Billy Donovan highlights the challenges facing new rosters
on Saturday, Chicago Bulls return home to face the Denver Nuggets. They will play in front of their home crowd with a completely new line-up afterwards some significant trades. Kobe White, Ayo Dosunmu, Nikola Vucevic, Dalen Terry, Kevin Huerter and Jevon Carter are gone.
In exchange, the Bulls received Anfernee Simmons, Jaden Ivey, Collin Sexton, Rob Dillingham, Nick Richards and picking up 14 picks in the second round. Because the NBA trade deadline is in the second half of the season, the team has little time to adjust.
Chicago head coach Billy Donovan highlighted two immediate obstacles.
“We have a few challenges that we have to work through as a group,” he said. “One is that these guys have never played together. So you have to build some kind of chemistry and cohesion together in a very short period of time because there is no training camp. I think the other part and I’m not saying this critically because it’s the way we play, but none of them are in good enough shape. And it’s for a number of reasons. One of them was in the game and some of them got minutes. Some of them were in ro. they were out of the rotation.
Because of these factors, Donovan emphasized that conditioning will be a major factor moving forward.
Bulls coach Billy Donovan talks about the challenges the new roster faces with a limited schedule and time to adjust pic.twitter.com/b40gIPL8pT
— Zachary Draves (@DravesZachari) February 7, 2026
The Bulls’ roster remains depleted.
The Bulls are 24-28 entering Saturday. They lost to the Toronto Raptors 123-107 on Thursday, snapping a three-game losing streak.
Jaylen Smith will be sidelined with a calf injury. Josh Giddei and Tre Jones are too still out with left hamstring strain. Zach Collins remains sidelined with a toe injury. Yuki Kawamura and Mac McClung still don’t have two-way contracts.
The Bulls acquired McClung from the Orlando Magic.
2026-02-08 00:38:00
