- The Bulls defeated Washington on Thursday despite being shorthanded and Zach LaVine feels the team is showing more resolve, Darnell Mayberry of The Athletic writes. “This team is tired of being labeled losers and underachieving,” LaVine said. “Everything is not going to be perfect. We’re not going to go out and win every game. But our demeanor has been a lot better than it has been the last couple of years.”
The Bulls will be without Lauri Markkanen, Ryan Arcidiacono, Tomas Satoransky, and Chandler Hutchison on Thursday evening vs. the Wizards due to the NBA’s health and safety protocols, head coach Billy Donovan said today (Twitter link via K.C. Johnson of NBC Sports Chicago).
Those health and safety protocols are related to COVID-19, but neither teams nor the league have been providing many details on specific players’ absences. It’s possible one or more of the affected Bulls players had a positive or inconclusive coronavirus test result. They may also be tied up in the NBA’s contact tracing program.
Donovan told reporters – including Darnell Mayberry of The Athletic (Twitter link) – that he’s unsure how long Markkanen, Arcidiacono, Satoransky, and Hutchison will be unavailable. He’s also not even certain whether or not those four players will be permitted to travel out of D.C. with the rest of the team after tonight’s game (Twitter link via Johnson).
While the Bulls wait for clarity on a potential timeline for their missing players, they’ll have to figure out a new-look lineup and rotation tonight vs. Washington and presumably on Friday vs. Milwaukee as well. Markkanen had started at power forward in each of Chicago’s first four games, while the other three players logged between 28 and 68 total minutes in those contests.
- Despite being limited to 72 games and making just 29.5% of his three-point attempts in his first two NBA seasons, Chandler Hutchison had his $4MM fourth-year option for 2021/22 picked up by the Bulls. Now healthy, Hutchison is looking to prove he can make an impact off the bench, writes Sam Smith of Bulls.com.
The Bulls need to do a better job of overcoming adversity, new coach Billy Donovan told reporters, including Jamal Collier of The Chicago Tribune, following a second straight disastrous performance. After trailing by as many as 40 points in the season opener, Chicago was embarrassed again Saturday, this time by Indiana. The Bulls fell behind by 30 at one point, giving up a 21-0 run in the second quarter and an 18-0 run in the third.
It’s not what Chicago fans were expecting after an offseason of change that brought in Donovan to replace Jim Boylen as head coach and Arturas Karnisovas to run the front office. Donovan believes improvement won’t begin to show until players learn how to deal with difficulty.
“They don’t handle (adversity). They don’t at all,” he said. “They internalize their mistakes, they internalize what’s going on, and I’ve said this before, they’ve got to do this together. They’ve got to fight together, do it together. We’re probably on most nights probably not going to be the most athletic or the most talented or the most experienced, but we can be a team — we have control over it — that can have a lot more fight in ourselves there. I came out on the court one time because I saw them come out of the huddle and they just all looked totally dejected.”
There’s more Bulls news to pass along:
- Despite management changes, the team won’t get any better until it overhauls the roster, contends Darnell Mayberry of The Athletic. The Bulls brought back 14 of their 17 players from last year’s 22-43 team, including several who are miscast in their current roles, Mayberry adds. He sees Coby White as more of a shooter than a lead guard, while Zach LaVine isn’t efficient enough to be the first scoring option. Mayberry also questions the decision to draft Patrick Williams with the No. 4 pick instead of trading down to acquire more assets.
- Free agent addition Garrett Temple, one of the few new faces in Chicago, promises to bring toughness to the team, writes Joe Cowley of The Chicago Sun-Times. ‘‘I don’t think we have soft guys here by any means, so it’s a matter of building the right habits,” Temple said. “And that starts in practice.”
- Tomas Satoransky was available for the first time Saturday after being quarantined due to contact tracing, Cowley adds in the same piece. Satoransky, who didn’t test positive for COVID-19, said the waiting was difficult. ‘‘It was very tough for me being at home, not being able to work out or doing anything,’’ he said. ‘‘Just self-quarantine myself. … You only can control some of it, and you have to be mentally strong and be ready to come back and accept the role you will have after this. … It really tests you mentally and is another challenge you have to go through this season.’’
- Garrett Temple is hopeful of playing this weekend, K.C. Johnson of NBC Sports Chicago tweets. Temple has been sidelined after testing positive for the coronavirus in late November. Temple signed a one-year, $5MM contract with the Bulls after the Nets declined their team option on the veteran swingman. Chicago plays Indiana on Saturday and Golden State on Sunday.
- Fourth overall pick Patrick Williams was immediately thrust into the Bulls‘ starting lineup in his first game as a pro on Wednesday. K.C. Johnson of NBC Sports Chicago provides a few reasons for why it makes sense for Williams to be a starter, noting that his strengths and weaknesses are a better fit for the first unit.
John Hollinger of the Athletic reviewed the 2020 offseason for the Heat and previewed the 2020/21 season for the club, which opened tonight against the Magic in Orlando. Hollinger notes that the team’s 2020 offseason seemed to prioritize future assets over building for the immediate present, despite the fact that Miami made the Finals this season.
The Heat will be able to carve out about $30MM in available cap room for the 2021 offseason, Hollinger projects. Hollinger also expects the team to use its roster, loaded with expiring contracts and intriguing players on cheap contracts, to improve ahead of the playoffs.
