Thoughts on Donovan right now

[dougthonus]

I agree about Vuc but disagree about Craig. Craig is a pretty limited player. He might be a good stopgap but he is just a stopgap.

I mean Craig is a guy who can play a legit 20 minutes a night on the vet min. If you think his vet min money was misallocated, the problem wasn't Craig, it was Terry Taylor. We should have dropped Taylor and gotten a better vet min guy to supplement Craig.

IMO, its pretty clear that AKME believes in the 4 small guys plus a center thing that BD frequently plays. BD agreeing with them is why BD is still here but its coming from the front office.

I think it's lower on my list of problems with the makeup of the team, but it's definitely a problem. Negotiate better with Vuc + Ayo and you probably have 7-10M for one player to use and replace Terry Taylor, and ideally, that player would be a PF.

[coldfish]

I agree about Vuc but disagree about Craig. Craig is a pretty limited player. He might be a good stopgap but he is just a stopgap.

I mean Craig is a guy who can play a legit 20 minutes a night on the vet min. If you think his vet min money was misallocated, the problem wasn't Craig, it was Terry Taylor. We should have dropped Taylor and gotten a better vet min guy to supplement Craig.

IMO, its pretty clear that AKME believes in the 4 small guys plus a center thing that BD frequently plays. BD agreeing with them is why BD is still here but its coming from the front office.

I think it's lower on my list of problems with the makeup of the team, but it's definitely a problem. Negotiate better with Vuc + Ayo and you probably have 7-10M for one player to use and replace Terry Taylor, and ideally, that player would be a PF.

My point about Craig is that they spent vet min money to shore up the PF spot. I think he is an excellent vet min pick up but the fact that they thought that PF was worth vet min money while putting that much towards Coby, Ayo and Carter shows their priorities.

I think we are talking past each other so I'll circle back to my original post and try to explain:

Craig makes $2.5m this year. Carter makes $6.2m. That was a serious misallocation of the limited funds available this offseason. People here will say that is hindsight but its the job of general managers to predict the future. When given the option, AKME has routinely put their money in guys 6'6" or smaller.

IMO, PF was a bigger need than Carter. They should have spent the $6.2m on a PF and got a vet min PG as a 3rd stringer. Not doing so shows that they value small guys over big guys.

I agree with you that they also should have spent less on Ayo and Vucevic (actually that should have been zero) and spent even MORE than $6.2m on a PF.

Overall, the money shows where the priorities are and AKME seems to want that 4 small, 1 big lineup. Donovan may agree with it but I don't think its coming from him.

[FriedRise]

I agree about Vuc but disagree about Craig. Craig is a pretty limited player. He might be a good stopgap but he is just a stopgap.

I mean Craig is a guy who can play a legit 20 minutes a night on the vet min. If you think his vet min money was misallocated, the problem wasn't Craig, it was Terry Taylor. We should have dropped Taylor and gotten a better vet min guy to supplement Craig.

IMO, its pretty clear that AKME believes in the 4 small guys plus a center thing that BD frequently plays. BD agreeing with them is why BD is still here but its coming from the front office.

I think it's lower on my list of problems with the makeup of the team, but it's definitely a problem. Negotiate better with Vuc + Ayo and you probably have 7-10M for one player to use and replace Terry Taylor, and ideally, that player would be a PF.

My point about Craig is that they spent vet min money to shore up the PF spot. I think he is an excellent vet min pick up but the fact that they thought that PF was worth vet min money while putting that much towards Coby, Ayo and Carter shows their priorities.

I think we are talking past each other so I'll circle back to my original post and try to explain:

Craig makes $2.5m this year. Carter makes $6.2m. That was a serious misallocation of the limited funds available this offseason. People here will say that is hindsight but its the job of general managers to predict the future. When given the option, AKME has routinely put their money in guys 6'6" or smaller.

IMO, PF was a bigger need than Carter. They should have spent the $6.2m on a PF and got a vet min PG as a 3rd stringer. Not doing so shows that they value small guys over big guys.

I agree with you that they also should have spent less on Ayo and Vucevic (actually that should have been zero) and spent even MORE than $6.2m on a PF.

Overall, the money shows where the priorities are and AKME seems to want that 4 small, 1 big lineup. Donovan may agree with it but I don't think its coming from him.

I don't think they understood how much better Coby has gotten. Had they realized that, I'm pretty sure Carter wouldn't have been a priority. Last year we were getting close to nothing from the PG position, which is a shame because I thought Coby was already excellent in the 15-20 minutes per game he was getting.

