PG - Medíocre

[madvillian]

Net Ratings for the 1 game:

Starters: White/Lavine/DDR/Craig/Vuc: -77.2

Starters w/ Caruso sub: White/Caruso/Lavine/Derozan/Vuc: +24.1
Bench Mob + DDR: Carter/Caruso/DDR/PWill/Andre: +85.7
Starters w/ Caruso, but w/ Craig: +2.2
Ayo lineup: Ayo / Carter / DDR / PWill / Vuc: +38.1

It's almost impossible to find a lineup that doesn't work, and we choose to start and get into a -18 deficit with the one lineup that can't play basketball together.

As I said last night I think BD wants to get fired. Or, and this is also plausible, he's been ordered to play the mid 3 as much as possible (including well into the 2nd half of the 3rd last night) in order to try and show the world the benefits of "continuity".

[drosestruts]

Some posters I don't even think are watching the games I think they box score watching waiting to see if it's a loss then coming in to spew the rebuild rhetoric smh it's making this place a little unenjoyable smh

Truth is the team actually played pretty good last night. This wasn't some scrub team they were playing this is a team the Suns who have championship aspirations. And we went toe to toe with them and if not for a couple bad turnovers from lavine and especially vuc we would have beat them after being down double digits to them twice.

I'm just saying it's some games to really be down on the team, this not one of them as they showed a lot of fight and if not for a couple bad mistakes would have won it.

Yes and no

Going down 18 points in the first quarter is a problem. It was a problem last night, and slow/bad starts in general have been a problem of this team.

DeMar didn't play that well last night, and Vuc too has struggled getting rebounds two games in a row.

DeMar is particular was being effectively guarded by Bates-Diop 1-on-1. That's embarrassing for someone of DeMar's caliber.

Grayson Allen shot the heck out of the ball and found himself wide-open way too often. Often the fault of Zach or DeMar.

I agree the Suns are good, even if injured. Durant is still one of the best players in the league and the Bulls collectively, and Caruso in particular did a great job on him.

We're 2-3 now in clutch games. We had a losing record in cluth games last year. It's nice we're in so many games, but at some point the inability to get wins in these situations is more symptom than fluke.

Pre-season I thought this team would win 49 games. I believed we were talented and that Carter and Craig additions paired with internal improvements would bolster this team's play.

Some of those things are happening, some of them are not. Coby after a slow start is playing well. Carter and Craig are doing their thing.

Williams is not.

Vuc is missing too many bunnies for me, even if his percentages overall look ok, with no three's and no FTAs it's not good enough. His efficiency is way down, so too is his rebounding.

DeMar too - efficiency way down. His assist to turnover ratio has been excellent. But he's not scoring efficiently enough. He's still getting to the line, he's just not hitting his shots from the field.

As veteran players I'm willing to give them a bit more time, but we're 9 games in. 10% of the season is gone. We have the 22nd best net rating.

[madvillian]

I'm not sure people realize how much Demar has declined from his first 100 or so games in Chicago, when he was legit one of the 20 best players in the league and arguably a top 5 scorer.

It's a helluva lot harder to win with an average starting player in Demar (which is what he's been for a while now) than with an All Star level Demar. Given his age, that elite version is not likely to show up too often.

Continuity works a a helluva lot better with guys that are on the other side of 30.

[burlydee]

Net Ratings for the 1 game:

Starters: White/Lavine/DDR/Craig/Vuc: -77.2

Starters w/ Caruso sub: White/Caruso/Lavine/Derozan/Vuc: +24.1
Bench Mob + DDR: Carter/Caruso/DDR/PWill/Andre: +85.7
Starters w/ Caruso replacing DDR: +2.2
Ayo lineup: Ayo / Carter / DDR / PWill / Vuc: +38.1

It's almost impossible to find a lineup that doesn't work, and we choose to start and get into a -18 deficit with the one lineup that can't play basketball together.

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This pattern keeps repeating. At some point the Bulls simply have to put Caruso in the starting lineup. They also have to recognize that LAVINE does not play like a guard, he plays like a wing. So the Bulls need to put another playmaking guard on the court.

