Maybe having eight players who potentially can become free agents at the end of the season on the same team isn’t the best idea when it comes to roster construction.
Maybe the responsibility for defense and physicality shouldn’t be put solely on one player (injured forward Isaac Okoro).
Or maybe, just maybe, executive vice president of basketball operations Arturas Karnisovas should take his silly sayings about ‘‘competitive integrity’’ and understand how to read a room.
Whatever the case may be, the Bulls (9-14) now have lost seven consecutive games after falling to the Warriors 123-91 on Sunday, and there doesn’t seem to be a quick fix anywhere in sight.
Coach Billy Donovan has been searching, but until he can help the Bulls get back to playing to an identity, all the film work and coachspeak feels lost.
‘‘Listen, [the Warriors have] had guys out, too, just like we have,’’ Donovan said. ‘‘Certainly we’ve had guys in different roles, maybe different minutes — different starting lineups, so to speak. But you want your identity to permeate through your team, regardless of who is playing.’’
There’s something permeating through the Bulls these says, but it’s definitely not an identity.
That was on display again to start the game. Even though the Warriors were without Stephen Curry and Draymond Green, the Bulls treated the United Center crowd to a first quarter in which they yielded 38 points, were outrebounded 11-6 and allowed the Warriors to shoot 8-for-13 from three-point range.
It has been Groundhog Day for more than two weeks. The Bulls continue to start slowly, sink into a muddy hole and have to try to claw and fight their way out of it for the remaining 36 minutes.
That’s a tough way to live in the NBA.
So talk of a team identity is a tough sell these days.
‘‘I do think for some of the guys that have been thrust into situations where their minutes have changed, responsibilities have changed, we’ve got to be able to stay true and hold true to that [identity],’’ Donovan said. ‘‘That’s the thing I try to look at where, yes, you’ve got all these injuries, but what about the things we can control about how we’re supposed to play and how we need to be able to play?
‘‘Some of the things that have hurt have been the ballhandling issue and the turnovers. We’ve had a lot of responsibilities on particular guys just because that’s one thing that’s kind of gone out with the injuries is the ballhandling, but we’ve got to be able to do a better job with that.’’
They do, but that’s only one of a growing list of things the Bulls need to be better at.
Urgency might be a good place to start.
The Bulls seemed to get a second wind going into the fourth quarter and cut their deficit to eight on a layup by Jevon Carter with 11:24 left. The problem was, in the blink of an eye, the Warriors were ahead by 19 just three minutes later.
Guard Coby White swears the Bulls are still together, but it doesn’t feel like it.
‘‘Whatever we do, we’ve got to do it together,’’ White said recently. ‘‘That’s the most important thing. I’ve been here a long time, seen a lot of different situations, been in different scenarios, and the most important thing is we can’t start pointing fingers or anything like that. I’m not saying by any means we’ve done that, but we’re all human. So the most important thing right now is we’ve got to stick together. It’s still a very long season.’’
The problem is, it’s feeling longer and longer each day.