Bulls second-year center Wendell Carter Jr. underwent surgery on Tuesday for what was called a core muscle injury, and the hope is his timetable for a return remains training camp.
Take your time big man, there’s options.
Not exactly a statement that could have comfortably been made about the Bulls in previous seasons.
No Carter, enter Luke Kornet into the starting lineup.
No Carter, slide Lauri Markkanen over to the five and start newly-signed veteran Thaddeus Young at the four.
No Carter, and Otto Porter moves to the four, Markkanen to the five and Tomas Satoransky starts alongside Zach LaVine and rookie Coby White.
This is what this offseason free agency focused around for the Bulls: Giving them options.
Injuries happen. That’s the landscape of the NBA. What crippled the Bulls far too often the last three seasons was not only a lack of depth, but replacement players that had completely different types of games.
When Carter started his rookie season last year, the offense was very different than when Robin Lopez started.
When Kris Dunn was injured, the offense was very different when Ryan Arcidiacono ran the show at the point guard spot.
“I also wanted a team that was duplicit and redundant so we could play the same way,’’ coach Jim Boylen said, when discussing the approach to building this current roster. “We’ve struggled the last couple years to play on a night when we had injury or illness, where we had to change our style of play before the game. I don’t want that. The good teams don’t have that. They plug in a guy.
“[Brooklyn point guard D’Angelo] Russell was out, Spencer Dinwiddie would come in and they’d play the same way. That’s just an example. And that’s what we wanted, and I asked the front office we could strive for, that kind of mentality. It’s hard to have next man up when the next man up has to play in a different system than we had the game before. You can’t do that.’’
That’s one of the reasons Dunn has fallen out of favor.
He’s a player that admittedly wants to dominate the ball, but Boylen and Co. are looking to run a multi-ball-handling system.
That means Dunn has to play off the ball, especially when LaVine is running the point. He looked lost at times, and also messes up the spacing because even if he’s sitting open in the corner for a three the opposition doesn’t consider him a threat from out there. That means more backside help available, closing up the middle.
“I think we have a well-rounded roster,’’ Young told reporters on Monday. “Injuries limited them a little [last year]. But going in, changing the culture, being the leader, it starts with being that mold where we’re doing something repetitively.’’
And then it becomes a style of play where the Bulls feel they can simply plug players in moving forward.
“I think in a league where there are one- and two-year contracts, you’re not going to have the kind of team we had in San Antonio,’’ Boylen said. “We’d have 14 of 15 back and of those 14, seven or eight had been together for three or four years. The league is changing. So your system has to be simple. Your parts have to fit and cover each other.
“And that’s what we set out to do and to support Lauri Markkanen and Zach LaVine, who are very good players but are still developing players, guys we think still have upside to them that needs to be supportive. … Now we have to make it work.’’