In each of the top 3 lineups, you have Caruso/White, Carter/Caruso, or Ayo/Carter. There isn't enough playmaking on the floor. On the top of all that, the Bulls 2 guard line ups are better defensively. Caruso, Carter and Ayo are the Bulls best defenders, they are the Bulls who play with the most pace and they are the Bulls who look for their shot least. Add in White and you now have a list of the Bulls best playmakers. The rotation needs to be -

White / Carter
Caruso / Ayo
Lavine / Williams
Derozan / Craig
Vuc / Drummond

Lavine-Derozan-Vuc needs the extra playmaking and they need the added ball pressure. Every other lineup just doesn't work for this current roster. Its not that different from what Boston does, just much, much worse.

[weneeda2guard]

Great to see some positivity. Thought our guys played hard, they could have given up early, and fought hard the whole game and overtime. Nurkic played outstanding, lowkey, and Grayson Allen had a career shooting night. KD is probably the most efficient scorer in the league, and damn near had a triple double. Pat shot more freely, just wasn't hitting. Bulls will probably lose rebounding most nights, you realize Torrey Craig is 6'5", right? Watching Coby last night, he may end up way better than just average starter, he showed some real strengths on both ends, toughness and hustle. Was proud of the effort, watched till the end, if you paid for a ticket, don't think you'd feel the team ripped you off, even if they did lose. And Caruso!!

Nothing wrong with criticism to the team when they look bad, they actually didn't look bad last night. They just made some stupid mistakes down the stretch. That seems to happen often with them unfortunately but they put up a great fight overall. They could have laid down when they got down 18 and down double digits again in the 3rd but they got back into it and it was honestly a very exciting game.

Just some posters are so invested in their blow it up rants they become disingenuous with their analysis of the game. Last night wasn't a game to call them out for being trash.

I mean are you calling going 3-6 after a home loss to a previously 3-4 Suns squad (missing their best player) a moral victory?

If you are, ok, but moral victories aren't what we're after via "continuity".

I never used the words moral victories. It was a loss. My first post here was talking about losing yet another game they should have won.

But that is far and away from trying to make a case they are a complete disaster. Last night they were not a complete disaster. They just made some mistakes. The cavs are 3-5, the heat are just now getting back to .500 the kings are below .500 etc I'm not saying this a title contending team, but when they play positively acknowledge that because trying to make a case they are horrible after actually not playing horribly is disingenuous.

I'm not like others, for me I've concluded tanking doesn't work. Others have decided it's the only option simply on a archaic way of going about building a team. I simply still want to compete and win and think just moving some guys out , bringing some guys in and maybe a coaching change could still keep us competitive. I'm tired of losing basketball and silly hopes for players picked 7th and 8th in the draft. But I can't dictate how others should feel about where we should go from here. So we are 3-6, but we could very well still get to .500 in a week or so based on the schedule. Doesn't matter , all I'm saying is, if the guys play good, call them out for their bad decisions at the end but man all the calling them garbage after they actually were not garbage it comes across like it's just another agenda.

[DuckIII]

Coby at PG is finished.

Zach and DDR now take turns at PG.

Yet another easily predictable thing, that was in fact widely predicted, and then came true. Carter was always the best PG to start with The 3 because he doesn't dribble the ball and will only take opportunistic shots. And he helps cover for their atrocious defense.

But of course we start the guy who is better off with the ball in his hands and is the lesser defender.

Again: For the individual players and for the short term success of the team, Coby and Pat should not be on the court at the same time with The 3. Basically ever. What a complete **** show this FO is in every conceivable way. They can't point to one single thing this organization is doing right under their watch. Its just a list of foreseeable mistakes.

[Infinity2152]

Eh, the suns are not good right now. Not without Booker and a banged up Beal and an aged Durant learning to play with Nurkic.

We are what are record says we are: 3-6. .333 winning percentage. I expect we'll be around 25-32 by the New Year and will finish around 35-47 by spring.

Unless we just blow it up, which doesn't seem likely.

