CHICAGO – The Chicago Bulls traded away their best player, Zach LaVine, before the trade deadline, but the team has made it very clear that they are trying to make a playoff push. However, that hasn’t been working out very well as the Bulls have lost seven of their last 10 games. They are getting close to falling out of play-in tournament range in the standings, and head coach Billy Donovan knows that time is dwindling to make a run.
The NBA All-Star break is nearly here as the Bulls have just one more game before it arrives. After the All-Star break, there are a few games in February, all of March, and then a few games at the beginning of April. The regular season is quickly winding down. Billy Donovan wants to see his guys progress down the stretch, and playing in meaningful games helps make that happen.
“Certainly, if you look at the younger guys, it would be their growth and development, in terms of not only them receiving minutes, but being responsible in their minutes – where they’re developing a mentality of things that they’ve got to do to impact winning,” Donovan said to the media ahead of Tuesday night’s Bulls-Pistons matchup. “That’s critically important. The other part — and Lonzo [Ball] hasn’t been here — but I think with he and Vooch [Nikola Vučević], and even Coby [White], they’ve been around for a little bit. What kind of leadership can those older guys provide in the locker room, in terms of not only necessarily holding guys accountable, but the attention to detail on things that we need to do? At this point in time, you want to have games that are meaningful. The urgency part is so important. If you look at good teams that are maybe fighting for home court, or they’re fighting for seeding, whatever it may be, every game is meaningful. And when you’re creating meaningful games, that’s a great opportunity for guys to grow.”
The Bulls definitely need to start winning more games if they hope to make the postseason this year. They are ahead of the Philadelphia 76ers right now, but they will be overtaken if they can’t turn things around soon.
