Thoughts on Donovan right now

[League Circles]

He's the best coach in the league

If it was anyone else I would assume this is a joke.

Lol, it is a joke. Not necessarily pure sarcasm, as I think he has some good traits, but mostly a joke on how easy it is to change opinions as a fan with the ups and downs.

[nekorajo]

AKME have taken a lot of flack for this team's struggles as well. Maybe they'll get a thread like this too. This roster isn't nearly as bad as it seemed a few weeks ago.

[NecessaryEvil]

AKME have taken a lot of flack for this team's struggles as well. Maybe they'll get a thread like this too. This roster isn't nearly as bad as it seemed a few weeks ago.

They're not very good either

This is a team that failed to make the playoffs and struggled opening this season

Still not a great roster construction

Mid to below average coaching

I know we are bulls fans and life feels better when we actually win but no, this isn't it.

Even if Donovan can bring the young guys to a decent level, he'll never take them to the NEXT one

[RSP83]

This hot streak is interesting. The team is playing the way Donovan wants and it is working. There is a lot to unpack here.
- Donovan's systems work just fine when the players actually do them.
- Donovan has a serious issue getting the mid 3 to actually do them.

Most of the talk on the board revolves around Pat and Coby. I think that Billy deserves some love here. This is what he has been preaching for a while.

You can select more than 1 poll option

The mid-3 or a particular member of the mid-3?

[nekorajo]

This hot streak is interesting. The team is playing the way Donovan wants and it is working. There is a lot to unpack here.
- Donovan's systems work just fine when the players actually do them.
- Donovan has a serious issue getting the mid 3 to actually do them.

Most of the talk on the board revolves around Pat and Coby. I think that Billy deserves some love here. This is what he has been preaching for a while.

You can select more than 1 poll option

The mid-3 or a particular member of the mid-3?

Vuc also made it clear that he was against the way he was being coached. And franky I still don't get why he's on the perimeter bricking 3s game after game. He's a better shooter inside the arc.

[nekorajo]

AKME have taken a lot of flack for this team's struggles as well. Maybe they'll get a thread like this too. This roster isn't nearly as bad as it seemed a few weeks ago.

They're not very good either

This is a team that failed to make the playoffs and struggled opening this season

Still not a great roster construction

Mid to below average coaching

I know we are bulls fans and life feels better when we actually win but no, this isn't it.

Even if Donovan can bring the young guys to a decent level, he'll never take them to the NEXT one

I basically agree, but I've been struggling with the last part. It seems like Bulls fans as a collective have accepted throwing out the baby with the bathwater. Person X won't lead us to a championship therefore person X is not important. Fandom can make us so unreasonable. We wouldn’t blame the electrician for not pouring the concrete. We've done this with so many players and coaches over the years.

"Luol can't shoot 3s."
"Tyson can't catch."
"Jimmy isn't a number 1."
"Demar won't be here when this team is a contender again."
"Coby has short arms for his height."
"Coby isn't a number 1."
"P Won't."

Where is the line between fair criticism and throwing out the baby?Sure, Billy isn't a tactician, but does it take a tactician to get us to the "next level?" I'm not sure it does. Billy has an apparent purpose at the moment. He's pouring a foundation, and that's important.

Sure this roster construction isn't "great", but it still appears to be good even with all the missing pieces. That's meaningful.

[sco]

This hot streak is interesting. The team is playing the way Donovan wants and it is working. There is a lot to unpack here.
- Donovan's systems work just fine when the players actually do them.
- Donovan has a serious issue getting the mid 3 to actually do them.

Most of the talk on the board revolves around Pat and Coby. I think that Billy deserves some love here. This is what he has been preaching for a while.

You can select more than 1 poll option

The mid-3 or a particular member of the mid-3?

Vuc also made it clear that he was against the way he was being coached. And franky I still don't get why he's on the perimeter bricking 3s game after game. He's a better shooter inside the arc.

IMO, Vuc is a bigger problem than Zach and should be the one coming off the bench. He is much better against bums.

[Wingy]

AKME have taken a lot of flack for this team's struggles as well. Maybe they'll get a thread like this too. This roster isn't nearly as bad as it seemed a few weeks ago.

Absolutely not.

This streak feels great due to the board being near its all time lows. But sustainability is a huge question mark.
We’ll see as teams adjust to our new reality, and for instance, I fully expect opponents are going to start game planning and focusing on Coby a lot more.

We’ve had the two huge wins vs Philly and Milwaukee, though we also broke the Embiid streak last year with Zach. It’s always fun to beat LA, I sure as hell enjoyed it! Really looking at them, they’re not as good as their name. They shot their wad in the IST, and have lost 5 of 6…beating only the Spurs in that stretch, but also losing to them. Lebron played in 4 of the 5 losses (missed the latest vs MN).

I’ve pointed out a bunch, we’ve beaten a lot of wounded teams: NOP w/o CJ/Trey Murphy, Charlotte without LaMelo/Mark W, Miami without Bam/Herro.

