Are people too hard on Billy Donovan?

[waffle]

I've always thought so yes

[Infinity2152]

Lot more to being a good coach than lineup adjustments, substitutions, and inbound plays.

If you don't have actual starters at 2 of the 5 starting positions (PG and PF) and Lavine, Derozan and Vuc are your other starters, adjustments is a joke. Most of our bench players are interchangeably mid. He's not keeping James Harden on the bench or not playing Jordan Poole. We talking about not playing Andre Drummond, lowest BBall IQ in the league, Zach Collins, Smith, Phillips, Terry, Williams, javonte Green, DJJ and we're micromanaging he didn't play this mid player over that one? This was not a well-built team.

Most teams have a player/leader, we really didn't have one. Derozan/Lavine fighting for Alpha could have been a thing. If you consider teams play half the game on defense, imagine you're the coach and told to make that work. Offensively all our stars put up career highs in efficiency at some point, I believe.

Why do so many players look better playing under Billy than their last coach? Collins, Jones, Giddey, Lavine, Huerter, Pat Bev, Caruso. Coincidence? They're surrounded by great players? Or does he bring the best out of most of these guys? Thibs is better with X's and O's, I take Donovan for this team.

Most of those guys don't even look mid when Billy's not coaching them, lol.

[jnrjr79]

I think Donovan has a pretty good reputation relative to his record. Most coaches with his results would be thought of much worse than he is.

I think that's also fair based on the context.

Just based on the part I've bolded, most competent front offices would have definitely fired him by now, that's for certain. But I think our front office is very well aware the fault of the roster is on them, and not the coach, which is why they've kept him as long as they have. They basically can't afford to use him as a scapegoat.

IMO, this has not been a competent front office, but their decision to retain Billy is a sign of competence.

A competent front office would have delivered Billy a better roster and/or would have gone into a full-on rebuild where you wouldn’t expect a ton of wins. Billy has generally made chicken salad out of chicken s—t, and I think the front office knows that its roster failings would have been amplified by a lesser coach and their seats would be hotter absent Billy being around.

[ChiTownHero1992]

Billy is mediocre...always has been and always will be. He is not an amazing coach, but he isn't bad either. Your team will never win anything significant with him but they wont be an absolute dumpster fire either. Unfortunately, that just means you'll be stuck in perpetual mediocrity forever:

Billy Donovan -
A) 5 years with OKC, 5 playoffs but only 1x out of the first round w/ KD, Russ, Ibaka, Adams, etc all in prime
B) 5 years with CHI, 1 playoff (3 play-in), never out of the first round

Billy is brought in to work with young teams not "Winning" teams", he molds players gets them ready and then a franchise knows to get rid of him (atleast i hope the bUlls know that).

[KissedByaRose1]

He's the white Doc Rivers- won a few titles an eon ago and his strongest attribute is he's very well liked by all for the most part. If coaches had a WAR stat his would be 0.0, not as damaging as a Del Negro or a Boylan but probably will never win a playoff series he's not favored in and there's about 15-20 guys i'd rather see coaching the team even though he's far from the biggest problem.

I actually think this seasons roster will be best for him and with all the deadweight vets gone besides Vooch we should play fast/hard and at least develop good habits in Matas/Essengue going forward.

[Stratmaster]

Donovan was brought here to win games. Not develop young guys, win games. Has to coach the players that are on the team. Let's talk about the core and how they are widely considered, represented in here:

Lavine: Highly overpaid, bad defensively, most prominent complaint: "Does not contribute to wins"
Derozan: Love him, ball stopper, no three point threat, shrinks the floor, bad defender
Vucevic: Bad inconsistent shooter, worst defensive center in the league, kills entire team's defense single handedly
White: Has progressed to inconsistent, decent three point shooter we may or may not re-sign, bad defender
Ball: Barely had him, missed out on the $20 mill worth of players we could have had instead
Williams: Basically our only power forward the whole time, when he played. Plus, he's Pat Will.

Sounds like easily the worst defensive team in the league and guaranteed not to win many games, right? Your main guys are the "doesn't contribute to wins", "ball stopper non-shooter", and "bad shooting defensive sieve". 30 wins, tops? Plus Lavine and Williams have missed a ton of time. We almost NEVER had the best player on the court starting games.

Somehow, last four years have been 46, 40, 39, 39 wins. Nobody wants to be mid, but I challenge anyone to say Billy would have gotten more wins each season if he played his roster different. If he didn't start Pat Will, we should expect 50 wins/season with DJJ or Javonte Green starting? If he plays Drummond more, we're a 50 win team?

Micromanaging is one thing. Overall, I'd say Billy has coached the teams to more wins than could be expected, a lot more. Imo, a coach's job is to coach the team to as many wins as you can. Imagine if he had a team that actually fit together, or some nights we actually had the best 2-3 players on the court.

