CLEVELAND — DeMar DeRozan had no problem playing sideline therapist for Zach LaVine during the latest black-eye freshly imprinted on the face of the Bulls.
As Thursday’s game in New Orleans was slipping away, DeRozan knew that LaVine had reached a boiling point of frustration, and tried to calm him down, or at least get him refocused.
The All-Star guard claimed DeRozan’s talk worked, but it still didn’t change the outcome.
With just nine regular-season games left, and the Bulls in jeopardy of losing a grasp of the No. 5 seed in the Eastern Conference, it might take more than Dr. DeRozan to right this ship.
“It’s frustrating,’’ LaVine said of his team’s recent dismal play. “Obviously we’re trying to figure out just how to get back in a rhythm. No one is going to help us. We’ve done enough trying to pep talk and rally, get guys’ spirits up. Stop talking and get it done, start playing the right way to win these games.’’
That’s because LaVine has been around long enough to know what’s at stake.
Short-term? Hopefully a strong finish, a playoff push, and then see where the chips fall. But long-term, how these final few weeks play out could not only dictate the future of this Bulls roster, but even LaVine’s future.
If LaVine & Co. can get back to the identity they showed in November and December, make a second-round playoff push, and be a tough out, it’s much easier for executive vice president of basketball operations Arturas Karnisovas to look at the few games this core group did actually play with each other, feel good that injuries dictated results, and let’s call out “next” and run it back.
But if there’s an early exit in the first round, or even worse a continued slide into a play-in game that leads to an early exit, well, injuries or not, Karnisovas would really have to rethink what this offseason needs to look like.
The good news is that Karnisovas and general manager Marc Eversley have shown a creativity that the last regime couldn’t even fathom.
That could be tested this summer.
A continued downward spiral would obviously lead to questions about the three core pieces in LaVine, DeRozan and Nikola Vucevic.
Vucevic might be the most attractive piece to move on from, simply because his deal goes from $24 million this season down to $22 million, and would be expiring. If the Bulls could land a more defensive-minded center like a Rudy Gobert or even get in on a bid for restricted free agent Deandre Ayton, one of those moves alone would seemingly fix a lot of the defensive issues.
Ayton can switch on anyone, while Gobert would give DeRozan and LaVine the rim protection they would need on that end of the court.
Gobert is locked into a max contract that goes through the 2025-26 season, and starts hitting that eye-opening $40-plus million a year in 2023-24, but he’s still only 29 years old.
There have been rumblings in Utah that the Gobert-Donovan Mitchell duo could be starting to rot, so maybe a Vucevic and Coby White for Gobert would be possible.
But what about LaVine? He’s due the max this summer, putting him in that five-year, $200 million area code if he signs with the Bulls, and four years at about $160 million if he goes elsewhere. Could the left knee soreness be a bigger deterrent than expected? Maybe Karnisovas goes the sign-and-trade route with LaVine.
Either way, the poor play over the last month has now brought way more questions about this roster moving forward than was expected when the Bulls sat atop the Eastern Conference as the surprise team of the season.
“Obviously teams start buckling down and looking at what you do and don’t do, and we’ve gotta start getting back to our brand of basketball,’’ LaVine said. “It’s frustrating but we gotta start figuring out what our weaknesses are and cover them up.’’
The future of this roster might depend on that.
