Bulls finish regular season in familiar mediocre spot
PHILADELPHIA — The faces changed, the playing style underwent a complete transformation and coach Billy Donovan got a bit grayer, but the record — 39-43 — is the same as last season after the Bulls’ 122-102 victory against the 76ers in the season finale.
Mediocrity is tough to leave behind.
So as much as the organization might want to pat itself on the back for overcoming the losses of DeMar DeRozan and Alex Caruso last summer, then Zach LaVine at the trade deadline, the Bulls still have a familiar path ahead this week — needing to get through the Play-In Tournament just to make the playoffs.
They’re not alone in the Eastern Conference, either.
It will be the third consecutive year that the Bulls and Heat will be in the play-in tourney and the fourth for the Hawks.
The East has become predictable since the play-in was added, but the bigger concern is how difficult it is to escape mediocrity.
It was an issue Donovan didn’t shy away from Sunday and one the Bulls will have to confront when their season finally concludes.
“Those are the conversations that are probably going to take place after the season is over with,” Donovan said. “They’ll be evaluating in the front office, looking at the players in totality over the course of the season. I’m not that familiar with free agency or the lottery right now. They’ll kind of get me up to speed on those things. Certainly, there will be contractual situations that they’ll have to look at and evaluate, but that would be the next step.
“Now I don’t know if that is, ‘OK, we have to go backward before we go forward’ or ‘Hey, we need to add around the fringes to take another step forward.’ I think that is going to be a big, big part in what’s going to take place after the season is over.”
Those discussions should’ve taken place with more conviction before the season even started.
The Bulls missed the perfect opportunity this season to take steps back to try to move forward — a route they have spoken against publicly since executive vice president Arturas Karnisovas took over — with Duke standout Cooper Flagg the expected No. 1 pick in June.
If they try to “add around the fringes,” well, that will have to wait another year with most of the roster under contract through next season.
So what could that mean for the Bulls and the play-in next year? Same time, same place. Rinse and repeat.
That’s why Donovan was asked if he was frustrated with what has felt like Groundhog Day.
“I wouldn’t say that I’m frustrated,” Donovan said. “Even just being around the guys, I don’t think it’s necessarily just me. I would put Arturas and [general manager] Marc [Eversley], I would put Jerry and Michael [Reinsdorf] in it. You know we all want to win.
“With where we’re at, clearly there’s a course-direction change. I’m happy with course-direction change if it’s moving toward, ‘Hey, we’re trying to get better.’ And I feel like everyone in the organization is in the mindset of doing that.”
First things first, however: the play-in showdown against the Heat for a third consecutive year.
“I think [the matchup is] different this year,” center Nikola Vucevic said. “It’s going to be a grind-it-out game.”