a type. He’s got a type. Yeah. And he’s showing you what his type is. I mean, he’s telling you what exactly. There you go. There’s a picture on the cover. It’s kind of what what they just said. Like sometimes he’ll insult you with something a little bit, but then a lot of times he is really means exactly what he says and and he’ll do it like and you don’t know which side to go on. It’s really Dr. Jackekal and Mr. Hyde. don’t know which side to kind of go on with him. But in this instance, he’s 100% accurate in what he’s saying he wants and what uh he wants this team to be. And you know, I don’t think it’s a problem with that. You know, having the type that he has, that is kind of where the league is kind of trending, you know, with these kind of players, uh getting them very young, you know, I mean, developing them. I mean, it’s all great things. Modus isn’t I don’t think he’s 20 years old yet or if he just got there. Um and we already know how young a sing is. the second youngest in the draft behind Cooper Flag. Yep. So, he is 20, but so yeah, but yeah, these guys, you know, still can’t get in the club, you know, without an ID, you know, still can’t rent a car. So, they’re very young. So, yes, he has that type. I don’t mind that kind of type. It’s great to have, you know what I’m saying, that kind of athleticism, that kind of length because you want that switchability. That’s another word AK loves to throw out. Um, so I don’t mind him having that type. I think all the other issues is we see like stuff is on fire and he’s like no I’m warming the village it’s like no bro like we’re not blind to those kind of things but when he talks about what he wants and the players he gets on the scene and we actually see him do it that’s what I have that respect you know for people who tell me what it is and that’s what it is and I like that kind of stuff. It’s all that other stuff that we got issues with. Yeah. Yeah, and I think you know the length and switchability thing, we talked about it with the defense. Like if you have those kind of guys, it just opens up a world of possibilities as far as what you can build, especially with uh a center that, you know, the Bulls don’t have a long center right now, but like we know that their brand of center is not the rim roll or rim protector type. They had o opportunities to trade up for Malawatch, they didn’t take it. They traded away Daniel Gaffford, they could have taken Yan Baron. They didn’t do that. They’re not interested in that kind of a player. And typically when you are interested in a playmaking floor spacing center, those come with defensive limitations. And so having two guys like Modis and Noah who can, you know, switch around, run around the perimeter, defend the rim, make plays on that end, uh, you know, defensive disruption type of stuff, that really helps make up for some of that. And so, um, I thought that this quote was one of the few times where we actually got a little bit of a peak behind the curtain as far as like we we we see what type of player AK likes, but it’s interesting to hear him actually say it and what he’s trying to build and what he’s basing that off of. He just talked about the playoffs and what he’s seeing teams be successful with. Um, I think that’s like the kind of stuff that I wish AK said more of because it gives I think it gives people more uh faith in him that he has at least some idea of like what he’s trying to attempt and it’s going like they don’t want to say rebuild, they don’t want to say retool, uh, they say transition. They’re like they’re in a process of changing up their roster, whatever you want to call that, however you want to term that. um it’s going to take some time and they don’t have to get everything right right away. But I think it’s important for this runoff is to give the fans a sense of we are building towards something. We we don’t necessarily have like the details of the picture painted yet, but there is an outline that we’re towards. And this is really the first time that we’ve heard say like a player he likes or a style of play that he is after other than, you know, we change our shot profile, we want to shoot more threes, we want to establish an identity. All those buzzwords are like fine. and I expect him to say that stuff, but this is the kind of stuff where it’s like, okay, there’s like at least something that they’re building a little bit towards. I don’t think it necessarily explains everything, but it’s Yeah. All right. Last book that we wanted to get to from AK, and this one we could probably talk about for hours because there’s a lot to unpack and scrutinize. Speaking of what exactly AK is trying to build towards GOAT, he was asked by the broadcast team, “What’s your goal for this upcoming season?” Uh oh. You ready for this? Come on. You ready for this? Uh-huh. I hate every word of this. Quote, “To get better f out of the gate. Last year we were predicted to win 29. We won 39.” Great, great flex. So, we just tried to take small steps forward while our guys are developing and getting better and keep on adding additional things in draft and free agency going into uh 2026 summer. We have flexibility in terms of salary and cap less than you did before trade show tonight. So, we’re going to have to make decisions during that time. Ak goals to get better. It’s just it’s him rem It’s him picking up the the bar from its low position, making sure it’s still a bar and then placing it back down on the floor where it’s the lowest of bar. What’s your working on myself right now? We’re all working on ourselves here in Sally. We’re trying to get better. They’re they’re getting out of a long break up and find nine or 10 wiry lanky guys with athleticism to make a good team that’ll lose in the play tournament. Those are our goals. Y What’s your take on this? Because I feel like we’ve talked we’ve talked about it a lot and we can all rehash, but like I feel like I haven’t really heard what your stance is on just this approach. Obviously, he said a similar thing after the season. What’s your take on all this? Yeah, I mean I think I mean the the 29 versus 39 thing is again I I we we know for a fact that they are getting media training to not say things like that. So the fact that they’re still going on TV and saying things like that is very frustrating. I’ll leave it at that. Like I don’t know what else to do with