As questions linger, Bulls trying to move on from Jaden Ivey saga

Bulls guard Tre Jones is not surprised by how much attention the Jaden Ivey situation has received since he was cut loose Monday.

“I feel like that’s part of the business,” Jones said. “The media’s always looking for something to talk about. This is definitely easy to talk about; you don’t see it every day, someone talking about their religion so much in this space. It is what it is and we’re just ready to move on.”

That might be what Jones wants, but there are still lingering questions. Some of the most pressing are what did the Bulls know about Ivey’s conduct before acquiring him, how in-depth was their vetting process and what does the entire saga say about their judgment.

As he is frequently, Bulls coach Billy Donovan was forced Wednesday to address the story instead of executive vice president of basketball operations Arturas Karnisovas, the man who actually made the trade. Donovan, who said he has been included with player background in the past, was not involved in gathering information on Ivey and finding out what he was like with the Pistons.

And there’s a good reason for that: Donovan was on the road and too busy onboarding new players after a chaotic trade deadline, preparing for a game in Canada against the Raptors.

“As a coach, you want to trust what’s going on back in Chicago, and I want them to be able to trust what’s going on in Toronto,” Donovan said. “You kind of all have to work together and do a job, so to speak.

“I don’t have all the intel on what wasn’t said prior to his arrival. All I was trying to do at that point and time was, how do I get this guy acclimated to our team?”

Ivey only played four games with the Bulls prior to getting shut down for the season March 26 to manage left knee pain. During those four appearances, Ivey’s athleticism and burst were clearly diminished from what he was before breaking his leg and suffering a knee injury with Detroit.

Those were only some of the issues with Ivey: others surfaced in his social media outbursts, including rants about his religious views and Pride, the latter costing him his job.

“He wasn’t around the group a whole lot, just with the injuries that he was dealing with,” Jones said. “We didn’t really get to get really close with him off the court or on the court really, just because he wasn’t around that much. Obviously, it’s unfortunate, everything that happened. We wish him the best.”

At the tail end of a lost season, the Bulls are facing another suboptimal situation. They’ve weathered losing and a teardown, but those are more standard parts of the NBA life.

This is different. They’ve been written and talked about in places a lottery-bound team usually isn’t, and a former teammate has become a subject of national speculation and curiosity.

Still, the Bulls are trying to keep moving forward to get something valuable from the last few games on their schedule. Jones indicated the Bulls are doing well to tune out the buzz coming from the Ivey situation.

“I wouldn’t say it’s really hovering over the team at all,” Jones said. “We’re continuing to get closer and closer off the court and on the court as a team. We continue to focus just on the game, on what’s in front of us. Obviously, it’s unfortunate what is going on but we continue to stay locked in on the things that we can control and hopefully just getting better as a group.”