OK. Let's try this a different way, since that is the most one-sided portrayal of the talent on this team I have ever seen.

Lavine: Multiple season all-star. Paid exactly what every other player in the league like him would have been. One of the most prolific and efficient scorers in the league. Scores from all levels and in the open court. Never been on a winning team, except for 1/2 season in Chicago, at which point the Bulls had the best record in the league and he was in MVP discussions along with Derozan. Great on-ball defense. Bad team defense. Who had trouble figuring out how to use a player with every scoring talent you could possibly ask for in a basketball player? Billy.
Derozan: Multiple season all-star. Another prolific, highly efficient scorer. Known as "Mr. Clutch", wasn't he? Multiple season all-star. Ball stopper. Shrank the floor. Who committed, in every meaningful situation, to giving him the ball to stop it and shrink the floor? Billy.
Vucevic: Multiple season all-star. Double-double machine, near the top of the league every season. Widely considered a top 10-15 Center in the league until, probably, last season. Prone to whining and disappearing if the offense wasn't centered (pun intended) around him. Who conceded to his demands, and preached for 3 seasons that the ball has to go through the middle? Well, yeah. Stacey King. But also, Billy.
White: The new "Vinny the microwave". The 4th guy on the team capable of averaging 20 ppg+. Tendency to get out over his skis. Plays hard and fast; sometimes to his own detriment. Who failed to rein that in? Also, was never, ever a PG. Who insisted on trying to make him one? Billy.
Williams: Horrible commitment made to start him. Likely kept the Bulls from being a plus .500 team by being in the starting lineup. Who allowed the Bulls to play 4 against 5 for hundreds of games by giving him starter entitlement minutes? Billy.

The Bulls went from a 46 win team to a 39 win team. Lost more games each season. Would have lost significantly more last season if not for the late season weak schedule against tanking teams. Who has been the head coach as we have watched the team get worse, and worse, despite the exact same roster? Billy.

Who wanted all 6'8" positionless players, and now complains the team isn't physical enough? Billy.

And don't even get me started on the in-game management and other rotation issues.

[Stratmaster]

Are people in here actually hard on BD? I think we all agree he's a solid coach, no?

Billy gets the sweetheart treatment from most on this board, and the Chicago media. the rest of the media; not so much. But yeah, this board is anything but hard on Billy. No, we don't all agree he is a solid coach.

[Stratmaster]

He was just called incredibly mediocre three posts ago, lol. See a lot of comments, "He should start Collins, but he won't", "Billy doesn't play guards", "Never should have played Pat Will" etc. Most recent is the insistence he'll play Vucevic over Collins and he shouldn't do that. Just had a thought that with all these criticisms of Bull players, coaching around .500 is a pretty remarkable feat, if those guys are really that bad. Just showing hm some appreciation, I think this team consistently winning 39-40 games is pretty underrated, considering.

Don't think we've seen nearly the best of Billy. If he consistently had a Steph Curry/Jimmy Butler, Draymond, Jokic/Murray/Porter Jr/Gordon, Lebron/AD, Tatum/Brown/White/Porzingas/Holiday, how many wins do we have? Just listing that Celtics lineup makes me feel for what Billy had to work with and compete against .

Could do the same over last few years with Knicks, OKC, Rockets, Phoenix, Dallas, we've been really lacking on high end talent.

Wait. You just said how bad Vuc is. then you say he shouldn't start Collins over Vuc.

Are you saying he SHOULD have continued to start Williams season after season despite multiple other players outplaying him? Seriously?

The team has gotten worse every season he has been here other than 1/2 a year.

[Stratmaster]

The good:
- He keeps vets from quitting on a non-contending team
- He seems to be effective getting across what guys need to improve to them (not that it always has the desired results)
- He did a good job of developing some our young players
- He keeps dirty laundry inhouse

The bad:
- In game coaching adjustments
- Line-ups

Overall, he's above average. Probably as good as we could get to work with this FO and roster.

Good point. No top coach is racing to coach this roster.

Back to results: If Billy made every "correct" in game coaching adjustment, every "correct" lineup that people say he should do, do we win more than 40 games a year with the same roster? Could the improvement in defense be neutralized by the decrease in offense, for instance? Our defense be even worse because we're NOT playing Pt Will, as the only other player above 6'6 besides Vuc and whatever backup center we have at the moment.

Know why I think Jalen Smith doesn't play? Vucevic and Collins kick his ass every practice. Billy gets to see who can play and who can't way more than any fan. Doubt Smith is kicking their butts twice a week in practice and still can't get minutes. If Collins is kicking Vucevic's butt right now, he may get to start, imo. Seems like with Donovan, you have to earn minutes, unless he has no choice, like with Pat Will.

