The Chicago Bulls are a bad team looking for a top lottery pick in the draft this off-season, and in the meantime are doing whatever they can to further their development of young players by any means possible, including resting their healthy veteran players. However, the resting of fully capable players may not be going on much longer, according to Shams Charania:
Sources: The NBA issued a warning to the Chicago Bulls this week on resting healthy players, and the team now plans to play veteran starters Robin Lopez and Justin Holiday again more extensively to close the season.
— Shams Charania (@ShamsCharania) March 6, 2018
The NBA is cracking down on tanking this season, most recently hammering Dallas Mavericks’ owner Mark Cuban with a hefty fine due to his comments on the matter, and continue to reiterate the league’s no-nonsense with the Bulls, who have rested center Robin Lopez the last six games and wing Justin Holiday five of the last six games – two players who most likely aren’t in the team’s future plans.
Executive Vice President of Basketball Operations John Paxson weighed in on the issue, per Rick Tarsitano of WGN:
“You can’t play 12 guys in our game. Nine or 10 is the most, so we’re going to start looking at blocks of games where we’ll be having a few guys that haven’t been playing much or at all, where they’ll have a significant role for us.
“…It’s just the position we’re in as a young basketball team—20-37—with a lot of young guys on this roster, several we haven’t had a chance to see play much this year. For us to make the proper evaluation, in terms of who fits us going forward, this is something we have to do.”
The Bulls could quite possibly have their future core already on the team in the forms of Lauri Markannen, Zach LaVine and Kris Dunn, but will need to spread the minutes around in the meantime to avoid further punishment from the league.
