Kevin Huerter’s head had just hit the pillow, so he knew he wasn’t dreaming.
Not yet.
“There was nothing leading me up to that point to make me think that I was on the move,” the former Bulls guard recalled on Saturday. “I got a call from (coach) Billy (Donovan) at about 1 o’clock, right before I was about to take my nap, and I hadn’t played in Miami, so I thought he was asking if I was playing that night, how I was feeling.
“And he just said, ‘Hey, just want to let you know that we just made a move to move you to Detroit.’ I was literally in my bed, like, ‘Oh wow, OK, let’s do it.’ “
It was done, and Huerter hasn’t looked back since that deadline deal.
Thanks to a 126-110 throttling of his former team at the United Center, Huerter has gone from a sinking ship that is the Bulls to a Pistons roster that has won five straight and sits comfortably atop the Eastern Conference.
“That’s been great,” Huerter said, almost thankful that the Bulls did right by him on that front. “The transition, it’s always tough in season, even coming here last year, it was tough to move everything, your whole life, in about a week. But you’re going to a team like this, No. 1 in the East, and they just compete their ass off.”
The Bulls (24-33) found that out, as a close game at the half turned into a laugher, largely in part of a third quarter in which the visiting team outscored the Bulls 44-26.
The loss was the eighth straight for Donovan’s crew with no immediate signs of slowing up, as New York comes to town on Sunday and then the Bulls host Charlotte on Tuesday.
Considering the post-trade-deadline roster that Donovan has at his disposal, maybe it’s designed to do just that.
Josh Giddey and Tre Jones remained on minutes restrictions, Anfernee Simons left the game early with a sore wrist, Matas Buzelis is in a funk, while Donovan was still trying to juggle playing time for his crowded guard room.
Even with Jaden Ivey – who Huerter was traded for – sidelined (knee), Donovan only found eight-plus minutes for young second-year guard Rob Dillingham.
“It’s nothing he has not done,” Donovan said of Dillingham. “It’s just managing all those guards. We’re going to have a logjam there.”
But at this point, does it really even matter who plays? If there’s one thing this group continues to do is show that it’s not easy to just throw a roster together and expect good things in a few weeks. Donovan has a collection of players that are not only trying to understand how the player next to them functions but doing so in a new system for half the roster.
That’s why it’s easy to point to the turnover category and see another ugly number.
“Not trying to create some kind of moral victory but I felt like it was the first game we played with the right intention,” Donovan said. “But we turned the ball over 23 times. You can’t win like that. Then we had three guys with four or five turnovers. You can’t have that.”
As for Huerter’s homecoming, he again is trying to find his way into a role, getting a second DNP (Did not play), but his coach J.B. Bickerstaff insisted Huerter will contribute.
Meanwhile, a bigger surprise for Huerter than not playing was what the Bulls now look like after all the trades two weeks ago.
“We talked about it (as a team) and we just didn’t know,” Huerter said of the days leading up to the deadline. “We 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’t know if anyone expected that.”