The middling calvary has returned, and shockingly that's not enough

can't have injuries, can't have players coming back from injury...

The Bulls revenge tour against awful teams that beat them last month lasted a single game, as they barely beat the Hornets but then lost to the Pelicans again¹ . No sustained success even though they had 5 days off and multiple rotation players coming back from injury.

I prescribed success (the 37-win pace variety, which is enough for this franchise) for Donovan by using this time to shrink the rotation and use a tighter leash. I was thinking this now perfectly inverse 5-15 stretch signaled that the ‘identity’ was a bust.

But, no, it’s right back to what ‘worked’ for Mickey Mouse March and five flippin’ games to start the year. Playing 11 guys, playing Dalen Terry and Patrick Williams at all, and after a one-game reprieve riding Nikola Vucevic. The return of Isaac Okoro, Zach Collins, and Tre Jones looks to have improved the defense but they lack shooting, so while the first 5 games saw them making more threes and there was a scoring outburst from them in Charlotte, against New Orleans the team had one of the worst shooting nights of the season. It wasn’t only the misses by those principals, but the lack of gravity - Williams and Vuc aren’t feared either - making it much harder for the offense to operate.

There has been a bit of an adjustment with using more two-big lineups with Jalen Smith at power forward, but Donovan is going too far. His addiction to lineups with multiple ballhandlers has him starting all of Giddey, White, and Jones but then having bench lineups with the only guard being Terry.

Donovan said after Sunday’s loss that this is all just part of the plan in that it will take time to work things out:

“I’m not making excuses, but we have to work to find our rhythm, and what I mean by that is when we start getting guys back (from injury) it’s about guys trying to find a rhythm, a balance, rotations. It is going to take some time for these guys to be able to do that. We all have to work to find that that rhythm.
…
We’re starting to get guys back, but we haven’t played whole.”

Oh come on, man. Yes, Ayo Dosunmu remains got hurt right when these others returned, but it’s now not enough to use injuries as an excuse but now injury returns? When losing to the Pelicans - the most injured of all teams?

I suppose it does show a kind of honesty from Donovan, and illustrating once again his absolute alignment with the front office.

1. Player movement, from in-season trades to injuries, is bad due to the disruption

2. Nikola Vucevic cannot fail, he can only be failed

3. There is no urgency to win or even show progress

Typically a coach flailing during a losing stretch like this is cause to consider a change. But I am not surprised in the least that Donovan hasn’t been fired or that there’s even a whisper of it happening. If they ever addressed the fans, Donovan’s bosses would say the same things.

1. in front of what-looked-like a sparse and apathetic home crowd