Not a single Bulls player seems interested in walking through it.
It was like that when executive vice president of basketball operations Arturas Karnisovas first took over in 2020, and it remained that way Wednesday, when Billy Donovan again found himself answering trade questions before the 116-100 loss to the Knicks at Madison Square Garden.
“For me here it’s been a pretty open-door policy that if the player has a question or anything like that, they have an opportunity to go up there and talk to the front office,” Donovan reiterated.
It’s hard to have questions, however, when there’s no real market buzz.
That’s where this Bulls team still finds itself. Sinking in the standings even with a recent winning streak, and assets to move with nowhere to move them.
It’s somewhat fitting that the Knicks media was again asking Donovan about how the organization was dealing with trade rumors. It was just last week that the Knicks got the ball rolling on the trade front, striking a deal with Toronto to acquire OG Anunoby as well as Precious Achiuwa and Malachi Flynn for RJ Barrett and Immanuel Quickley.
A deal that didn’t fall under the category of blockbuster on the surface but makes both teams more interesting. Definitely the Knicks with Anunoby having a lot of Luol Deng-type of all-around potential.
The kicker is the Knicks might not be done.
And the Bulls? They can’t even get started.
As the Sun-Times has reported for weeks, there is still no market for Zach LaVine, as the front office has to start coming to the reality of holding onto the two-time All-Star until at least the summer. Not ideal, especially with how well the Bulls (15-21) were playing without him before also losing Nikola Vucevic, but it’s also not ideal for LaVine and his representation. After all, they made it known back in November that the guard would like to be elsewhere if a deal could be reached.
The best thing LaVine can do now is make his return from a right foot injury on Friday and play at a high level. The Bulls definitely could have used LaVine’s scoring in the second half Wednesday.
After they showed a bit of softness in the loss to the 76ers on Tuesday, Donovan wanted to see a return to physicality by his players, and for a half he got that.
The Bulls built a 55-51 lead going into the locker room and looked the part of a team that wasn’t intimidated by the Garden.
By the end of the third quarter, however, it had all fallen apart. It was in that period that the Knicks outscored the Bulls 35-23, outrebounded them 17-13, doubled them up in the assist department 12-6 and had eight fast-break points to the Bulls’ two.
Basketball 101 courtesy of Prof. Tom Thibodeau, who improved to 12-5 against the Bulls since they fired the former coach.
“Not to make excuses, but we miss a lot of critical guys at critical times,” DeMar DeRozan said after the loss. “We’ve all been doing our part, holding down the fort as best we can, but it’s come to that point where you miss the other guys that can contribute. More bodies we can throw out there. It’s just a ‘we need the rest of the troops’ type of feeling.
“We’ve been competing our butts off, but those stints like [Wednesday] you wish you had a guy out there like Vooch [Vucevic], TC [Torrey Craig], Zach . . . kind of shift the game a bit for us.”
