Bulls Have Right Idea on Offense, But Maybe the Wrong Personnel
A recent tweet from Joe Cowley, the Bulls’ beat writer for the Chicago Sun-Times, sparked debate on the difference in value between 3-pointers and mid-range shots, particularly as to what Zach LaVine should be doing. After several hot-take tweets on the subject and at least one blog post that was well thought out, focus shifted back to the court, which featured quite the mixed bag. LaVine lashed out at Jim Boylen after he was benched only a few minutes into a 116–108 loss to the Miami Heat. The next day, the two cleared the air before LaVine’s record performance and a miracle 116–115 road win over the Charlotte Hornets.
But unless you’re playing NBA 2K on the easiest setting and the sliders set quite favorably for the long ball, you won’t see LaVine make 13 3-pointers en route to 49 points every night. That alone couldn’t keep the Bulls from holding the second-worst field-goal percentage in the NBA (42.8 percent). When you break it down by distance, their rankings seem to get lower as they get closer to the basket. As of Nov. 24, the league average for field-goal percentage is 45.4 percent, and of the Bulls who have played in at least 10 games this season, only Wendell Carter Jr. and Tomas Satoransky have reached or exceeded that.
At 35.3 3-point attempts a game, the Bulls rank eighth in the NBA, which is on par with the strategy of frequent higher-value shots Boylen and the metrics crowd like. It’s how to keep up in a league that has seen the league average in that category increase 85.6 percent since the 2010–11 season. Five Bulls who have played in at least nine games are exceeding the average 3-point percentage this season (35.5 percent). So at least that part of Boylen’s strategy has had some success.
But how much longer can the Bulls put up with all the misses from players who were supposed to lead them back into the playoffs? Lauri Markkanen continues to struggle by shooting 35.4 percent from the field (only Darius Garland is worse). Coby White is a frequent 3-point shooter who’s shown flashes of decent play but also is not very consistent from the field (38.6 percent). Thaddeus Young hasn’t started yet and won’t unless he improves upon a 40.5 field-goal percentage.
So if the Bulls are playing to win the way you win in today’s NBA but not doing it very well, the only conclusion you can come to is they don’t have the right players for their strategy. It’s bad enough when you’re supposed two best players in LaVine and Markkanen aren’t playing well off each other. It’s worse when you have a system designed around offense and aren’t getting results. We’re at a point where the front office’s preseason playoff prediction quickly is turning into an empty promise.
An even trickier problem is what the Bulls might be able to do to fix this. Kris Dunn is the Bulls’ biggest trading chip this season, but when the only other contracts coming off the books via restricted free agency are Denzel Valentine and Shaquille Harrison, there’s not a lot of collateral at your disposal. It’s unlikely they’ll unload any other contracts during this season. Markkanen will hit restricted free agency after next season, so maybe if Gar Forman and John Paxson decide it’s best to split him and LaVine, they’ll unload him on draft night, assuming he builds his value back up after a tough start to this season.
This is not an easy thing to consider when you’ve put a team together and are faced with throwing in the towel after Year 3. You’ve invested a lot of time, effort and money into players and coaches you’ve believed can get your franchise to the next level. Instead, you might have to start completely from scratch because you’re not getting the results you wanted in the system you wanted from the coach you wanted.
The only thing that might be able to prevent any of this from happening is a playoff spot, which the Bulls aren’t that far from in what’s shaping up to be another bad year in the Eastern Conference. But the line between backing into the playoffs and making significant progress at the same time is a fine one. If the Bulls somehow get in with a record below .500, it’s hard to imagine the fan base will feel anything more than empty calories because there won’t be confidence that they’ll get back there in 2020–21. While appearing in the postseason is good, there has to be substance, and the personnel in place right now has provided very little of that.
