PRESS CONFERENCES: Who IMPRESSED on Day 1 of Training Camp? | CHGO Bulls

PRESS CONFERENCES: Who IMPRESSED on Day 1 of Training Camp? | CHGO Bulls

Uh, was everyone everyone able to go except for co? Uh, yes. Yes, everybody. I mean, Yuki was a little bit limited. Just waiting to get back some some results on just his physical. He did non contact today. Okay. You guys did do some contact today. Oh, yeah. Lots of it. Lots of it. Yes. Yes. How do they look? It was good. You know, I think the the things that we talked about, you know, yesterday at media day, I think those are areas there as you as you break down the season, you know, I mentioned some of it. um yesterday, you know, in terms of like deflections, loose balls, you know, on the offensive side trying to get to the offensive glass. Um I think the turnover ratio or differential, you know, our biggest issue was, like I said, I think teams took four more shots a game than we did. That was like 28th in the league. So, there’s just areas I think we’ve got to really focus on that we can control. um you know charges the deflections um I think the deflection hopefully will generate maybe some more turnovers for us getting to the glass a lot more like it’s you know the possession game to me those things generally come down to physicality and how we can find a way to do better in those areas just one more for me so like last year was easy for you to talk about the offensive change because it’s like play faster get up more threes you know earlier shot time when you talk about a defensive transformation is that what you’re talking about more charges, more active hands, more deflections, more physicality. Is that the easy summary of it? Yeah. You know, yes. But but like there’s also things too where I felt as as much as like for example, I think the year before last year, I think we were either 29th or 30th in transition points, right? And they flipped it and we went to number one. And I’m not sitting there saying that in every category we’re going to go from 28th to 29th to one. But like we can be better taking charges. We shouldn’t be 28th like loose balls. We can be better there. 27th to 28th and offensive rebound. We can be better there. You know, we’ve got to do a better job quite coaching and putting more of an emphasis on those things. Um but there are some of those things are offensively too. You know, the offensive rebounding is an op taking care of the basketball is is another one of those areas. But there are certain things that I think that we can be better at the controllables. Whereas I think sometimes you say physically, hey, line up and guard this guy one-on-one. You can break down every one of our players individually defensively and say, “Hey, what kind of defender is he?” Like Isaac Cororo’s got the reputation of being an elite defender. You know, some other guys have got a, you know, may need more help, right? But there’s still things I think we can do because the shooting and the shot profile I thought was really good and the guys transformed that last year which was great. But now the next iteration of that is that’s not good enough. You know, it it’s it’s it probably maybe took some teams by surprise how fast we played. But now the development and the growth has got to be in some other areas. Billy, can the addition of a guy like Isaac change the whole look of the defense or is that putting too much on one guy that his presence motivates guys and also what he does himself individually? Yeah, I I I don’t know. I I the to me I think he can because there’s things that he’s really good at that we need to get better at and I think there’s an example those guys can look at. So I think he’s able to help that standpoint. But to put all the physicality just on him, I think there’s no way he could do that. But I do think him knowing the league, him guarding some of the best players in the league. The other part of it too is I think the way he plays off ball screens in pick and roll, him going to the offensive glass, those are things we need to get better at. He’s good at those things. That can be I think a great tool and, you know, could be a great example for a lot of our younger guys. You sort of hinted at the fact that, you know, quite a few while you’re trying to with you guys buy into the student defense, quite a few of these guys don’t have a one-on-one reputation, Isaac might have, right? I guess in what ways are you trying to take all those things you want to do on defense and turn it into sort of a digestible lesson for those? Yeah, I mean for for every player, you know, there’s not maybe Isaac Aoro one-on-one or defensively and what he’s done. That’s kind of been his niche as an NBA player, right? And you could go through, for example, I think one guy that has the potential and the ability to be an elite defender but hasn’t gotten in got there yet is Io. Like if you look at his defensive metrics, they certainly don’t add up to, you know, what he’s capable of in my opinion. I think if you go back to Josh Gideon early in the year, a lot of people were talking about his defense. I think he got better. We still got to play collectively as a group. We got to play team defense, but I do think that every player on our team is capable of putting their body in a play and taking a charge. Like I don’t think there’s any reason we can’t be better in that area. I think every player is capable of putting their body in a play. I think when it comes to deflections, we’re all capable of putting our hands up and trying to be destructive on in passing lanes. I don’t mean gambling and trying to go for steals and take ourselves up position, but you know, I’m not asking