This feels great, we hope it continues, but I think the board’s collective expectations are getting too high.

No hat tip threads for AK. Not by a long shot.

[nekorajo]

The mid-3 or a particular member of the mid-3?

Vuc also made it clear that he was against the way he was being coached. And franky I still don't get why he's on the perimeter bricking 3s game after game. He's a better shooter inside the arc.

IMO, Vuc is a bigger problem than Zach and should be the one coming off the bench. He is much better against bums.

I didn't want them to resign Vuc. I still think a rebounding rim protector could be just as valuable, but less expensive. That said, we have to deal with Vuc and Drummond, and Vuc is more reliable. If Drummond didn't have so many brain farts, I think the majority or this board would be advocating for him to start.

Drum often has the poise of a rookie, but thankfully he has the athleticism of a rookie. He's a great compliment to this team, but I'm not sure he works on the right things. The last game I went to, Dre and Demar were practicing 3s before shoot-around. Why on earth would a big with poor fundamentals spend 20+ minutes on a shot he isn't going to take in the game?

[RyanJamari]

Billy needs some credit. He has a great history with player development. Even if you don’t like his rotations, He calls timeouts at the beginning of other teams runs. His system works when players run it, too.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[nekorajo]

AKME have taken a lot of flack for this team's struggles as well. Maybe they'll get a thread like this too. This roster isn't nearly as bad as it seemed a few weeks ago.

Absolutely not.

This streak feels great due to the board being near its all time lows. But sustainability is a huge question mark.
We’ll see as teams adjust to our new reality, and for instance, I fully expect opponents are going to start game planning and focusing on Coby a lot more.

We’ve had the two huge wins vs Philly and Milwaukee, though we also broke the Embiid streak last year with Zach. It’s always fun to beat LA, I sure as hell enjoyed it! Really looking at them, they’re not as good as their name. They shot their wad in the IST, and have lost 5 of 6…beating only the Spurs in that stretch, but also losing to them. Lebron played in 4 of the 5 losses (missed the latest vs MN).

I’ve pointed out a bunch, we’ve beaten a lot of wounded teams: NOP w/o CJ/Trey Murphy, Charlotte without LaMelo/Mark W, Miami without Bam/Herro.

This feels great, we hope it continues, but I think the board’s collective expectations are getting too high.

No hat tip threads for AK. Not by a long shot.

All 8-3 streaks feel great. I agree that Bulls fans are setting expectations too high and it's not fair. On paper this team should have lost way more. For me if they compete, they get a passing grade.

Back to AKME. They were smart enough to prioritize resigning Coby White who rewarded them by playing like an Allstar. They also excepted that Zach needed to be moved last season. I don't know if there truly were fair offers in place last season, so I won't judge them based on hearsay.

They've still screwed up plenty, but I don't see why they don't deserve credit along with Billy when things are going well.

[Andi Obst]

He's never been the problem with this team. BD is okay. Not great, but there are many worse coaches out there.

[Wingy]

Back to AKME. They were smart enough to prioritize resigning Coby White who rewarded them by playing like an Allstar. They also excepted that Zach needed to be moved last season. I don't know if there truly were fair offers in place last season, so I won't judge them based on hearsay.

They didn’t draft Coby though, and his improvement last year was pretty apparent to most everyone, so resigning him wasn’t some brilliant move. The majority of the board was behind resigning as long as we didn’t compete against ourselves and throw some ridiculous number at him.

Another problem with AK is that he deserved to start last year.

Except they decided to continue to start sophomore slumping Ayo, and brought in Pat Bev to get in his way. I guess we got a value contract out of it, but that surely wasn’t intentional.

[MrSparkle]

Back to AKME. They were smart enough to prioritize resigning Coby White who rewarded them by playing like an Allstar. They also excepted that Zach needed to be moved last season. I don't know if there truly were fair offers in place last season, so I won't judge them based on hearsay.

They didn’t draft Coby though, and his improvement last year was pretty apparent to most everyone, so resigning him wasn’t some brilliant move. The majority of the board was behind resigning as long as we didn’t compete against ourselves and throw some ridiculous number at him.

Another problem with AK is that he deserved to start last year.

Except they decided to continue to start sophomore slumping Ayo, and brought in Pat Bev to get in his way. I guess we got a value contract out of it, but that surely wasn’t intentional.

Coby's percentages were continually terrible until this Zach-less stretch. He did not deserve the starter job in the first half of last season. And P-Bev out-performed as well.

Both things can be true. Zach held Coby back, but Coby also held Coby back. He's simply a better player this season, and I don't necessarily think he was ready to contribute last year (like this), even if there was an opening.

My theory is the value contracts were on their mind, when it was apparent that Coby and Ayo were still struggling with their shots. If you gave Coby twice the volume, his advanced stats probably still look like crap, but his PPG would be more attractive and lay more of an argument for $15-20M salary. Just common sense to make them grind harder to earn minutes. Overpaying for Kuzmas and Pooles obviously has its downfalls. Coby and Ayo were pretty disappointing last October; both guys were outplayed by Grandpa Goric. I think the FO had faith, since all O heard was praise from Billy and AK for their work ethic. But the results weren't there yet.

