Predicting Boylen’s 10 Man Rotation
Training camp is around the corner for your Chicago Bulls, which means preseason is close as well. Preseason is used for a lot of things, but one main thing coaches will do is start building their rotation for opening night. Let’s go ahead and see if we can figure out what the Bulls rotation will look like on opening night.
If the picture is confusing I will explain it more soon. Assuming the Bulls use a 10 man rotation, this is what I predict the Bulls’ rotation will look like come opening night. If you couldn’t tell I have: Satoranski, Lavine, Porter Jr, Markkanen, and Carter Jr as the starting 5. The top half of the picture is the 1st and 3rd quarters, the bottom half is the 2nd and 4th quarters. The numbers are the minutes in the quarter. Let’s use the PG slot as an example. I have the Bulls starting Satoranski the first 7 minutes of each half. And having him finish the last 7 minutes of each half. While Kris Dunn will sub in for him each half, taking up the rest of the PG minutes. Here are the amount of minutes I have each player playing:
Satoranski: 28min Lavine: 34min Porter Jr: 32min Carter Jr: 24min
Dunn: 20min White: 16min Valentine: 16min Young: 28min Kornet: 10min
As you see I have Wendell Carter Jr playing the least amount of minutes as a starter. He has spent most of the off-season recovering from surgery. I expect the Bulls to bring him along slowly, and let him earn minutes as he proves he can handle more. With Young and the Bulls willing to play Markkanen at center more, the Bulls have the depth to do this. Young will be more used as a starter even if he doesn’t actually start, and Luke Kornet will play some minutes to buy some extra time for the main 3 front court players. Daniel Gafford could be a factor in this rotation as well if he can earn minutes.
One thing I tried to do is staggering the line ups. Avoiding the starters mainly only playing with each other, but more importantly getting more talent to play with the bench. The Bulls depth will be questionable, one thing Boylen can do is stagger his minutes. Notice I have Porter Jr starting with the 2nd unit to open the 2nd/4th quarters. And Kornet will be used for only 2 minutes and Carter Jr will be in quickly with that 2nd unit. Ideally there will never be 5 bench players out there at once, at least for now only for 2–3 minutes to end the 1st and 3rd quarters. And ideally the starters will be the finishing lineup to end each half. Another thing I did was put Dunn/White together, which is something Paxson alluded too when he drafted White. While I have Dunn playing more initially, the idea is White slowly earns more minutes and eventually plays more. White has the skill set to play off-ball and make this work for now.
While this isn’t exactly how the rotation will look, I think it’s a fair preview in what to expect from Boylen’s 1st 10-man rotation. The rookie/young players will have to earn more minutes as the season goes. Lavine will play the most minutes, with Porter Jr and Markkanen carrying a heavy load themselves. Young will play starter minutes at first and possibly most of the season. There will be adjustments based on match-ups and who is playing well, but this is a good foundation of what I imagine Boylen will build his rotation on.
