Bulls finalize win-now roster that won't win now

a season preview for a sure-to-be lost season

Coming into a year Cash Considerations Podcast has aptly called “year zero of a rebuild” the Bulls front office indicated they don’t know what to do with their half-assed teardown team.

They made it sound like the preseason would teach them a lot, an admittance of a lack of leadership if genuine. And the preseason taught us…nothing. Or has it? No, it hasn’t.

It did finalize the roster. Behold this mishmash of age, experience, motivation, and size:

that’s right, these cool-as-hell Roster Snapshots I do are coming back this season.

rotation of development or production?

As you can see, the last roster spot was won by THT, another guard. I don’t really worry about positions when it comes to the 15th man¹, a lot will have to go wrong for it to matter. And, in a shocking and genuine success, nobody is known to be injured heading into the season. There have been a few minor injuries that have popped up in preseason action, but all reports from those who attend practice as Billy Donovan stenographers, everyone is practicing.

That said, due to those injuries and some rest days for some veterans, the preseason hasn’t provided an answer to the question of who Billy Donovan will go to for playing time when he has his full complement of players. If anything, it’s even more complicated after the preseason showing by Lonzo Ball, whose comeback attempt was derided by cynical losers as a sideshow but looked so good (and even more surprisingly had no setbacks) he forced his way into the speculative rotation as well. Matas Buzelis may not have had as good of a preseason to similarly ‘demand’ a spot, but he did look like a player worth gifting minutes towards.

There are other preseason winners and losers, but only if you think preseason matters. And most importantly, I don’t think Billy Donovan thinks it matters.

So I don’t foresee, despite rough preseasons, Patrick Williams or Josh Giddey being pulled from the starting lineup. And then, off the bench, I don’t feel strongly enough to predict but wouldn’t be shocked if, say, Torrey Craig plays and Buzelis gets a DNP. We’ve heard from Donovan that Buzelis is impressively fearless. I don’t think Donovan is similarly fearless, and will lean on his veterans like he usually does.

they’re really going through with this Zach LaVine hostage situation, huh

Minor decisions like Buzelis-versus-Craig are still hard to figure without remembering major decisions like getting Zach LaVine out of here already haven’t been made yet.

A lot of both big-picture and game-by-game clarity would be achived by simply not playing LaVine. Zach has proven he’s healthy, there’s nothing further he can do playing for this band of misfits under a coach he doesn’t like that will change the opinion of rival front offices.²

The Bulls haven’t been able to trade LaVine because they are bad at making trades. If this is all one long con, and they’ve taken my advice and done a full-on disingenous PR campaign to propogate narrative like Zach’s Back! and more professional than ever professional’d before!, then I’d be impressed. But they’d also have to stop it now and mothball him so he doesn’t get hurt again or play poorly when healthy (like he did to begin last season).

I’m assuming this isn’t the case. Based on their long-time franchise M.O. as the most low-effort team in the game, instead of doing this kind of work as a front office, negotiating by holding firm and waiting for other teams to get more desperate, they are putting “raise your trade return” on Zach LaVine himself.

It’s a risky idea that likely won’t work. As speculated succinctly - after the kind of PR amplification I mentioned above - by Darnell Mayberry at The Athletic:

How well will LaVine preserve his current sunny disposition if the Bulls get off to a slow start? What happens if (or when) the team hits a prolonged losing streak? Or how about if Bulls coach Billy Donovan draws up the final shot for, say, Coby White — and he misses?

These are not far-out hypotheticals: this team is going to start slow and continue slower. So if Zach plays poorly and/or gets hurt, it could make his trade value even worse. If he plays well, then he has the same “can’t win with him, though” label that has kept him from being traded so far. The contract is getting shorter, but not quickly enough.

Runnin, gunnin’, missin’

Similarly worrisome but to a lesser extent: if the final preseason game is dress rehearsal³, it’s foreboding that the team leader in FGA was Nikola Vucevic.

The Bulls have said, like every younger and worse team (including themselves just last season), that they want to play faster and shoot more threes.

I was going to approach this cynically, remembering the game one players only meeting from last year, and dig up preseason stats showing them doing this last preseason too. But no, they merely talked like they were going to. This year, albeit in preseason play, they are practicing what they’re preaching.

This preseason the Bulls led the league in Pace, and in percentage of field goal attempts coming from three they were 8th. Last preseason they were 33rd and 34th in those categories⁴

So maybe they are serious, and perhaps some incentive coming from necessity because DeMar DeRozan is no longer around “slowing things down” and “efficiently creating offense”.

So this may be a more active looking offense. I still am curious to see how effectively they can run with Vuc and LaVine, players who conceptually fit in this style but have never really shown a willingness to do so. And how the offense operates under the headwinds of constantly taking the ball out of their own basket.

Activity may not equal accomplishment, especially with some possible shortfall in the ‘threes made’ category. And I’m thinking in the “team victories” category as well.

1. also think it’s somewhat overblown in the middle of the roster too. Just label Dosunmu and Terry ‘wings’ and things look at lot more balance.

2. still annoyed whenever a Bulls ‘observer’ treats the Zach LaVine perception problem as improved based on nothing. It only matters what other front offices think, not subjective rankings or mouthbreathing fan takes

3. it’s not, because, remember: preseason is all meaningless.

4. non-NBA teams play in preseason. Flamengo had lower pace!