Bulls value still rising, magazine says
In the latest estimate of NBA franchise values by Forbes Magazine, the Chicago Bulls held their usual spot, while their price is soaring.
Forbes set the value of the Bulls franchise at $2.3 billion. That's third best in the league, which is where the Bulls always sit, behind the New York Knicks and Los Angeles Lakers.
Just two years ago, Forbes put the Bulls' value at $1 billion.
How is that possible? Well, the magazine offers an educated guess, so there's no guarantee of accuracy, but a couple of things have happened to send NBA franchise values sky high.
The league negotiated a new television contract with substantial increase in revenue. The new TV deal is expected to push the NBA salary cap up $20 million in each of the next two years.
Franchise values around the league rose in the summer of 2014 when the league pressured controversial Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling to sell, and the team went for $2 billion to former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer.
When Jerry Reinsdorf's group bought the Bulls in 1984, the purchase price was widely reported as $9.2 million.
Karl knows 72-win Bulls:
Sacramento coach George Karl knows the 1995-96 Bulls very well, having coached against them in the NBA Finals that season with the Seattle SuperSonics.
Before Monday's game, Karl was asked about the comparison between those Bulls and his new neighborhood rival, the Golden State Warriors, whose record is 63-7 after Monday's 109-104 victory at Minnesota.
"I think they're a little different," Karl said. "That Bulls team, in my mind, was an incredibly, incredibly tough defensive basketball team. They could score points on you offensively, but when the game was in the nitty-gritty, it was almost impossible to score on them.
"Golden State, I think I've used the term 'video game.' We had a game down in the Bay Area where Omri (Casspi) and (Steph) Curry made like nine 3s in a row. This only could happen in video games, and I'm not talking about on the line. I'm talking four feet behind the line, five feet behind the line, seven feet behind the line."
Karl feels the losses:
Kings coach George Karl had a run of 21 consecutive winning seasons before arriving in Sacramento two years ago. Karl's success came with Seattle, Milwaukee and Denver.
In two years with the Kings, he has a 38-62 record following Monday's loss to the Bulls.
"I really think in our season we've had more successes than people have given us credit for," Karl said before the contest. "But in the same sense, the magnification of the failures is what happens in the world today.
"It's just a social sport media that we're going to live with. I've enjoyed it. I think I've learned a lot; I've grown a lot. I'm just trying to understand losing, which has not been in a lot of personalities of my teams in the past."