Chicago Bulls at Phoenix Suns: 3 takeaways, Butler struggles in comeback

The lineup carousel continues

This gem of a five-man unit came just before halftime, and it’s practically impossible to come up with some rational explanation behind it.

Defense? No, it’s undersized and Wade instead of Butler doesn’t make sense.

Shooting? Stop joking.

Playmaking? Maybe, but for what shooters?

I’m not trying to say that Fred shouldn’t experiment to try and find something that works. That’s part of the regular season grind. But there’s a line, and he’s crossed it and entered into the obnoxious. There’s no lessons to be learned from a lineup like this, other than wondering if it’s possible for a defense to ignore every single player on the perimeter at the same time.

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Young players like Denzel Valentine and Paul Zipser can’t be expected to develop with any sort of consistency if they’re pulled in and out of the rotation with seemingly no explanation. Furthermore, the lineups Fred throws out don’t seem to correspond with what Phoenix is doing on the other end.

The Suns are a different team when Eric Bledsoe sits and Brandon Knight replaces him. The pace slows down tremendously, so the Bulls would have been smart to play fast in response, something Rajon Rondo has repeatedly said he wants to do.

Instead, Hoiberg kept Dwyane Wade in the game for most of time that Bledsoe sat, and it becomes infinitely more difficult to play at a fast pace when someone as ball-dominant as Wade or Butler is running things.

Next: Bulls at Suns: Bulls get Sun-burned on national television again

It’s been 54 games. The Bulls are running out of time to figure out who they are.