When Arturas Karnisovas sat down to talk to reporters after a depressing end to the 2020-21 season, he could not have been more clear about what he wanted to see improve.
“Resilient and mature teams rise above challenges, Karnisovas told reporters (h/t Bulls dot com). “Our three constant problems, indicated by Billy as well, were turnovers, we were 27th in turnovers, fouling and not getting to the free-throw line. We were last in the league in getting to the free-throw line. That’s aggression.”
While we may only be eight games into this new era, I thought it wouldn’t hurt to take a look at the early returns on Karnisovas’ fixes. After all, it’s already abundantly clear this refreshed roster was built with these three categories in mind.
Getting to the Charity Stripe
The Chicago Bulls have failed to rank outside the bottom five in free-throw attempts per game the past four seasons. Last season, in particular, the team ranked dead-last in nightly attempts, with Zach LaVine’s 34th-ranked 5.1 free throw attempts leading the team (second place was Wendell Carter Jr. with just 3.5).
While getting to the free-throw line at a high volume is not particularly representative of the league elites, we can all agree that having players who get downhill and force easy buckets is better than the alternative, particularly in late-game situations. The Bulls now have several of those players, including one of the best at drawing freebies in the NBA. DeMar DeRozan finished 9th in free-throw attempts per game last season, and the midrange assassin has averaged at least 7.0 attempts per game in seven of his last eight seasons.
To start the 2021-22 campaign, DeRozan has basically picked up where he left off, ranking 5th in FTAs with 7.3 per game (nailing them at an 87.9 percent clip). Add in LaVine’s improved 6.1 average (11th), as well as a number of athletically gifted role players who can cut strong to the basket, and the Bulls have completely flipped the script through their first eight games of the year. Chicago now sits 12th in FTAs per game, including 6th in FTAs per 4th quarter. This has been good enough for an 18-spot jump in the league rankings, which is the 3rd-largest year-over-year improvement behind only the Knicks and Suns (tied with Celtics).
Too Many Turnovers
The 2020-21 Chicago Bulls were impressively bad at protecting the basketball. The only reason the team committed the 4th-most turnovers instead of the most is because of the moves made at the trade deadline. Prior to March 25th, the Bulls were comfortably committing the most turnovers per game.
Nikola Vucevic was the first move that significantly helped the Bulls improve this department. Vucevic has not only averaged just 1.7 turnovers in his career, but his TOV% has ranked in at least the 86th percentile four of the last five seasons. All things considered, the versatile big man has just gotten better at taking care of the basketball with age, and the same thing can be said about the team’s other key veteran addition this summer.
DeRozan by far had his best season taking care of the basketball in 2020-21, averaging a career-best 8.6 TOV%. Even better, he had the 8th-best AST/TO ratio in the league in a season where he averaged a career-high in assists, demonstrating that as his playmaking volume increased, so did his ability to hold onto the rock. With the addition of both players, along with the high-IQ decision-making of Lonzo Ball and Alex Caruso (who both do commit their fair share of turnover, but at least help put the offense in a better position to succeed), we have seen the Bulls go from producing the 4th-most TOVs a night to the 6th-fewest. I’ll take it!
Don’t Foul!
All things considered, fouling was not as bad of a problem for this Bulls team last season as drawing their own fouls or turning the ball over, but Karnisovas was still right to mention it! Smart teams know how to limit their mistakes and getting in foul trouble can be one of the most lethal mistakes.
This was another issue the front office started to tackle at the trade deadline, replacing the team leader in personal fouls, Wendell Carter Jr., with a more experienced big man. In the past three seasons, Vucevic has averaged a FOUL% (how many fouls the player committed per team play) that ranks in the 90th percentile or higher, per Cleaning the Glass. His presence immediately helped the Bulls go from committing the 16th-most PFs a night to just the 10th-most in 2020-21.
Then, proceeding to add two talented on-ball defenders in Lonzo Ball and Alex Caruso has helped the Bulls immensely. Both players have cleaned up the team’s defense tremendously this season, putting real pressure at the point of attack, which has then put the rest of the team in far fewer vulnerable situations. Now, with that said, I do find it hard to believe the Bulls can continue to commit the 3rd-fewest fouls per game moving forward. Not only will the competition on the offensive end continue to ramp up, but the team’s more aggressive defense is bound to start getting a few more whistles.