All kinds of coaches would have raced to coach Demar, Lavine and Vuc early on. Basically, you are making up every possible narrative to support Donovan that you possibly can, including telling us what Donovan is seeing; right after saying we don't know what he is seeing.

I may have a more negative view of Donovan than the reality. As much as I dislike him, at this point he already ruined what talent the Bulls had, and he is likely an average coach. That is fine for now because the team is going to suck for a while. But your portrayal is so far out there as to be ridiculous.

[Stratmaster]

We were supposed to suck after the Lavine trade, lmao! Everybody predicted it. Should have been one of the worst teams in the league. I'm not a tanking fan, but for those that are, I'm sure you feel we could have won far fewer games the last few years but somehow we stay near .500.

I wonder what record he would have had to coach this team of misfits to in order to be considered a good coach? Because in the end, wins are what really matter, not how you got there. His methods kept us at .500 with no defensive players and no 1A.

Players appear to like playing for him too. Thibs would have had the whole team injured and broken, with maybe a few more wins, maybe not.

We do suck after the Lavine trade. About like we sucked before it. the reason we don't suck worse is because the players we got back actually contributed, and Giddey got Giddy. Hopefully Giddey will stay that way. It still won't be a good team. But yeah, in your mind I am sure the genius approach of "run as fast as you can and play harder" turned the tide and the team is poised to break out because of it, right?

[Stratmaster]

I think Donovan has a pretty good reputation relative to his record. Most coaches with his results would be thought of much worse than he is.

I think that's also fair based on the context.

Just based on the part I've bolded, most competent front offices would have definitely fired him by now, that's for certain. But I think our front office is very well aware the fault of the roster is on them, and not the coach, which is why they've kept him as long as they have. They basically can't afford to use him as a scapegoat.

My and 1 is for the bolded part.

[Stratmaster]

Long tenure coaches are retained because they've proven they can win championships.

1. Spoelstra:
- 2 championships
- 6 finals
- .580 win record

2. Steve Kerr:
- 4 championships
- 6 finals
- .648 win record

3. Billy Donovan:
- 0 championships
- .487 win record (CHI)

4. Tyronn Lue
- 1 championship
- 2 EC titles
- .592 win record (CLE + LAC)

5. Mark Daigneault
- 1 championship
- 67% playoff win rate
- .528 overall win record

Billy just kind of sticks out with how long he's been with the team with no success.
Better coaches who have achieved more and been fired: Tom Thibodeau, Mike Malone, Taylor Jenkins, Rick Carlisle.

Obviously Ws depends on your talent the most, but just because you're still working on player talent means you just ignore every other aspect of the organization and do nothing to improve. Famously Erik Spoelstra took over the Heat when they were a 15 win team. If anything, changing coaches once the team is is ready to make a strong playoff run is probably the worst time to change everything.

If you think Billy is a championship coach then he should be kept. If you don't, you should look for that guy now because you're not going to just snap your fingers and get Kerr or Spoelstra when the team is ready. NY ran into this very thing this summer firing Thibs, and got rejected by all the top coaches and ended up settling for Mike Brown, which looks like a downgrade instead of an upgrade in my eyes.

LeBron or Steph make up 7 of these 8 "championship" coaches.

It's difficult to argue there's such thing as a "championship" caliber coach when almost all championships are won by generational talents.

You don't notice the disparity there? The problem isn't the lack of championships. It's the inability to even get the team into the playoffs. You can downplay the talent that was on the team all you want. It doesn't matter. You don't get re-upped twice in the NBA for not making the playoffs season after season. That is a failure. Unless you are Billy Donovan and the front office is the Chicago Bulls.

[League Circles]

OK. Let's try this a different way, since that is the most one-sided portrayal of the talent on this team I have ever seen.

Lavine: Multiple season all-star. Paid exactly what every other player in the league like him would have been. One of the most prolific and efficient scorers in the league. Scores from all levels and in the open court. Never been on a winning team, except for 1/2 season in Chicago, at which point the Bulls had the best record in the league and he was in MVP discussions along with Derozan. Great on-ball defense. Bad team defense. Who had trouble figuring out how to use a player with every scoring talent you could possibly ask for in a basketball player? Billy.
Derozan: Multiple season all-star. Another prolific, highly efficient scorer. Known as "Mr. Clutch", wasn't he? Multiple season all-star. Ball stopper. Shrank the floor. Who committed, in every meaningful situation, to giving him the ball to stop it and shrink the floor? Billy.
Vucevic: Multiple season all-star. Double-double machine, near the top of the league every season. Widely considered a top 10-15 Center in the league until, probably, last season. Prone to whining and disappearing if the offense wasn't centered (pun intended) around him. Who conceded to his demands, and preached for 3 seasons that the ball has to go through the middle? Well, yeah. Stacey King. But also, Billy.
White: The new "Vinny the microwave". The 4th guy on the team capable of averaging 20 ppg+. Tendency to get out over his skis. Plays hard and fast; sometimes to his own detriment. Who failed to rein that in? Also, was never, ever a PG. Who insisted on trying to make him one? Billy.
Williams: Horrible commitment made to start him. Likely kept the Bulls from being a plus .500 team by being in the starting lineup. Who allowed the Bulls to play 4 against 5 for hundreds of games by giving him starter entitlement minutes? Billy.

