Josh Giddey’s Chicago Bulls are in the NBA wilderness and it looks like it will be a long road out of there.
Chicago suffered a 131-99 loss to the Charlotte Hornets on Wednesday (AEDT), their 10th consecutive defeat. The Bulls are the only NBA team yet to win a game in the month of February.
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Giddey has returned from a hamstring injury following the NBA All-Star break, but it has been a dire few games for him.
The Australian scored an impressive 27 points against the Detroit Pistons over the weekend, but he hasn’t reached double figures in his three other games back from injury — scoring eight, six and five points.
“Our job is to go out and perform and win games,” a frustrated Giddey said after a tough loss to the New York Knicks.
“Obviously, we’re not going to keep using the excuse it’s a new team. We’re past that part now.
“It is frustrating because you build so much continuity with the team you have and then it gets torn apart within a couple of days. So we have 30 games to get this new team together and … get familiar with how we play.”
“I think he’s frustrated,” Bulls coach Billy Donovan said.
“Not with anybody or anything. It’s more he’s a competitive guy and wants to be out there and getting in a flow and rhythm of the game and he’s got to come out (to limit playing time).
“His rotations have had these huge gaps in them. So you get caught in a situation where he starts and at times doesn’t come back until the start of the next quarter, sitting through halftime; it’s hard.
“He’s going to have to find his way through this.“Josh is very cerebral, very smart, an instinctive player.
“When you are a guy who passes the way he does, it takes time to get to know people and get the right spacing on the floor where he can get downhill and create and generate for others; that’s been a struggle.”
Chicago’s one priority is giving court time to second-year player Matas Buzelis, who scored 32 points against the Hornets and has been one of the few bright spots for Chicago.
NBA.com’s Sam Smith wrote: “Buzelis and Giddey have been the target of opposing defenses with Giddey derailed the most. He did have a huge game in the Pistons blowout loss making a career-high in three pointers.
“He’s on a playing time limitation returning from a hamstring injury with frequent substitutions that would affect anyone’s play.
“He’s averaging 12.7 points—compared to 18.6 previously — and about half the assists and rebounds per game. With thunder claps of exasperation.”
The Bulls have a 24-35 record and appear to be tanking away the rest of the season after trading away three of their best players at the NBA midseason deadline.
Two-time All-Star Nikola Vucevic was sent to the Boston Celtics, Koby White joined the improving Charlotte Hornets and Ayo Dosunmu was traded to the Minnesota Timberwolves.
All three of those players are set to play in post-season games, while the Bulls are racking up the losses in a bid to improve their chances of getting a top player in the NBA Draft Lottery.
Rubbing salt into the wound is the fact Chicago did not receive a single first round draft pick in exchange for those players, when they would have got a better haul of picks had they traded them last off-season.
New recruits Jaden Ivey and Anfernee Simons are sidelined with injury and aren’t expected to play this season.
But the Bulls might have left it too late in the season to start tanking. They are currently 12th in the Eastern Conference standings with the ninth worst record in the NBA.
Utah, New Orleans, Sacramento, Washington, Memphis, Dallas, Brooklyn, Indiana all have worse records than Chicago.
But with every loss, the Bulls are at least giving themselves a chance at getting lucky in the NBA Draft Lottery and landing a top pick in a stacked draft class.
Darryn Peterson and Cameron Boozer, son of former Bull and All-Star Carlos Boozer, have been described as generational prospects and teams are desperate to land one of the young prospects.
But the Bulls, who haven’t won a playoff series since 2015, don’t exactly have a great track record at the draft. Jimmy Butler was the last All-Star they drafted, way back in 2011.
Patrick Williams was taken by Chicago at No. 4 in the 2020 draft and despite being regarded by many as a total bust, the Bulls awarded him with a five-year, A$126 million contract that runs until 2029.
Last off-season Giddey signed a four-year contract with Chicago worth A$35 million per season, making him one of Australia’s highest paid athletes.
But despite the lucrative salary, Giddey would be forgiven for wondering what might have happened had he not been traded by Oklahoma City Thunder for Alex Caruso two years ago.
Caruso played a key role in OKC’s NBA championship win and the Thunder are well positioned to make another deep playoff run as they aim to become the first team to win back-to-back titles since the Warriors in 2017-18.
Giddey ended last season averaging nearly a triple double and the Bulls started this season 5-0, but the team has fallen rapidly down the standings since then.
Chicago’s front office has to take most the blame for the mismanagement of the roster in recent years, and Billy Donovan will surely start to feel the heat as one of the longest tenured coaches in the NBA.
The Dallas Mavericks had a 1.7 per cent chance of getting the No. 1 pick in last year’s lottery and somehow that happened and they ended up Cooper Flagg after the disastrous Luka Doncic trade.
So Bulls fans, there’s still a chance.
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