So they spent the majority of the money on a 3&D PG to replace Pat Bev and try to recreate the 14-9 magic. To shore up the PF position, they signed Craig and drafted Philips. At the time, I thought they were excellent additions from what we know we need to make the Mid 3 work.

But yeah, probably too much reacting to the situation and not enough foresight. Speaking of foresight, they tried to anticipate a young player's growth the year before, but then it just blew it up in their face (Ayo as starting PG). Just can't get it right lol.

[sco]

I mean Craig is a guy who can play a legit 20 minutes a night on the vet min. If you think his vet min money was misallocated, the problem wasn't Craig, it was Terry Taylor. We should have dropped Taylor and gotten a better vet min guy to supplement Craig.



I think it's lower on my list of problems with the makeup of the team, but it's definitely a problem. Negotiate better with Vuc + Ayo and you probably have 7-10M for one player to use and replace Terry Taylor, and ideally, that player would be a PF.

My point about Craig is that they spent vet min money to shore up the PF spot. I think he is an excellent vet min pick up but the fact that they thought that PF was worth vet min money while putting that much towards Coby, Ayo and Carter shows their priorities.

I think we are talking past each other so I'll circle back to my original post and try to explain:

Craig makes $2.5m this year. Carter makes $6.2m. That was a serious misallocation of the limited funds available this offseason. People here will say that is hindsight but its the job of general managers to predict the future. When given the option, AKME has routinely put their money in guys 6'6" or smaller.

IMO, PF was a bigger need than Carter. They should have spent the $6.2m on a PF and got a vet min PG as a 3rd stringer. Not doing so shows that they value small guys over big guys.

I agree with you that they also should have spent less on Ayo and Vucevic (actually that should have been zero) and spent even MORE than $6.2m on a PF.

Overall, the money shows where the priorities are and AKME seems to want that 4 small, 1 big lineup. Donovan may agree with it but I don't think its coming from him.

I don't think they understood how much better Coby has gotten. Had they realized that, I'm pretty sure Carter wouldn't have been a priority. Last year we were getting close to nothing from the PG position, which is a shame because I thought Coby was already excellent in the 15-20 minutes per game he was getting.

So they spent the majority of the money on a 3&D PG to replace Pat Bev and try to recreate the 14-9 magic. To shore up the PF position, they signed Craig and drafted Philips. At the time, I thought they were excellent additions from what we know we need to make the Mid 3 work.

But yeah, probably too much reacting to the situation and not enough foresight. Speaking of foresight, they tried to anticipate a young player's growth the year before, but then it just blew it up in their face (Ayo as starting PG). Just can't get it right lol.

I'm with you. It's like making tacos with rotten meat. It really doesn't matter how much salt and pepper you add after the fact.

[Stratmaster]

The situation with the rotations is weird. Its hard to figure out where its coming from. In some instances, Billy pays attention to on/off metrics and sometimes he doesn't. The pattern is that Lavine, Derozan and Vucevic seem to be immune to being pulled for poor play whereas other players like Drummond get a quick hook.

My personal belief is that AKME has a hand in rotations and the fact that Billy cooperates is a big part of the reason why he is still here and got the extension.

I primarily blame AKME for there not being a quality PF on the roster to go with Patrick.

Going forward, I wouldn't be surprised if the team lets Derozan walk and then uses the money freed up to give Patrick an extension and get a PF with the MLE. They could stay under the tax like that while still getting to rake in Lonzo's sweet, sweet insurance money.

Next year:
Coby / Ayo / Carter
Lavine / Caruso
Patrick
MLE PF / Craig
Vucevic
+ draft pick, Terry, Phillips, Taylor

and no, that's not a contender. The Bulls seem to have no interest in pursuing that. I don't think they have a path for going that direction even if they wanted to.

I agree. Billy seems to be a coach who caters to the big contract guys to placate them, and then tries to win by tinkering with the supporting cast rotations. If it hasn't become obvious this season that playing the big 3 together isn't best for winning, I don't know what will convince him.

To be a little fair, they did get Craig, who was a good fit before the injury.

IMO, this team does well when 2 of Coby, Zach, DDR and Vuc are on the floor with Pat, AC, Drummond (and Craig when healthy, maybe with a little Ayo sprinkled in for home games).

