It was Vooch who almost a year ago—perhaps innocently and perhaps not so—threw down the gauntlet, which historically was the metaphor for a challenge. Bulls center Nikola Vučević, during Montenegro’s Olympic qualifying tournament last August, told Yahoo Sports about the 2023-24 Bulls, “We know we can do better, and we have to do better. We know it's kind of our last chance as this core of guys to do something.”
And so if the third time is a charm, the chain holding it all together may have snapped Friday night in Miami with the 112-91 loss to the Miami Heat in the play-in tournament encore which ended the Bulls season.
No matter what any of the players, coach or management said in the wake of such a disturbingly uncompetitive defeat for the chance to make the playoffs, it’s too soon and too raw to take too much seriously. It’s an inherent flaw in our media landscape even more so now with the demands for immediate conclusion in order to move quickly onto the next one.
We expect participants to exert themselves to their physical limits, and then minutes later to be calm, logical and reflective about their futures.
Bulls players and coach Billy Donovan mostly went through the boilerplate of predictable responses and analysis after the game, that the shots just didn’t fall, the injuries were too much to overcome in the end, the group held together and there’s enough there to reach their eventually goals.
But Vučević’s point eight months ago was perhaps the most salient.
If you try something three times—or at least two and a half—and you get similar results, and the results are unsatisfactory to you, then has it run its course?
Which is something of the klaxon for management. The noise is getting louder after the Miami crucible.
“Sad, disappointing for us because that was our goal this season, getting to the playoffs,” said Vučević. “We didn’t achieve it again, which was a big disappointment. Up to the front office now. We have a lot of stuff happening this summer they have to look at and decide, guys in free agency. It’s too early to discuss things like that in mid-April, just trying to process this now.
“We are aware it hasn’t worked out the way we wanted it to and we haven’t achieved the results we wanted,” Vučević acknowledged. “We’re very aware of it; that’s clear. That’s on management to decide and see what they want to do moving forward, what they think is best for this team to have more success. There’s a lot of stuff the front office needs to take care of this summer. They have to look at and see what worked and what didn’t and try to fix it and be better. Our job as players we should have been better as a team and done better and played better. We didn’t, and now it’s on them to decide what they think is the issue.”
For his part, Vučević had a good season, except as he noted with his 29 percent three-point shooting. Though he did make a lot of clutch threes. He averaged 18 points and 10.5 rebounds after precisely 17.6 points and 11 rebounds in each of his first two seasons with the Bulls. He’s been exceptionally durable, especially in this appointment playing NBA, playing 76 games after 82 last season. He’ll be even more vital to the team since Andre Drummond is a free agent. The 6-10 Vučević has two years left on his Bulls contract.
“I think we do have enough on this team to have a better result,” said Vučević. “For whatever reason, we are not able to do it. We have the talent, we have the players who can do it. The problem is we just haven’t been able to put it together consistency to be able to do it like we need to to be a good team. We show flashes here and there, we do it for a couple of games and then it kind of goes away. That’s been our issue, something to be fixed.”
No one is about to point fingers. Certainly not in this group of high character people.
Though there certainly are areas to address. After all, it’s basically a sub-.500 record for two and a half seasons since Lonzo Ball’s first knee surgery. So as Vučević intimated last summer, the proof is in the results.
It’s difficult to even speculate now because of the free agency of DeMar DeRozan, Drummond and Patrick Williams, the former two able to leave without Bulls input. There’s also been the trade speculation around Zach LaVine and to a lesser extent Alex Caruso.
The Bulls appear to have two significant areas to address, three-point shooting and wing/interior size. The NBA has evolved to a league heavily dependent on three-point accuracy. The Bulls have lost several games in which they appeared to outplay their opponent, but faced defeat with a deficit of three-point successes. Especially when Patrick Williams was hurt and needed surgery, the Bulls played even smaller often with Caruso at “power” forward. It often led to large second chance deficits even with Drummond’s impact in his limited playing time off the bench.
