Bulls Notes: Tanking Decisions, Giddey, LaVine, DeRozan

The Bulls lost to the NBA’s worst team Sunday night in Sacramento, but it’s still not clear that they’re committed to a tanking strategy, writes Julia Poe of The Chicago Tribune (subscription required). The team has gone 2-11 since shaking up its roster at the trade deadline and has plummeted to 12th place in the East. However, Poe points out that puzzling lineup decisions are still being made for a team with incentive to tank.

Jalen Smith returned to the court on Sunday after missing the previous five games with a calf strain. Poe notes that the Bulls refuse to shut down Smith even though he has been in and out of the lineup over the past month. Young guard Rob Dillingham, who was acquired from Minnesota at the deadline, only saw 15 minutes against the Kings, while 30-year-old Guerschon Yabusele, who will be a free agent when the season ends, remains in the starting lineup.

Poe blames executive vice president of basketball operations Arturas Karnisovas for getting “queasy” any time the organization faces a major decision. She states that just as Karnisovas is hesitant to pull the trigger on trading a player, he’s also reluctant to fully commit to a tanking strategy, even when it’s obviously in the team’s best interest.

“Everything I’ve gotten here from the front office, from ownership is that we need to do the best job you can to go out there and compete and to try to win,” coach Billy Donovan said last month. “I believe in that. … That’s kind of the mentality that we have here inside the organization. We’ve always tried to keep the integrity of that anytime we go out and compete.”

There’s more on the Bulls:

• In a separate story, Poe questions why the organization is so reckless with Josh Giddey after giving him a four-year extension last summer and making him part of the foundation for the future. She notes that Giddey was reinserted into Tuesday’s loss against Oklahoma City after limping off the court with a rolled ankle a few minutes earlier. He’s also dealing with a lingering hamstring issue that’s supposed to limit his playing time to about 30 minutes per night, but Donovan doesn’t always adhere to that. Poe questions why the Bulls are taking any chances with Giddey when there’s nothing left to play for.
• The new additions to the Bulls’ roster are still getting used to the extreme up-tempo pace that Donovan prefers, observes Joe Cowley of The Chicago Sun-Times (subscription required). It was effective in Thursday’s win at Phoenix, but didn’t work as well on Sunday. “The biggest issue I think was the fact that a lot of those guys were coming from situations where they were not playing at all,” Donovan said. “Like Yabusele wasn’t playing, Nick (Richards) wasn’t playing, Rob (Dillingham) wasn’t playing, so I think the pace has been a little different. We went through some of that with Tre (Jones), Zach (Collins) and Kevin Huerter last year.”
• Donovan has fond memories of former Bulls players Zach LaVine and DeMar DeRozan, who both missed Sunday’s game, Cowley adds in another piece. “Listen, I love both those two guys. I think those guys know how I feel about them,” Donovan said. “They were totally professional, and listen when you’re dealing with high-level players like that you are not always going to see eye-to-eye on stuff, but I appreciated the conversation and the intent on their part was to really try and win. That was important to those two guys. I don’t know all the reasons it didn’t work out (here).”