Bulls React Passionately to Lackluster Start

With the benefit of hindsight, it would have been understandable—maybe even easy—to view the Bulls’ 2022–23 season as something to build on.

After a highly disappointing first half of the campaign, Chicago won better than 60% of its games after the All-Star break, logging the league’s stingiest defense during that span. The Bulls earned the last and final play-in spot, taking down Toronto on the road after benefiting from the free-throw-distracting screams leveled at Raptors players by DeMar DeRozan’s daughter. And Chicago nearly won its second play-in game, too, holding a lead over the Heat in Miami with just two and a half minutes remaining in the contest. The Bulls faltered down the stretch, though, then watched the Heat go from being a No. 8 seed to winning the East and reaching the NBA Finals.

But if there was enthusiasm about last season’s ending—sprouting a thought that maybe, just maybe, it could serve as a springboard of sorts for Chicago this season—some of it appears to have dried up already, just one game into the campaign.

The Bulls got drilled in the second half of their season opener Wednesday, losing 124–104 at home to the Thunder. And when coach Billy Donovan went into the locker room to address his players following the loss, they said they needed more time to themselves before he spoke with them. (Yes, that’s right: Chicago held something of a players-only meeting following its first game of the season.) And before that, Donovan had a back-and-forth on the sideline with starting center Nikola Vučević during the third quarter, just as OKC grabbed the momentum.

For what it’s worth, Donovan considered the team’s frustrated attitude after the loss a good thing. “I will say the one thing I think was good with some of the heated conversations and confrontation: That would’ve never happened last year. Ever. Like, there would’ve been a quiet group,” Donovan told reporters. “So the confrontation piece is a sign that it’s important to them.”

The level of passion has been a fair question for the Bulls, even during preseason in some moments. One key example: Donovan yanked young starter Patrick Williams, who’s effectively playing for a new contract this season, just two minutes and 45 seconds into a preseason game last week for not showing enough intensity. “First of all, I wanted to talk to him about it because we talked about some of it before the game. … There was a lot opportunities for him to get to the backboard and offensive rebounds,” Donovan told reporters last week. “We had talked about it, and I didn’t like the way he came out.”

This isn’t to say Chicago needs to be written off, necessarily, even as the entirety of the team’s core is back. Zach LaVine appeared out of rhythm and struggled after dealing with foul trouble in the first half. The Thunder—star guard Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and sharpshooter Isaiah Joe, in particular—broke loose for a 23–6 run between the late stages of the third and early part of the fourth periods that largely put the game out of reach.

Perhaps Donovan’s assessment is correct: At least the Chicago players see a need to talk things out this time around, and that marks a shift from last season. But heading into a huge season—both in terms of figuring Williams’s contract situation, along with that of DeRozan, who’s a free agent after this season—it certainly wasn’t the start out of the gate that the 2023–24 Bulls were looking for.