The Suns are not good because Booker is out? There's a starter not playing on our team for the whole season named Lonzo Ball. Yet the Bulls never get to use that excuse, injured starter. Aged KD putting 25 pts, 7 rbs, 9 assts on ridiculous shooting is still better than 98% of the league overall. Grayson Allen put up a performance way better than Beal, who played 24 minutes, so banged up Beal seems to mean nothing. And they have Eric Gordon to play big minutes when Beal or Booker are down. They're still considered a top contender for the title on every gambling site, but they're not a good team?

Bulls are the only team that doesn't get a pass for losing a starter for the whole season. Bucks got a pass missing Middleton, and they had Jrue and Giannis. Warriors got a pass when Klay got hurt. Those teams have superior 1A players, and still got passes. Didn't the Warriors get a lottery pick? Not trying to hear how long Ball's injury has been, he's still on our cap, holding us from replacing him.

On another note, watching last night, Zach needs to drive more. He may not be the best passer and needs to tighten his grip, don't think he has big hands. But he and Coby White are the only ones who pressure the defense, Demar settles for jumpers out of most of his isos, Lavine can throw a ton of open passes if they focus on that, he's pretty good at driving. And if he focuses on finishing, you can tell sometimes he's more worried about drawing the foul than scoring, lol.

The Bulls don't get a pass because the 3 all-stars are still on the court. The Bucks didn't have Lopez for almost an entire season and still won 51 games. Middleton was injured, missed over half the season, and the Bucks had a league-best 58 wins. The Nuggets were missing Murray and Porter and still made the playoffs.

The Bulls don't get any excuses because nobody feels like they deserve any. Losing Lonzo sucks but if Vuc/Zach/DDR aren't good enough to win games without him then there was no point in putting this team together.

What do All Star games from years ago have to do with team importance? Vuc got $20 mill on a new contract, that's not All Star money, that's good sixth man money. Klay would be considered a much higher rated than Draymond, Draymond is easily just as important. I've compared Lonzo to Draymond before, not one of those 3 ALL Stars were as important to the smooth running of the team. And again, the Nuggets and Bucks have MVP players to make up for losing critical players, and those MVP's ran the offense. Bulls don't have a set-up guy. Can call it excuses all you want, but until Lonzo comes off the cap, will be hard to replace that. Getting rid of the other pieces still won't fix that problem. If we had a healthy Lonzo and a injured Derozan or Lavine for the same period of time, this team would be much better, what they can do is more easily replaced.

Again, no one was certain Lonzo was done, hell, they're not certain now, he's not retired. All these great ideas that the Bulls should have just torn it down or traded players assumes Lonzo's not playing right now. We're fans, not doctors, we don't have a better idea of Lonzo's medical condition than any other fan, just opinion.

Interesting the people complaining about the Bulls talent are the ones who want us to lose the most games, like make up your mind what's going to make you happy, when we win or when we lose lol. If they trade all the vets and suck, give up everybody for future picks and expirings, will be real fun in here the next two years winning 20 games a season behind the dynamic duo of Coby White, Patrick Williams, and our new rookies. Isn't our 2024 pick top 4 protected, but against us, like if it's top 4 it conveys?

[Wingy]

Coby at PG is finished.

Zach and DDR now take turns at PG.

Yet another easily predictable thing, that was in fact widely predicted, and then came true. Carter was always the best PG to start with The 3 because he doesn't dribble the ball and will only take opportunistic shots. And he helps cover for their atrocious defense.

But of course we start the guy who is better off with the ball in his hands and is the lesser defender.

Again: For the individual players and for the short term success of the team, Coby and Pat should not be on the court at the same time with The 3. Basically ever. What a complete **** show this FO is in every conceivable way. They can't point to one single thing this organization is doing right under their watch. Its just a list of foreseeable mistakes.

Tough situation due to the individual effort, improvement, being on the team for years. Guessing Coby and a number of other players feel he earned the right to start. He probably should’ve been given the chance last year TBH, and we could’ve evaluated this idea headed into the offseason. Tough clubhouse “message” kinda thing not giving him the nod. Especially contrasting with PWill starting to begin the year, and his entitlement minutes and lack of any obvious improvement. I highly doubt Coby wants to go to the bench.

