Just before last season, You wrote a great story In the NBA team I found it most interesting: the Chicago Bulls.
I wrote about it Loud saxophones and jazz serenading the crowd that poured out of United’s packed centre– usually after Bulls wins – during the 1990s and into the 2000s. That music, both literally and figuratively, came to an abrupt and quite abrupt halt during a four-year slump The franchise had the worst winning percentage in the league After trading away Jimmy Butler. But there seemed to be real hope of a revival around this time last year.
After trading vs DeMar DeRozanAnd the acquisition of guards Lonzo Ball And the Alex Caruso, Chicago jumped out to a hot start fueled by a surprisingly strong defense. Ball and Caruso served as blitzers in the late stages of games, often making up for three lesser-known players on their defence. DeRozan made history by making gripper bullets. Surprisingly, the bulls, Until February 4 of this calendar yearwas the only possession of first place in the East.
To say everything has been on a downhill slope since then would be an understatement. Ball’s knee injury lingered and remained, and he wasn’t able to return to it last season, even after surgery. (And so far—after a second surgery, and nearly a full year since he last played—he hasn’t been able to run without pain.) Caruso has lost a great deal of time, too, between a hamstring injury and a controversial foul from Grayson Allen that fractured his wrist. . Without the guards, the team’s defense was predictably full, and games often devolved into shootouts. Chicago, who had been very strong to start the season, barely finished with enough wins to avoid a playoff round and were relegated to the No. 6 seed. They were attacked by the defending champion Bucks, who eliminated them in five.
After a relatively quiet period – the roster is essentially the same, save for the addition of backups Andre Drummond and Goran Dragić – there hasn’t been much reason for optimism, with the East growing stronger around them. However, things weren’t what they were supposed to be this is Bleak just two months later, not for a team that was in first place this time last season.
The Bulls, who are sitting at a very disappointing 11-18 mark, have lost four straight games, and have three more games on this trip, against the Heat, Hawks and Knicks. The first of Atlanta’s four losses came in overtime, On an inside pass with 0.5 seconds remaining. Second and third were losses at home to New York, in which the Bulls were blown 30-5, combined, on offensive glass. Chicago’s latest defeat, in Minnesota, was perhaps the lowest: the Bulls gave up 150 American points to a Timberwolves team who were playing without any of their NBA top men.
“Beyond Awkwardness,” DeRozan said about letting it go on several pointspointing out that the T-Wolves, with the exception of Karl-Anthony Towns and Rudy Gobert, aren’t exactly the 2016 Golden State Warriors.
“We need to compete a lot better,” Coach Billy Donovan said of his teamWhen asked about the effort he somehow seemed frustrated and apathetic at times. “I can switch to the area; I can switch to different covers. But if collectively as a group the level of competition isn’t high enough, it won’t make a difference.”
There is a lot of general weirdness about this team. Ball injury is the saddest of those oddities, as his knee problem begins to look more and more like something he may never be allowed to be the same player. (Also, even if he could come back this season, What’s the point of putting his body on the line in a season like this?) gets the club embarrassed time and time again, but apart from a few exceptions – mostly Caruso and Javonte Green – they don’t quite make an effort in many cases. (My former colleague Michael Pena The Bulls sounded the alarm early in the season, saying that their three co-stars are not doing well together. This weekend, it is This terrible transition referred to the defensive effort against Minnesota.) Chicagoans were annihilated on the offensive glass several times last week by the Knicks, but Donovan then moved to sitting on Drummond, who has Second highest offensive rebound percentage in NBA history After Dennis Rodman, with a DNP-CD against Wolves on Sunday. The team, despite ranking tenth in three-point percentage, doesn’t have enough perimeter shooting and He ranks last in three-point try average. Zach LaVine has a permanent green light, but he often takes ill-advised shots that feel out of the flow of offense. It shoots 27.6% more in clutch –Tied for worst in the NBA among those with 25 or more attemptsPartial explanation of how The Bulls have the worst mark in the league in close play scenarios.
Perhaps the strangest thing about Chicago is that the club might not do anything about all of this.
Donovan, in his post-game comments, said emphatically that he could change the various coverages the team uses, but there would be no basis if his teammates weren’t committed to showing more effort. The team quietly Donovan was granted a multi-year contract extension prior to the season, so it seems like a safe bet that it’s not going anywhere. And while turning things around with DeRozan’s trade would make sense, those with the strongest pulse on the thinking bulls feel There may not be a real appetite among Chicago executives To pull such a trigger, in part because they are Just They’re all back in 2021, cashing in a lot of their assets after four seasons of pointlessness. (If true, that’s a different stance than a team like the Raptors would have taken with Masai Ujiri, who seems to thrive on the right jumping times.) Meanwhile, a pair of young Chicagoans broke away to speed up the win—Laurie Markkanen And the Wendell Carter Jr.—She was thriving in another place, as she seemed quite improved from when she was crystallizing bulls. And while the treasury isn’t bare in the Windy City, it’s not yet clear if Patrick Williams and Ayo Dosunmu will progress to where they are more useful players than the likes of Markkanen and Carter. Or at least whether they’ll ever get to that point as members of the Bulls.
If you are a Bulls fan, This Most likely frustration. That there is enough talent to be better than this – last year proved to be significant – but not enough to win anything of significance. But if there is clearly not enough to win meaningfully, why not at least start the process of trying to acquire assets in the future? (An outfield tackle and third target Nikola Vucevic, whose deal expires at the end of the season, would be the equivalent of half a measure on this front.)
As Chicagoans know well in the winter: the middle is often a brutal place. In other parts of the country, the sun shines much brighter, allowing you to bathe in it, or go indoors to prevent overexertion.
Here, though, the Bulls character would burn out worse by standing just fine during a season that seems to be going nowhere quickly. How they choose to handle things moving forward will be awesome.
Meat and Potatoes: Good reads from SI and elsewhere last week
- Not specifically related to hoops but worth a read: Former SI writer Jeff Perlman had an interesting Substack post About how a good writer has gone bad, and what to say about the current state of journalism in many cases it seems. Finally, he also offered beautiful thoughts on the great Grant Wahl, who passed away earlier this month.
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