Donovan prepares Bulls for empty arenas
First-year Bulls coach Billy Donovan moved practice across the street to the United Center, where the Bulls will open preseason Friday against Houston.
"Well, I'd like to try to get the heat turned up in here, that's for one thing," Donovan joked.
Wednesday's practice was a preview of what's in store for the start of the NBA season - playing basketball in an empty arena. The United Center is more cavernous than most buildings in the league, so it has the potential to feel especially barren with no spectators.
"I just felt like it was important to come over here at least one day before the preseason games started, because this is going to be a unique situation," Donovan said. "So I thought coming over and practicing one day, letting those guys scrimmage and compete and play five-on-five, just to see what that feels like.
"It's going to be unique for everybody. There may be some teams that are allowed a certain percentage of fans to come into their arenas, but right now, we're not going to have any. So I just wanted them to get acclimated and accustomed to what it was like over here without anybody in the building."
Donovan coached Oklahoma City in the Orlando bubble over the summer, so he's used to the no-fans atmosphere. No Bulls players were at the bubble except newcomer Garrett Temple, who played for Brooklyn.
"The biggest thing for all of us is to take the approach that you can view things as a hassle or inconvenience or you can be flexible and say this is the environment we're living in right now and you know what, there's no reason to get frustrated or upset," Donovan said.
Third-year center Wendell Carter Jr. took a different outlook to the empty arena reality.
"I feel like it's a perfect opportunity for us to rely on one another going into these situations," he said. "Going into a lot of empty arenas, we're going to have to bring our own energy to every game. I think that's actually going to help us in the future, when the fans do come back into the arena and things like that, we'll be able to still have that energy that we're bringing and then the fans will just give us that extra boost. It's a perfect opportunity for us to grow as a team.