Billy Donovan is hoping there is something salvageable.
It’s not for a lack of trying by the Bulls coach.
“I see them fighting,’’ Donovan said of the latest loss to the Thunder on Wednesday. “We just have not been consistent enough, quite honestly. We haven’t been consistent shooting the basketball. We just have these moments and periods of time where we kind of dig ourselves in somewhat of a hole. Some of that is fouling, some of it is giving up long rebounds. We just gotta keep fighting through being more consistent. That’s all it is.’’
If only that were true.
Yes, the focal point of the offense back in training camp and going into the 2023-24 regular-season campaign was to change the shot profile by putting up more three-pointers, attack the paint to draw fouls and help with the drive-and-kick game, and play fast.
None of that has happened with any benefit or consistency whatsoever.
The Bulls will go into Friday’s game in Toronto 5-11 in the standings, sitting at 15th overall in three-point attempts but 24th in three-point percentage (34.4%) and dead last in pace.
They are not getting to the free throw line (20.3 attempts per game which is 26th in the league), and they don’t play with enough thrust and physicality to seemingly change that.
To make matters worse – if they could be – they waste very little time showing how bad of a basketball team they are, averaging a league-low 24 points in the first quarter and doing so on just 39.8% shooting from the field – yes, also a league low.
The “Big Three” of Zach LaVine, DeMar DeRozan, and Nikola Vucevic are seemingly broken.
Donovan has hinted that he wasn’t finished going into the lab and messing with lineup mixes, but would the veteran-friendly coach ever really bench one of the three and play them with the second unit? Unlikely, and how would that even help?
The only three reserves playing on the positive side of plus/minus these days are Ayo Dosunmu (plus-12), Patrick Williams (plus-7) and Andre Drummond (plus-2). Donovan already tried the Williams experiment with the starting group and that was a flop. Dosunmu is better suited as an energy guy off the bench, while the same could be said for Drummond, although the veteran does have years of starting experience and would bring a bit more physicality in the middle for the starters.
DeRozan has been insisting that the slow starts are turning into a mental hurdle more than anything else.
“You get down a couple shots, don’t go in, it kind of steam rolls,’’ DeRozan said. “Stay with it one play at a time and not get caught up in missing shots, not get caught up in them making shots … just one possession at a time.’’
The feeling remained that it’s a hurdle the “Big Three” can get over.
Plus, with the front office finally all in on shipping out LaVine, if they are going to switch the mindset to a full rebuild, continuing to showcase Vucevic and DeRozan is a must.
That might be hard to stomach at times, especially with DeRozan with a team-worst minus-115 so far this season, followed by Vucevic at minus-78 and LaVine a minus-75, but there are few options to do anything else.
And it isn’t like there will be help coming from the upcoming schedule.
The next 11 known games – the in-season tournament schedule will add two more the week of Dec. 3 – are made up of road games in Toronto, Brooklyn and Boston, hosting Milwaukee and New Orleans, and then at Milwaukee, home to the Nuggets, two games down in Miami and then off to Philadelphia.
Only the Raptors and Nets are under .500, but both currently have better records than the Bulls.
That “fight’’ Donovan is claiming to see is about to be tested.