I agree on fit with the Mid-3 though, and I definitely get what you’re saying for the good of the actual results. Honestly though, I think I may value Coby’s long term mindset as a Bulls player more than a few extra wins squeezed out that contribute nothing toward overturning the well known mediocre destination.

If they truly wanted to max out this group, they would’ve told him to spend all his time becoming a lights out catch and shoot player, and make his PG skills secondary.

[2weekswithpay]

The Suns are not good because Booker is out? There's a starter not playing on our team for the whole season named Lonzo Ball. Yet the Bulls never get to use that excuse, injured starter. Aged KD putting 25 pts, 7 rbs, 9 assts on ridiculous shooting is still better than 98% of the league overall. Grayson Allen put up a performance way better than Beal, who played 24 minutes, so banged up Beal seems to mean nothing. And they have Eric Gordon to play big minutes when Beal or Booker are down. They're still considered a top contender for the title on every gambling site, but they're not a good team?

Bulls are the only team that doesn't get a pass for losing a starter for the whole season. Bucks got a pass missing Middleton, and they had Jrue and Giannis. Warriors got a pass when Klay got hurt. Those teams have superior 1A players, and still got passes. Didn't the Warriors get a lottery pick? Not trying to hear how long Ball's injury has been, he's still on our cap, holding us from replacing him.

On another note, watching last night, Zach needs to drive more. He may not be the best passer and needs to tighten his grip, don't think he has big hands. But he and Coby White are the only ones who pressure the defense, Demar settles for jumpers out of most of his isos, Lavine can throw a ton of open passes if they focus on that, he's pretty good at driving. And if he focuses on finishing, you can tell sometimes he's more worried about drawing the foul than scoring, lol.

The Bulls don't get a pass because the 3 all-stars are still on the court. The Bucks didn't have Lopez for almost an entire season and still won 51 games. Middleton was injured, missed over half the season, and the Bucks had a league-best 58 wins. The Nuggets were missing Murray and Porter and still made the playoffs.

The Bulls don't get any excuses because nobody feels like they deserve any. Losing Lonzo sucks but if Vuc/Zach/DDR aren't good enough to win games without him then there was no point in putting this team together.

What do All Star games from years ago have to do with team importance? Vuc got $20 mill on a new contract, that's not All Star money, that's good sixth man money. Klay would be considered a much higher rated than Draymond, Draymond is easily just as important. I've compared Lonzo to Draymond before, not one of those 3 ALL Stars were as important to the smooth running of the team. And again, the Nuggets and Bucks have MVP players to make up for losing critical players, and those MVP's ran the offense. Bulls don't have a set-up guy. Can call it excuses all you want, but until Lonzo comes off the cap, will be hard to replace that. Getting rid of the other pieces still won't fix that problem. If we had a healthy Lonzo and a injured Derozan or Lavine for the same period of time, this team would be much better, what they can do is more easily replaced.

Again, no one was certain Lonzo was done, hell, they're not certain now, he's not retired. All these great ideas that the Bulls should have just torn it down or traded players assumes Lonzo's not playing right now. We're fans, not doctors, we don't have a better idea of Lonzo's medical condition than any other fan, just opinion.

It's not about importance to the team but how much the Bulls have invested into putting this team together. Over 50% of the cap and multiple FRPs were used to bring Derozan and Vuc here and to keep Zach. If these 3 need Lonzo to play to be competitive then you've made a mistake investing all those resources into them and doubled down on that mistake by not blowing up the roster.

Lonzo was a good player but he wasn't an all-star and he never made an All-NBA team. He was a solid starter but that's it. He shouldn't be the difference between a winning season and fighting for the play-in.

[2weekswithpay]

How many coaches and rosters ago did we see a younger Bulls team that would fall way behind early then scratch and claw their way back only to find that 1st quarter 12,15, 20 point deficit too much to overcome? This starting 5 are not kids, Coby is year 5, Craig is a veteran they're the youngest but with no excuses.

Watch the pre game shows and see when Kendall and Will say that when Zach gets off to a fast start the whole team plays to a higher level. Where was Zach the first 8 minutes of the game, basically doing nothing. The bench came in and went harder on defense, forced turnovers and scored off those turnovers.