that. Um but I think go to class. Yeah. I don’t know. But I I think something that’s interesting to me is the the 2026 target. Again, when you talk about like us actually getting little pieces of information out of the front office, I think it’s interesting that we are actually getting at least a few of these little markers of like this is the type of player that we’re looking at. This is the timeline that we’re looking at. I don’t really know what they think is going to be that much more special in 2026, especially given the fact again, I know they talk about the cap flexibility, but you’re about to lock in with Josh Giddy. you decisions to make with Kobe White. If they’re actually going to follow through with the steps that they say they’re going through in terms of committing to this young core, which again is a bunch of younger guys that they really do not feel outside of maybe MOAS, they really do not feel like are going to hit that big star. I just don’t necessarily feel like I understand why they think this is that different, which is interesting to me. I I know obviously where the numbers come down. I know that a being able to like the books one way or another is going to be helpful, but I just don’t get what they think is going to be that different if they keep locking in with this these like midlevel like mid-level in terms of their actual youth, mid-level in terms of their abilities with these younger guys that aren’t necessarily like big swing highlevel young stars that you can actually start trying to build something around. And then you hear like the we want to build a team with nine or 10 good players and you think like okay maybe you give him some of the benefit of doubt that like included in one of those nine to 10 good players is a star player but then you see like the way that they’re building it you just like do the cat math and it’s not there. Like I I’ve written about this before. I’ll do more deep dives on it. We have a couple more minutes here. I don’t want to get too deep into the numbers but like there isn’t money for them to be able to sign a max player especially if you want to have like a full roster. And you talked about Vu. I think they have like 84 million coming off the books next year. Um 82.7 million coming off the books next year. That’s great. That’s a lot of money, but you still have to resign guys, right? You have to fill the roster. You want to keep Kobe and you want to keep IO and you want to keep Giddy. You want to pay all these guys. You just bring in Aoro whose money goes into the following year. You bring Trey Jones back who has the player option in or the team option in year three, but that doesn’t help you in year two when you need cap space. Um the money for them to sign a max player is not there. And that’s that’s with seven or eight players on the roster. Like you still need to fill out the roster, including a starting center, which if BC and Zack Collins are gone, you don’t have anybody. So you have 39 million in cap space next year before you resign guys. And 39 million sounds like a lot of money. It’s 20% of the cap. Max contract, it’s close, right? And so the idea that they’re going to that this 2026 cap space plan is going to result in something I think is totally misguiding the fans of what actually will happen. Um I think that probably what they’ll do is resign some of their own guys and try to kick the can down the road or make some imbalance trade where they’re sending out expiring contracts for a bigger number to help them bring in a player who’s just making more money now and kind of use that as their version of free agency, which would be fine. Um but again, it’s just like yeah, you can make the big swing. Maybe you trade for, you know, a disgruntled star player. You’ve still got Giddy and Kobe and like this core that again good players who have shown growth, but they just aren’t ready to like win a championship even if you add Giannis into the mix or whatever it is. Yeah. And that’s what honestly what concerns me is even hearing him speak about his type and how they want to build and with seeing how they want to build, it feels like if he he just wants a name, you know, sometimes. So it feels like going into next season if a big name comes up and he’s able to throw a bag at them and get them. Damn what you’re doing, you know, damn what your team is, you know, trying. But I’m saying in this instance, I don’t think it’s a good thing, you know, because in those instances that where you just get that name like that, it’s teams that are close to something. You know what I mean? And this one, you’re trying to build. You’re continuing to say, “Yo, man, we’re starting over. We’re in transition. We’re doing things like that.” Well, you can’t be in transition when you throw that joint in the neutral. You know what I mean? Like didn’t go. You’re going nowhere. You know, you’re starting over again. So, you’re gonna ask Billy Donovan again. Okay. Yeah. Change everything again. You know what I mean? Flip this office again to fit this star player and what this person does best and we might make the playoffs and then we’ll go home. You know, so that’s what scares me most of anything is that he will get someone that doesn’t truly fit with what they’re trying to do here. And they have to get someone that actually fits with what they’re trying to do here. I’m not saying they have to play the same style or anything like that, but they have to fit in. You know what I mean? And it feels like he values the name sometimes more so than the fit. Well, and to the fit point, I don’t know if I’m convinced that the Josh Giddy Kobe White duo makes sense if you are trying to take that approach of we bring a and we see what we can do from there. I look at that and that just feels like clutter to me. Like the way and I don’t think that there’s any there I’m not suggesting that there’s any friction there. I think they like playing together. I think when it’s just them in kind of this like vacuum where it’s the two of them and Matas kind of like doing their thing, we think that works. But the way that Josh Giddy plays, the way that Kobe White plays, the amount that to get their productivity levels, they have to have the ball in their hands. Once you add in like a genuine bonafide star, I just I don’t get what that looks like. And that’s nothing against them. I think both