Confirmed: Billy Donovan runs the Bulls

Bulls philosophy remains: head coach runs the team and player development during the year

Zach Lowe’s podcast is having a recurring segment during this part of the NBA calendar (post-deadline shitshow) where he tries to find “one nice thing about a tanking team”

“all you want to learn as tanking team that has aspirations to be good next year is: ‘is someone showing me something that carries over onto a good team’ “

That’s outside of the main goal, which is losing and improving lottery odds of course. In this past weekend’s episode, Lowe grouped in the Bulls as a tanking team even though it was too late to meaningfully improve lottery odds and they may not even be intentional with how bad they are. Losing 11 straight games somewhat renders the intent meaningless, I suppose.

I think Lowe’s take is a good and smart philosophy, so of course the Bulls are not adhering to it.

I posited a couple weeks ago how these games will indicate whether Billy Donovan continues to run the show: Donovan believes in structure and responsibility as the best environment for player development, and will only give out ‘entitlement minutes’ to young players if absolutely necessary due to injury. The Front Office, led by Arturas Karnisovas, not only condones this but endorses it as their philosophy too.

In the time since the trade deadline, it’s been confirmed that even in the wake of the front office at least deciding they were no longer committed to winning games this season, Billy is operating like they’re going for the Play-In yet again. He’s said as much that there is no organizational philosophy overriding his coaching purview:

There has been no indication from ownership or the front office of, ‘Hey, listen, if we finish here, here or here’ or ‘Listen, don’t worry about playing those guys; just play these guys.’ There’s been none of that at all.

Furthermore, Donovan has said he doesn’t even know what the team philosophy or direction is right now, and will sort that out after the season. In the meantime, try to win, with new addition evaluations waiting behind first impressions and ‘Billy’s guys’.

Starting with Jaden Ivey, which was a fairly odd (yet typically Bullsian) situation that’s resulted in Ivey being on the shelf for a couple weeks. Even the Bulls front office knew that Ivey was damaged goods but worth a shot to get in their building, especially since the only cost was Kevin Huerter. But whether it was because Donovan himself didn’t know, or that the initial surge in minutes and pace with the Bulls caused injury, it was quickly determined by Donovan that Ivey was not looking right. Then there was a weird communication through the media where it appears the Bulls wanted Ivey to play fewer minutes, Ivey said he had knee soreness, and then the Bulls said OK you play zero minutes then.

Anfernee Simons was apparently also damaged goods when he arrived, though this was not known. Simons has been playing all season through a small fracture in his wrist, and while he missed ten games for Boston earlier this year it was determined that he’d play through it. Simons suffered another hit on that wrist that has knocked him out of the lineup for rest. As the Bulls also delegate injury news to Donovan, it was he who said they were ‘not discussing surgery’. Why not? Bad teams like the Bulls are shutting guys down and getting surgeries, some for even more dubious reasons than a wrist fracture.

Between Simons, Ivey, Giddey, and Coby White, it sure appears that the Chicago Bulls have more of a “play through injury” mindset than their NBA peers, even ones that are actual contenders.

Even with Simons and Ivey on the shelf, Rob Dillingham is still seeing sporadic minutes, already behind Collin Sexton on the depth chart and then pushed further back after the full-fledged return of Tre Jones and Josh Giddey (who is gaining minutes in his return after his hamstring injury absence even when suffering sprained ankles in games, truly mad stuff). It’s not that hard to rationalize and certainly wouldn’t garner interest from The League to simply play Dillingham a lot. In the minutes he has received, Dillingham looks pretty bad, and Donovan has been openly dubious of Dillingham’s ability to contribute right away. But of course that shouldn’t matter for the rest of this season.

In the frontcourt, the Bulls have just as many injuries but fewer mainstays to supplant, so 22 year old Leonard Miller is getting some playing time. It would be nice to think this was an organizational philosophy, but like Matas Buzelis last year it is only out of necessity. Billy all but confirmed Miller would be back on the bench if Jalen Smith and Patrick Williams were healthy. It’s universally considered bad news from Tuesday’s game that Matas Buzelis also suffered an ankle injury, so maybe Billy won’t get the chance to bury Miller after all.

This brings to mind Lachlan Olbrich, who is only months younger than Miller and on a two-way contract. In his rookie season Olbrich has looked to be not an NBA player. But if this was truly a ‘pivot’ to a new ‘stage’ of ‘transition’ or whatever Arturas Karnisovas wants to spin, Olbrich would at least be out there instead of fringe-level veterans. The objective is to use these games to gain information. You can reason that in Olbrich’s case that isn’t necessary: Billy has seen enough. Fine, but I don’t want to hear this offseason from AK that we still don’t know what we have.

And it’s yet another example of the Bulls being awful with 2-ways¹ and end-of-active-roster spots. If Olbrich can’t get minutes now, release him for someone who can, or alternatively a high-upside prospect. The Bulls - again, in a rebuild - have the other two 2-way spots occupied by non-prospect guards who function more as minor league circus acts than any near or long-term contributor to the big club. Zach Collins is out for the season, yet remains on the roster. It’s not only an opportunity to bring in someone younger, but someone on a very low contract with team control for next season.

Yes, this is all sounding like a lot of work! And the Bulls, as we know, are not merely bad at what they do try but simply do not try very hard.

I was thinking, especially after the loss to an undermanned and average-even-when-healthy Portland team, that Billy Donovan may quit before the season is over simply to avoid piling up losses on his career coaching record. But thikning about it another way: Donovan is getting to do what he wants and what he asked for when parting ways with Oklahoma City: complete control over playing time and player development, plus influence over the roster decisionmaking.

After this season, I find it extremely unlikely that his nominal bosses will be able to articulate a plan let alone execute it. So Billy will quit then. But until then, the organization is truly just throwing away the rest of this season, and if nobody notices that’s even better.

1. coincidentally, the deadline to sign a 2-way contract for this season is today