I know Zach and Demar are the two big stars, also the two biggest most fragile egos. At the end of regulation they were up by 2 with like 12 seconds left and needed a stop defensively. The Suns had their shooters on the floor. The smart basketball play, but hurtful to the egos of the big two, was to put Williams and Dosunmu in the game for defense to chase and trap the shooters and rebound. Couldn't do it.

I think the moves need to be made. The Bulls big 3 are veterans who just don't play like true veterans, Vuc can have some incredible 1st halves but gets ignored in the second half. Zach can really fill it yo for a quarter, Demar is able to score at will in the 4th quarter. But it just seems to come down to none of them are willing to take 2 steps back when the either of the other guys gets hot, and none of the three seem to be able to elevate the game of the other 2 guys on the floor who most times amount to decoys.

Every game now the evidence is, it's time to shuffle the deck and move on

Zach didn't take a shot for the first 5.5 minutes. Billy was busy running plays to "get others involved"

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I wouldn't go that far. Zach was uninvolved for the first 2 minutes of the first but after that, it's hard to say Zach wasn't involved. Shot attempts don't always reflect offensive usage.

Spoiler:

This is the first Bulls' possession after a timeout and it's a play for Zach. Zach does get separation as well off the screen but with Demar being on the wing, Diop can help off to defend the shot/drive. With the play dead, the possession turns into a Demar ISO.

On the next possession, Zach drives but bad spacing again. Craig is in the dunker's spot so KD is already in the paint to defend any shots at the rim. Beals walls off Coby on the drive but even if he hadn't Diop is there to cut off any drives because Demar is on the wing again.

A better pull-up shooter may shoot this since Nurkic is dropping back but regardless if Zach isn't going to shoot this then he needs to at least keep his dribble. You don't put any pressure on the defense when you pick up the ball so early. Another bad possession.

Zach wastes half the clock trying to post-up Allen for whatever reason. Coby and Vuc manage to salvage this possession.

[Stratmaster]

How many coaches and rosters ago did we see a younger Bulls team that would fall way behind early then scratch and claw their way back only to find that 1st quarter 12,15, 20 point deficit too much to overcome? This starting 5 are not kids, Coby is year 5, Craig is a veteran they're the youngest but with no excuses.

Watch the pre game shows and see when Kendall and Will say that when Zach gets off to a fast start the whole team plays to a higher level. Where was Zach the first 8 minutes of the game, basically doing nothing. The bench came in and went harder on defense, forced turnovers and scored off those turnovers.

I know Zach and Demar are the two big stars, also the two biggest most fragile egos. At the end of regulation they were up by 2 with like 12 seconds left and needed a stop defensively. The Suns had their shooters on the floor. The smart basketball play, but hurtful to the egos of the big two, was to put Williams and Dosunmu in the game for defense to chase and trap the shooters and rebound. Couldn't do it.

I think the moves need to be made. The Bulls big 3 are veterans who just don't play like true veterans, Vuc can have some incredible 1st halves but gets ignored in the second half. Zach can really fill it yo for a quarter, Demar is able to score at will in the 4th quarter. But it just seems to come down to none of them are willing to take 2 steps back when the either of the other guys gets hot, and none of the three seem to be able to elevate the game of the other 2 guys on the floor who most times amount to decoys.

Every game now the evidence is, it's time to shuffle the deck and move on

Zach didn't take a shot for the first 5.5 minutes. Billy was busy running plays to "get others involved"

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I wouldn't go that far. Zach was uninvolved for the first 2 minutes of the first but after that, it's hard to say Zach wasn't involved. Shot attempts don't always reflect offensive usage.

Spoiler:

This is the first Bulls' possession after a timeout and it's a play for Zach. Zach does get separation as well off the screen but with Demar being on the wing, Diop can help off to defend the shot/drive. With the play dead, the possession turns into a Demar ISO.

On the next possession, Zach drives but bad spacing again. Craig is in the dunker's spot so KD is already in the paint to defend any shots at the rim. Beals walls off Coby on the drive but even if he hadn't Diop is there to cut off any drives because Demar is on the wing again.