There’s more out of the Southeast Division:
- The Hornets have long been waiting to add a new young player capable of generating the kind of buzz a high-upside prospect at the level of rookie point guard LaMelo Ball, the No. 3 pick in the 2020 draft, according to Andrew Carter of The Charlotte Observer. Hornets head coach James Borrego was skeptical that Ball, the youngest son in a famous family, could enthusiastically buy in to the team concept he was hoping to build before a workout convinced him otherwise. “Just a genuine spirit, an authentic spirit,” Borrego said. “He would ask as many questions as we would ask.”
- The Magic are hoping to take the next step in their evolution as a playoff club with the chemistry developed through years of continuity, despite the absence of recently-extended forward Jonathan Isaac, according to Roy Parry of the Orlando Sentinel.
- The Wizards were apparently so set on drafting rookie forward Deni Avdija that they at one point almost made a deal with the Bulls to move up to the No. 4 pick, but determined the cost was too high, per Chase Hughes of NBC Sports Washington. The Wizards did not anticipate that Avdija would last long enough to be available at No. 9.
Bulls forward Lauri Markkanen feels extra motivation after he couldn’t reach an extension agreement with the organization by Monday’s deadline, Rob Schaefer of NBC Sports Chicago writes. “Obviously disappointing, I wanted to get a deal done,” he said. “But that happened, and we’re moving on, and I’m 100 percent committed to this team.”
Markkanen confirmed the sides were never near a deal after he struggled through an injury-marred season. “I don’t think it was very close,” Markkanen said. “I talked to (my agent) obviously a lot last couple days, and (the Bulls’ offer) just wasn’t something I would take, and that’s the end of it.”
The NBA’s offseason felt awfully busy, with free agency opening just two days after the draft and training camps starting about 10 days later. As hectic as those couple weeks were though, they actually didn’t feature a ton of player movement relative to a typical offseason.
A year ago, for instance, when we looked at the teams with the most and least roster continuity from year to year, we found that only one team was bringing back 13 players (counting two-ways) from its previous squad, while a total of four had 11 or more returning players.
This time around, seven clubs are bringing back 13 or more players from their end-of-season 2019/20 rosters, and a total of 18 teams will have 11 or more returning players. The Bulls and Pacers lead the way, having carried over 14 players apiece.
While the condensed offseason made for an exciting November, the quick turnaround also likely played a major part in teams’ decisions to stand relatively pat. Without a Summer League or the opportunity to conduct offseason mini-camps, teams haven’t had a lot of time to integrate new players, and have generally opted for as much continuity as possible.
Of course, while that may have been the general rule for the 2020 offseason, it certainly doesn’t apply to every team. A year ago, seven teams – including the eventual-champion Lakers – brought back just six players from their 2018/19 rosters. This time around, two clubs had that much turnover.
Of those two clubs, one – the Pistons – exhibited an impressive disregard for roster continuity, retaining just four players (Blake Griffin, Derrick Rose, Sekou Doumbouya, and Sviatoslav Mykhailiuk) from last season’s roster. That’s the lowest number of returning players a team has had to start a season since the 2017 Celtics.
Here are the number of returning players for each of the NBA’s 30 teams, from most to fewest:
- Chicago Bulls: 14
Indiana Pacers: 14 - Boston Celtics: 13
Brooklyn Nets: 13
Memphis Grizzlies: 13
Miami Heat: 13
San Antonio Spurs: 13 - Golden State Warriors: 12
Orlando Magic: 12 - Cleveland Cavaliers: 11
Los Angeles Clippers: 11
Los Angeles Lakers: 11
Minnesota Timberwolves: 11
New York Knicks: 11
Sacramento Kings: 11
Toronto Raptors: 11
Utah Jazz: 11
Washington Wizards: 11 - Charlotte Hornets: 10
Dallas Mavericks: 10
Denver Nuggets: 10 - Portland Trail Blazers: 9
- Atlanta Hawks: 8
Houston Rockets: 8
New Orleans Pelicans: 8
Phoenix Suns: 8 - Milwaukee Bucks: 7
Philadelphia 76ers: 7 - Oklahoma City Thunder: 6
- Detroit Pistons: 4
There’s no timetable for Thaddeus Young‘s return after a bout with MRSA, a bacterial infection, Rob Schaefer of NBC Sports Chicago reports. The Bulls forward had his leg drained after it swelled up and it’s healing well but he didn’t play in any preseason games.
“There will probably be some sort of ramp-up period for [Young], so to speak, in terms of he’s missed some conditioning and a lot of practice,” head coach Billy Donovan said. “He was dealing with a hamstring right around the time we started training camp. We’ll have to work to get him back.”
We have more on the Bulls:
- While the rest of the starting lineup seems set, the small forward position remains in flux, Joe Cowley of the Chicago Sun Times reports. Donovan is trying to choose between Otto Porter Jr. and lottery pick Patrick Williams and they bring different skills, Cowley notes.
- Lauri Markkanen didn’t receive a rookie scale extension prior to Monday’s deadline but he could still be a part of the long-term future, Cowley writes in a separate story. The new front office regime and Donovan simply put off making that decision by seeing what Markkanen does this season and allowing him to set a market price as a restricted free agent. The two sides never got close to an extension agreement, Cowley adds.
- Despite Porter’s massive $28.5MM expiring contract, Darnell Mayberry of The Athletic predicts Chicago will move him at the trade deadline. The team would likely need to include multiple players, as any trade partner wouldn’t give up a high-salary starter for him.