Yesterday was the Bulls on and off court nadir
though maybe not, it could get worse!
NBA Injury Reports are the lowest form of conversation. And especially so with the Bulls, who through a combination of antagonism towards media and the basketball-watching public’s apathy towards one of the league’s glamor big-market franchises have managed to make it even more annoying.
This is a minor complaint about how The Bulls Do Things, but it still is ridiculous that the Bulls injury updates are vague and exclusively delivered through the head coach.
It’s a major complaint that Bulls lottery pick Noa Essengue is done for the year. Nobody’s ‘fault’, really, and I think what Billy Donovan said yesterday regarding the injury and remediation steps all makes sense. Will Gottlieb was there to transcribe not-a-doctor Donovan, and disclosed post-game that Essengue wasn’t even initially discussed amongst myriad other injuries until he was asked specifically about Essengue.
At least it is definitive, which is more than I can say for many others.
Isaac Okoro - pulled up lame on November 22nd, has been effectively day-to-day since, put on the injury report and ruled out. We received a bit more clarity from Donovan on Wednesday, but just enough to figure he’s not coming back this weekend. Maybe more weeks? a pinched nerve? who knows!
Kevin Huerter - groin injury suffered a few minutes into the December 2nd game, Donovan said the day after that Huerter won’t even be evaluated for another week.
Coby White - hurt his other calf after playing 3 straight games between 11/22 and 11/28. The other calf that he hurt in the offseason - we never found out when it was initially injured - had him miss weeks. Coby said this one isn’t as bad. Which, if summoning memories of Bulls injury updates past, means we’ll see him in, oh, six weeks.
Jalen Smith - inactive since the 11/29 game. We have heard nothing on this from what I can tell, but it’s a hamstring injury and doesn’t that typically mean a minimum week-plus absence? Why is he ‘questionable’ every game since?
Tre Jones - sprained his ankle at the end of Monday’s game in Orlando. Appears to be minor, but Jones has had a lot of ankle and foot injuries in his career.
Obviously these injuries - especially the soft tissue variety1 - are difficult to set timelines to, but I think the Bulls would be better served with more transparency and realism from the outset. That’s if they cared about pissing off their fans. Instead they feel aggravated themselves that they need to disclose anything they do to anyone. It invites criticism! Stay out of Bulls business!
So the Bulls had a lot of players out, but still a top-8 that should’ve handled the Brooklyn Nets outfit. Instead they had perhaps their worst offensive game of the season. Defensively they were about what they usually are, which is terrible. It could have been even worse if the Nets weren’t booting the ball inexplicably2. Vucevic had his worst game of the year and looked like he didn’t want to be around anymore.
Seeing Vuc melt down is an indicator of a team trending towards ‘fun-bad’, but we are not there yet. The team-employed broadcast members were not in dismay mode yet, they were making excuses with the lengthy injury report and that the Bulls were young team that needed practice time.
No need to fully take down that argument, again:
But to be succinct: this version of the Bulls, while young3 was gassed up by the front office by having a leg up on other young teams like the Nets because the Bulls young players had 1) experience 2) continuity 3) in an environment that was all about winning
As we’ve seen, there is no hope for a change in attitude, some self-realization that their plan for this season failed and a pivot to other goals4. While they are technically on the outside of the play-in now, the Bucks are barely ahead of them and Giannis gave Bucks fans the worst day of their year, sorta leaking a trade request then getting hurt again for 4-6 more weeks. The Bulls will still see themselves as in the hunt, and everything was going great until the injuries. Hearing AK say this in my head makes me happy he isn’t also giving the injury updates.
Zach Collins is a counter example: he broke a bone, had surgery, and is on a typical timeline to return likely this weekend.
I guess it is easily explained - it’s the Nets.
weighted-minutes age last night for Bulls was 25.5 years, Nets was 23.6
and from what we’ve seen of their other “sell” trades, they will get nothing for any veteran on this roster anyway