A better pull-up shooter may shoot this since Nurkic is dropping back but regardless if Zach isn't going to shoot this then he needs to at least keep his dribble. You don't put any pressure on the defense when you pick up the ball so early. Another bad possession.

Zach wastes half the clock trying to post-up Allen for whatever reason. Coby and Vuc manage to salvage this possession.

I didn't mean to insinuate he never touched the ball. I should have separated my 2 thoughts.

1. It was the first 4 or 5 possessions that were obviously purposefully set up for other players. I don't see Bulls opponents doing this. It seems like antiquated basketball.

2. Zach didn't shoot the first 5.5 minutes. This was partially due to the Bulls approach but also due to the defense focusing on him, as they did the whole game.

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[R3AL1TY]

No hope, no change unless the FO make moves where Vuc/Zach/DDR are moved for draft picks, young players with potential, and cap space for free agency.

[Stratmaster]

No hope, no change unless the FO make moves where Vuc/Zach/DDR are moved for draft picks, young players with potential, and cap space for free agency.

Who are you spending the free agent money on? What major free agent is coming to a team with Coby, Pwill, Caruso, a couple MLE players, and mid first round rookies and picks?

We already have young players with so-called potential. A couple with actual proven talent would be nice.

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[Dan Z]

The Suns are not good because Booker is out? There's a starter not playing on our team for the whole season named Lonzo Ball. Yet the Bulls never get to use that excuse, injured starter. Aged KD putting 25 pts, 7 rbs, 9 assts on ridiculous shooting is still better than 98% of the league overall. Grayson Allen put up a performance way better than Beal, who played 24 minutes, so banged up Beal seems to mean nothing. And they have Eric Gordon to play big minutes when Beal or Booker are down. They're still considered a top contender for the title on every gambling site, but they're not a good team?

Bulls are the only team that doesn't get a pass for losing a starter for the whole season. Bucks got a pass missing Middleton, and they had Jrue and Giannis. Warriors got a pass when Klay got hurt. Those teams have superior 1A players, and still got passes. Didn't the Warriors get a lottery pick? Not trying to hear how long Ball's injury has been, he's still on our cap, holding us from replacing him.

On another note, watching last night, Zach needs to drive more. He may not be the best passer and needs to tighten his grip, don't think he has big hands. But he and Coby White are the only ones who pressure the defense, Demar settles for jumpers out of most of his isos, Lavine can throw a ton of open passes if they focus on that, he's pretty good at driving. And if he focuses on finishing, you can tell sometimes he's more worried about drawing the foul than scoring, lol.

The Bulls don't get a pass because the 3 all-stars are still on the court. The Bucks didn't have Lopez for almost an entire season and still won 51 games. Middleton was injured, missed over half the season, and the Bucks had a league-best 58 wins. The Nuggets were missing Murray and Porter and still made the playoffs.

The Bulls don't get any excuses because nobody feels like they deserve any. Losing Lonzo sucks but if Vuc/Zach/DDR aren't good enough to win games without him then there was no point in putting this team together.

What do All Star games from years ago have to do with team importance? Vuc got $20 mill on a new contract, that's not All Star money, that's good sixth man money. Klay would be considered a much higher rated than Draymond, Draymond is easily just as important. I've compared Lonzo to Draymond before, not one of those 3 ALL Stars were as important to the smooth running of the team. And again, the Nuggets and Bucks have MVP players to make up for losing critical players, and those MVP's ran the offense. Bulls don't have a set-up guy. Can call it excuses all you want, but until Lonzo comes off the cap, will be hard to replace that. Getting rid of the other pieces still won't fix that problem. If we had a healthy Lonzo and a injured Derozan or Lavine for the same period of time, this team would be much better, what they can do is more easily replaced.

Again, no one was certain Lonzo was done, hell, they're not certain now, he's not retired. All these great ideas that the Bulls should have just torn it down or traded players assumes Lonzo's not playing right now. We're fans, not doctors, we don't have a better idea of Lonzo's medical condition than any other fan, just opinion.

