The duct tape is off, and the other hand is now free.
Without even personally coaching Zach LaVine up a single minute yet, Billy Donovan has already given the Bulls guard a weapon that he begrudgingly had stripped from him by the old regime.
Yep, the mid-range is back in the LaVine arsenal, and he couldn’t be more excited to unleash it.
“I feel like it’s going to be a lot better for guys, especially for me,’’ LaVine said in a Thursday Zoom call with the media when discussing Donovan’s coaching philosophy with the mid-range. “Like if you have that part of your game, now you can use all of your tools instead of almost playing with one hand behind your back. You’re supposed to shoot a shot that’s open. Don’t pass upon the best shot. I’m not saying that we should be taking strictly mid-range jumpers, and I know [Donovan] doesn’t think that either. But if it’s a good shot you should take it, and you shouldn’t feel bad about it either.’’
Hear that Bulls analytics?
Former coach Jim Boylen heard it loud and clear last month, fired by new executive vice president of basketball operations Arturas Karnisovas for many reasons, including a different vision of what the offense should look like.
Not that Boylen should have been the only fall guy in the Bulls’ offensive woes last season. After all, he was just following orders. Looking to appease his bosses, Boylen and the coaching staff let the numbers guys try jamming that square peg into a round hole, frowning on players that took mid-range shots.
The marching orders were either attack the rim or shoot the three. Described as “modern basketball’’ by the guys with calculators, while ignoring the fact that they turned several three-dimensional players into two-dimensional predictability.
Yes, three is more than two. But lost in that philosophy is just understanding basketball. LaVine, as well as players like Lauri Markkanen, Wendell Carter Jr., and even rookie Coby White saw how easily teams were able to defend them, especially late in games.
The opposition knew that if the three didn’t go up, far too often it was just be prepared to defend the rim.
“Yeah, that’s why [the Thunder] were so hard to guard this year,’’ LaVine said. “Sometimes you go into games and know these guys don’t shoot a lot of two-pointers or mid-ranges, and you can almost bait them in and see, ‘OK, they’re either going to shoot threes or they’re going to go all the way to the cup.’ ‘’
Donovan believes in arming his team with more options.
Earmuffs, numbers nerds.
“Analytics is a tool,’’ the new coach said. “There are players, and I had one last year, Chris Paul may be as good as there is playing in the mid-range. I think it all comes down to the confidence of a player. If you’ve got a team that maybe is not a great three-point shooting team or you have a team that has some players that like playing in the mid-range … I had Carmelo [Anthony and he] liked doing that, so did Paul George. Those guys were elite offensive players for their entire careers. So you don’t want to take away what’s made them who they are.
“But what are the things you have to do to offset a lot of those three-point shots that are going up? Well, one is you can’t turn the ball over. Two is you have to rebound really, really well and then you’ve got to get to the free-throw line. I think you want players to play to their strengths.’’
Donovan isn’t shy of the three-pointer by any means, but actually gets coaching. If the Bulls wanted a lot of three-pointers then they probably should have built a roster with actual good three-point shooters. Not one that finished 11th in the league in three-point attempts, but 22nd in three-point percentage.
“I still do believe quality of shots, distribution of shots, generating good shots is really critically important,’’ Donovan said. “But I’ve always said, personnel-based, if you don’t want to take non-paint twos then you can’t have non-paint twos players. If you want to be a three-point shooting team, you’ve got to put all three-point shooters out there. So I do think as more and more threes have gone up, I do think the numbers will prove for certain players, it’s not a great shot. I think there’s certain players that feel more comfortable under 15 feet.
“I know with Chris Paul and just being with him last year, seeing him shoot the ball, he is an amazing mid-range jump shooter and I would never want to take that away from him because it makes him who he is. You want to utilize those things because that’s what’s made him great.’’
LaVine is the leader of the team and undoubtedly the best player, and while the Donovan hire will most likely affect him, the two guard is not alone in that category:
Lauri Markkanen — The big man was nothing more than a big decoy far too often last season, and privately ripped on Boylen and the offense that he was put into. Whenever the 2020-21 season begins, it will be a huge one for Markkanen, not only looking to reclaim his spot as an up-and-comer in this league, but showing the Bulls he is an investable commodity moving forward. This will be Donovan’s most crucial fixer-upper.
Wendell Carter Jr. — The draft will show the hand of the Bulls, as far as do they draft a center at No. 4 and allow Carter to move to a power forward spot that he has played his entire basketball life before the NBA? He was all but an afterthought in the Boylen offense, and it feels like he has a lot of untapped potential.
Coby White — The shoot-first-ask-questions-later guard wants to play the point and wants to be the everyday starter. It will be up to Donovan to first find out if White’s even lead-guard material, and then get White to understand decision-making and putting teammates in the best position to succeed.
