Bulls star Zach LaVine, who re-signed with the team this summer, let off some steam after getting benched in the late going of a loss to Orlando on Friday.
Donovan said on Sunday that LaVine and the the team’s other top players must live up to a standard to maintain their minutes, K.C. Johnson of NBC Sports Chicago relays.
“There’s a lot he can do to get into the game. If the scoring isn’t there for whatever reason, we’ve got to have a group standard,” Donovan said. “And it wasn’t all about him. Clearly the whole group in the first half, (the Magic) scored 66 points and then we gave up 42 in the second half. That game was two halves. With the way the game was going, you get caught as a coach thinking, ‘We’ve got to do something different here.’ Sometimes those decisions work and sometimes they don’t.”
LaVine, DeMar DeRozan and Nikola Vucevic need to get into a rhythm early in order for the Bulls to be effective, Donovan told Joe Cowley of the Chicago Sun-Times and other media members.
“We’re never going to be as good as we can be as a team until those three guys really drive the opening part of the game. … Those three guys are important to our team, and if we’re working around them . . . I don’t know if we can ever get where we need to get to.”
We have more from the Central Division:
- Saddiq Bey has his streak of 152 consecutive games played — the second-longest in the league — snapped when the Pistons forward sat out against Sacramento on Sunday. Bey tried to push through his ankle sprain and keep the streak alive, Omari Sankofa of the Detroit Free Press tweets. However, he was ruled out during warmups.
- Aaron Nesmith scored a season-high 19 points for the Pacers on Saturday and forward Jalen Smith said his teammate was due for a big offensive game, he told Dustin Dopirak of the Indianapolis Star. “We all know what Aaron can do,” Smith said. “Aaron’s one of the best shooters on the team, arguably one of the best shooters in the NBA in my opinion. We knew that he was due for a breakout game some time soon. We kept telling him to keep trusting himself, keep shooting. It’s going to fall sometime soon. It can’t be off all the time.”
- Longtime Bucks scout Ron Stewart passed away unexpectedly on Friday, the team tweets. Stewart scouted pro and college players for Milwaukee after previously serving as the head women’s basketball coach at Western Michigan.
This is what’s bad when your highest paid player is also your biggest whiner. I, I , I, Me, Me, Me. That’s all you ever hear. The writing was on the wall last year when he went to the All Star Game instead of resting his knee to help the Bulls in the final part of the season. His true colors came out. When it’s not about him, He’s totally not interested. Now you’re stuck with a 37 million dollar a year headache nobody wants. Should of dealt him before his walk year. But I got vilified for bringing it up.
Typical selfish nba brat. They rather have stats than wins. They go home happy as long as they had a great scoring night in a loss. What a loser!
If he’s not happy with benching, shut up, practice harder and play better. Jeez…
Damian Lillard would beg to disagree with you. Not all players are stats-based, but you clown the players who go to chase wins and championships. You can’t have it both ways, hating on the players that chase stats on bad teams AND the players that leave their bad teams to chase rings.
Here is a thought. When the Heat first started their Big Three, it didn’t work until Bosh decided to defer and Wade and Lebron worked out a rotation. These Bulls players have had over a season now to work it out and no one will defer and no one seems to admit this isn’t working. Now clearly this is not as big a 3 as the Heat, so shouldn’t really take this much time.
Trades should be made, for any high picks available, and Levine can go be ‘the Man’ in Sacramento, Vooch can heave threes in Indiana, and DeMar can go home to L.A.
These players will not change. Donovan cannot convince Vooch to stay in the paint or DeMar to pass the ball or Lavine to play defense.
Time to flush this and join the lottery.
Chicago doesn’t have their pick, remember? They traded it to the Magic for Vucevic :)
It’s protected, Not sure how high but I know it is. And they’ll have Portland’s next year also for Markannen.
I think it’s top-4 protection. Chicago has too much talent to be a bottom four team but not enough to make it down the stretch or in the playoffs.
All they need is to miss the playoffs and the ping pong ball God to smile on them. That certainly looks possible at this point.
My suggestion was to trade for bad contracts and GET picks, actually. Although yeh no picks to get from the Lakers, my mistake.