Josh or Kevin Herder or anybody to be Isaac Aoro. They’ve got to be really sound in what they do. But we can’t be a team that just has five defenders out there and everybody can just take care of their man one-on-one. There’s still going to be team defense that’s involved. And in that team defense, I think there’s things we got to focus on that we’ve got to improve upon. You know, besides, because here’s the thing, our shot defense was 11th best in the league. The difference was is what I said earlier was our effective field goals percentage defensively was 11th. With that being 11th, you know, we were playing team. We won 39 games. Okay. Well, why is that? Well, there’s a whole other bunch of stuff as it relates to possessions that we’ve got to find a way. So, some of the stuff is defensively, some of it is offensively, but I think that’s the next step because when we played the way we did last year, yeah, it was good in a lot of ways, but there’s there’s another iteration to that. There’s another level to that that that we need to go to continue to grow and develop. Billy, you mentioned Josh’s defense. What is like the key area that you want to see him improve in that this year in terms like is it disruptiveness? Is it screen navigation? Just kind of what would you like to see? I think the biggest issue with with any player and all players, and this would go for Isaac, who’s great defensively, or Alex Cruz or any of those kind of guys, you know, the the the point of the screen or the point of guarding the ball one-on-one, if you’re giving up blowbyss, it becomes very very difficult to play defense. I think Josh has always been a pretty physical guy. Like, he’s always been comfortable down the post defensively, but at the point of screens and in in in open space, he’s got to be better guarding the basketball. Now that being said, I thought last year that was really something that we really spent a lot of time with him on talking to him, showing him film, and to his credit, I thought as the year went on, he got better and better at those things. And I think maybe Joe had asked me last year, you know, can this guy be better defensively. I don’t know if he’s going to be quote unquote a defensive stopper, but I think he is cap like everybody’s capable athletically to understanding what their limitations are and being able to guard the ball better. But like listen, you know, whether it’s Don Titch or Kyrie Irving or Steph Curry, you put any of those guys out on an island one-on-one against anybody, they’re going to be a problem, right? So, we still need team defense, but the biggest thing would be how well can they contain the ball? That would be the number one thing I would say would be ball containment and ball containment in pick and roll, ball containment in space. And do you feel like that’s something that players are able to work on when they’re doing their offseason work or like is that something that you feel like Josh came in looking tangibly better at or is it something that has to be done kind of in the season? Yeah, I mean it’s interesting when those guys go into the summer. I’d say they probably all do the same thing. They work on their offensive game. They work on their bodies. They work on, you know, areas of speed, quickness, athleticism, those kind of things. I don’t know a lot of guys doing defensive slides in the in in in the summer. Um, and maybe some guys work on some things defensively, but that’s, you know, ultimately, you know, if you look at it, our effective field goal percentage last year was 13th best. So, you know, maybe was slightly better in the middle of the road and our effective physical percentage defensively was 11th. It’s not always about missing and making shots. Certainly, that helps, but that’s not the end all be all. You know, even if you have good, you know, an effective field goal percentage, but you’re turning the ball over, you’re giving up offensive rebounds, you’re not offensive rebounding. You know, you’re not generating, you know, free throw line opportunities. You’re not getting to the rim. just over a period of time that the numbers will tell you you can’t you can’t make up those lost possessions. The other part with that being said, it was like the same thing I know we talked about the year before. You know, were we analytically losing the battle where teams were taking 40 45-point shots and we’re getting up 28 and there’s just this huge discrepancy. I mean that that there was a lot of truth to that, right? But that’s kind of the way our team was. Well, the same thing here. Like if you give a team, I think for the year we got 92 shots a game and our opponent got 96. Well, if you’re going to start every game and say, “Okay, here’s five more shots. Here’s four more shots.” You know, our I think net rating last year was minus 1.6 with this group. If you just go on the effective field goal percentage, you sit there and say, “I like to have four more shots.” You know, maybe things would be a little bit different, but what are the areas that create four more shots for you? You know, and that’s what we’ve tried to focus on. And a lot of that stuff quite honestly, Julia, is is the physical stuff. Sure. That that’s what that’s that’s where we’ve got to like put your body in play, take a charge. That’s a possession we get back. A shot goes up, we offensive rebound, right? It’s a possession being responsible. I know we had talked early in the year and some of it wasn’t the guy’s fault. It was just early in the year, new style of play. We turn it over 22, 24, 25 times. And it was like every other It’s hard to win like that when you’re just your team’s getting so much more