Another horrible loss last night for the Chicago Bulls. They have followed three straight wins with a current three game losing streak. Their weaknesses are glaring.
Three of the players inherited from Gar Forman drafts have already been shipped out. Gone are Wendell Carter, Chandler Hutchison and Daniel Gafford. Luke Kornet has also been traded.
The Bulls essentially swapped their three centers, Hutch and two first round picks for all-star center Nikola Vucevic, a former starting center/forward in Daniel Theis and Troy Brown a young prospect with untapped potential.
While Theis and Brown have been pleasant surprises on the second team, LaVine and Vooch have yet to gel with one another. They have also forgotten about rookie Patrick Williams who doesn’t seem able to get the ball passed his way.
Against Memphis, it was easy to defend in the fourth quarter when the Bulls were held to 16 points. The Grizzlies simply played 5 on 4. P-Will’s defender was always ten feet off him.
Making the situation even worse is the play of Forman’s other recent picks, Lauri Markkanen and Coby White. Markkanen continues to be soft on both ends despite one or two strong moves a game to remind us how much he is truly underperforming.
And, White single handedly has taken the Bulls out of a couple games making every mistake imaginable. The second he dribbles more than three times, I’d give 50:50 odds he will lose the ball.
It’s official. Coby White will never be a point guard. Drafting him for that role was just another Chicago blunder that has seen it’s last day.
The Bulls cannot close out games. It is almost guaranteed they will lose a second half lead to a team with a true point guard or more than one shot creator. The league knows it. They don’t have a ball handler to settle down the offense in crunch time.
This offseason expect the three biggest moves to be:
1) Not to match an offer for Lauri
2) Coby to be packaged with Thad Young (or Sato) in a trade
3) Signing a major free agent
The Bulls roster will be fully purged from Gar Forman acquisitions by the opening tip of the 2021-22 season, except for Zach.
And, in retrospect, we may find that keeping the 2021 pick top-four-protected, in the Vooch trade, to be in play come the draft lottery.