Is There Vision Inside the Chicago Bulls' Front Office Leadership?

Comparing Josh Giddey to Lonzo Ball is, at best, an apples-to-bananas comparison that should be adjusted for the reality of both players' attributes and their development as NBA players.

Moreover, the Giddey-to-Ball comp is also dated. Sam Vecenie and Andrew Schlecht of The Athletic wrote a 2021 NBA Draft scouting report on Giddey that summarized his NBA outlook with a direct comparison to Ball: "He [Giddey] has received plenty of comparisons to LaMelo Ball over the last year simply because of their similar statistical outputs in the NBL. But Giddey profiles more similarly to Lonzo than LaMelo."

By 2021, Ball demonstrated a dramatic turnaround in his three-point shooting after two seasons on the New Orleans Pelicans roster, shooting 37.6% on 7.2 3PA/game in his Pelicans stint compared to 31.5% on 5.3 3PA/game in his first two NBA seasons with the Los Angeles Lakers.

By his own admission, Ball credits his three-point shooting turnaround to Pelicans assistant coach Fred Vinson completely changing his shooting mechanics. Does future Bulls' success completely hinge on shooting coach Peter Patton executing a complete overhaul of Josh Giddey's shooting mechanics? How confident should Bulls fans feel about the premise of Patton saving Giddey's shot when Giddey has already had shooting development time with Oklahoma City Thunder assistant coach Chip Engelland?

Defense is a clear development need for Giddey, and comparing him to Ball is an unfair expectation to put on the 21-year-old before he plays a single minute for the Bulls. Ball's defensive reputation was already established by the time he declared for the 2017 NBA Draft.

Ball is a long defender at a height of 6-foot-6 with a 6-foot-9 wingspan, while Giddey is a neutral-length defender at 6-foot-8 with a matching wingspan. Giddey will always be defensively light compared to Ball, who can hold his own in defensive switches even against larger defensive assignments.

Another Chicago Bulls Front Office Misstep

All of the preceding is to say that the Bulls front office led by Arturas Karnisovas and Marc Eversley is building a case for lacking a sound vision for their long-term roster build. Projecting any level of Lonzo Ball's limited Bulls performance onto Josh Giddey's abilities is myopic talent evaluation.

Bulls On Tap already framed a case in which the "AKME" front office regime is largely motivated by sentimental objectives instead of competitive goals. Add to that ESPN's reporting on the Bulls front office "looking to recapture the magic they'd found for half a season in 2021-22” and there's now a case to be made that Chicago's higher-ups are as nostalgic as they are sentimental.

Sentimental feelings and nostalgia are the antithesis of visionary leadership. The front office leadership in the 2024-25 season will carry a burden of proof that they actually have a credible path forward to returning the Bulls to a legitimate winning franchise. At the moment, the "AKME" regime appears to be guilty of holding zero vision for the future of the Bulls basketball operations department.