Let's talk Billy Donovan

[TokeBulls]

First and foremost, I'm of the philosophy that most of the credit and most of the blame goes to the players. However, with everything that has transpired late in the season, I think Billy deserves some blame. The team loses composure so easily. The defense has been horrendous. Rotations are questionable at time.
I think the offense should really look better than it has. There's too much talent offensively. The ball movement and scheme are just non-existent at times. Thoughts?

[RSP83]

First and foremost, I'm of the philosophy that most of the credit and most of the blame goes to the players. However, with everything that has transpired late in the season, I think Billy deserves some blame. The team loses composure so easily. The defense has been horrendous. Rotations are questionable at time.
I think the offense should really look better than it has. There's too much talent offensively. The ball movement and scheme are just non-existent at times. Thoughts?

The small-ball system I believe is partly Billy's idea. At least he signed off on it. And there's a lot of evidence that he runs it intensively in his previous stop (OKC). But so far I don't see he's doing anything with it or maximizing it, frankly. I don't buy it if he says this is the small-ball offense he envisions. This is a 3-man hero ball, and you can achieve it without a small-ball roster.

[Red8911]

Mentioned this in the game thread. He tends not to call timeouts when opposing teams go on a run. Got to stop play before your team loses control of the game. It’s a strategy that usually works to cut the momentum. Donovan though just waits it out for some reason.

[chefo]

Billy has been dealt a somewhat bad hand, or chose said hand on his own.

The Bulls have 2 space cadets on D in Zach and DD, at least the last couple of months. Vuc tries, but he's lead-footed as often as not. The Bulls try to play D like the championship Dubs with Dray as the C--lots of swiping at balls, jumping passing lanes--in other words playing D with their hands, not their feet. It's really, really difficult to keep up the effort at a level where you outwork the other team every night. Furthermore, the organized chaos team D can be game-planned against and I have a suspicion that started happening some time ago by placing the weak links to be in a position of having to help or rotate.

Fundamentally, it's a problem because:
* For that D to work, you need to hustle all the time and have smart players who try hard. Half the Bulls lineup does not. Watched them live in Orlando, they didn't even try on many possessions. You won't stop anybody competent in the NBA with that effort level.

* You need the small that's playing big to have a redeeming elite quality to account for all the negatives of being tiny in a game of giants--Green, even though he's got hustle and heart, doesn't. But him and whomever plays PG for the Bulls are the only ones who try hard on D so they have to play or it becomes tragic.

At the end of the day, the Bulls won a lot of games because DD was possessed by the ghost of prime MJ for a stretch of 20 games. Outside of his heroics, the team has been pretty mediocre, Zach including. Coby reverting to bad Coby did not help either.

Overall, the team is limping into the postseason, and I'm not quite sure how much gas they've go left in the tank. They look gassed and disheartened against all the good teams. Not much fight in them lately. Not quite sure at this point in the season what a coach can do apart from sending the entire team down south to Miami to see LeBron's rejuvenation guru.

Bottom line is, the Bulls are a +1 net team, which usually translates into low 40s wins. DD went crazy closing games earlier, so they'll win some more than that, but you could tell they wouldn't be able to keep up with the big dogs. At this point it is what it is.

[Chicago-Bull-E]

First and foremost, I'm of the philosophy that most of the credit and most of the blame goes to the players. However, with everything that has transpired late in the season, I think Billy deserves some blame. The team loses composure so easily. The defense has been horrendous. Rotations are questionable at time.
I think the offense should really look better than it has. There's too much talent offensively. The ball movement and scheme are just non-existent at times. Thoughts?

The small-ball system I believe is partly Billy's idea. At least he signed off on it. And there's a lot of evidence that he runs it intensively in his previous stop (OKC). But so far I don't see he's doing anything with it or maximizing it, frankly. I don't buy it if he says this is the small-ball offense he envisions. This is a 3-man hero ball, and you can achieve it without a small-ball roster.

This is probably the most overlooked failure of the team. They run small ball, but don’t reap the benefits of it. They’re 17th in fast break points. They have Demar and Vuc, 2 guys not interested in that style of the play.

The Bulls are 28th in rebounds per game. So they’re getting the weaknesses of a small ball system without the rewards.

It’s a disasterous flaw of the team. Poor defense and rebounding due to lack of size, and they aren’t faster either than most teams, so what’s the point?

[thebizkit]

**** crazy to see another 4 guard lineup out there vs the Bucks. They literally dwarfed our team.

[thebizkit]

First and foremost, I'm of the philosophy that most of the credit and most of the blame goes to the players. However, with everything that has transpired late in the season, I think Billy deserves some blame. The team loses composure so easily. The defense has been horrendous. Rotations are questionable at time.
I think the offense should really look better than it has. There's too much talent offensively. The ball movement and scheme are just non-existent at times. Thoughts?

The small-ball system I believe is partly Billy's idea. At least he signed off on it. And there's a lot of evidence that he runs it intensively in his previous stop (OKC). But so far I don't see he's doing anything with it or maximizing it, frankly. I don't buy it if he says this is the small-ball offense he envisions. This is a 3-man hero ball, and you can achieve it without a small-ball roster.

