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