Ah, out of the mouths of babes.
Bulls star DeMar DeRozan would have preferred 21-year-old forward Patrick Williams to stay quiet for a bit longer.
Last week, Williams divulged a new-look offense the Bulls are working on that focuses on position-less basketball and opening up the court. Williams didn’t say much more than that, but that was enough as far as DeRozan was concerned.
That became apparent after practice Monday, the day before the Bulls’ first preseason game against the Pelicans.
‘‘First of all, you can’t expect too much; he’s still a teenager,’’ DeRozan joked of Williams pulling back the curtain on the Bulls’ plans a bit early. ‘‘But, yeah, just putting more wrinkles in the offense so we don’t become so predictable and [rely] on ‘hero basketball’ so much.’’
DeRozan is well-versed in ‘‘hero ball.’’ He played it for much of last season, with Zach LaVine working through an issue with his left knee, Nikola Vucevic working through shooting woes and Williams, Lonzo Ball and Alex Caruso working through significant injuries.
But the NBA isn’t dumb. Every hero has his kryptonite. And by Game 5 of the Bulls’ first-round playoff loss to the Bucks, DeRozan was facing his.
‘‘It was very clear what Milwaukee was doing,’’ coach Billy Donovan said. ‘‘It was like: ‘We’re going to have someone else beat us. DeMar is not going to do what he did in Game 2 [when he scored 41].’ ’’
Even before that, however, DeRozan and LaVine had seen a blueprint throughout most of the second half of last season designed to get the ball out of their hands.
That’s why Donovan thought some changes to the offense were necessary. But one thing he cleared up was the idea of it being a ‘‘new offense.’’ He said it’s some of the same offense with some tweaks.
‘‘We’re trying to create a little more randomness to help some of the guys,’’ Donovan said. ‘‘So how do you get a little more randomness so they’re not just keying on DeMar, not just keying on Zach? We’ve got to not only make it easier for them but have these other guys play to their strengths.
‘‘There are more reads, more randomness coming down, and that’s going to take this group some time. It can’t be paint by numbers, like A to B to C.’’
So while the preseason game against the Pelicans will be the first step, getting the offense to where it’s tougher to defend will be a process — one DeRozan hopes will lead to some impressive results.
‘‘Get guys in different places, get guys involved and get easier shots for the next person,’’ DeRozan said. ‘‘Not just rely on me and Zach so much playing a bunch of isolation basketball. There’s definitely more wrinkles in there, and just getting comfortable with that, for sure.
‘‘The better you balance that, the better a team we become. It’s just a matter of understanding how to balance that. That’s on us. We’ve definitely been locked in and understanding of how we can help that.’’
Now if certain players only could stay mum — at least for a while longer.
