As soon as Bulls guard Rob Dillingham\u2019s turnover led to a Brandon Ingram three-pointer and a Bulls timeout, fans knew that he would be coming out of the game.<\/p>\n
The Bulls made it clear that they were prioritizing their veteran guards on Thursday. Dillingham was the 11th man, and guard Jaden Ivey did not play in the Bulls\u2019 110-101 loss against the Raptors.<\/p>\n
Dillingham is used to playing under a microscope. He was drafted No. 8 overall to an ascending Timberwolves team that made the Western Conference Finals during his rookie year. Every mistake was magnified given the championship aspirations.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s kind of the situation I\u2019ve been going through since I got into the NBA,\u201d said Dillingham, who played 10 minutes on Thursday. \u201cI just try to figure out what\u2019s the best way I can impact the game in whatever minutes I get.\u201d<\/p>\n
But, in Chicago, he was supposed to be removed from those lofty expectations. The Bulls were supposed to afford Dillingham a runway to explore his immense offensive talents. In the last game before the All-Star break, Dillingham played a season-high 30 minutes and scored 16 points.<\/p>\n
Dillingham and Ivey were the two promising players the team acquired at the deadline, so seeing them receive scarce or no playing time was weird. Acting coach Wes Unseld Jr. said Ivey\u2019s DNP was a \u201cbasketball decision.\u201d Ivey said he was healthy and practiced in full before Thursday\u2019s game.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was prepared to play,\u201d Ivey said. \u201c[The guards] were up in the air as far as who was going to play.\u201d<\/p>\n
The outcome of games should be secondary for the Bulls at this juncture. The goal at the trade deadline was to escape the dreaded middle the franchise seemed destined for each year. But the coaching staff not prioritizing the two young guards they added shows a lack of foresight and isn\u2019t instilling any confidence for a fan base growing restless.<\/p>\n
But with the roster at full strength, Dillingham didn\u2019t enter the game until the 2:18 mark of the first quarter. Ivey was relegated to the bench. Minimizing Ivey and Dillingham\u2019s roles does no good for the Bulls going forward. Ivey will be a restricted free agent this summer, and the Bulls have to make a decision on Dillingham\u2019s third-year option in the fall.<\/p>\n
Dillingham talked when he first came to Chicago about how he lost his confidence in Minnesota. He\u2019s a dynamic offensive talent who can break his man down off the dribble. Dillingham showed both what makes him a tantalizing offensive player and so maddening with a key three-pointer and a subsequent turnover. It\u2019s far too early to determine if Dillingham or Ivey is worth keeping beyond their current contracts, but playing them is the only way to find out.<\/p>\n
\u201cI like Josh\u2019s game because he can do everything,\u201d Dillingham said at shootaround. \u201cHe can guard one through five, shoot the ball, get to the rim and he can pass the ball. In college, I played off the ball a lot. Playing off the ball is easier for me to play in transition, get kicks. Playing with Josh is easy for me because I don\u2019t really be needing the ball.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Bulls are 1-10 over their last 11 after Thursday\u2019s loss when they prioritized their veteran guards. Acquiring players such as Dillingham and Ivey and not playing them is another half-measure for Karnisovas and the organization.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As soon as Bulls guard Rob Dillingham\u2019s turnover led to a Brandon Ingram three-pointer and a Bulls timeout,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":486938,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[434],"tags":[49,48,459,82],"class_list":["post-486937","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-nba","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/486937","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=486937"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/486937\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/486938"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=486937"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=486937"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=486937"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}