The Bulls went from a 46 win team to a 39 win team. Lost more games each season. Would have lost significantly more last season if not for the late season weak schedule against tanking teams. Who has been the head coach as we have watched the team get worse, and worse, despite the exact same roster? Billy.

Who wanted all 6'8" positionless players, and now complains the team isn't physical enough? Billy.

And don't even get me started on the in-game management and other rotation issues.

Good LORD have you construed the talent to be much more than most of us believe it has been, especially as a group. You're talking about individual "production" and accolades. The team has always been very poorly constructed under Billy. Now part of that may be his fault - he may very well have asked for it.

Your perceptions of Vuc, Zach, Demar and more are just absolutely bonkers. There are great reasons that NONE of these guys have been sought after for YEARS now. They're not good! I mean Zach might be, despite his flaws ("GREAT on ball defense" LMFAO!), but Vuc SUCKS and has for YEARS if not his whole career, and Demar has been a one decent trick pony.

Points per game is an incredibly unwise way to judge players but that's generally how "all stars" are selected.

[MrSparkle]

Billy decided to keep playing the Vuc/Demar/Zach trio very high minutes. That’s stubborn coaching. A good coach would’ve broken up the lineups, or demanded a trade.

No one’s holding him to championship standards. We’re talking about making the 1st round of the playoffs (in the weaker conference) and not embarrassing ourselves. He couldn’t do that with multiple all-stars, a DPOY candidate and a decent bench of vets and roleplayers.

I’m sorry, but that to me points at uncreative and block-headed pro coaching. Carlisle and Lue figured out more with less, in the same years. The Lonzo injury (and other guys) in 2022 was a legit excuse, but otherwise he had a healthy and deep roster by NBA standards.

And if you can see that Vuc’s absent rim protection is ruining your chance of competing, why not pivot from that? His decision to ice Drummond for most the 2 seasons he was here was insane, even if Drummond stank. Vuc’s rebounding, protection and FIT (with Zach/Demar) was worse!

He iced DJJ and refused to play him anywhere but C (low and behold he went on to play forward in the NBA finals). Kinda dismissed Lauri, Gafford, Wendell pretty quickly and all 3 went on to improve elsewhere (quite dramatically for the former).

Is he paid and locked handsomely into one of the biggest sports markets in the world for any particularly strength? Cause he sure as hell hasn’t overachieved or advised the FO on any good decisions in the last 5Y.

The best Bulls basketball I saw was Lonzo/Caruso/Demar/Zach clicking in the honey-moon period, and 5 Javontes. I can’t think of a coach who wouldn’t have made that team look good.

[jnrjr79]

Donovan was brought here to win games. Not develop young guys, win games. Has to coach the players that are on the team. Let's talk about the core and how they are widely considered, represented in here:

Lavine: Highly overpaid, bad defensively, most prominent complaint: "Does not contribute to wins"
Derozan: Love him, ball stopper, no three point threat, shrinks the floor, bad defender
Vucevic: Bad inconsistent shooter, worst defensive center in the league, kills entire team's defense single handedly
White: Has progressed to inconsistent, decent three point shooter we may or may not re-sign, bad defender
Ball: Barely had him, missed out on the $20 mill worth of players we could have had instead
Williams: Basically our only power forward the whole time, when he played. Plus, he's Pat Will.

Sounds like easily the worst defensive team in the league and guaranteed not to win many games, right? Your main guys are the "doesn't contribute to wins", "ball stopper non-shooter", and "bad shooting defensive sieve". 30 wins, tops? Plus Lavine and Williams have missed a ton of time. We almost NEVER had the best player on the court starting games.

Somehow, last four years have been 46, 40, 39, 39 wins. Nobody wants to be mid, but I challenge anyone to say Billy would have gotten more wins each season if he played his roster different. If he didn't start Pat Will, we should expect 50 wins/season with DJJ or Javonte Green starting? If he plays Drummond more, we're a 50 win team?

