Billy Donovan has the courtside view.
For the Bulls coach that means the day-to-day grind of doing whatever he can to try and win games and trying to do so with whichever players he may or may not have available.
That’s where he’s at when discussing the injuries to Coby White, Josh Giddey and Zach Collins.
“I’ve always said this – when you lose good players, key players to your team, there’s an impact there,” Donovan said Wednesday. “But we certainly have enough guys to go out there and play and compete. I always try and look at it through the lens of what we can control. There will be some guys in different roles with some different responsibilities and sometimes that can be a little bit challenging too.
“There’s also some minutes restrictions we have to deal with on some of our guys, but I think collectively you’d want to see us go out and play to an identity, play in a way that allows you to compete and win games.”
The courtside view to a tee.
Donovan, however, also knows there’s a “30,000-foot view,” as he likes to call it. That’s the space that executive vice president of basketball operations Arturas Karnisovas operates from. The big picture from the high seat.
The fact that White (right calf) is sidelined for at least a week before he’s re-evaluated, Collins (right toe sprain) 10 days before his re-evaluation, and Giddey (left hamstring) two weeks? And on top of that the Feb. 5 trade deadline is bearing down on the entire Association quickly, that view from 30,000 feet suddenly looks like swamp land surrounded by mud.
Both White and Collins are unrestricted free agents, and all three players are key in this team staying relevant. For Karnisovas to watch a slide in the standings and have injured assets to try and move at the same time over the next few weeks, well, that is a nightmare scenario.
One that he will have to navigate.
“In the conversation I’ve had with Arturas we have not talked about the trade deadline at this point in time at all,” Donovan admitted. “I would say that I don’t know how other teams evaluate it. The guys you are bringing up are they in contract years? Is there a dive they do in their history? Some of these guys, you’re right, have been setback with some injuries. I don’t know necessarily how much it does or doesn’t hurt. Coby has had a body of work, so to speak, with the way he’s played. I think Kevin Huerter has done that for the most part. Zach’s thing was kind of a freak (play), but I know he’s had some injuries throughout his career. I just don’t know how the rest of the teams evaluate those things, so it’s hard for me to say.”
Unfortunately, Karnisovas isn’t saying, either, not scheduled to talk to the media publicly until the deadline.
The one player that could be the most affected in all of this is White.
He knows he’s a trade rumor, telling the Sun-Times earlier this month, “It’s a business at the end of the day and the organization has to do what they have to do. I probably could have seen this coming just because of the year I’m in, the situation I’m in, and the Bulls have one of the biggest media outlets, followings, whatever, but for me I’ve been in the league a little time now so I’m pretty much used to it.”
The good news for Donovan is White is built not to let all of this distract him from keeping the main thing the main thing.
“I know competitively he wants to be out there and play,” Donovan said of White. “I know that from him. But I have not seen anything from him where he feels like he’s distracted or thinking about that (contract year) stuff.”