there's a reason why tanking is called "the process"
losing games is a result, not a plan
A follow-up to my last post on the Bulls ‘tank’ that never was, as today is an especially important1 one as the Bulls travel to Philadelphia to take on a Sixers team that simply refuses to take the final play-in spot.
Here’s the current lottery standings:
It’s important to remember
lottery standing does not change if you make, or even advance, in the play-in tournament. Only if you make the real2 playoffs
as a return in the LaVine trade, the Bulls earned serenity in no longer needing to worry about outright losing the pick
The Bulls told us preseason they were never tanking, and even after a deadline making their team worse3 reiterated that they were never tanking, and it’s too late now to make a meaningful difference.
That said, many fans still insist that’s what the Bulls are doing. And as I’ve given Will Gottlieb of CHGO a lot of guff this season about his opinions on this matter, he had it right in a recent column: Billy Donovan is still leaning on veterans to try and win games, which is different than ‘developing winning habits’ in the young players so they can be evaluated for the long-term.
The most egregious example of this is how Donovan is deploying his most promising young player. Matas Buzelis remains in the starting lineup, but even in a game where they were even more depleted in the frontcourt due to Jalen Smith’s absence, Buzelis played 7 fewer minutes than Kevin Huerter, who has two qualities Donovan desires: 1) a guard and 2) a veteran
Now, unlike most other ‘we refuse to rebuild’ directives, I don’t think this is coming from the front office4. I think this is all Billy Donovan. Just like his pre-deadline press conferences were passively-aggressively suggesting, Donovan is coaching for himself and not long-term interest of the team. Donovan doesn’t care if in five years Buzelis is an All-Star and remembers how his first coach brought him along. It’s more pertinent to his future employment that he shows he can coax wins out of this stripped-down roster. And despite his public protestations, I doubt Donovan wants to coach this team he knows is going to take years to get back to relevance.
[Unless he gets a contract extension, of course. But would the ‘dorfs really agree to pay big long-term coaching salary when other bad teams hire first-timers on the cheap?]
I don’t fault Donovan for having this attitude. But it’s a glaring example of the overt deference Arturas Karnisovas has with his head coach. I think AK doesn’t have confidence in his abilities (nor should he!) so he lets Billy run the show.
[Bringing it back to ownership, maybe they should realize this and…let Billy run the show]
If the Bulls front office had vision and confidence in it, they’d be directing Billy who to play more than others. And not to outright lose games (damaging the ‘integrity of the game’ they seem so concerned about), as there isn’t much of a difference in quality with the veterans on this team. But instead there’s easy plausible deniability (to the point of being outright legitimate!) that this direction is to look at younger players and rest veterans.
There’s been an easily-debunked-on-its-face cover run by Bulls PR that AK is worried about the league cracking down on tankers so he has to behave this way. Meanwhile, the Sixers are clearly laying the groundwork to give up on the play-in, and there’s not even a faint notion that it’s underhanded, let alone raising to the point that the league would care. They have old guys who are hurt!
But you know who else is hurt? Coby White. And despite badly rolling his ankle, and dealing with ankle issues multiple times this season already, he’s listed as probable for tonight’s matchup.
a relative term, to be sure
another relative term, as it’s the Eastern Conference
though I still maintain they were a bit unlucky with LaVine shooting the ball so well, they had every reason to expect he’d not meaningfully impact winning. Now that he’s in Sacramento and losing, all Bulls ‘observers’ can stop pretending he is ‘underrated’ to goose his trade marketability
even they are not dumb enough to think these guys are effectively ‘showcasing’ for future trades. Right?
1. The lack of plan also falls on ownership. No matter what they publicly say, the Reinsdorfs aren't OK with tanking. And don't point me to any of that "sources say Reinsdorf says AKME can tank if they want to". There are several obvious reasons to take these kinds of statements as equivocations or outright lies.
2. Research points to the marginal irrelevance of playing time on the "development" of young players. Beyond a moderate amount, which Matas is on track to get, there's no developmental upside he's missing out on. It's questionable if there's even *ANY* developmental upside. There's simply nothing to gain in telling Donovan who to play.
3. I don't think there's any mystery with Donovan. He didn't want to tank so he left the Thunder. Here, he also clearly doesn't want to tank, but the roster is so bad from mismanagement that they're de facto tanking. He publicly said a few weeks ago that he didn't know what the plan was. But, maybe he'll change his mind since nepotism is rampant with the Bulls?
4. My guess is the whole state of affairs is due to AKME spinning BS to Reinsdorf. Because 1) AKME are terrible at everything, 2) Reinsdorf keeps telling them conflicting goals, and so, instead of just saying the truth, which is that they've made so many bad moves they're trapped, AKME tells Reinsdorf that he's simultaneously rebuilding on the fly and tanking and also insuring that they keep their pick, while simultaneously being optimistic that they can make the playoffs. A good owner would see right through this nonsense, but we don't have one.
I have a feeling AK is taking from these past 4 games that Giddey is good, instead of taking from them that Vuc sucks