Micromanaging is one thing. Overall, I'd say Billy has coached the teams to more wins than could be expected, a lot more. Imo, a coach's job is to coach the team to as many wins as you can. Imagine if he had a team that actually fit together, or some nights we actually had the best 2-3 players on the court.

OK. Let's try this a different way, since that is the most one-sided portrayal of the talent on this team I have ever seen.

Lavine: Multiple season all-star. Paid exactly what every other player in the league like him would have been. One of the most prolific and efficient scorers in the league. Scores from all levels and in the open court. Never been on a winning team, except for 1/2 season in Chicago, at which point the Bulls had the best record in the league and he was in MVP discussions along with Derozan. Great on-ball defense. Bad team defense. Who had trouble figuring out how to use a player with every scoring talent you could possibly ask for in a basketball player? Billy.
Derozan: Multiple season all-star. Another prolific, highly efficient scorer. Known as "Mr. Clutch", wasn't he? Multiple season all-star. Ball stopper. Shrank the floor. Who committed, in every meaningful situation, to giving him the ball to stop it and shrink the floor? Billy.
Vucevic: Multiple season all-star. Double-double machine, near the top of the league every season. Widely considered a top 10-15 Center in the league until, probably, last season. Prone to whining and disappearing if the offense wasn't centered (pun intended) around him. Who conceded to his demands, and preached for 3 seasons that the ball has to go through the middle? Well, yeah. Stacey King. But also, Billy.
White: The new "Vinny the microwave". The 4th guy on the team capable of averaging 20 ppg+. Tendency to get out over his skis. Plays hard and fast; sometimes to his own detriment. Who failed to rein that in? Also, was never, ever a PG. Who insisted on trying to make him one? Billy.
Williams: Horrible commitment made to start him. Likely kept the Bulls from being a plus .500 team by being in the starting lineup. Who allowed the Bulls to play 4 against 5 for hundreds of games by giving him starter entitlement minutes? Billy.

The Bulls went from a 46 win team to a 39 win team. Lost more games each season. Would have lost significantly more last season if not for the late season weak schedule against tanking teams. Who has been the head coach as we have watched the team get worse, and worse, despite the exact same roster? Billy.

Who wanted all 6'8" positionless players, and now complains the team isn't physical enough? Billy.

And don't even get me started on the in-game management and other rotation issues.

I think *this* is the most one-sided portrayal of the talent on this team I have ever seen.

First and foremost, as League Circles pointed out, this recitation totally ignores roster construction and just looks at players in isolation. When you saw how the team utterly fell apart without Lonzo, it tells you all you need to know about how good the roster construction is.

As to the individual players:

Zach Lavine is a very efficient scorer who brings absolutely nothing else to the floor.

DeRozan had some nice individual season here, but is also a zero on defense. Does not space the floor and isn't a great fit for the modern NBA. (Seems like a great dude, though).

Vooch - he's terrible, this whole board knows he's terrible, and stuff like "double double machine" is said to paper over the fact that the guy sucks. Weirdly, you indicated his stock dropped last season, but last season was his only arguably decent one, given how well he shot the three. But you cannot have a player like Vooch when you have perimeter defenders like Lavine, DeRozan, and White.

White - another one-dimensional scoring player.

Pat - was not given enough of a role and missed so much time with injury that I think it's pretty nuts to think that he's had a huge impact on wins and losses. I agree he's bad, though!

I have no idea how/why you would think that the team's roster construction has been a function of Billy. There is no evidence for this.

In any event, the Bulls have had a bunch of guys that would have their uses in the NBA in theory, but you can't have Coby + LaVine + DeRozan on the same team and think that's going to work out. Heck, if LaVine and DeRozan are so great, why does Sacramento suck? I guess they must just have terrible coaching, too.

[dougthonus]

:roll: Billy decided to keep playing the Vuc/Demar/Zach trio very high minutes. That’s stubborn coaching. A good coach would’ve broken up the lineups, or demanded a trade.

No one’s holding him to championship standards. We’re talking about making the 1st round of the playoffs (in the weaker conference) and not embarrassing ourselves. He couldn’t do that with multiple all-stars, a DPOY candidate and a decent bench of vets and roleplayers.

I’m sorry, but that to me points at uncreative and block-headed pro coaching. Carlisle and Lue figured out more with less, in the same years. The Lonzo injury (and other guys) in 2022 was a legit excuse, but otherwise he had a healthy and deep roster by NBA standards.

I think a big piece of this just depends what you think of the Bulls roster. You seem quote positive about the roster from these statements. I don't hold that view myself. I think the roster sucked, and more or less think Donovan did better than expectations (just a bit) every year. I also think the players clearly played really hard for him.

Would I say it's impossible that someone couldn't have squeezed out a couple more wins? No, I wouldn't say that, but I don't think there was meaningful upside that wasn't achieved, and I think the vast majority of coaches would have done far less.