Not sure how Pat got into the equation. But other than that...yep

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[Stratmaster]

Craig makes $2.5m this year. Carter makes $6.2m. That was a serious misallocation of the limited funds available this offseason. People here will say that is hindsight but its the job of general managers to predict the future. When given the option, AKME has routinely put their money in guys 6'6" or smaller.

Outside of Craig being hurt, he seems like an ideal player for what the Bulls need, and at his cost, I don't think you could get better. He's very much a legit PF IMO given his strength, and his skillset was nearly exactly what we could use.

Carter seems like a luxury given we signed both Ayo and Coby, but would have made sense otherwise. He did help with the theoretical problem of 3&D, but then you shouldn't have signed three PGs to 3 year deals. In the end, you need to go two of 3 on those PGs IMO given that DeMar often acts as the PG, Zach sometimes acts as the PG, and Caruso also sometimes plays as a PG, and none of those guys are "true" PGs are either (to the extent anyone cares about true PGs anymore, which they probably shouldn't).

My real complaint with misallocating funds though is Vuc. We probably paid at least 8M more than we had to, no one was going over the MLE on him and Ayo. He was restricted and would have been restricted the following year. He was coming off a crap season, we could have just waited a year and got him on the same deal but only paid him 2M or whatever this year, and if someone offered him something else it still probably would have been less.

Probably between those two guys we unnecessarily spent somewhere between 5-12M dollars for no reason other than we're just scared to negotiate.

I agree about Vuc but disagree about Craig. Craig is a pretty limited player. He might be a good stopgap but he is just a stopgap.

IMO, its pretty clear that AKME believes in the 4 small guys plus a center thing that BD frequently plays. BD agreeing with them is why BD is still here but its coming from the front office.

Well Craig is a great #2 SF/PF IF you already have a quality 4. The Bulls think Pat is that guy.

But since he hasn't been...then yes. If you think they got Craig to be the going forward power forward...then he is just a stopgap

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[bledredwine]

He's probably an above average NBA head coach. He was given a "Big 3" who didn't fit without a very specific variable added (Lonzo). I have a hard time believing any coach would have more success with those 3 minus Lonzo than Billy has had.

I don't think he's the problem but I also don't think he's one of the best. He's fine.

This is exactly my opinion as well.

He wasn't dealt a good hand. Zach and Demar alone are two of the most ISO players in the NBA.
Our failures are more on the players sucking than Billy.

Of course, it would be nice to be a more defensive team as well.

[Stratmaster]

The 30-13 Bucks just fired their head coach.

Here we sit with Billy gum-chewing, platitude-spewing Donovan. Who has managed to mis-manage a team about as badly as a coach possibly can, and got a secret extension for his efforts. Struggling to get a reasonably talented team close to .500.

And the 30-13 Bucks just fired their head coach mid-season.

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The Bucks need to hear this new concept called "Continuity". In this concept you can't fire your head coach without giving them at least 3 years to build the team. Believe us, Continuity is good.

You may have meant: "without giving them at least 3 years to bury the team"

[jacoby1us]

His rotations and inability to adjust are still questionable.
Additionally his loyalty to players paid big dollars is another downfall, throws situational lineups out of the window for loyalty to players who are playing subpar but getting big pay days.

[MrSparkle]

I can’t take a coach very seriously when he runs (largely) the same rotations and negative line-ups for 3 years straight. That is a long time to push sub-500 basketball.

He’s coaching like it’s the NCAA, and it’s not working. He’s hell-bent on an 8 man core rotation (with some real meaningless garbage roles for the 8th guy and on), and that just doesn’t make tons of sense in the NBA. Anybody can get hot any night- that’s how talented the league is. When you remove that unpredictable x-factor from the equation, you become a predictable team. That sums up the Donovan experience. It’s a softer, less intense and worse executed version of Thibs’ most stubborn teams (ala 13/14 Bulls)- way less talent on that team, especially before Jimmy figured out his offense. This team’s performance has been horrible, regardless of injuries. The good stretches are rare.

Check out Carlisle’s teams: double-digit MPG distribution down to the 14th guy.

Why is Donovan playing Demar for 37 mpg? Or Vuc for 33? Are these guys Lebron and Duncan? They’re carved up like pumpkins and bringing last-place pace iso offense. Can he get the memo that decreasing their minutes might balance and improve the team’s performance?

Ultimately I’m not a fan of Zach, but it falls on Billy for creating an awkward atmosphere with a 2x star scorer. Not staggering those 3 at all made no sense to me.