Interesting the people complaining about the Bulls talent are the ones who want us to lose the most games, like make up your mind what's going to make you happy, when we win or when we lose lol. If they trade all the vets and suck, give up everybody for future picks and expirings, will be real fun in here the next two years winning 20 games a season behind the dynamic duo of Coby White, Patrick Williams, and our new rookies. Isn't our 2024 pick top 4 protected, but against us, like if it's top 4 it conveys?

Many people here could tell that Lonzo wasn't coming back anytime soon. It was easy to see the writing on the wall. Even if Lonzo comes back next year he'll be rusty and most likely won't help the Bulls very much.

If Lonzo's absence (with both not being available and cost to the cap) hurts the team that much maybe it's a good idea to pivot in a new direction?

Last year the team finished in 10th place. They're not even winning when they try and have used future assets to build the team they have right now.

The Bulls have their own 2024 pick, but owe a 2025 to the Spurs (it's top ten protected that year).

[Wingy]

Net Ratings for the 1 game:

Starters: White/Lavine/DDR/Craig/Vuc: -77.2

Starters w/ Caruso sub: White/Caruso/Lavine/Derozan/Vuc: +24.1
Bench Mob + DDR: Carter/Caruso/DDR/PWill/Andre: +85.7
Starters w/ Caruso replacing DDR: +2.2
Ayo lineup: Ayo / Carter / DDR / PWill / Vuc: +38.1

It's almost impossible to find a lineup that doesn't work, and we choose to start and get into a -18 deficit with the one lineup that can't play basketball together.

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AK, like, do you even use data, bro?

[Repeat 3-peat]

Those net rating lineups are wild.

This team is so incompetent.

[2weekswithpay]

Zach didn't take a shot for the first 5.5 minutes. Billy was busy running plays to "get others involved"

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I wouldn't go that far. Zach was uninvolved for the first 2 minutes of the first but after that, it's hard to say Zach wasn't involved. Shot attempts don't always reflect offensive usage.

Spoiler:

This is the first Bulls' possession after a timeout and it's a play for Zach. Zach does get separation as well off the screen but with Demar being on the wing, Diop can help off to defend the shot/drive. With the play dead, the possession turns into a Demar ISO.

On the next possession, Zach drives but bad spacing again. Craig is in the dunker's spot so KD is already in the paint to defend any shots at the rim. Beals walls off Coby on the drive but even if he hadn't Diop is there to cut off any drives because Demar is on the wing again.

A better pull-up shooter may shoot this since Nurkic is dropping back but regardless if Zach isn't going to shoot this then he needs to at least keep his dribble. You don't put any pressure on the defense when you pick up the ball so early. Another bad possession.

Zach wastes half the clock trying to post-up Allen for whatever reason. Coby and Vuc manage to salvage this possession.

I didn't mean to insinuate he never touched the ball. I should have separated my 2 thoughts.

1. It was the first 4 or 5 possessions that were obviously purposefully set up for other players. I don't see Bulls opponents doing this. It seems like antiquated basketball.

2. Zach didn't shoot the first 5.5 minutes. This was partially due to the Bulls approach but also due to the defense focusing on him, as they did the whole game.

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1. I'll concede that the Bulls tried to get Demar involved but Vuc only got shots up because he's the primary screener and I doubt somebody told Craig to take a fading midrange shot.

2. Zach not taking any shots was more of a coincidence than anything.

[Infinity2152]

Bulls haven't used future assets since the Lonzo injury. Pivoting sounds great, but Lonzo's contract is still on the books. Makes it difficult to replace him. Moving one of our top players may clear some cap, but we'd need to still replace that player + Lonzo with that same money. They should have more flexibility to make changes this summer, hopefully they can get that contract off and Derozan's contract may be gone.

Not saying there shouldn't be changes, there certainly should, but I think people don't know the owner's mandate, or the orders AK is under. And it's not easy to make trade with no cap, or just reverse directions based on an injury, if you're not SURE he's not coming back. Maintaining status quo and hoping for improvement from your young players like Pat and Coby, smart vet additions like Caruso, Beverly, Carter, Craig, will keep you afloat. I can see both lines of logic.

[PaKii94]

How many coaches and rosters ago did we see a younger Bulls team that would fall way behind early then scratch and claw their way back only to find that 1st quarter 12,15, 20 point deficit too much to overcome? This starting 5 are not kids, Coby is year 5, Craig is a veteran they're the youngest but with no excuses.

