NEW YORK – The playing time for Denzel Valentine was fairly limited on Saturday.
Just over 10 minutes of work, despite a solid eight points in a third-quarter flurry against the Knicks.
Partially because he was coming back from a hamstring injury that forced him on the shelf since Feb. 2, but mostly because it’s Valentine.
The same Valentine that was once a lottery pick in the 2016 NBA Draft, and now the same Valentine who could be 22 games away from no longer being part of the only team he’s ever played for at this level.
“It’s huge,’’ Valentine said on Saturday, when asked about what the remainder of the season means to him. “Just to prove to myself and everybody else that I belong for good.’’
Not a feeling he’s had consistently throughout this season.
No player currently on the roster has been as in and out of the Jim Boylen doghouse as Valentine has throughout the 2019-20 campaign. Yes, it didn’t help Valentine’s cause that he has season-ending foot surgery last year and was eased back into training camp in October, but even when he has put solid games together – like he did off the bench in early December – it was barely rewarded or allowed to be sustained.
Valentine told the Sun-Times back in early January that he was frustrated with his standing at the time, but had no choice but to focus on controlling what he could control.
Now that he’s back from injury, that mentality hasn’t changed much.
“It’s huge just to get back out there and have fun, man,’’ Valentine said of his return. “Have fun with my teammates and make the most out of this situation. Enjoy it, and I think it’s going to be a great rest of the season.’’
Valentine is a restricted free agent this summer, and the Bulls will undoubtedly allow the market to set a price for him before they decide if they have any interest in retaining him. The talk with this current regime is they likely wouldn’t.
It’s up to Valentine to make sure other teams will soon see value in adding him, however.
“The proof is going to be in the pudding no matter what,’’ Valentine said. “Just play hard and whatever happens, happens. I don’t have any expectations.’’
First aid
Boylen said that while the Bulls have been one of the more injured franchises in the league the last few seasons, pointing fingers in the direction of the medical and training staff would be a completely false narrative.
What Boylen would say is that, as an organization, they have already started re-examining how players handle the offseason workout programs away from the team. His hope is they can find some answers that way.
“I’m sure we’ll evaluate all of that, and we’re in the process of doing it,’’ Boylen said of the medical team. “I really believe in our training group and our medical.
“I look at it in a couple different ways. We had trauma. Trauma is different. A broken finger, a broken foot, two knees, things that happen from contact, collision. Those are things I think are very difficult to control. We play hard. We want to run, our defense is active, but I just think we’re in a moment where we’ve had a tough run. I don’t know how to explain it. We can’t cry about it, we’ve got to fight through it and the guys that are playing need to play.’’
