Bulls coach Billy Donovan feels guard Josh Giddey is investment worthy

Josh Giddey was still in street clothes for Monday’s game with the Bucks, but there was progress with the sprained right ankle.

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Some shooting, some more work on the court, but “still not at a place where he can play,” coach Billy Donovan said.

The hope is Giddey can ramp up that rehab work and start having a more definite timetable by next week. That’s the small picture with the point guard. The big picture? Has Giddey shown enough where the Bulls would feel comfortable enough to invest in an extension?

The Sun-Times reported last month that Giddey was initially looking for a Jalen Suggs-like extension after the Orlando guard was signed to a five-year, $150.5-million deal in October. What the Bulls have working in their favor is Giddey is a restricted free agent so they can let him test the market, get an asking price and then decide if they want to match it.

However, Donovan was asked before the game with the Bucks if Giddey had shown enough to even warrant considering him a foundation piece moving forward, and despite some shaky moments early on, the coach gave a thumbs up to that idea.

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“I think like any player, coach, we all need to get better, so I’ll just start there,” Donovan said. “But I really felt like there was a learning curve with him with our team because one of his greatest strengths is his passing. The defensive part for him, I think he’s gotten better as time has gone on. I think the thing for him the last five or six games before he got hurt, I thought he was really impacting our team in a positive way as he started to figure things out, so I definitely think without question that he can be an important piece to us.”

Donovan did have a point about Giddey’s December before his ankle betrayed him. The Bulls went 4-2 in his six starts to that month, while Giddey upped his scoring average to 12.5 points per game, but really flashed in other ways, specifically 7.8 rebounds, 7.8 assists and 1.7 steals per game in that time.

He’s still a poor individual defender at times, especially with athletic guards, but even that part of his game was making strides.

“Like I said, before the injury, he was generating a lot of good looks for Coby (White), Zach (LaVine), Vooch (Nikola Vucevic), a lot of our guys on the perimeter,” Donovan added. “But I do think when you’re a guard where your skillset is to pass the ball, coming into a new situation entirely, I think it does take time for players to adjust to him, him to adjust to players. I think there’s a pretty big sample size, and I’ve been encouraged to see his growth.”

No thanks

There’s not a lot that Donovan hasn’t done in the game of basketball, and that’s why he’s eligible for the 2025 Hall of Fame class.

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One aspect of the game that doesn’t capture his interest? Moving into the front office.

“No, not right now,” Donovan replied, when asked about a front office gig. “I don’t know enough about that. I really don’t. Like my whole life has just been around the coaching aspect of it. It’s not something I wouldn’t mind learning about, but I’m probably not equipped to do that. When it comes to salary cap and all that stuff, it would probably have to be a specific role for me to be effective.”

Ball’in out

Lonzo Ball missed his 18^th game of the season, but thankfully it had nothing to do with the left knee or the right wrist he injured last month. Ball was dealing with illness, so was expected back for Thursday’s game in Atlanta.