Despite the Bulls having a competition at starting point guard, coach Billy Donovan said he doesn’t put as much thought into who’s opening a game as his players do.
“It’s the pairings I’m more interested in, switching things around . . . after the first five or six minutes of the game, moving guys around, having different guys play with each other,” Donovan said. “[But] I understand the ego part of every player at this level is competitive.”
After using forward Patrick Williams with the second unit Sunday against the Bucks in the preseason opener, Donovan revealed before Thursday’s game against the Nuggets that guard Zach LaVine would play with the second unit. Sure, preseason results don’t matter, but Donovan said there’s still value in seeing different lineup combinations against NBA competition.
“[The Nuggets] are coming off winning an NBA championship,” he said. “It’s a great test, and I understand that all their game guys may or may not play, and they may not play a lot of minutes, and it’s not necessarily a regular-season game. [But] it’s always a test and a barometer of where you can get better.”
Any improvement from last year’s 40-42 record must come from the players figuring out how to work off each other best. Donovan said the Bulls have shown signs of being a good team over the last two seasons, but it’s about performing consistently.
“You always want your main guys to be in situations where they’re efficient and effective,” he said. “I think if you individually look at DeMar [DeRozan], Zach and [Nikola Vucevic], all three of those guys had incredibly efficient offensive outputs for their careers, but it still led to the 24th-best offense [last season].”
Load management
Asked about findings shared by Joe Dumars, NBA executive vice president and head of basketball operations, that there isn’t a correlation between resting and preventing injuries, Donovan said he isn’t disagreeing. But he did say the NBA schedule can prevent a player from getting back to full power without a break.
“What happens is, when a guy gets fatigued over a period of time . . . the schedule is laid out for somebody, [and] it’s hard for that guy, without some rest, to get back to the level that he’s accustomed to playing to right,” Donovan said.
“We’ve got guys, to be quite honest, [who] want to play. I can’t speak for any other team in terms of what their experience had been with different players.”
‘Long time coming’ for Lewis
Sunday’s loss in Milwaukee marked the professional debut of former Marquette forward Justin Lewis, who’s playing on a two-way contract.
“It’s always surreal,” Lewis said. “It’s always good to go back to that place, especially. I know it’s the Bucks’ arena, but I look at that as Marquette’s arena. It was always good seeing familiar faces — like, my old college coach [Shaka Smart] was there and a couple of friends.”
After being sidelined by a torn anterior cruciate ligament last October, causing the Bulls to waive him, Lewis has been studying the veterans.
“I’m learning from the older guys,” he said. “I’m one of the younger guys on the team, so it’s always good to learn from DeMar, Zach and Vuc.”
