Transcript
A (0:01)
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Everybody talked about it since I first moved to Oregon. The big one. The earthquake that trashed the whole West Coast. Total destruction.
C (0:48)
Officially calling it the largest natural disaster in American history.
B (0:52)
I just didn't know what would help me next. So I took it all. Even the gun. It was time.
C (0:58)
Cello American Afterlife presented by Pair of Thieves the number one fiction and drama podcast in America. Listen wherever you get your favorite podcasts available now. Dan Bernstein Unfiltered Unfiltered on 31 2Sports on 31 2Sports is brought to you in partnership with my bookie and today also by Russ Armstrong and Chicago window guys. Call 847-302-9171. Check out his five star reviews at ChicagoNowGuys.com and also today by Aura Frames A u r a frames.com and for a limited time with a promo code DBU, you can get the best possible Mother's Day gift and 25 off their best selling Carver Matte digital picture frame with that code dbu. It was a big day and I think a very positive day yesterday for the Chicago Bulls. They needed one. They were due for one. When we talked in this space yesterday about what had to be accomplished at that press conference yesterday, I think they did it. I think they kept it simple and I think that Bryson Graham made a very important, good first impression. I also think even though it's going to be seen as not as important, I thought Michael Reinsdorf handled himself very well yesterday. He first of all started the press conference with a direct personal apology to the fan and I found that really interesting that he said I want to talk to the Bulls fan and I'm sorry I'm so with it. We haven't accomplished more that he knows that the Arturis Karnishovas regime was a failure. He's aware of that and he, he didn't get too basketbally. He didn't try to. He's in his comfortable lane as an owner, and in a way that was true to himself, I thought he took a risk in apologizing the way he did. It wasn't without risk to do that, to start that entire thing and say, first and foremost, before we do anything else, I'm talking to you, the Bulls fan, as the owner of the team. I'm sorry that to this point, I have failed in whatever he feels his responsibility is. And if that were to come off as anything other than genuine, that could have boomeranged, I'd be here making fun of it today instead of lauding it. So there is some risk involved. And he pulled it off because I believe him. And maybe I'm. I'm a dupe, maybe I'm a mark. Call me whatever. But when he said that and the way. And having talked to him outside of these sort of, you know, public circumstances a couple of times in my life, and not saying I know him well, but I know people who know him well and around him a lot, there was. It was really important yesterday that the Bulls evince genuineness. And I think they accomplished that. I think there's a sense that they can at least tell us as fans that they get it and that they know how far away they are. That was a critical conclusion of yesterday, was hearing the new person in charge, that young man. And I'm not. I'm not going to get hung up on his age. I'm not. There's no point. 39 years old is plenty old enough to be trusted to. To shock this team, to shake this team out of its torpor. And I want him to do that. I want him to grab this team and grab this franchise and look at everything involved and open up the curtains, air it out. If the Bulls are an old house, and they are. They're kind of an old house right now. But what they need to do is pull all of the blinds and open the curtains and get a cleaning crew in there, dust out all these corners and do a Marie Kondo on the Bulls. Start throwing a bunch of crap out. Do we need this? What's the closet rule? If you haven't worn it in a year, donate it. That's what they need. That sometimes, however long you've lived in a place, and usually you confront it when you move and you just say, oh, my God, what are we doing with all this stuff? This has been. Why is there an old desktop computer tower in the back of a closet of a third bedroom. What is this doing here? How long has this been here and why did I ever want to save this? Those are the kinds of decisions that need to be made within the Bulls organization at every single level. And I think this is the guy to do it. And if he's not, we'll say he should be fired and he'll be fired and that'll be that. But I am, I am nervous and excited about what the future holds because I don't know how Bryson Graham is going to look at the way we've been accustomed to the Bulls looking at things. And I do have a list of questions and maybe some concerns based on what he said, but I found both Michael Reinsdorf and Bryson Graham to be genuine. He didn't try to be somebody he's not. He didn't try to. He didn't sell us some narrative inflating the things he's done in the past. If anything, I thought Bryson Graham came off as a little too humble. And one of my favorite moments of the entire press conference that I thought was very telling was an off the cuff moment later during the question and answer when Sam Smith was, I thought, doing a really good job asking about a potential coach for the team and he talked about championship pedigree or do you want a younger coach to grow with the team, etc. And Graham, with the owner sitting next to him, started talking about collaboration and, and yeah, you, you, you filled my email box with, with concerns about Ryan Pace and the word collaboration. But you notice when Michael interjected to cut him off when talking about the coach because Bryson Graham said, well, yes, I'm, this is going to be, it's a, obviously a critical decision. I'm not going to commit to any type of coach or prerequisites that we're going to find the right person for this job, the person that fits the, what we need and, and what we want and it'll be collaborative and I'm not going to hire a coach that Michael doesn't want, that Michael's going to. And he and Michael Reinstar stopped him and said, you're, you're picking the coach. And that was exactly what needed to be said because I was going down that road like you were probably where I'm saying like, oh, collaboration, no. Run the team, run the team. You run the team, you run the team. And I'll tell Bryson this if we ever get to talk to him, and I hope we do on the air, that he was so humble in saying, if I'm the Smartest person in the room, we're gonna fail. You gotta be pretty close to the smartest person in the room. You don't have to be the smartest. Obviously, you're gonna have lawyers doing the legal work and have CPAs doing the accounting, and if somebody gets injured, a doctor comes in to fix them. But when it comes to being the smartest person in the room, you better be damn close if you're going to be what we think of in this town as people who've successfully run teams. Obviously, Theo Epstein is still the name that we hold up there, because he had done it before, and he came swaggering in with his speech about baseball is better in this, you know, big, prepared oratory. And he said, going to be able to write your columns for you for what you're going to say about me and this. We've got a plan here. That's going to take some time. And I thought that Graham came pretty close when he said, we're going to get out of the mud and we're going to roll up our sleeves and work to get out of the mud. And this is just the beginning. Thank you for saying that. Thank you for not telling us, boy, we're closer than you think. Watch us compete. He was not out there selling tickets. He wasn't out there trying to polish your apple for you. And I liked that. I liked the fact that he understands also the kind of player that you have to have to win and the kind of player you're going to have to have to win in. Not just what basketball is at the NBA level now, but what it's becoming. And yes, he used an acronym. I know. And thank you for keeping me top of mind. When an acronym is used, I'm going to allow this one. There are conditions. There are different rules when it comes to such things. First of all, he's not a coach. And second of all, the acronym kind of crept into his discussion when he was talking about the kind of players that he wants. And he was using that as either a mnemonic or a little cheat code just to tell you what he likes in a player. When he said he looks for slap size, length, athleticism, and physicality, okay, he didn't say, this is how I coach or this is I general manage and I run an organization that adheres to this principle. This acronym is how I run my organization. That's not what he said. He was just mentioning that as a. As a mnemonic and a description of the kind of players he likes. Do you have Any quibble with a guy who's looking for size, length, athleticism and physicality in players and versatility, we can add that it might be SLAVPA in there. And then I was thinking like, you could go, if you wanted to be nice and sweet, you could go with pals instead of slap. It's less aggressive and it's kind of warm. We're all, we're just pals. It's pals. Physicality, athleticism, length and size.