This is probably the most overlooked failure of the team. They run small ball, but don’t reap the benefits of it. They’re 17th in fast break points. They have Demar and Vuc, 2 guys not interested in that style of the play.

The Bulls are 28th in rebounds per game. So they’re getting the weaknesses of a small ball system without the rewards.

It’s a disasterous flaw of the team. Poor defense and rebounding due to lack of size, and they aren’t faster either than most teams, so what’s the point?

And it was mind boggling that they didn't attempt to fix the 4 at the trade deadline.

[Chi town]

BillyD’s biggest issue is his lack of defensive looks. We get killed on switches or Vuc PnRs and he doesn’t chnage anything.

Play Zone.
Blitz the PnR.
Half court trap.
3/4 Court Press.

MIX IT UP. Tired of seeing the other team make shots and take over and Billy doing nothing to make adjustments.

[weneeda2guard]

I'm sorry akme did their jobs. The talent is here. Donovan is not getting the most out this roster.

[Payt10]

Was never a fan of Billy Donovan since before he got here, and I feel like my concerns back then about his competency are only being validated while watching this team collapse down the stretch. If the Bulls miss the playoffs, they should move on from him. He'll get you from point A to B, but that's about it.

[BloodyQ]

Was never a fan of Billy Donovan since before he got here, and I feel like my concerns back then about his competency are only being validated while watching this team collapse down the stretch. If the Bulls miss the playoffs, they should move on from him. He'll get you from point A to B, but that's about it.

They should move on from him even if they do make the playoffs

[Tetlak]

When I watch the Bulls, the biggest thing that stands out to me on offense is that we don't have enough catch and shoot.

Coby, and to a lesser extent TBJ (mainly from the corner), are the only ones who shoot. Ayo passes up an incredible amount of threes a game. Javonte and DJJ pass up shots. Vuc's volume is down due to his lack of success.

We really make it hard on ourselves, and miss Lonzo desperately in that regard.

I'd like to see Billy encourage us to get more threes up - it would definitely open up the floor more. I think it would also result in more passing.

As for defense, I can't really pinpoint one specific issue we have. We seem to just suck at everything right now, but I think for us it has always started with ball pressure. When we were a good defensive team at the start of the season, that's where it started. So let's get back to that - we saw flashes of it vs Toronto.

[jacoby1us]

I’m afraid BD reached his peak in OKC.

[old skool]

BillyD’s biggest issue is his lack of defensive looks. We get killed on switches or Vuc PnRs and he doesn’t chnage anything.

Play Zone.
Blitz the PnR.
Half court trap.
3/4 Court Press.

MIX IT UP. Tired of seeing the other team make shots and take over and Billy doing nothing to make adjustments.

The problem with these theoretical defensive adjustments is that if the other team has superior talent, the Bulls get destroyed even worse than they did tonight.

The Bulls cut the deficit to 10 in the 2nd half and Holiday just went bonkers. Caruso had no shot at staying in front of Holiday. He couldn't provide full court pressure. He couldn't alter entry passes. Holiday got wherever he wanted and Caruso could do nothing to stop him. Holiday ended up 12 of 17 from the field, 9 of 11 in the 2nd half.

The Bulls tried to over play the pick and roll, leaving open driving lanes to the basket where Allen made 5 of 6.

Milwaukee out rebounded the Bulls by 20. The Bulls lack of size has been a vulnerability all season. Donovan can't fix that with a zone defense.

Superior talent wins out in the NBA.

[RSP83]

Billy has been dealt a somewhat bad hand, or chose said hand on his own.

The Bulls have 2 space cadets on D in Zach and DD, at least the last couple of months. Vuc tries, but he's lead-footed as often as not. The Bulls try to play D like the championship Dubs with Dray as the C--lots of swiping at balls, jumping passing lanes--in other words playing D with their hands, not their feet. It's really, really difficult to keep up the effort at a level where you outwork the other team every night. Furthermore, the organized chaos team D can be game-planned against and I have a suspicion that started happening some time ago by placing the weak links to be in a position of having to help or rotate.

Fundamentally, it's a problem because:
* For that D to work, you need to hustle all the time and have smart players who try hard. Half the Bulls lineup does not. Watched them live in Orlando, they didn't even try on many possessions. You won't stop anybody competent in the NBA with that effort level.

* You need the small that's playing big to have a redeeming elite quality to account for all the negatives of being tiny in a game of giants--Green, even though he's got hustle and heart, doesn't. But him and whomever plays PG for the Bulls are the only ones who try hard on D so they have to play or it becomes tragic.

At the end of the day, the Bulls won a lot of games because DD was possessed by the ghost of prime MJ for a stretch of 20 games. Outside of his heroics, the team has been pretty mediocre, Zach including. Coby reverting to bad Coby did not help either.

Overall, the team is limping into the postseason, and I'm not quite sure how much gas they've go left in the tank. They look gassed and disheartened against all the good teams. Not much fight in them lately. Not quite sure at this point in the season what a coach can do apart from sending the entire team down south to Miami to see LeBron's rejuvenation guru.

