Bulls' goal of a high-scoring backcourt makes early appearance
The Bulls' second attempt at playing competitive basketball resulted in a victory over Houston on Sunday.
That doesn't mean much in preseason, but this performance did offer some insight into what the Bulls are hoping to be this season and beyond.
Coby White and Zach LaVine produced very similar stat lines - 20 points and 5 assists for White, 23 points and 5 assists for LaVine. LaVine put in some extra work on the glass and led the Bulls with 9 rebounds.
The Bulls' best chance to put together something interesting with the current roster is LaVine and White forming a high-scoring backcourt with interchangeable pieces. On Sunday, two of LaVine's assists led to White 3-pointers.
The obvious aspiration would be Portland with Damian Lillard and C.J. McCollum, but that's far from a perfect match. First of all, Lillard is a couple levels higher in the atmosphere right now, averaging 30 and 8 last season. And there's a delineation of roles with the Blazers. Lillard is the primary ballhandler and dishes roughly twice as many assists as McCollum.
White and LaVine could be much more equal partners, in theory, unless one of them makes a Lillard-type progression in the next few years. LaVine is probably more of a natural playmaker than White right now, although the second-year guard had some nice assists Sunday, hitting Lauri Markkanen for a dunk (his only made basket of the night) and set up Wendell Carter Jr. at the foul line for a successful lane drive.
White was asked after both preseason contests to assess his own performance. On the first night, he gave himself a 2 or 3 on a scale of 1-10. On Sunday, he had some fun with his self-assessment.
"I'd say a 5.56," White told reporters on the postgame Zoom call. "I just feel like I competed at a higher level tonight on both ends of the court. I was more communicative out there. I was being more of a leader at the point guard position. I think I made a good little stride tonight."
White didn't have much success in either game trying to slow down Rockets newcomer John Wall, but that's less of a concern right now. The NBA is full of offensive-minded young players who are learning to apply successful team defense.
"Coby needs to be him," LaVine said. "He doesn't even need to think about being anybody else. He needs to come out and be aggressive and set the tone. Obviously, we'll be there to help him. But I think he did great (Sunday)."
The most assists in one backcourt last season was in Houston with James Harden and Russell Westbrook, who averaged 7.5 and 7.0 assists, respectively.
Denver, Arturas Karnisovas' former team, had success in recent years without a true point guard between Jamal Murray, Gary Harris and others. But center Nikola Jokic led the Nuggets in assists the last three seasons, a unique situation.
So there's not a perfect blueprint for the Bulls to follow. This is just where they ended up in the prolonged rebuild. The good news is there are no expectations for the Bulls this year, so they can be patient with their backcourt pairing.
On Sunday, White suggested he just needs more reps. He started just one game as a rookie, and that was while LaVine was out with an injury.
"I'm the type of player, the more I get reps and stuff, the better I get, so getting reps at it in practice and in games, things are starting to click," White said. "I've still got a long way to go, but tonight was a positive night for me in that aspect. I feel like I can take some positivity from this game."
The Bulls did not practice Monday, so there was no update on the status of the players missing from Sunday's lineup. Tomas Satoransky, Luke Kornet, Devon Dotson and Noah Vonleh were scratched with no explanation beyond, "not with the team." Between the pandemic and contact tracing protocols, this might be a common occurrence this season.
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