Most orgs would fire Billy based on these results, but I think firing a coach for overachieving with a crap roster because you want a scapegoat is actually bad GMing. Fire the coach because the players no longer believe or because you think he's lousy, but the players obviously, visually, believe in Billy, and I can't imagine a better coach coming here.

If we fired BD who do you think we'd get that would be better? The one thing I'd say explicitly about Billy, is that I really trust him to develop players, teach good habits, and communicate well with them. For where we are positioned that seems pretty important as well.

[Lunartic]

No, he's pretty garbage and the Bulls should be constantly looking to improve their coaching

[Stratmaster]

OK. Let's try this a different way, since that is the most one-sided portrayal of the talent on this team I have ever seen.

Lavine: Multiple season all-star. Paid exactly what every other player in the league like him would have been. One of the most prolific and efficient scorers in the league. Scores from all levels and in the open court. Never been on a winning team, except for 1/2 season in Chicago, at which point the Bulls had the best record in the league and he was in MVP discussions along with Derozan. Great on-ball defense. Bad team defense. Who had trouble figuring out how to use a player with every scoring talent you could possibly ask for in a basketball player? Billy.
Derozan: Multiple season all-star. Another prolific, highly efficient scorer. Known as "Mr. Clutch", wasn't he? Multiple season all-star. Ball stopper. Shrank the floor. Who committed, in every meaningful situation, to giving him the ball to stop it and shrink the floor? Billy.
Vucevic: Multiple season all-star. Double-double machine, near the top of the league every season. Widely considered a top 10-15 Center in the league until, probably, last season. Prone to whining and disappearing if the offense wasn't centered (pun intended) around him. Who conceded to his demands, and preached for 3 seasons that the ball has to go through the middle? Well, yeah. Stacey King. But also, Billy.
White: The new "Vinny the microwave". The 4th guy on the team capable of averaging 20 ppg+. Tendency to get out over his skis. Plays hard and fast; sometimes to his own detriment. Who failed to rein that in? Also, was never, ever a PG. Who insisted on trying to make him one? Billy.
Williams: Horrible commitment made to start him. Likely kept the Bulls from being a plus .500 team by being in the starting lineup. Who allowed the Bulls to play 4 against 5 for hundreds of games by giving him starter entitlement minutes? Billy.

The Bulls went from a 46 win team to a 39 win team. Lost more games each season. Would have lost significantly more last season if not for the late season weak schedule against tanking teams. Who has been the head coach as we have watched the team get worse, and worse, despite the exact same roster? Billy.

Who wanted all 6'8" positionless players, and now complains the team isn't physical enough? Billy.

And don't even get me started on the in-game management and other rotation issues.

Good LORD have you construed the talent to be much more than most of us believe it has been, especially as a group. You're talking about individual "production" and accolades. The team has always been very poorly constructed under Billy. Now part of that may be his fault - he may very well have asked for it.

Your perceptions of Vuc, Zach, Demar and more are just absolutely bonkers. There are great reasons that NONE of these guys have been sought after for YEARS now. They're not good! I mean Zach might be, despite his flaws ("GREAT on ball defense" LMFAO!), but Vuc SUCKS and has for YEARS if not his whole career, and Demar has been a one decent trick pony.

Points per game is an incredibly unwise way to judge players but that's generally how "all stars" are selected.

No. I just stated facts. Ok, you disagree about Lavine being great on-ball. Almost everyone, even his detractors, say he was at least good on-ball. He got accolades for his defense when playing with the American team under...oh...a different coach. Meanwhile. You give me personal opinions. What did I say, other than my classification of Lavine's on-ball defense, that you disagree with? I can go back and find the Center rankings the first few seasons Vuc was here if you would like.

So the stats agree with me, and consensus opinions would agree with everything I said. And why do you think my perceptions of those 3 players were inflated? Did I not point out Zach's bad team defense, that Demar was a ball stopper, and that Vuc had an overinflated view of his own role in the offense?

[Stratmaster]

Donovan was brought here to win games. Not develop young guys, win games. Has to coach the players that are on the team. Let's talk about the core and how they are widely considered, represented in here:

Lavine: Highly overpaid, bad defensively, most prominent complaint: "Does not contribute to wins"
Derozan: Love him, ball stopper, no three point threat, shrinks the floor, bad defender
Vucevic: Bad inconsistent shooter, worst defensive center in the league, kills entire team's defense single handedly
White: Has progressed to inconsistent, decent three point shooter we may or may not re-sign, bad defender
Ball: Barely had him, missed out on the $20 mill worth of players we could have had instead
Williams: Basically our only power forward the whole time, when he played. Plus, he's Pat Will.

