Forget the nine-month layoff from a competitive NBA basketball game.
For a young, rebuilding team like the Bulls that would seemingly be punishment enough.
But there’s a bigger concern now that the NBA Board of Governors approved the 22-team “bubble’’ restart on Thursday afternoon, leaving eight teams out and trying to find their way between now and October.
The Bulls are also officially removed from the Orlando recruiting game.
Think that won’t be a thing? Try again.
Look at the relationships that players have built the last decade-plus in just playing on Team USA. Back in 2008, LeBron James, Chris Bosh and Dwyane Wade spent the summer capturing a gold medal, and more importantly, planting the seed of how they would all play together within two years, eventually landing in Miami.
Heck, in the 2016 Olympics, then-Bull Jimmy Butler struck up such a solid friendship with Kyrie Irving that when Irving demanded a trade out of Cleveland in 2017, one of the four teams he listed as a destination spot was Minnesota, who just so happened to acquire Butler a month earlier.
Who demands a trade to the Timberwolves?
No, the recruiting game is a thing, and with the 2021 free-agent class arguably one of the most talented in league history, being left outside the “bubble’’ could be a three-year sentence in solitary confinement.
As has been described by the league, the bubble will allow players to freely come and go from their hotel rooms to play golf, eat at restaurants, or whatever activities they want to pursue, as long as they remain on the designated Disney Complex campus.
That’s basically the best-of-the-best the NBA has to offer, able to grab a round of golf or a serving of sushi with another player, a coach, or a front office executive either in public view or behind closed doors.
Let’s see the NBA even try and put a lid on the amount of tampering that will take place in the confines of the compound.
Meanwhile, teams like the Bulls, Knicks, Cavaliers and Timberwolves are hoping the NBA allows them some type of mandatory September training camp or a Fall League, just to lay eyes on their players in a competitive situation and prepare them for the 2020-21 season, likely starting in late December.
The Bulls, however, have more immediate concerns now that their 2019-20 season is over.
While the new front office of executive vice president of basketball operations Arturas Karnisovas and general manager Marc Eversley have very little wiggle room with their roster for one more year, they still have a major decision to make with head coach Jim Boylen and the coaching staff.
Boylen wrapped up the first year of a three-year contract, but has two major strikes against him. First, he can’t escape the 39-84 (.317) record since he became the head coach, and secondly, he’s one of the lower-paid coaches in the league, so his dismissal doesn’t leave a lot of dead money in its wake.
The Sun-Times has been reporting for weeks that Boylen’s fate was all but sealed, with Karnisovas and Eversley getting enough mixed feedback from current players and other personnel on Boylen to make the case that they want their own guy in that coaching seat.
While ownership has indicated that they liked Boylen, multiple sources have said that they would absolutely stand aside so that the new front office could have the final say.