[MikeDC]

Back to AKME. They were smart enough to prioritize resigning Coby White who rewarded them by playing like an Allstar. They also excepted that Zach needed to be moved last season. I don't know if there truly were fair offers in place last season, so I won't judge them based on hearsay.

They didn’t draft Coby though, and his improvement last year was pretty apparent to most everyone, so resigning him wasn’t some brilliant move. The majority of the board was behind resigning as long as we didn’t compete against ourselves and throw some ridiculous number at him.

Another problem with AK is that he deserved to start last year.

Except they decided to continue to start sophomore slumping Ayo, and brought in Pat Bev to get in his way. I guess we got a value contract out of it, but that surely wasn’t intentional.

the majority of this board would have traded Coby for a bag of hammers. The right approach here is some introspection on everyone's part who was just totally wrong about how we've lucked into a decent situation in spite of ourselves. Once again.

[dougthonus]

AKME have taken a lot of flack for this team's struggles as well. Maybe they'll get a thread like this too. This roster isn't nearly as bad as it seemed a few weeks ago.

The lion's share of the credit for the recent run is the last GarPax guy playing like a superstar. Not sure Coby makes me feel better about AKME given they didn't draft/identify him, heavily favored Ayo over him last year, and were reportedly actively shopping him for two years but just couldn't get a return worth taking. They seemed to keep him primarily due to birds right trap (same with Vuc) which they couldn't reasonably replace him with the assets they had.

It's worked out well for them, and they got him on a good contract, but a look behind the curtain on the context around how all that happened shouldn't fill you with confidence. The overall long term vision of this roster is in the same place, you've got a decision to make on DeMar, Vuc is a depreciating assets, and you appear to have waited too long on a Zach trade.

If Pat pans out and Coby pans out, and they can move Zach for salary relief/role players/anything and get medical retirement on Lonzo, then maybe they can salvage something here, but in the case Coby pans out, they would have inherited a roster with a low rung stars at PG, SG, PF, and a starting caliber center all under 25 and clean books and brought us to this point.

[Bandit King]

Average coach who gets young players working hard.

[nekorajo]

AKME have taken a lot of flack for this team's struggles as well. Maybe they'll get a thread like this too. This roster isn't nearly as bad as it seemed a few weeks ago.

The lion's share of the credit for the recent run is the last GarPax guy playing like a superstar. Not sure Coby makes me feel better about AKME given they didn't draft/identify him, heavily favored Ayo over him last year, and were reportedly actively shopping him for two years but just couldn't get a return worth taking. They seemed to keep him primarily due to birds right trap (same with Vuc) which they couldn't reasonably replace him with the assets they had.

It's worked out well for them, and they got him on a good contract, but a look behind the curtain on the context around how all that happened shouldn't fill you with confidence. The overall long term vision of this roster is in the same place, you've got a decision to make on DeMar, Vuc is a depreciating assets, and you appear to have waited too long on a Zach trade.

If Pat pans out and Coby pans out, and they can move Zach for salary relief/role players/anything and get medical retirement on Lonzo, then maybe they can salvage something here, but in the case Coby pans out, they would have inherited a roster with a low rung stars at PG, SG, PF, and a starting caliber center all under 25 and clean books and brought us to this point.

I agree, and they haven't earned my confidence. I'm not arguing that they've been great at their job, but maybe they're not the train wreck many of us thought they were. This roster (still without a legit PF imo) has proven to be more cohesive and resilient than any of us could have imagined a few weeks ago.

Frankly, I think entire topic is premature. But if Billy's earned a pseudo congratulatory thread for the team's recent success, I think the people responsible for building this roster probably deserve some recognition as well.

[Wingy]

the majority of this board would have traded Coby for a bag of hammers. The right approach here is some introspection on everyone's part who was just totally wrong about how we've lucked into a decent situation in spite of ourselves. Once again.

I said the majority wanted him back if we didn’t sign him to some crazy deal, and we didn’t compete with ourselves. I think that’s proven out by the generally positive reactions in his resigning thread because we didn’t go nuts, and we didn’t pay up just to pay up with a larger deal. We paid a modest deal for a young player who made visibly tangible improvements.

I definitely remember some being really low on him, but I think most saw his improved game and handle already showing up (Stacey called it out regularly). I definitely advocated plenty to start him, and believe there was a thread for it iirc. So no, if even I can see the clear year-to-year improvement and call for more minutes/expanded role, resigning Coby was not some great move by AK.

[Wingy]

The new minutes thread, and revisiting last season’s minutes really makes me believe Billy had no clue what the group was capable of without Zach.

If he knew Zach was (supposedly*) holding us back so much, then why play him to the tune of 11th most mpg in the league, and 3rd most total in the entire Association?

You do that when you believe that guy gives you the best chance to win.

* supposedly because, I don’t think it’s individually Zach at all.