Good morning Chicago! Happy Friday. Better yet, Happy Bulls Friday.
I’m aware the Blackhawks hired a new general manager and that it was Niklas Hjalmarsson night at the UC last night. I know that dimwit Nagy got his buddy to hire him back as the Chiefs QB coach. I know the NFL combine is going on and I know we may never watch baseball again.
And yes, I’m aware we’re mere wins away from the Bulls hitting their season win total, which means, yes, an OVER party.
Another newsletter is coming Monday. But I just had to get something down on the notepad tonight. Hope you enjoy.
We’ve finally reached March, dear reader. What that brings is hard to break down into just a couple paragraphs, but the weather forecast for Saturday will do for now:
The mask mandate was withdrawn and the sun is on the verge of ending its protest against us in Chicago. There will be light — actual, real light — and hopefully some friendly faces again.
I may keep my routine of wearing a ski mask on the train for now. After all, it doubles as a mask on the train and a way to keep the cold out on the way there. Though I must admit, I walked into a bank with it on the other day to take cash out from the ATM, which was not my best idea ever.
I don’t know what’s more concerning, that I didn’t think of taking off a ski mask upon walking into a bank or that no one cared at all because covering up your face has become commonplace.
Or maybe no one expected I’d be robbing the bank because I had a RVCA backpack and a Patagonia jacket on. No one has ever robbed a bank with a RVCA backpack and Patagonia jacket on. Those who fit that profile are more likely to have robbed the city out of tax dollars by selling dime bags of “Purple Wonder Indica” or something like that to other young white men in their spare time.
I think I’ve brought up the mask mandate like three times now in this newsletter, which feels uncharacteristic for me and like overkill. I haven’t been to any anti-mask rallies nor have I ever admonished any retail workers for doing their jobs, I promise. As a law- and rule-abiding citizen, I’m just glad it’s gone.
I saw a guy come out of the stall in the bathroom the other day with his mask fully gripped around his head, you know, those ones that press up against your skull in lieu of the ears. There’s just no shot he took it off while taking a shit. Take a breather, my man. COVID is gross but that, that is nasty, brother.
Plus, I’m not sure people know how to say hello anymore without looking at you like you’re a Jehovah Witnesses. The amount of silent cold shoulders I’ve gotten to “How’s it going?”s has become a useful barometer for where we’re at as a society. Maybe I do just need to ditch the ski mask. Then again, maybe it’s the Patagonia (it’s a warm jacket!).
Regardless, what’s kept my head — and I assume many of your heads — above water these past two months (the worst months in Chicago, by far) is DeMar DeRozan. And he’s kept the Bulls heads above water too, which has masked some otherwise ugly ongoings.
Hold that thought.
I watched the fourth quarter of the Bulls-Hawks game in a bar las Thursday and though the Bulls were down three with less than a minute to play, you actually had this strange belief they may win. And that’s in large part due to DeRozan, who turned in a 37-point effort.
Pretty good month for, and here comes the low-hanging fruit I try not to pick at, “the worst signing of the offseason.”
You assume every DeRozan jumper is going in at this point. He’s desensitized us to his greatness, though I try to not let him.
It’s sort of like when you’re on the “L” and there’s a guy masturbating and/or smoking crack. On his right, you’ll find a young woman peacefully reading something like “The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck”, and on his left, a guy in a Canada Goose jacket admiring his own reflection in the glass facing him.
No one grasps — or cares to grasp — how out of the ordinary it is to be sitting next to a mentally insane person on the “L” train, just like many failed to realize how out of the ordinary it was for DeRozan to be doing what he was in February.
And along the way, no one realized what all was plaguing the Bulls beyond the DeRozan fade aways.
The Bulls have not been the same team since Lonzo Ball and Alex Caruso left the lineup. When both were playing the vast majority of the games, they were top-10 in the opposing team turnover metric, “forcing” 15.2 per game. Now, they’re all the way down to 13.1, one of the worst marks in the league. Worse yet, that means in the interim their average has been far lower than that, though I don’t need to explain to you how math works.
Here are the Bulls steal averages by month, from October through February, in chronological order: 9.2, 7.9, 6.9, 6.6, 6.0.
Here are their opponents’ turnovers over the same time periods: 17.3, 13.7, 12.2, 11.6, 10.2.
Billy Donovan pointed it out in his press conference after a really disappointing loss to the Hawks last night: The Bulls in back-to-back games (both versus the Heat and the Hawks) had awful execution. He even went as far as to say that the free throw disparity in Thursday’s game (Hawks 28 free throws, Bulls 8) was not a refereeing issue. He labeled it a Bulls problem — “We fouled.”
He blamed it on lazy defense and poor fundamentals, which are also visible to anyone that’s been watching the Bulls the last month.
Worse yet, I attended the Bulls-Grizzlies game Saturday, and when the Bulls were on the verge of completing an incredible comeback, I actually stood up in a fit of ecstasy and did the “pump up the crowd” thing with my arms. I brought shame upon my entire family and myself in that moment. I was literally pumping up the crowd from the third deck, man. Like I was playing in the game.