Sounds like easily the worst defensive team in the league and guaranteed not to win many games, right? Your main guys are the "doesn't contribute to wins", "ball stopper non-shooter", and "bad shooting defensive sieve". 30 wins, tops? Plus Lavine and Williams have missed a ton of time. We almost NEVER had the best player on the court starting games.

Somehow, last four years have been 46, 40, 39, 39 wins. Nobody wants to be mid, but I challenge anyone to say Billy would have gotten more wins each season if he played his roster different. If he didn't start Pat Will, we should expect 50 wins/season with DJJ or Javonte Green starting? If he plays Drummond more, we're a 50 win team?

Micromanaging is one thing. Overall, I'd say Billy has coached the teams to more wins than could be expected, a lot more. Imo, a coach's job is to coach the team to as many wins as you can. Imagine if he had a team that actually fit together, or some nights we actually had the best 2-3 players on the court.

OK. Let's try this a different way, since that is the most one-sided portrayal of the talent on this team I have ever seen.

Lavine: Multiple season all-star. Paid exactly what every other player in the league like him would have been. One of the most prolific and efficient scorers in the league. Scores from all levels and in the open court. Never been on a winning team, except for 1/2 season in Chicago, at which point the Bulls had the best record in the league and he was in MVP discussions along with Derozan. Great on-ball defense. Bad team defense. Who had trouble figuring out how to use a player with every scoring talent you could possibly ask for in a basketball player? Billy.
Derozan: Multiple season all-star. Another prolific, highly efficient scorer. Known as "Mr. Clutch", wasn't he? Multiple season all-star. Ball stopper. Shrank the floor. Who committed, in every meaningful situation, to giving him the ball to stop it and shrink the floor? Billy.
Vucevic: Multiple season all-star. Double-double machine, near the top of the league every season. Widely considered a top 10-15 Center in the league until, probably, last season. Prone to whining and disappearing if the offense wasn't centered (pun intended) around him. Who conceded to his demands, and preached for 3 seasons that the ball has to go through the middle? Well, yeah. Stacey King. But also, Billy.
White: The new "Vinny the microwave". The 4th guy on the team capable of averaging 20 ppg+. Tendency to get out over his skis. Plays hard and fast; sometimes to his own detriment. Who failed to rein that in? Also, was never, ever a PG. Who insisted on trying to make him one? Billy.
Williams: Horrible commitment made to start him. Likely kept the Bulls from being a plus .500 team by being in the starting lineup. Who allowed the Bulls to play 4 against 5 for hundreds of games by giving him starter entitlement minutes? Billy.

The Bulls went from a 46 win team to a 39 win team. Lost more games each season. Would have lost significantly more last season if not for the late season weak schedule against tanking teams. Who has been the head coach as we have watched the team get worse, and worse, despite the exact same roster? Billy.

Who wanted all 6'8" positionless players, and now complains the team isn't physical enough? Billy.

And don't even get me started on the in-game management and other rotation issues.

I think *this* is the most one-sided portrayal of the talent on this team I have ever seen.

First and foremost, as League Circles pointed out, this recitation totally ignores roster construction and just looks at players in isolation. When you saw how the team utterly fell apart without Lonzo, it tells you all you need to know about how good the roster construction is.

As to the individual players:

Zach Lavine is a very efficient scorer who brings absolutely nothing else to the floor.

DeRozan had some nice individual season here, but is also a zero on defense. Does not space the floor and isn't a great fit for the modern NBA. (Seems like a great dude, though).

Vooch - he's terrible, this whole board knows he's terrible, and stuff like "double double machine" is said to paper over the fact that the guy sucks. Weirdly, you indicated his stock dropped last season, but last season was his only arguably decent one, given how well he shot the three. But you cannot have a player like Vooch when you have perimeter defenders like Lavine, DeRozan, and White.

White - another one-dimensional scoring player.

Pat - was not given enough of a role and missed so much time with injury that I think it's pretty nuts to think that he's had a huge impact on wins and losses. I agree he's bad, though!

I have no idea how/why you would think that the team's roster construction has been a function of Billy. There is no evidence for this.

In any event, the Bulls have had a bunch of guys that would have their uses in the NBA in theory, but you can't have Coby + LaVine + DeRozan on the same team and think that's going to work out. Heck, if LaVine and DeRozan are so great, why does Sacramento suck? I guess they must just have terrible coaching, too.

I gave the pros and cons of the players. I was responding to a post that portrayed 3 all-stars as trash without citing a single positive. But mine is the one-sided one. Sure. Whatever you say. And if you think Billy wasn't consulted as to the types of players he wanted, you are being foolish. Or...maybe that's why they keep extending him. Because he is a weak mealy-mouthed simp who won't speak out for himself.

