{"id":496923,"date":"2026-02-22T14:27:10","date_gmt":"2026-02-22T14:27:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/496923\/"},"modified":"2026-02-22T14:27:10","modified_gmt":"2026-02-22T14:27:10","slug":"new-look-bulls-same-results-eight-straight-losses","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/496923\/","title":{"rendered":"New-look Bulls, same results: Eight straight losses"},"content":{"rendered":"

Former Bulls<\/a> guard Kevin Huerter\u2019s head had just hit the pillow, so he knew he wasn\u2019t dreaming.<\/p>\n

Not yet.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere was nothing leading me up to that point to make me think that I was on the move,\u201d Huerter said Saturday. \u201cI got a call from [coach] Billy [Donovan] at about 1 o\u2019clock, right before I was about to take my nap, and I hadn\u2019t played in Miami, so I thought he was asking if I was playing that night, how I was feeling.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd he just said, \u2018Hey, just want to let you know that we just made a move to move you to Detroit.\u2019 I was literally in my bed, like, \u2018Oh, wow, OK. Let\u2019s do it.\u2019\u2009\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n

It was done, and Huerter hasn\u2019t looked back since that deadline deal.<\/p>\n

With a 126-110 throttling of his former team at the United Center, Huerter has gone from a sinking ship to a team that has won five in a row and sits comfortably atop the East.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s been great,\u201d Huerter said, almost thankful that the Bulls did right by him on that front. \u201cThe transition, it\u2019s always tough in season, even coming here last year, it was tough to move everything, your whole life, in about a week. But you\u2019re going to a team like this, No. 1 in the East, and they just compete their ass off.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Bulls (24-33) found that out as a close game at the half turned into a laugher. The Pistons outscored the Bulls 44-26 in the third quarter.<\/p>\n

It was the Bulls\u2019 eighth loss in a row, and the skid isn\u2019t likely to end soon with the Knicks coming to town Sunday, then the Hornets coming in Tuesday.<\/p>\n

Considering the post-trade-deadline roster that Donovan has at his disposal, maybe the Bulls are designed to lose.<\/p>\n

Josh Giddey and Tre Jones remained on minutes restrictions, Anfernee Simons left early with a sore wrist, Matas Buzelis is in a funk and Donovan still was juggling playing time for his plethora of guards.<\/p>\n

Even with Jaden Ivey \u2014 whom Huerter was traded for \u2014 sidelined with knee woes, Donovan only found eight-plus minutes for second-year guard Rob Dillingham.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s nothing [Dillingham] has not done,\u201d Donovan said. \u201cIt\u2019s just managing all those guards. We\u2019re going to have a logjam there.\u201d<\/p>\n

But at this point, does it really matter who plays? If there\u2019s one thing this group continues to do is show that it\u2019s not easy to just throw a roster together and expect good things in a few weeks. Donovan has guys who are trying to understand how the player next to them functions and doing it in a new system for half the roster.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s why it\u2019s easy to point to the turnover category and see another ugly number.<\/p>\n

\u201cNot trying to create some kind of moral victory, but I felt like it was the first game we played with the right intention,\u201d Donovan said. \u201cBut we turned the ball over 23 times. You can\u2019t win like that. Then we had three guys with four or five turnovers. You can\u2019t have that.\u201d<\/p>\n

As for Huerter\u2019s homecoming, he again is trying to find his way into a role after sitting for a second game, but coach J.B. Bickerstaff insisted Huerter will contribute.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, a bigger surprise for Huerter than not playing was what the Bulls look like after all the trades two weeks ago.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe talked about it [as a team], and we just didn\u2019t know,\u201d Huerter said of the days leading up to the deadline. \u201cWe were sitting at .500 most of the year. It could have gone either way. As players, you have to expect everything, but seven or eight trades, whatever it was, I don\u2019t know if anyone expected that.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former Bulls guard Kevin Huerter\u2019s head had just hit the pillow, so he knew he wasn\u2019t dreaming. Not…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":496924,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[557],"tags":[64,63,590,85],"class_list":["post-496923","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-nba","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/496923","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=496923"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/496923\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/496924"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=496923"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=496923"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=496923"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}