Speaker 1: You're listening to the Hottest the Hottest. It be a
Speaker 1: podcast out here. I said what I said, it's the
Speaker 1: Heat Check Check.
Speaker 2: It's Welcome to the Heat Checks. Five good minutes, your
Speaker 2: weekly NBA debate and discussion podcast, and a bite sized portion.
Speaker 2: I am elated to welcome my guy from shy Town,
Speaker 2: Lawrence Holmes, to the show. Lawrence is a co host
Speaker 2: alongside Dan Bernstein of the best dance sports radio show
Speaker 2: in Chicago. They continue to be top dogs no matter
Speaker 2: what on Odyssey's WSCR The Score from ten am till
Speaker 2: two pm Central Time. Welcome to the show, Lawrence.
Speaker 1: I am so honored that you even asked me to
Speaker 1: do this, like, you're absolutely one of my favorites, so
Speaker 1: I'm so glad that we get this opportunity to hang
Speaker 1: out me too.
Speaker 2: Here's how it works. I'm gonna throw a topic at you,
Speaker 2: a slightly localized, controversial one, and then I'm gonna hit
Speaker 2: the clock. You have to think fast. We only got
Speaker 2: five minutes. Okay, are you ready?
Speaker 1: I'm ready.
Speaker 2: I'm gonna give you the topic and then i'm gonna
Speaker 2: hit the start button. Are the Chicago Bulls, the NBA's
Speaker 2: version of the New York Yankees historically great, sort of
Speaker 2: living off of that fumes unwilling to suck slash tank
Speaker 2: slash rebuild to win long term because they are terrified
Speaker 2: of the fan base turning on them.
Speaker 1: Go No, they're not the Yankees because the winning has
Speaker 1: not been sustained decade to decade to decade to decade.
Speaker 1: It's a very specific time frame with which the Bulls
Speaker 1: have won championships or even been championship contenders. So I
Speaker 1: can't give them that. I'm trying to think of the
Speaker 1: best baseball comp Maybe they're the Red Sox, but even
Speaker 1: the Red Sox had a window. You know what, the
Speaker 1: Red Sox is actually not bad. They're more Red Sox
Speaker 1: than they are the Yankees. For sure, a lot of history,
Speaker 1: people love the building, they have historic players, but they're
Speaker 1: not really in contention for anything special.
Speaker 2: So here's the thing that I'm concerned about for the
Speaker 2: Chicago Bulls. So I spoke with someone sort of close
Speaker 2: to the organization and their opinion was very similar, which
Speaker 2: is that they will not rebuild because it's more important
Speaker 2: to sell out Yankee Stadium aka UC and be competitive
Speaker 2: on a night to night basis than it is to
Speaker 2: rip it all down and start afresh, like the Oklahoma
Speaker 2: City Thunder, like the Spurs, like these small market teams
Speaker 2: like the Nuggets. They know that they need to burn
Speaker 2: it all down to build it all back up, and
Speaker 2: that's just not a possibility. And that is what I
Speaker 2: am fearing is happening with the Chicago Bulls.
Speaker 1: So I think that we're actually at an inflection point
Speaker 1: for the Bulls. It's funny, like before we were talking,
Speaker 1: I was texting with people. There's been all sorts of
Speaker 1: reports out there that the Bulls are now thinking about
Speaker 1: moving zach Levine. To me, a trade of zach Levine
Speaker 1: after you maxed him is a signal that you are
Speaker 1: getting ready to burn it down. I know that they
Speaker 1: have said that they want to keep Damar, but Damar's
Speaker 1: thirty forty years old, He's at the end of his contract.
Speaker 1: He's probably not going to be here for a while.
Speaker 1: And if you're starting over with Voots as your centerpiece
Speaker 1: for the near future, you're definitely rebuilding. I agree with you.
Speaker 1: I think in the past they have not wanted to
Speaker 1: rip it way down to the studs, but now I
Speaker 1: think that they don't see any other way out.
Speaker 2: Of it.
Speaker 1: They thought Levine was going to be the centerpiece of
Speaker 1: a championship team, and now they kind of know that
Speaker 1: if he's on a team where he can be the
Speaker 1: two or the three, I think that he's gonna be fine.
Speaker 1: But him is your lead dog. You don't want that.
Speaker 1: So maybe for the first time in a very long time,
Speaker 1: the Bulls are actually thinking about rebuilding.
Speaker 2: God, it's gonna be incredible because you look at this team.
Speaker 2: Four and seven, twenty second in defensive rating, twentieth in
Speaker 2: offensive rating, twenty first in net rating, no first round
Speaker 2: picks until twenty twenty six, one hundred and sixty five
Speaker 2: million dollars on the books, thirty million over the cap,
Speaker 2: Patrick Williams looking like Bustville twenty seventh and assist the
Speaker 2: turnover ratio twenty ninth and rebound percentage. If the Acme
Speaker 2: brothers don't know that it's time now, my man, I
Speaker 2: don't know when they will.
Speaker 1: You're one hundred percent right. We had them in the
Speaker 1: studio before the season began. It was great. It's really
Speaker 1: the first time that Bulls fans got an opportunity to
Speaker 1: talk with our tourist. Karnashovis and Mark Eversley. I think
Speaker 1: they get it, honestly, but this ain't it. Like this
Speaker 1: thing that they're putting out there is not it. You
Speaker 1: can't make this whole thing work, and they're stuck in
Speaker 1: like NBA hell, they're stuck in the place of they're
Speaker 1: not bad enough to really get to the top of
Speaker 1: the draft. They're not good enough to really be a contender.
Speaker 1: So you end up trying to make some of these
Speaker 1: fits fit and they just don't. Whether it's injuries to
Speaker 1: Alex Carusso the Lonzo ball thing. When we write the
Speaker 1: epitaph for this group of people that are running the bulls,
Speaker 1: that'll be the thing that they will point to and say, Man,
Speaker 1: if we just had Lonzo, we had a point guard
Speaker 1: that hits three pointers, we could have made this thing work.
Speaker 1: We'd had a point guard that can be the tip
Speaker 1: of the spear defensively, if we had a point guard
Speaker 1: that could be a transition guy and get our guys
Speaker 1: on the move, we would have been able to win.
Speaker 1: They can't do that, and it's all because a Lonzo
Speaker 1: is not available and maybe he never even plays again.
Speaker 1: That's where the franchises at and they've got to figure
Speaker 1: out a way to move on.
Speaker 2: Whooa, we got thirty seconds to spare. I think the
Speaker 2: only thing we really debated was about, is this the
Speaker 2: technicality of what a baseball team stuck in purgatory they're
Speaker 2: closest to. But I tell you what, it's not good.
Speaker 2: If you live, you're in the red sofice.
Speaker 1: Even if you're the eight, you're away.
Speaker 2: It's not a great comparison. That is all it is
Speaker 2: for the Heat Checks. Five good minutes with four seconds
Speaker 2: to spare. Thank you to Lawrence for joining us. There
Speaker 2: it is. There's the baby.
Speaker 1: Awesome.
Speaker 2: Catch him ten to two Central Time on six seventy
Speaker 2: to score in Chicago everywhere on the Odyssey app. We
Speaker 2: will be back tomorrow with the full blown episode of
Speaker 2: the Heat Check. Check out the feed for past episodes.
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