Bottom line is, the Bulls are a +1 net team, which usually translates into low 40s wins. DD went crazy closing games earlier, so they'll win some more than that, but you could tell they wouldn't be able to keep up with the big dogs. At this point it is what it is.

I can live with the poor D, it's a known challenge from the start. This team's personnel suggest we should be a better offensive team than defensive team. The success scenario for this team is: Elite Offense, with Good Enough Defense. The offense is supposed to anchor the team, but it's not happening. I think the Elite Offense potential is still there, but 3/4 into the season, the team still haven't figure out how to put it together.

It's useless to complain about our defense, we're not built to be a defensive juggernaut. But I'm disappointed at why we're struggling to score. We won many games in January by outshooting other teams, as ugly and as unsustainable as it may be, we should have a good chance to win those games every night due to the offensive "firepower" we have. But, we don't win those shootouts as much as we should, especially against top teams, because the way we try to outshoot our opponents have been very inefficient. Sometime it's efficient, but most of the times at least lately it's not been that way.

[MrSparkle]

We don't have enough 3P shooting IMO to have an elite NBA offense. That and a quick-step PG to break down defense. But we're the lowest volume 3P team in the league. Unfortunately we don't have guys who can consistently make that shot. I look down the line, and with Zach's 3P consistency falling, we have exactly zero sharp-shooters after him. They're all low-volume open shooters, besides Vuc who's a high-volume clanker.

Personally I think it's a mistake to put Ayo/Coby/Pat together. Like any young tank job, they're gonna put together a good performance maybe once every 5 games. IMO they need to be blended in with Demar, Caruso and Zach.

I think we were a good +10 Ws without the injuries. Solid 50-win team, with some major vulnerabilities that were there from day one. Offense and defense were both fairly obvious (Vuc and tall/tweener wing def. stoppers = sieve D… limited 3P/PG weapons = limited offense).

2nd round exit was kind of the ceiling all along even after game 2 euphoria.. long-shot contender was my opinion.

But right now, they’ve hit this deflated lack of confidence that other teams felt in December (should’ve seen the Celtics board). I agree it sucks - regression is brutal… but so many injury factors.

Is Kerr a bad coach? Warriors are losing left and right after an elite start. Around 6-18 since early Feb. And sure they recently lost Curry, but also similarly got help back (Klay and Dray) that needs chemistry and time.

I just hope they find a rhythm in 2 weeks. Right now, they are unwatchable. Still, a +500 record and top-6 seed would be a respectable season’s work for a young team with tons of injuries.

If they slip to playin and get bumped by Brooklyn or Atlanta… well, I’ll take the lotto pick, but that will be a very sore scenario.

[ChiCitySPORTS#1]

I’m going to sound pessimistic — but it’s very possible this team wasn’t as good to begin with. None of us expected to be contenders this year either.

Zach’s knee problem is what is really hindering the season. He’s our best player, period. And he is obviously not playing healthy.

Demar probably isn’t as good as he’s been playing this year. Might just be coming back down to earth.

We may have never been that good defensively either. We started off hot but are still criminally undersized.

I agree BD has flaws, but our expectations need to likely realign.

I don’t agree with all these things but someone who is objectively evaluating the team might

[PJSteven22]

First and foremost, I'm of the philosophy that most of the credit and most of the blame goes to the players. However, with everything that has transpired late in the season, I think Billy deserves some blame. The team loses composure so easily. The defense has been horrendous. Rotations are questionable at time.
I think the offense should really look better than it has. There's too much talent offensively. The ball movement and scheme are just non-existent at times. Thoughts?

The small-ball system I believe is partly Billy's idea. At least he signed off on it. And there's a lot of evidence that he runs it intensively in his previous stop (OKC). But so far I don't see he's doing anything with it or maximizing it, frankly. I don't buy it if he says this is the small-ball offense he envisions. This is a 3-man hero ball, and you can achieve it without a small-ball roster.

This is probably the most overlooked failure of the team. They run small ball, but don’t reap the benefits of it. They’re 17th in fast break points. They have Demar and Vuc, 2 guys not interested in that style of the play.

The Bulls are 28th in rebounds per game. So they’re getting the weaknesses of a small ball system without the rewards.

It’s a disasterous flaw of the team. Poor defense and rebounding due to lack of size, and they aren’t faster either than most teams, so what’s the point?

The fastbreak points really plummeted when Zo and Caruso got hurt. They’re towards the middle of the pack in rebounding percentage. Which is more accurate than rebounds. The lack of rim protection, two way players, and shooting are bigger problems with this team.

[coldfish]

From a tactical standpoint, the team is complete trash right now. They are lost on both ends of the court. That's not supposed to happen in March. The systems were too simplistic to start with but now they seem even worse.

BD is a player's coach. He stays positive, doesn't pull guys quick, gives feedback, etc. but that can only take you so far. At this point, Derozan is just trashing everything BD is trying to do on both sides of the court and BD apparently isn't going to stand up to him.

[PaKii94]

We might have another hoiberg situation on our hands