Bulls continue hinting they are invested in keeping guard Jaden Ivey
Coach Billy Donovan’s comments Monday about guard Jaden Ivey didn’t sound like due diligence with free agency just a few months away — they sounded like confirmation the Bulls want to invest in his future.
Earlier in the day, the Bulls said Ivey was progressing in his program to strengthen his sore left knee, which has kept him out since mid-February, and that he’d be reevaluated again in a week in hopes of getting him back to action before the end of the regular season.
Acquired Feb. 3 from the Pistons, Ivey is a restricted free agent, which means the Bulls can match any offer that comes his way once negotiations are allowed to start on June 30. Donovan doesn’t make personnel decisions, but he has almost daily discussions with team executives, and the interest in keeping Ivey seems real, even though he only played in four lackluster games for the Bulls before the knee sidelined him.
“The unfortunate part was that when he got here, you’re dealing with him coming into a completely new situation after the trade deadline and then trying to get acclimated,” Donovan said. “I mean, the intention when [made the trade] is this could be somebody that would be here for a while. How all this plays out with the contract in July and the free agency part of it, understanding he’s restricted, I don’t know. But our intention organizationally was, this is a guy we feel could be a very, very good player, and this guy’s got a pretty long runway of being somewhat youthful and young.”
There are a few explanations for why the Bulls might want to invest in Ivey. For starters, if he can get back to looking like the player he was coming out of Purdue in 2022 and in his first few seasons in Detroit, it would be a feather in the cap for Arturas Karnisovas, executive vice president of basketball operations, and his front office.
There also aren’t many NBA teams that can go free-agent shopping this offseason, let alone gamble on an uncertain asset like Ivey, who’s still coming back from a broken left fibula that cost him much of last season.
If Ivey can get the strength back in his knee and regain his explosiveness, it could be a big help for the Bulls.
“I definitely think the season ends and he’s got a complete runway of the summer, of training, strengthening, doing those things,” Donovan said. “Everybody feels very confident that he’ll be back to where he was athletically. Can he quite get there between now and the end of the season? I don’t know.”
Simons still in play
Veteran guard Anfernee Simons, who came to the Bulls from the Celtics in the Nikola Vucevic trade on Feb. 5, saw a hand specialist for follow-up reevaluation on his fractured left wrist and will be checked again in 10 days. Donovan said the Bulls aren’t yet thinking of shutting the free agent-to-be down for the rest of the season, even if he’s likely to go play elsewhere.
“I know everybody is pushing towards trying to help these guys get back to play,” Donovan said. “If something changes in a couple weeks or we get so far to the end of the season where there aren’t many games left [and] they need a ramp-up period, that may change.”
Best of the worst
How bad is the bottom of the NBA as draft-lottery odds take shape? With a 3-7 record in their last 10 games entering Monday, the Bulls had the third-most wins among the 10 teams lowest in the standings.