[jnrjr79]

OK. Let's try this a different way, since that is the most one-sided portrayal of the talent on this team I have ever seen.

Lavine: Multiple season all-star. Paid exactly what every other player in the league like him would have been. One of the most prolific and efficient scorers in the league. Scores from all levels and in the open court. Never been on a winning team, except for 1/2 season in Chicago, at which point the Bulls had the best record in the league and he was in MVP discussions along with Derozan. Great on-ball defense. Bad team defense. Who had trouble figuring out how to use a player with every scoring talent you could possibly ask for in a basketball player? Billy.
Derozan: Multiple season all-star. Another prolific, highly efficient scorer. Known as "Mr. Clutch", wasn't he? Multiple season all-star. Ball stopper. Shrank the floor. Who committed, in every meaningful situation, to giving him the ball to stop it and shrink the floor? Billy.
Vucevic: Multiple season all-star. Double-double machine, near the top of the league every season. Widely considered a top 10-15 Center in the league until, probably, last season. Prone to whining and disappearing if the offense wasn't centered (pun intended) around him. Who conceded to his demands, and preached for 3 seasons that the ball has to go through the middle? Well, yeah. Stacey King. But also, Billy.
White: The new "Vinny the microwave". The 4th guy on the team capable of averaging 20 ppg+. Tendency to get out over his skis. Plays hard and fast; sometimes to his own detriment. Who failed to rein that in? Also, was never, ever a PG. Who insisted on trying to make him one? Billy.
Williams: Horrible commitment made to start him. Likely kept the Bulls from being a plus .500 team by being in the starting lineup. Who allowed the Bulls to play 4 against 5 for hundreds of games by giving him starter entitlement minutes? Billy.

The Bulls went from a 46 win team to a 39 win team. Lost more games each season. Would have lost significantly more last season if not for the late season weak schedule against tanking teams. Who has been the head coach as we have watched the team get worse, and worse, despite the exact same roster? Billy.

Who wanted all 6'8" positionless players, and now complains the team isn't physical enough? Billy.

And don't even get me started on the in-game management and other rotation issues.

I think *this* is the most one-sided portrayal of the talent on this team I have ever seen.

First and foremost, as League Circles pointed out, this recitation totally ignores roster construction and just looks at players in isolation. When you saw how the team utterly fell apart without Lonzo, it tells you all you need to know about how good the roster construction is.

As to the individual players:

Zach Lavine is a very efficient scorer who brings absolutely nothing else to the floor.

DeRozan had some nice individual season here, but is also a zero on defense. Does not space the floor and isn't a great fit for the modern NBA. (Seems like a great dude, though).

Vooch - he's terrible, this whole board knows he's terrible, and stuff like "double double machine" is said to paper over the fact that the guy sucks. Weirdly, you indicated his stock dropped last season, but last season was his only arguably decent one, given how well he shot the three. But you cannot have a player like Vooch when you have perimeter defenders like Lavine, DeRozan, and White.

White - another one-dimensional scoring player.

Pat - was not given enough of a role and missed so much time with injury that I think it's pretty nuts to think that he's had a huge impact on wins and losses. I agree he's bad, though!

I have no idea how/why you would think that the team's roster construction has been a function of Billy. There is no evidence for this.

In any event, the Bulls have had a bunch of guys that would have their uses in the NBA in theory, but you can't have Coby + LaVine + DeRozan on the same team and think that's going to work out. Heck, if LaVine and DeRozan are so great, why does Sacramento suck? I guess they must just have terrible coaching, too.

I gave the pros and cons of the players. I was responding to a post that portrayed 3 all-stars as trash without citing a single positive. But mine is the one-sided one. Sure. Whatever you say. And if you think Billy wasn't consulted as to the types of players he wanted, you are being foolish. Or...maybe that's why they keep extending him. Because he is a weak mealy-mouthed simp who won't speak out for himself.

Well, it’s disingenuous to call Vooch an All-Star. He’s never made an All-Star team here. His contributions to Orlando, which were limited to putting up big numbers on bad teams, aren’t really relevant to his quality as a Bull.


I have no idea how much Billy was “consulted” about acquisitions, but NBA coaches typically have way less say-so on personnel than in, say, football. I have no particular reason to believe that Billy has had a lot of influence on free agent acquisitions, trades, and the draft.

The thing you didn’t respond to that is pretty telling is that Zach and DeMar now exist on the same team, and have a better third wheel than Vooch in Sabonis, and yet the team still sucks. These guys may have positive attributes, but a team built around them is not likely to be good.

In any event, I know nobody is ever going to convince you that Billy is good, despite the fact that he consistently drags this bad roster to better-than-expected results.