If you don’t like the 5 G-League players the FO signed for your bench (when your starting backcourt is on the IR all year), then demand a trade. It’s not like you’re at high risk of being fired.

Billy is a professional and knowledgeable coach, but he was quite the boring pick to be stuck with for what looks to be a decade. 138-142 with 1 playoff win in 3.5 years, and a hungry FO that has targeted veteran help. Mediocrity.

[Stratmaster]

It's really frustrating to watch Billy sitting on the bench, head tilted down looking at the floor, rubbing his temples, with a look on his face that tells you he has no idea what to do.

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[samwana]

I don't know how someone can watch him coach and still wants to keep him pulling of the same stupid 4th quarters he tries for 2 and a half years, again and again. Coaches may not add a lot of wins but they definitely add losses.

[Stratmaster]

I don't know how someone can watch him coach and still wants to keep him pulling of the same stupid 4th quarters he tries for 2 and a half years, again and again. Coaches may not add a lot of wins but they definitely add losses.

Exactly. The turnover/q4 meltdown issue hasn't gone away regardless of who is or isn't playing. The disappearing offense for long stretches is only worse with Zach gone.

But all of that points to a team that is getting outcoached in the 2nd half of every game.

The 2nd half is when coaching becomes important. It's when a coach has read the game and finishes based on the context of the game so far.

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[Ice Man]

I don't care about Billy one way or another. An NBA coach is an NBA coach, except for Jim Boylen, who wasn't actually an NBA coach. But it's ironic to see Billy getting ripped for being a bad 2nd half and 4th quarter coach, when the Bulls have been a better 2nd half team this year than a 1st half team, and their very best quarter, the only quarter in which the Bulls have outscored their opponents, has been the 4th.

[Stratmaster]

I don't care about Billy one way or another. An NBA coach is an NBA coach, except for Jim Boylen, who wasn't actually an NBA coach. But it's ironic to see Billy getting ripped for being a bad 2nd half and 4th quarter coach, when the Bulls have been a better 2nd half team this year than a 1st half team, and their very best quarter, the only quarter in which the Bulls have outscored their opponents, has been the 4th.

That's not really the start that addresses what I am talking about. Blown leads and clutch wins would be more appropriate. Maybe I'm wrong. I can't find a blown leads stat

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[GetBuLLish]

Honest question: what percentage of the Bulls' salary cap is injured right now? Number has to be significant, in which case how can you expect much more out of Donovan?

[Stratmaster]

Oops

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[jnrjr79]

My thought on Billy Donovan is that this roster is fatally flawed and Billy Donovan does not rate in the list of current concerns.

Focusing on Donovan is like having a potentially fatal disease you need to aggressively treat but instead worrying about some mild knee pain. How about we fix the urgent thing before spending too much time wringing hands about a minor thing?

[Stratmaster]

My thought on Billy Donovan is that this roster is fatally flawed and Billy Donovan does not rate in the list of current concerns.

Focusing on Donovan is like having a potentially fatal disease you need to aggressively treat but instead worrying about some mild knee pain. How about we fix the urgent thing before spending too much time wringing hands about a minor thing?

Two things can be true at the same time.

The roster isn't fatally flawed, though. What are they? 18-12 the last 30 games... with more than a couple blown games against weak teams that didn't have to happen with any semblance of late game coaching and play.



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[jnrjr79]

My thought on Billy Donovan is that this roster is fatally flawed and Billy Donovan does not rate in the list of current concerns.

Focusing on Donovan is like having a potentially fatal disease you need to aggressively treat but instead worrying about some mild knee pain. How about we fix the urgent thing before spending too much time wringing hands about a minor thing?

Two things can be true at the same time.

Sorry, I just can’t be worried right now about whether the hubcaps on the Yugo look nice. Billy Donovan is not a meaningful problem for this current Bulls roster.

The roster isn't fatally flawed, though. What are they? 18-12 the last 30 games... with more than a couple blown games against weak teams that didn't have to happen with any semblance of late game coaching and play.



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Let me get my “18-12 over the last 30” foam finger printed up.

The roster is obviously fatally flawed. One of the reasons you know that is the Bulls’ best stretch of play has come without their most expensive player. But even if they can be better than they’ve been with Zach, this is ultimately a roster centered around veteran players that has a very limited ceiling. That’s not the same as saying the roster is terrible. But the roster has no path to contention and needs significant reworking.