I stared in the distance for a moment pondering what I had just done (my brother offered up the only words, which were sobering, “That was bad”), hoping I wouldn’t start involuntarily blurting out MVP! when they showed Alex Caruso on the screen next.
Was it impressive that the Bulls rattled off six straight during DeRozan’s run against sub-par teams? Absolutely, especially considering the guys missing.
But what Donovan is pointing to is something that can be real damning in this league, and that is “winning bias.” DeRozan’s performances and the Bulls pulling out close game after close game was good for team’s standing, sure, but may have hurt their mentality in the long run.
If you win a game, it’s much easier to cast aside the pain points that surfaced during that game. A “well, we won” is much easier.
It’s similar to when Carmelo Anthony would take a shot when I was a kid and my Dad would say “that’s a bad shot,” but then it went in. As a kid, my response was “well, it went in.” Of course, that’s not the point — the process is.
When I was a boy of fourteen, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be twenty-six, I was astonished at how much he had learned in twelve years.
This is the reality: The Bulls are not a great team right now. But it’s not binary. They’re having a good season and could become a good team, again, in the near future. But right now, they’re just not.
They’re currently 20th in defensive net rating. But that doesn’t paint the full picture, just like the aforementioned turnover stat doesn’t. The Bulls were a top-10 defense through the first couple months of the season.
From October to February, points allowed: 98.8, 106.8, 111.5, 113.9, 115.2
It’s easy to point the finger toward the guys you’re missing in Caruso and Ball (plus Pat Williams, but he wasn’t ever really there in the first place). But these are NBA players, fully capable of avoiding the mental and physical errors Donovan is pointing out.
“To sit there and say (snaps fingers) when these guys (Ball, Caruso) are back, the defense is gonna be great, I don’t believe that,” Donovan said in early.February. “It’s gotta be a team thing, all the way around. Those guys are good at it (navigating screens), but I think Ayo (Dosunmu) can be really good at it. I think Troy Brown can be really, really good. I think Coby — I think our guys that are playing can be good at it. But we’re not at a level we need to be at, in my opinion.”
A version of DeMar DeRozan closer to Michael Jordan than DeRozan himself ain’t walking through that door every night. The Bulls can’t bank on that production to save their asses.
Furthermore, DeRozan can’t count on that version of himself every night. In instances like Thursday’s game, he really needs to identify double teams before they get to him, and make the right pass then. Waiting for the double to come, then making an off-balanced, ineffective pass just isn’t going to cut it late in games.
The Bulls were never going to be good just because of their offensive weapons. Hell, plenty of teams have those, including the Atlanta Hawks. At their best, the 2020-2021 Bulls were a great offensive team that passed well, defended well, turned the ball over little and forced their opponents to turn the ball over a lot.
Right now, that’s just not who the Bulls are.
Sure, Ayo has dropped off offensively. He’s a rookie. DeRozan will drop off a bit offensively, too. Zach LaVine is constantly talking about a knee that apparently doesn’t have anything wrong with it — but actually, it does? Who knows. On that note, I’ll take a meathead stance here: either sit out the rest of the season or play and stop talking about it. Either is fine, but choose one.
LaVine was, however, the lone bright spot against the Heat in what was an absurdly pitiful effort from the Bulls.
Here’s the plan:
— The Bulls need to listen to Donovan and get their heads out of their asses, particularly on defense. Hopefully in a month, we’ll look back and realize that this three-game losing streak was the wake up call they needed.
— They need their guys back. Hopefully, Caruso and Ball — I won’t speculate on Williams just yet — can come back by late March. Both are traveling with the team and practicing. If both could come back by March 24, that would give the Bulls 10 games with (hopefully) their full squad to ready themselves for the playoffs.
— Over those 10 games, the Bulls need to find the best version of themselves, which I’m not sure they even did at the best times of this season. Forget seeing for now. Any first round match-up will be tough. But the whole team has never truly been together. Yet I believe in the construction of the roster and Donovan’s ability to get through to the players.
Tonight is another dreaded ESPN game against a really good team in the Bucks. That’s one way to look at it, if you forgot it’s March and good vibes only season here in Chicago.
It’s Bulls Friday. There ain’t a better day of the week and there ain’t a better type of Friday. I’m bumping Sam Cooke in my headphones right now putting myself in the right headspace for tonight’s game.
60 degree days, and better days for the Bulls, are ahead. But tonight at 6:30 pm, it’s go time.
So lift that chin up, partner, and LETS GO BULLS.
Tristan Thompson (referring to Grayson Allen) is #LOCKEDIN. Are you?
Thank you for reading.
Source: USA TODAY
Nagy chiefs QB coach — last coach to coach next season in a role lesser than coordinator?
About time Tom Donlan gets some credit in this newsletter!
Couldn't agree more about Derozan identifying double teams better. I feel like he waits for them and then throws a skip pass to someone who is kind of out of the play. He will get even better looks if they can get the opposing defense moving.
Agreed that team defense doesn't just get better with those two returning, but I do think there is a lack of intensity that will be ramped up with their return. Hard work is contagious.