The NBA announced on Friday plans for an 18-team 2021 G League season, held at ESPN’s Wide World of Sports Complex at Disney World near Orlando, Fla.
The Bulls’ affiliate, the Windy City Bulls, will be one of 11 teams to not attend.
In a phone interview with NBC Sports Chicago, Windy City Bulls president Brad Seymour said that the principals involved in the decision-making process were Bulls executive vice president Artūras Karnišovas, general manager Marc Eversley, vice president of player personnel Pat Connelly and Windy City Bulls general manager Josh Kreibich.
“Ultimately it's Artūras’ decision,” he added.
And ultimately, Seymour called their opting out a “basketball decision,” made with an eye on the development of the team’s two Two-Way players, rookie guard Devon Dotson and second-year wing Adam Mokoka.
“One of the biggest things that the NBA did this year was allow Two-Way players to remain with the NBA team for the entire season, and that was a big deciding factor for us,” Seymour said. “Knowing that it gave those players more flexibility to stay with the team rather than going back and forth, everybody on the basketball side said that's gonna be our best option to keep them with the NBA team, develop them at that level, rather than trying to deal with the back and forth."
In a nod to the availability hurdles playing the 2020-21 season during the COVID-19 pandemic would present, the NBA expanded the limit on Two-Way contracts. This year, players signed to those deals can be active for up to 50 games with their NBA club, with no restriction on travel and practice days. Previously, that limit was 40 days, including travel and practice.
“There's a lot of guidelines and restrictions obviously with COVID in terms of going back and forth to the bubble, and those things are still being worked out,” Seymour said. “The idea of potentially not having a player available if he's needed on the NBA team because he has quarantine, those were the factors that really came into play.”
Though the league said in a release that non-participating teams will be allowed to assign roster players and transfer Two-Way players under “flexible” rules, Seymour said that sending Dotson or Mokoka to the bubble for any period of time is not currently in their plans. Before Friday’s matchup with the Los Angeles Lakers, Dotson had used five of his 50 active games, Mokoka eight.
Asked about the potential financial investment of sending a G League team to the bubble, Seymour said the widely-reported $500,000 figure is accurate on a “baseline level.”
“It was really an overall expense estimate on how long the four-to-six week bubble was going to cost each team to be there,” Seymour said. “The number ($)500(,000) and upwards was being tossed around, certainly it's accurate as we looked at the P&L (profit and loss) on our side. I know I've seen the ‘buy-in’ number. It wasn't a buy-in. It was, here's what teams can estimate their expenses to be if they're going to participate in this.”
Including, but not all the considerations embedded in that estimate, according to Seymour: Lodging, transportation and coronavirus testing. The precise cost has still yet to be finalized, but Seymour said he imagines it's "going to be north of that."
“That (the financial investment) was towards the bottom of the list in terms of do we do this or not,” he said. “It was really, what's going to position our guys for success.”
Seymour said his interactions with the new front office have been mostly relegated to remote communication, but that the onus they place on player development is apparent, specifically citing the expanding of the team’s player development staff this offseason.
That, of course, begs the question: For an organization that prioritizes player development, isn’t there an opportunity cost of not fielding a full G League roster of players to evaluate and potentially develop?
“In the short term, there's certainly a direct cost to it, if you will,” Seymour said. “But the other thing about the bubble is that we're going to be scouting it. Our scouts will be there, our scouts will be able to get all the game film from all the games that are being played. They're going to be able to scout it as they would any other G League season, so we're really not going to miss out on that...
“Players that are being drafted on this Monday for this season, those individuals have signed NBA G League contracts and then individual teams that draft them will have their rights. But those guys could technically go and sign with any organization if someone came calling."
Not yet do the Bulls know how many scouts they’ll send. One of many logistical details still to be finalized before the season tips off in February.
The Windy City Bulls, meanwhile, haven’t played since March 2020, and likely won’t again until fall 2021 at least. Seymour said the pandemic has had a “huge financial impact” on their organization, especially on their business staff.
In the basketball operations department -- while estimating that between coaches, trainers and the like, they employ “eight or nine” people each season -- Seymour said the majority of employees have either been promoted or reassigned to the NBA club.
Windy City’s head trainer Matt Comer, for example, is working for now on the Bulls’ training staff. Kreibich moved from Windy City general manager to a temporary NBA scouting role. Henry Domercant, formerly a Windy City assistant coach, was recently tapped for a player development coordinator position.
The most notorious shuffle was Damian Cotter, Windy City’s head coach for the 2019-20 season, moving to Billy Donovan’s bench in a player development-focused role. Cotter forged relationships with Connelly, whose post includes some G League oversight, and Karnišovas while coaching Bol Bol and P.J. Dozier with Windy City, who were signed to Two-Way deals with the Denver Nuggets last season.
“Damian built up a really good trust with the Nuggets organization,” Seymour said.
Cotter’s promotion is permanent, meaning Windy City will eventually need to hire a new head coach. Seymour said that’s “well down the line.”
For now, their staff’s focus shifts to 2021-22, when, in Seymour’s words, they’ll look to “reintroduce the franchise to the market,” Hoffman Estates, Ill.
“We're doing a lot of virtual content and just trying to stay within people's mindsets,” he said. “Once we get some clarity on what next season is supposed to look like, when it's going to start, you’ll see some pretty robust marketing plans and things that we're going to be doing over the summer months.
“It's almost like relaunching this team again four years after we did it the first time. And so there's a lot of planning that's going on related to that that we're already starting to lay the groundwork for. And that's also another reason why, from a business perspective, that this playing in the bubble wasn't necessarily going to be something we were going to do, because it has allowed us already to turn our attention to next year when we can hopefully have fans back in the arena and do what we do in terms of the local market."
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Windy City president: G League opt-out a 'basketball decision' - NBC Sports Chicago
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