New-look Bulls, same results: Eight straight losses

Former Bulls guard Kevin Huerter’s head had just hit the pillow, so he knew he wasn’t dreaming.

Not yet.

“There was nothing leading me up to that point to make me think that I was on the move,” Huerter said Saturday. “I got a call from [coach] Billy [Donovan] at about 1 o’clock, right before I was about to take my nap, and I hadn’t played in Miami, so I thought he was asking if I was playing that night, how I was feeling.

“And he just said, ‘Hey, just want to let you know that we just made a move to move you to Detroit.’ I was literally in my bed, like, ‘Oh, wow, OK. Let’s do it.’ ’’

It was done, and Huerter hasn’t looked back since that deadline deal.

With a 126-110 throttling of his former team at the United Center, Huerter has gone from a sinking ship to a team that has won five in a row and sits comfortably atop the East.

“That’s been great,” Huerter said, almost thankful that the Bulls did right by him on that front. “The transition, it’s always tough in season, even coming here last year, it was tough to move everything, your whole life, in about a week. But you’re going to a team like this, No. 1 in the East, and they just compete their ass off.”

The Bulls (24-33) found that out as a close game at the half turned into a laugher. The Pistons outscored the Bulls 44-26 in the third quarter.

It was the Bulls’ eighth loss in a row, and the skid isn’t likely to end soon with the Knicks coming to town Sunday, then the Hornets coming in Tuesday.

Considering the post-trade-deadline roster that Donovan has at his disposal, maybe the Bulls are designed to lose.

Josh Giddey and Tre Jones remained on minutes restrictions, Anfernee Simons left early with a sore wrist, Matas Buzelis is in a funk and Donovan still was juggling playing time for his plethora of guards.

Even with Jaden Ivey — whom Huerter was traded for — sidelined with knee woes, Donovan only found eight-plus minutes for second-year guard Rob Dillingham.

“It’s nothing [Dillingham] has not done,” Donovan said. “It’s just managing all those guards. We’re going to have a logjam there.”

But at this point, does it really matter who plays? If there’s one thing this group continues to do is show that it’s not easy to just throw a roster together and expect good things in a few weeks. Donovan has guys who are trying to understand how the player next to them functions and doing it in a new system for half the roster.

That’s why it’s easy to point to the turnover category and see another ugly number.

“Not trying to create some kind of moral victory, but I felt like it was the first game we played with the right intention,” Donovan said. “But we turned the ball over 23 times. You can’t win like that. Then we had three guys with four or five turnovers. You can’t have that.”

As for Huerter’s homecoming, he again is trying to find his way into a role after sitting for a second game, but coach J.B. Bickerstaff insisted Huerter will contribute.

Meanwhile, a bigger surprise for Huerter than not playing was what the Bulls look like after all the trades two weeks ago.

“We talked about it [as a team], and we just didn’t know,” Huerter said of the days leading up to the deadline. “We were sitting at .500 most of the year. It could have gone either way. As players, you have to expect everything, but seven or eight trades, whatever it was, I don’t know if anyone expected that.”