Conventional Wisdom

According to the pundits, there comes a time in the NBA season where every team has to decide whether to soldier on or tank it. After trading Zach Lavine, the Bulls were supposed to go into tank mode in order to have a shot at the latest flavor of the week, Duke forward Cooper Flagg. And they tried, sort of. Coach Billy Donovan had his team playing hard and losing close. In the first eight games after the LaVine trade, the Bulls went 1-7. Only now, they’ve gone 8-2 in their last ten games, including a 4-2 road trip that ended last night with a 129-119 win over the Nuggets. What say the wise ones? Andy Masur on WGN’s GN Sports Sunday night pretty much summed up the consensus reaction among sports’ people with a shrug. Yeah, it was nice to beat LeBron and the Lakers, but what does it really mean? No doubt, another win did little to change Masur’s mind or that of any of the other skeptics. We’ll see over the next three games, all at home, against the Lakers, Mavs and Thunder. Take two out of three there, and you’ve got something. Otherwise, it’s… Far be it from me to jump on any bandwagon connected to team executive v.p. Arturas Karnisovas, but I have to admit he did something right by trading LaVine (and Alex Caruso in the offseason) and drafting Matas Buzelis. Somehow, Karnisovas has stumbled his way onto a core of Josh Giddey, Buzelis and Coby White. Consider last night. Buzelis wasn’t much of a factor with ten points and four rebounds, but Giddey and White, oh my. Giddey had 26 points to go with seven rebounds and nine assists while the red-hot White poured in 37 points. After that, Donovan plays mix and match with his bench, which he does quite well and which—again, it pains me to say—Karnisovas has made possible with the acquisition of guard/forward Kevin Huerter and forward/center Zach Collins plus the offseason signing of center Jalen Smith. Once he gets healthy, guard Tre Jones belongs to this group, along with Lonzo Ball, Dalen Terry and Julian Phillips. It’s actually enough to make me all but forget that Partrick Williams is still with the team. Like I said, it’s fun, and we’ll know if it means anything in another three games.