Billy Donovan sounded irked when addressing how the Chicago Bulls plan to approach the final month and a half of the season. Giving no life to the tanking talk, the head coach waxed poetic about a winning mentality. He stressed that playing young guys just to play them isn’t part of his M.O. The same can be said about stacking losses for the sake of lottery odds.
“If you’re talking about the future, right now we have to be talking about doing things on a daily basis that impact our future in a positive way,” Donovan told reporters this week (h/t CHGO). “I’m just not a big believer in taking games and saying let’s just see how this works …
Everything that I’ve spoke to in terms of ownership and front office is they expect us to go in there and compete to try to win. And, if I’m sitting on the bench, I’m going to try to make the decision that’s best to help the team in that moment in time. I feel like that’s my responsibility.”
A front office or head coach will never blatantly say they are trying to lose every game. I can accept that. Tanking is an art form that requires careful dialogue and calculated decision-making. Unfortunately, the Chicago Bulls continue to prove they aren’t capable of either.
We are only a couple of weeks removed from Arturas Karnisovas refusing to add the word “rebuild” into his vocabulary. He sat with reporters following the trade deadline and spoke as much about taking a step back for the future as he did appearing in a third-straight Play-In Tournament.
With that being the case, it’s safe to say Donovan means what he says. And we also have to look no further than Thursday night’s battle with the New York Knicks to see precisely that. With a chance to leave Madison Square Garden with an upset victory, Donovan dug his feet into the ground. He played veteran Lonzo Ball a season-high in minutes – surpassing his previously set restriction of 28 minutes – and repeatedly turned to Nikola Vucevic during crucial moments.
In other words, the late-game possessions weren’t used as a learning opportunity for Matas Buzelis or even Ayo Dosunmu. Donovan played to win … and it just so happened the Bulls were still bad enough to lose.
So who cares, right? The Bulls lost and that’s ultimately what emotionally-damaged dummies like me want to see! Well, in my opinion, the problem is that none of what the Bulls are doing feels deliberate. Everyone expected that trading Zach LaVine would signal a more traditional rebuild. Typically, this means a trial-by-fire approach to player development and accepting the losses that come with that, particularly because those losses could improve your lottery odds.
However, the Bulls continued their one-foot-in one-foot-out approach by holding onto players like Nikola Vucevic and Lonzo Ball at the deadline. They also seemingly haven’t given Donovan any specific orders to focus more on teaching than competing. As the head coach continues to tell reporters, he has been instructed to go out there and win at all costs.
This messaging from the front office simply doesn’t coincide with the roster they have nor the moves they continue to make. Likewise, it doesn’t make sense when we consider the mediocre play we have seen from the franchise year after year. Being in the middle is the absolute worst place you can be, yet the Bulls almost continue to prefer it over any other outcome.
They don’t make moves to improve in the short term after a successful 2021 campaign, and they don’t make moves to improve in the long run after back-to-back Play-In Tournament exits. How can they expect the outcome to significantly change if they don’t significantly change their methods and messaging?
Both the Bulls’ words and actions continue to suggest they are more than comfortable living in a world where they aren’t picking high in the draft or playing deep into the playoffs. They sound like a franchise that genuinely does take things day by day. Every single game might as well be an individual exhibition battle that holds no stakes. Until that mindset changes, nothing about the Bulls will.
Twenty-six games to go!
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