There’s a lot of shoulders in that guard room for the Bulls.
And best believe plenty of chips placed firmly on them.
Proceed with caution, Billy Donovan.
“I’m looking forward to seeing how it plays out,” Bulls guard Coby White said of the guard rotation on Monday. “Every guard is good, it’s tough decisions. This is what the NBA is, every guard is good. Everybody has played well in camp, so it’s going to be a tough decision for the staff.”
Decisions that go to another level when the preseason tips off in Cleveland on Tuesday.
The known is that White and Zach LaVine are guaranteed to start. Josh Giddey has been slowed while recovering from an ankle injury, but went through full-contact practices last week, and coach Billy Donovan was leaning on the side of getting Giddey some minutes against the Cavaliers.
The other shoo-in is Ayo Dosunmu, who played like a starter the last six weeks of the 2023-24 campaign and is easily one of the better defenders in the backcourt with Alex Caruso now with the Thunder.
After that it gets really cloudy.
Veteran Lonzo Ball is attempting to come back from a left knee replacement surgery that no professional athlete has ever pulled off, and while he did practice over the weekend and Monday with no setbacks, Donovan wanted to speak with both the medical staff and Ball before the game to make a final decision on his availability.
Dalen Terry was the No. 18 overall pick in the 2022 draft and they have to start making decisions on his long-term future.
Jevon Carter was the splash free-agent signing in the 2023 offseason, and barely saw the floor the second half of last year.
Chris Duarte was acquired in the DeMar DeRozan sign-and-trade with the Kings, and is only 27 years old, looking to recapture the magic he displayed as a rookie.
The list goes on with Talen Horton-Tucker and Julian Phillips that fall under the category of tweeners between guard and forward.
Either way, a lot for Donovan and his staff to decipher.
“I think it’s going to be a hard situation from the standpoint of these guys are all highly competitive, work really hard in the offseason to get themselves ready to play,” Donovan said. “And quite honestly in some of these situations with the way our team is, they just may not get that opportunity. I’m not saying it’s Jevon, Chris or Dalen or whoever it is. We’ve got to see how camp plays out.
“We’ve obviously had to deal with the injuries with Josh and Lonzo, but there’s no question that with the number of guards there, I think we’ll have to play with three guards. I think Ayo is a really, really good perimeter defender, who he’s paired with, try and match someone with that. I agree, someone is going to be sitting. We’re not able to play them all.”
And maybe they won’t want to.
While the front office and LaVine have tried to get in front of the ongoing trade rumors, the speculation around him being sent elsewhere isn’t going anywhere. With the Sun-Times reporting that the organization will not attach draft picks to move LaVine, they could attach the likes of a Duarte or Carter to make the money work.
Unlikely, but in play.
A scenario out of White’s pay grade. All he knows is every day has been a battle.
“Really tough, going at it,” White said of the daily scrimmages in camp. “You can’t just single one guy out because everybody has been playing really well and competing on both ends of the floor. We’ve got a lot of guards, especially guards with chips on their shoulders, so like I said it’s going to be a tough decision for the staff.”