of them like if you split them up and take them somewhere else could be really productive on a good team. But I think that if that’s the kind of like malleability that they’re looking for this roster to have, I do not see how you accomplish that by saying, “No, we’re going to commit to Josh and Kobe like long term.” I just thousand% because you look at even just like the players they’re drafting. Let’s give them the grace that like Kobe, Modis, Noah, and Josh are foundational four pieces. That’s your one, two, four, right? A lot of grace. Joah, Joah, Josh, Kobe, Noah, and Modis is your one, two, three, four. So you’re looking at a star center like is Yokic available? like these guys with $4 million. He’s gonna be a $65 million a year player like that. They’re just not doing that. So, I don’t even think that the star part is part of it anymore. I thought that before they committed some of this money and maybe they are able to open up some more money. If you can get off Patrick, um that would probably require giving up an asset to do and you can just slide a star center in there. I think that’s kind of a fallacy, but like that would be the pathway to doing this. And so I think it just speaks to again how much more work there is to do. But when you make one or two moves every offseason, it just by the time you’re even close to figuring out what that move is, you’ve got to pay the guys that are cheap. You’ve got to like recycle some of this, right? Some of these roster moves won’t be chirping about that 2026 cap flexibility. Like it’s like I’m curious to see what they do with that. I just don’t think it’s going to be a star. Yeah, shout out to one of our regular shiny pigeon in the chat said, “Stars rarely move in free agency anymore.” Accurate. So why are we even hoping to get this cap space? Stars never come to Chicago either. So even more reason to call me on that tactic. Like you’re bragging about having cap space. We’ve already done some quick bet to prove with various cap hold guys who say you want to keep Josh’s contract. It’s not even a maxle contract amount of money. And even if it were, none of those bigname free agents, the shrinking number that there are in the NBA these days, have ever shown evidence to pick Chicago or even like consider Chicago as one of their ideal destinations. Like I think there’s like value in having cap space even if you’re not a team that can take in a max contract or be a player uh for that kind of a guy. It’s useful to absorb money. Do inbounds trades. you can maybe trade for like if they sent out, you know, Kevin Herder and Zack Collins plus a couple of picks. Uh that’s 36 million. Could you get a $45 million player back, $50 million player back, help relieve that team of cap space, bring in a better talent? Um that way I think that’s kind of the path is just a matter of who’s going to be available and are Noah and Mus going to be ready to, you know, kick things into acceleration mode when that time comes because you do have there is a timer on this. Like you do have to get somebody’s moves done before you start paying guys. Once you do that, like the whole way you do it is by using their low cap holds to sign guys and then go over the salary cap to bring them back. And so once those guys are expensive and they’re under contract, that cap space is is taken up. And so this really is the summer for them to be able to make moves. And I wonder what their plan is because I don’t think it’s going to be a star. So what is it? They do have to do something with that space. Speaking of timer on things, we are out of time for today’s show. But professional, no fear. We are out of time because we have other things on our to-do list today. Some fun stuff up ahead. Keep an eye on our socials, CS_Bulls on the Twitter machine. Follow us on CCO Sports Instagram page. Emma Slaying with that leftover pizza on the couch. Live your best life. And then of course, some of our fellow All City uh teammates are escaping Vegas today. We are still here today, tomorrow for the Bulls game. Yes, the Pacers game three. Uh we are here through our departure on Tuesday. So we will have another show, full hourong show tomorrow night for y’all after that Bulls Pacers game. Time TV TBD, but as KD showing you on the bottom of your screen there around 8:00 PM Central time, uh when we’re able to turn and burn after postgame media availability. So stay tuned for that one. Uh and in the meantime, also shout out Diesel 11 in the chat who said, “Love Julia Poe joins the squad.” The insights always added another layer of could not agree more, Julia. Great to see you as always. We appreciate when you join. Appreciate it. One and only Julia love the Chicago Tribune. Subscribe to the trip, read her great reporting, including that great profile she did on the Bulls 12th overall pick, Brook Noah. Follow her on that machine at Juliet Poe. Of course, the goat craft will go read his stuff allow.com. become a die hard so you can beat all DWL sports hanging out here in Vegas I’m bull_pack bulls Emma Katie queens that are sling keeping us alive here in Vegas uh enjoy the rest of your day we will talk to you tomorrow after Bulls versus Pacers hit that like on your way out do it for Katie she will hunt you down good even in the [Music] [Applause] We all silly like the mayor.

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The CHGO Bulls crew are LIVE from Las Vegas, breaking down the Chicago Bulls 109-92 loss to the Sacramento Kings in NBA Summer League action. It was a decent response after a 44-point drubbing in the opener, especially from Noa Essengue. The Bulls 12th overall pick was one rebound shy of a double-double at halftime, finishing with 12 points and 10 rebounds before leaving with a quad contusion. Plus, Arturas Karnisovas gave an in-game interview to the broadcast team, mapping his vision for the Bulls future. Is the VP of basketball operations focused on the right things? Peck, Big Dave, Will Gottlieb, and Chicago Tribune report Julia Poe also touch on the highlight reel passing from Yuki Kawamura and some non-Bulls standouts so far in Vegas.

0:00 Welcome to the show
2:30 Noa Essengue bounces back in game 2
20:00 Breaking down Essengue’s specific skills
36:20 Arturas Karnisovas reaffirms belief in Josh Giddey, Coby White core
46:15 The AK archetype

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