opportunities than you are. We’re going to bring physicality. We got several questions, Beth. So, so hang on. Perfect. I got several questions. Okay. Uh, I was just going to say with like the increased physicality and some of the stuff our tourists was talking about yesterday picking up full court, do you feel like there’s any trade-off there or any concern about like that impacting the type of effort or force that you play with on the offensive side? Um, you know, listen, I I when I was in college, I always pressed, so I’m all for that, right? I think it’s very difficult in an NBA game with 100 possessions to sit there and say you’re going to pick up and press 48 minutes, right? But there are dead balls and free throws that we can do different things to try to be maybe a little bit more disruptive and have possessions during the course of the game. Like if you look at teams playing zone, right? Probably 90% of what they do for the year is going to be man-to-man. But they have these wrinkles that they throw in to maybe break momentum, break tempo. We’ll have to do some of that. like I think us picking up trying to maybe, you know, one of the things we didn’t do, we don’t we don’t force any turnovers, you know, and you don’t necessarily maybe get to the free throw line at a high rate. What ended up flipping after the All-Star break that we need to build upon was the rim. The rim was the biggest difference. We got to the rim a lot more after the uh All-Star game and after the trade deadline. And then on top of that, we did a better job defending the rim. So, we’ve shown some signs of the physical things that we can do, but we’ve got to have to do them more and more consistently. And listen, for a lot for a young group, it’s going to be there’s going to be growth. Like Modis and I were just talking about how like how he talked about like, wow, man, it’s a lot of effort to go to the glass on every single possession, you know, and it it is. And you know, you sit there and start trying to conserve energy. And that’s why I think I mentioned that I think you see in the playoffs now, it used to be rotations were cut. Teams play seven or eight guys. Now you’re starting to see, well, playoffs now teams are playing 9, 10, 11 guys, you know, because of the pace and the physicality of the game. So, you know, we need all of our guys, but it’s also I think you got to try to develop that kind of mindset. So, with that, would you consider playing a deep rotation? Yeah, I mean, I’m not opposed to it. I think last year we went to 10. I think sometimes if you break moment, not momentum, but if you break timing and rhythm for guys, if you play too many, but I do think during the course of the year, like I always respected Javon Carter for as limited as he was in terms of getting rotational minutes on a daily basis, that guy kept himself ready to play. And you know, one game stands out as he gets a chance against Atlanta and he makes, I don’t know, like nine three-point shots or seven three-point shots in the first half and he was awesome. But every time I feel like I called upon him, he was ready. And some of these young guys now all of them are going to be in the rotation. Can they be professional, keep themselves ready that when their number is called, they can produce and and be productive and effective professional to the team? Uh, yeah, I take a a lot of responsibility into bringing a lot of physicality um to this team. you know, my first five years in the league, that’s typically what I did for Cleveland. Uh, pride myself on the def defensive side and being physical and, you know, just guarding the other team’s best player and just, uh, try to cause havoc on that end. What is, uh, what were what was your impression of this team from the other side for the last five seasons? Man, they were fast. They were fast. A lot a lot of young athletic guys. Um, you could tell that they had the the passion. They wanted to win. Um, you know, coached by Billy like they they they played well. to play with a um poised. They’re fast. Um just like before playing them, we knew it had to be conditioned. You know, your body has to be had to be upright and um like at the end of the day like like I said, they play fast. Isaac, when when your guys season ended last year in Cleveland, you go through your exit interviews and stuff. Did you get a sense that I could possibly be on the move or were you kind of just completely shocked that they they went ahead and dealt you? Uh no, I wasn’t shocked. You know, each year, you know, after the league, you know, you kind of have a little bit of doubt in your mind like might be traded. You hear trade rumors. I mean, it happens. It’s the nature of the business. Um, especially the way the the year ended last year and us not getting to where we wanted to be last year. I knew there were probably be some changes. So, uh, it wasn’t it wasn’t shocking. One of the things MA has said is what they’ve seen from you and pickup and early on here. um what you do is contagious. Are you getting a sense that guys that one guy can kind of make other guys want to stand in front of somebody and take a charge and kind of feed off of that? I mean, is there something to that where what you do can spread and be contagious? Yeah, it’s definitely contagious. If you if you see one of your teammates dive on the ground, go for a loose ball, they’re playing hard, like you don’t want to be the guy that is out there looking like they’re not playing hard. So, it’s kind of a contagious thing. Like if I see Modis take a charge, like I want to be the next person take a charge. Like Kobe Io, next person I want to take a charge. So little things like