Bulls turnover problems one of many issues facing coach Billy Donovan
Josh Giddey has never been one to point fingers or get caught up in the excuse game.
So he’s not about to start now.
The Bulls guard has every right to as he’s watched half the name plates in the locker room changed within the last month and the losing streak up to 11 games and counting, but in Giddey’s mind this is the NBA and pros don’t dwell on what’s gone wrong. They try and fix it.
“Our job is to go out and perform and win games,” Giddey said. “Obviously, we’re not going to keep using the excuse it’s a new team. We’re past that part now. It is frustrating because you build so much continuity with the team you have and then it gets torn apart within a couple of days.
“We’ve got to find ways to get out the hole and figure it out as a group. Nobody is feeling sorry for us. There aren’t asterisks on the stat sheet saying it’s a new team together. It’s on us as players to figure this out.”
A good suggestion, but how?
Blame it on players trying to do too much, an unfamiliarity with each other, or just bad decision making, but if Giddey and his new-look roster can’t do a better job with ball security, making shots and playing better defense won’t really mean much.
It starts there and the ugly numbers back that up.
In the last five games alone, the Bulls have 99 turnovers (19.8 per game) and have allowed 119 points (23.8 per game) off those turnovers.
“It’s really in a lot of ways the decision making in the moment,” coach Billy Donovan said of all the gift giving by his team lately. “We just got to try getting better at it. It’s hard because a few of them were just careless turnovers, the ball was handled too much or trying to do too much with the ball and it’s just not there, but more than anything it’s the decision-making piece that we’ve got to keep working at and keep showing them, try to get better at.”
If there was a training camp to do that, or at this point even a few consecutive days of practice, maybe the coach could start chipping away at some of the bad habits, but that’s the other issue facing Donovan these days: He’s fighting an uphill battle.
Not only are several of his key ballhandlers like Giddey and Tre Jones on minutes restrictions, but the Bulls are undermanned in the frontcourt as well. Even if he could get his guards to play with more ball security, they’re running with the likes of seldom-used forward Leonard Miller and undersized Guerschon Yabusele.
This is not a winning roster when it’s at full strength, let alone playing with G Leaguers and castoffs. And while he won’t ever admit it, winning games isn’t a reality for Donovan the rest of this season.
That doesn’t mean he can’t do everything possible to at least try and coach some winning habits into his group.
That’s why he’s focused so much on second-year guard Rob Dilligham. Since arriving from Minnesota in the Ayo Dosunmu trade, Dillingham has been trying to re-establish himself as a prospect that was selected No. 8 overall in the 2024 draft.
Donovan remains all in on helping him in that process.
“I’ve had talks with Rob about getting him to try to change his mentality,” Donovan said. “He viewed himself as a scoring point guard, which is good, but you also have to be efficient (with) his size. How can he change his mentality of how he needs to start looking at the game.
“We’re trying to help these guys as well as going out and win. Can I use this time to try to help them? It may not always lead to wins, but it may help make them better players.”