Watch the pre game shows and see when Kendall and Will say that when Zach gets off to a fast start the whole team plays to a higher level. Where was Zach the first 8 minutes of the game, basically doing nothing. The bench came in and went harder on defense, forced turnovers and scored off those turnovers.

I know Zach and Demar are the two big stars, also the two biggest most fragile egos. At the end of regulation they were up by 2 with like 12 seconds left and needed a stop defensively. The Suns had their shooters on the floor. The smart basketball play, but hurtful to the egos of the big two, was to put Williams and Dosunmu in the game for defense to chase and trap the shooters and rebound. Couldn't do it.

I think the moves need to be made. The Bulls big 3 are veterans who just don't play like true veterans, Vuc can have some incredible 1st halves but gets ignored in the second half. Zach can really fill it yo for a quarter, Demar is able to score at will in the 4th quarter. But it just seems to come down to none of them are willing to take 2 steps back when the either of the other guys gets hot, and none of the three seem to be able to elevate the game of the other 2 guys on the floor who most times amount to decoys.

Every game now the evidence is, it's time to shuffle the deck and move on

Zach didn't take a shot for the first 5.5 minutes. Billy was busy running plays to "get others involved"

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I wouldn't go that far. Zach was uninvolved for the first 2 minutes of the first but after that, it's hard to say Zach wasn't involved. Shot attempts don't always reflect offensive usage.

Spoiler:

This is the first Bulls' possession after a timeout and it's a play for Zach. Zach does get separation as well off the screen but with Demar being on the wing, Diop can help off to defend the shot/drive. With the play dead, the possession turns into a Demar ISO.

On the next possession, Zach drives but bad spacing again. Craig is in the dunker's spot so KD is already in the paint to defend any shots at the rim. Beals walls off Coby on the drive but even if he hadn't Diop is there to cut off any drives because Demar is on the wing again.

A better pull-up shooter may shoot this since Nurkic is dropping back but regardless if Zach isn't going to shoot this then he needs to at least keep his dribble. You don't put any pressure on the defense when you pick up the ball so early. Another bad possession.

Zach wastes half the clock trying to post-up Allen for whatever reason. Coby and Vuc manage to salvage this possession.

That Zach post up attempt is actually hilarious

[Dan Z]

Bulls haven't used future assets since the Lonzo injury. Pivoting sounds great, but Lonzo's contract is still on the books. Makes it difficult to replace him. Moving one of our top players may clear some cap, but we'd need to still replace that player + Lonzo with that same money. They should have more flexibility to make changes this summer, hopefully they can get that contract off and Derozan's contract may be gone.

Not saying there shouldn't be changes, there certainly should, but I think people don't know the owner's mandate, or the orders AK is under. And it's not easy to make trade with no cap, or just reverse directions based on an injury, if you're not SURE he's not coming back. Maintaining status quo and hoping for improvement from your young players like Pat and Coby, smart vet additions like Caruso, Beverly, Carter, Craig, will keep you afloat. I can see both lines of logic.

The team played well with Lonzo for a few months and when he went down with an injury there was a significant drop off in the teams play. At that point I'm sure they were also trying to figure out Lonzo's status going forward. They made the playoffs, but quickly lost to the Bucks in the first round.

I could understand going into the following season thinking that internal growth, plus a few rosters changes and potentially Lonzo would improve the team. Then the season started and they played poorly. At the trade deadline they had a better idea about Lonzo's health (like I said in a previous post many people here could tell that he wasn't coming back). Instead of moving in a new direction they decided to make a push for the play-in and eventually picked up Patrick Bevereley who gave them a boost of energy (and a few wins). Ultimately the team finished 10th, which is not a good season.

What sense did it make to push for the play-in? Ultimately it doesn't do anything for the future of the team. Maybe it was a mandate from ownership (playoff money), but it seems to be what AK wants to do.

This year it's more of the same. A poor start to the season. They might turn it around, but it looks like they'll repeat what they did last year. If the team is still bad around the trade deadline do you think they should continue pushing for a play-in spot?