Turning the page, The Next Chapter: The Official Chicago Bulls 2019-20 Season Thread

[Lootpack]

Holy shyt.

@Tenchi® Ryu™

 

[Tenchi Ryu]

Holy shyt.

@Tenchi® Ryu™

 

[100Percent]

Whoever we get the first order of buisness should be to completely overhaul the training and medical staff.

 

[prime]

Finally

 

[god shamgod]

 

[jwinfield]

Searching for Bobby Webster: The untold story of how one of...


Webster was Masai's first hire, pulled him from the league office where he worked for 7 years advising teams on CBA shyt

That won’t change tonight. He offers no clues to his identity. He doesn’t explain his rocket-like rise from an Orlando Magic intern to the Raptors GM in a little more than a decade. He doesn’t explain how he helped create the NBA’s collective bargaining agreement. He doesn’t tell the story of the covert trip to Lithuania, where discussions of trading for Kawhi Leonard first began. He doesn’t mention that he’s still one of the youngest general managers in the NBA.

But behind Ujiri, Webster has watched, learned — and risen to the point of being a key piece of the Raptors NBA championship. Webster will bristle at that description, but it’s true. If Ujiri is the ship captain, Webster is the navigator.

“Bobby is making a lot of the decisions in terms of everything they do,” says one NBA player agent who works closely with the Raptors. “Masai is the lead role and the face of the program, and obviously very involved… but Bobby is the driving force, at least for me, for a lot of the decisions they make.”

Ujiri handpicked and mentored Webster, as they shared a vision for what the Raptors could be. And Ujiri knows Webster will soon outgrow his shadow.

“He’s going to head a team, at some point,” he says. “Hopefully he doesn’t overthrow me.”

Webster entered the details of every trade, waiver and signing into the NBA’s computer system. He sat in on phone calls Taub or Leftwich were having with general managers, absorbing the questions asked and answers given. He researched the byzantine intricacies of the CBA, learning the loopholes in the fine print. He learned how NBA rules worked and how teams were using them to build. He had an inside seat for every transaction that happened — and didn’t happen — during his time at the head office.

He wasn’t satisfied with that, though. He also volunteered to help out the basketball operations department with events like the All-Star Game, the Draft combine and summer league. Taub and Leftwich knew that Webster wanted to interact with the players and their agents directly, and build relationships around the league. They lent him out whenever they could spare him.

He didn’t speak to an actual team as a member of the legal department for three or four years. But he helped find solutions to challenges teams faced with how to structure deals or signings in an advantageous way. Eventually, general managers were calling in to get advice directly from him — like Masai Ujiri, who was GM of the Denver Nuggets.

Ujiri was so impressed by his interactions with Webster that he offered him a front-office job with the Nuggets in 2010.

Webster would grind out 15-hour days alongside Taub and Leftwich and their team of high-powered legal minds, coming up with terms that would bring back NBA basketball and define the regulations that would govern every future transaction in the league.

He helped come up with incentives and disincentives for how teams sign and trade players. Like one that made it easier for a team to keep its own player by giving the front office an option to offer more money a year before the player’s contract is up. He helped create an amnesty rule that allowed a team to get out of jail for making a bad decision by allowing a buyout option that doesn’t affect cap space or get hit by a luxury tax. And by creating a bidding process whereby other teams could enter blind bids on how much of a player’s salary they were willing to pick up, with the player going to the highest bidder.

When the NBA lockout ended, Webster was in high demand — as he’d planned. Several teams looked to bring him on staff to help them navigate the new salary cap rules. But he spent another season working in the NBA’s head office, carefully considering his next move and helping to train his eventual replacement.

Webster had been an asset to Ujiri and Weltman in his first few seasons behind the scenes. It wasn’t just that he had an encyclopedic knowledge of intricate salary cap regulations and loopholes. He also had a remarkable understanding of the structure that other teams were dealing with, Ujiri says. He understood how to connect what other teams really needed with what the Raptors’ objectives were. That process usually takes time, but Webster came up with answers almost immediately. Weltman calls him a “savant” in that regard. If Ujiri told Webster that he wanted to acquire a specific player and wanted to know how a possible transaction could work, Webster quickly ran through their options.

But Webster was doing much more. Along with current assistant GM Tolzman, Webster was deeply involved with uncovering unearthed talent, says Ujiri, who has a deep scouting background of his own.

Webster had a relationship with Brian Wright, then the assistant general manager of the SanAntonio Spurs. They had been interns together with the Orlando Magic. Webster had developed a connection with Wright over the years and could speak frankly with his old friend.

“It’s such a competitive business, so relationships matter. Trust matters,” says Wright, who is now the Spurs GM. “Being able to have confidential conversations and work through some difficult things at times. That goes a long way.”

It’s the kind of connection Webster has developed with many people in the industry, Ujiri says — and another one of the reasons he gave him the GM role.

Neither Webster nor Wright will reveal when the first call was made regarding Leonard, but it was sometime after Lithuania, in early June, and it’s been reported that they spoke at the NBA Draft. Regardless, Webster will not accept credit for it. But that initial conversation sparked the biggest trade in Raptors history.

Ujiri was in Kenya with his friend Barack Obama, attending the opening of a new youth centre, while Webster was home working the final negotiations on the trade. He was in constant contact with Ujiri, who stayed up through the night in Kenya as the deal inched closer to completion. Webster played point on the intricate details of the trade. It was nearly a month of back and forth.

 

[cornercommission2k12]

the firegarpax movement finally delivers

 

[cornercommission2k12]

 

[red222]

 

[jwinfield]

Haven’t looked at the other guys yet, but Webster sounds like an amazing pick.

 

[True Blue Moon]

 

[Nero Christ]

of course the Bulls would be cheap in searching for a GM or is the team's rep in so much mud, no big time GM wants to deal with this nonsense

 

[Optimus Prime]

 

[El Jefe]

Searching for Bobby Webster: The untold story of how one of...


Webster was Masai's first hire, pulled him from the league office where he worked for 7 years advising teams on CBA shyt

probz worth a look at for sure

.. naaah






Either way

Had to check my pulse ... nope..still here in the land of the livin


Get this FO outta here

 

[jwinfield]

.. naaah

He's talking about Adam Simon of the Heat. Resume is pretty good.

Breaking down the candidates for Bulls' lead executive

Simon has been in the Heat organization for 25 years — in that period, he has climbed from video room intern (working under current coach Erik Spoelstra) to what the Heat’s website calls ‘V.P., Basketball Operations/Assistant General Manager.’

Also of note from his directory entry:

“During his time as Assistant GM, Simon has played an integral role in Miami drafting Tyler Herro, Bam Adebayo, Justise Winslow, Josh Richardson and KZ Okpala and acquiring undrafted players such as Derrick Jones, Jr., Duncan Robinson, Kendrick Nunn and Hassan Whiteside.

That should certainly be music to the Bulls’ ears. Like the Raptors, the Heat organization has earned sterling reputation as one that knows how to unearth and develop talent off the beaten path. Simon spent six years as General manager of the Heat’s G League affiliate, the Skyforce, a program that bolstered many of those names listed above.

It should also be mentioned that, while Simon’s quarter-century tenure with the Heat is impressive, he is the only name of these four to have never held a general manager position with an NBA team.