that are very contagious. How how are you viewing this opportunity on the offensive side? I know we asked a lot about like physicality and defense, but do you feel like there’s more opportunity to like showcase what you have can do with the ball in your hands? Um just more sort of egalitarian offense compared to what you guys had in Cleveland? Yeah, definitely. Um there’s a lot of unselfish guys on this team and um like guys like Josh, you know, IO Kobe, um Trey, guys that have the ball in their hands a lot. You know, they’re willing to pass the ball ahead. Um everybody on this team is looking for each other. So one thing I can say was, you know, everyone’s unselfish on this team. Everyone’s looking to get each other better. Where did that defensive kind of knack come from in your career? Like do you remember at what point you started, whether it was as a kid in college, what when that kind of maybe spark came through? Yeah, definitely as a little kid. um like when I was like 6 7 years old like um the only way I was getting on the court was by playing defense. So not a lot of people were going to pick me to be on the court. Um because you know at that young age I wasn’t shocking at people with my offensive abilities but like more so just guarding guys. So I I knew the only way I could be on the court was by playing defense. So it stem from you know as a little kid. Yeah. Isaac, just going back real quick to the the moment you were traded. Where where were you when you got the call? Was it your agent? Was it Cleveland or what? Do you remember where you were when you got the call? I definitely do. I can’t forget it. I was in a nice hot Pilates class. I was nice hot Pilates class and uh I came out to class and I got a call from my agent. So, at that point, I knew that I was getting traded. Um so, it was I had a good class and I had the great opportunity to come here to Chicago. So, it was it was it was a great day for me. Is hot Pilates something you do often in the offseason or Oh, yes. I do it and I’m I’ve been trying to figure out a good place a good hot pilot place to go um here in Chicago. So, I’m still looking for that. Noah, what have what was the first day like today? Kind of what did they have you doing today? I mean, that was pretty cool. You know, that was my first day of the training camp my whole life. That was nice. Love the energy in the group. Everybody together for the first time. So, that was just fun to play all together, just compete. That was really fun. I know we talked to you about this over the summer, but as you get into training camp, what has been communicated to you in terms of expectations of your role? Kind of what you’re going to be expected to do in terms of playing time, etc. We don’t talk that much about playing time. I think I just I just talk with the coach about my roles like just bring the energy on the courts offensively and defensively. Just play the game I play since I’m here and yeah, just help the team to compete for the win. What was the rest of your summer like after summer league? I go back to France for like two weeks and just then here back again for just training and all that. Do you feel like uh just playing into almost June um with home and then going straight to summer league that you had enough time to like rest and recover and do some of the like strength training that you need to do before your year? I mean I’m fair young so I got a lot of energy so that was that was a lot of time. No. How how have the scrimmages in September and the first day of training camp compared to even the intensity of summer league? I’ll say that’s way different. uh you know summary is like we just play and compete for something for the win and right now it’s like of course we compete but we also try to create some chemistry together so that’s like a little bit different. Do you feel like uh you’ll just coming from and playing in a professional league um a lot of people are saying like you’re 18 years old you’re not going to be able to like really make a big impact right away. Do you feel like that’s going to be the case or do you feel like just with your experience you will be able to you know play at this level? I mean when I’m come to they say the same and I think I do a great job at home. So that’s just me and me. I need to put the work on for be ready for league. I know that’s a different level. So I just need yeah to work for that do some weight from go on the court practice and that’s going to be good. Did you participate in either of those uh informal group sessions that the team had? The one in my and the one in my I think it was in my Yeah, I was in both. You’re in both? Yeah. What has that been like in terms of you getting to know your teammates and you feel like you you were pretty connected even before you got to training camp? Yeah, I think that was some great time. uh even more Miami, you know, that’s was the first time a lot of people was there just practicing uh and we got also some some off together just yeah know each other talk a little bit outside of basketball so that was nice and I think you told us this uh after the draft that you’re going to have a support system here uh in Chicago is your mom going to be yeah my mom is coming with me so she going to stay for the first year at home and we’re going to see nice thanks thank you very She’s on.

Billy Donovan, Isaac Okoro, and Noa Essengue speak with the media following day 1 of Chicago Bulls Training Camp! Who impressed the most in the first day? How did Okoro find out that he had been traded to the Bulls? And what is Essengue expecting of himself this season?

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