Chicago Bulls: DeMar DeRozan’s defensive liability is hard to overcome

While there are so many positives to focus on when it comes to what the former San Antonio Spurs star shooting guard/forward DeMar DeRozan will bring to the table for the Chicago Bulls next season, there are some downsides too. The one that keeps getting emphasized, and rightly so, is the potential defensive liability that head coach Billy Donovan and the Bulls will have to deal with when DeRozan is on the floor.

DeRozan was never really a net positive player for either the Toronto Raptors and/or the Spurs on the defensive end of the floor. In fact, only in half of the seasons that DeRozan has played in the NBA was his team a net positive in points per possession with him on the court compared to off.

But the real problem with DeRozan stems from his defensive liability. According to Cleaning the Glass (paid content), DeRozan was a net positive presence on the court on defense, compared to off, for two out of the dozen seasons of his NBA career to date. Those two seasons came back with the Raptors in 2012-13 and 2014-15.

It’s not a coincidence that he had two of the best defensive seasons of his career when playing next to two strong defenders at the time in Kyle Lowry and Amir Johnson. Also, the Raptors and former head coach Dwayne Casey had two of the weaker benches on defense of any for that team in the past decade in those two seasons.

Those were also two of the five most effective defensive seasons for Lowry in his career to date.

Moreover, more bad news for the Bulls in terms of the fit for DeRozan on defense is the fact that he’s usually at his best defensively when he’s playing minutes at the two. DeRozan’s best defensive and net rating on/off in his career pretty much have always been when he’s playing as a shooting guard. If he’s switching between the two and the three, his stats are similar.

Switching between the two-guard and the wing is about the next-best case scenario for DeRozan defensively.

This is where Donovan has a decision to make. Should the Bulls play DeRozan at the three or the four next season?

DeRozan likely isn’t going to get many minutes at the two since he’s transformed his game in a way to be more effective as a switchable forward on offense. And with star shooting guard Zach LaVine locked in at the two, it doesn’t matter anyway if Donovan thought DeRozan could be a good fit there.

That is unless Donovan felt like the Bulls could get efficient minutes from LaVine playing at the three, Patrick Williams at the four, and DeRozan at the two. But there lies a problem for the Bulls too. You might not want DeRozan defending elite two-guards while LaVine is traditionally even more of a defensive liability playing at the three than as a true shooting guard.

It just makes more sense for the Bulls to play LaVine at the two next season.

Chicago Bulls do at least have options with where to plug-and-play DeMar DeRozan

This still leaves Donovan and the Bulls with the problem of figuring out how to best scheme up the defense to cover up what liability the combination of DeRozan and LaVine will bring to the table on that end of the floor. Not to mention the fact that star center Nikola Vucevic isn’t a great defender either.

It’s not helpful that when Gregg Popovich ran with a starting unit for the Spurs that featured both DeRozan and LaMarcus Aldridge, the team posted a defensive rating over 120 over the course of roughly two seasons.

That doesn’t bode well for the Bulls with Vooch also being often a bad defender, similar to Aldridge.

There could be a way that Donovan could salvage this lineup on defense, though. The Bulls do have a solid defender that could play at the three or the four in Williams. And DeRozan is definitely switchable enough to play at the two, three, or four in really any lineup.

With how much length the Bulls are likely to have in the starting unit, and the defensive boost the team will get from newly acquired point guard Lonzo Ball, this unit could at least be average on defense if they really put in a lot of effort next season.

One of the most common lineups the Bulls ran last season featured Tomas Satoransky at the one, LaVine at the two, Williams at the three, Thaddeus Young at the four, and Vooch at the five. That unit actually ranked in the 60th percentile in the NBA last season, posting a defensive rating a little better than 109.

That aforementioned unit didn’t necessarily generate turnovers at an elite level. But they rebounded well, didn’t make too many mistakes with unnecessary fouls that let opponents get to the free-throw line, and they had enough length to contend with most lineups that were at least average on offense.

The Bulls are not going to have a single player in this projected starting unit next season with a wingspan shorter than 6-foot-7. And Lonzo, LaVine, and DeRozan, will be the shortest players in this starting unit, around 6-foot-6 each.

What the Bulls don’t have in true on-ball defensive ability they can make up for by not fouling unnecessarily, rebounding well, and using their length to draw extra turnovers. Donovan has never had a team finish in the bottom half of the NBA in defensive rating. But this will be his biggest challenge yet, especially with DeRozan coming into the mix.

There is now roughly three weeks before the Bulls begin Training Camp. And then, DeRozan and the Bulls will open up the highly anticipated preseason slate against Lauri Markkanen and the Cleveland Cavaliers at home at the United Center on Oct. 5.