NEW ORLEANS – At some point this season someone has to step up.
Be that guard that digs his feet in the sand and has a “Not today, not on my watch” attitude.
“Individual pride,” is what Bulls coach Billy Donovan called it.
As Wednesday’s season opener showed, the search continues.
When the Bulls traded Alex Caruso for Josh Giddey last summer, yeah sure, they added a lengthy ball-handler, but they also left a black hole on the defensive end. Caruso wasn’t just the heart and soul of the defense from a communication standpoint, he was the pitbull that locked onto the opposing team’s best guard and made his on-the-court life hell for that evening.
No one has been fooling themselves and insisting Caruso was completely replaceable since fall camp started last month for the Bulls, but there at least has to be willing participants to try and fill that vacancy.
Therein lies the frustration.
Forward Patrick Williams is considered the best wing defender the Bulls have, but what about in the backcourt? What about when it comes down to blowing up screens or just locking down a ball-handler in isolation?
“I get it, Patrick’s a good defender,” Donovan said. “I think for every team there’s a formula you’ve got to do to win. We can’t turn the ball over, we cannot get dominated the way we did (against the Pelicans) on loose balls, and the other part of it is we’re going to have to play with some more physicality because we are undersized in a way. Patrick can’t stop five guys, and we’re going to have to do it as a team. There’s going to have to be some individual pride.”
Coby White hopes the line can start behind him.
White showed some flashes of playing a better brand of defense two seasons ago, but when his role completely changed in the 2023-24 campaign to a high-minutes offensive scorer, there was admittedly slippage on the other side of the ball.
That’s why he conditioned so hard this summer, looking to remedy that issue and knowing Caruso had moved on.
“I told myself at the start of the summer, ‘I want to be a two-way guy,’ “ White said. “And Coach always challenges me on that. He always talks about that leap that I had a few years ago. Last year it kind of went down with the usage rate and the amount of minutes. I want to get back to being that guy on defense that can be relied on, be very detail oriented on that side of the ball.”
The way White sees it the Bulls currently have guards that can defend at a high level, but only certain matchups. If it’s an athletic ball-handler then Zach LaVine is the better matchup, if it’s a taller guard then Giddey, and if it’s a more physical guard then White wants his name called.
That’s fine, but what about a guy that can just lockdown a player no matter what the strengths or weaknesses are?
Enter Ayo Dosunmu.
The fourth-year guard is a key reserve for now, but was on the floor in the final few minutes Wednesday, as Donovan was making one last push to try and make a run back into the game.
“We obviously don’t have just a guy you can say, ‘He’s a stopper,’ like Alex Caruso was for our defense,” White said. “That’s the reality of it.
“Now do I think that Ayo is one day going to become that? For sure. That two-way player that can be an offensive player and be named All-Defensive? For sure. I think Ayo can guard anyone.”
That sounded good to Dosunmu.
“It means a lot,” Dosunmu said of White’s assessment. “It means he has a lot of confidence in me. And yeah, I think I can do it.”
Someone needs to.