Age is mentioned at times with DeRozan approaching 35 and Vučević, 33, but both have been among the more consistent and reliable players on the team. But they probably need to have their minutes per game reduced, especially DeRozan after leading the league in minutes played. Even seemingly healthy players at that age have had devastating injuries with overwork, like Kobe Bryant, Klay Thompson and Dominique Wilkins. Eventually even the seemingly indestructible Michael Jordan needed knee surgery in his mid 30s when he went to Washington.
The biggest offseason question will be whether to resign DeRozan.
He’s said repeatedly he wants to return on a new contract, and he has been the team’s most valuable player and most reliable scoring option, especially with LaVine sidelined and his future uncertain. If DeRozan returns, you’d think he needs to play shooting guard to also give the Bulls more size by enabling Patrick Williams to play wing/small forward.
Williams is a restricted free agent, meaning the team can match any offer and retain him. He might not get an offer coming off surgery, so he could return on a one-year qualifying offer and then become an unrestricted free agent. The Bulls can always offer their free agents bigger deals as the home team.
Of course, the putative shooting guard is LaVine. Which is the rub.
The belief like with Williams is teams would want to see them play first before making a commitment. But there always are teams, especially when they underachieve and perhaps are eliminated in the first round after expecting more, who might be willing to make deals not normally expected. A player like LaVine could have great appeal to a team that has difficulty attracting free agents if the Bulls are moving on. There has been no firm indications yet they plan to, and the LaVine/DeRozan combination was working beautifully those first few months with Lonzo Ball.
Ball hopes to return next season, his final Bulls contract season assuming he opts into his contract, as expected. But after being out so long without playing and undergoing multiple surgeries it seems a lot to ask him to return at a high level of play. The Bulls would be wise to have low expectations and high hopes with Ball.
Depending on whether the Bulls can fit Williams in and finally give him a fulltime look at small forward, the position he says he’s best at, the team would need a replacement power forward. Even Caruso admitted after Friday’s loss the demands were too much for him at power forward at his size and weight.
The Bulls had their problems with quantity three-point shooting teams, but also the so called young and athletic teams. It’s likely why they suffered some losses against the so called bad teams. Many of those teams feature high jumping, active athletes while the Bulls with DeRozan, Vučević and Caruso, and to some extent Ayo Dosunmu, aren’t a high flying circus. Perhaps Julian Phillips will eventually help.
But there are possibilities in free agency, trade, sign and trades; it figures to be an exceptionally active transaction summer in the NBA.
The Bulls don’t need a star at power forward. Maybe athletic free agent players like Nic Claxton or Obi Toppin types. Favoring more style than finances, the latter which are premature for now, perhaps players like Tobias Harris, Taurean Prince or Miles Bridges types. The Bulls also could use maybe to put it delicately an enforcer type. There’s no fighting anymore in the NBA, but sometimes you need someone the other guys are looking over the shoulder for, like the Morris twins used to be.
For shooting, there are a range of players in salary and skill who could be or are free agents and have that range, like Klay Thompson, Malik Monk, Buddy Hield, Luke Kennard and Doug McDermott, players who more fit the Jamal Crawford/Eddie Johnson heat-up-quickly sixth man scoring and shooting role.
Like Vučević suggested, three seasons should provide an answer. But despite the disappointing closing game, the Bulls could be just a few musical chairs away, at least initially to a playoff position, without rearranging the entire orchestra.
“Obviously, looking at my season as a whole the one thing that sticks out is my three-point shooting percentage was not great,” Vučević acknowledged. “I’ll look at that and see the reason why. Did I overthink or whatever it was, see where to get better and improve. With us the consistency never got constant. We let a lot of games slip we had a chance to win. Close calls where we had a chance to get to .500 and never were able to get over the hump and the bad start dug us a big hole and that was hard to come back from.”
So just about that nine games under through November to at least make it five over afterward, which would be good enough for the playoffs in the Eastern Conference, and maybe find that athlete and that shooter, and figure out Zach and DeMar, and Patrick and Andre, and...
Better just give them some quiet time for awhile.
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