Bulls coach Billy Donovan takes a day-to-day view about what’s going on with the team.
For him, that means doing whatever he can to try to win games with whichever players he might or might not have available.
That’s where he was at Wednesday when discussing the injuries to guards Coby White and Josh Giddey and center Zach Collins.
‘‘I’ve always said this: When you lose good players, key players to your team, there’s an impact there,’’ Donovan said before the Bulls’ game against the Pelicans. ‘‘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.’’
Donovan, however, also knows there’s a ‘‘30,000-foot view,’’ as he likes to call it. That’s the space executive vice president of basketball operations Arturas Karnisovas operates from, the big picture from the high seat.
White (strained right calf) will be out for at least a week, Collins (sprained right toe) for 10 days and Giddey (strained left hamstring) for two weeks before they are reevaluated. On top of that, the trade deadline Feb. 5 is bearing down quickly. So that view from 30,000 feet suddenly looks like swampland surrounded by mud.
White and Collins can become unrestricted free agents after the season, and all three players are key to the Bulls staying relevant. For Karnisovas, watching the Bulls slide in the standings and having injured assets to try to deal during the next few weeks is a nightmare scenario. Still, it’s one he will have to navigate.
‘‘In the conversations I’ve had with Arturas, we have not talked about the trade deadline at this point in time at all,’’ Donovan said. ‘‘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 set back 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 [guard] 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. I just don’t know how the rest of the teams evaluate those things, so it’s hard for me to say.’’
The one player who might be affected most in this is White. He knows he’s involved in trade rumors, recently telling the Sun-Times: ‘‘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 [the rumors].’’
The good news for Donovan is that White isn’t the type to let all this distract him.
‘‘I know competitively he wants to be out there playing,’’ 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] stuff.’’