Alex Caruso replacement on defense? Unlikely, but Bulls have volunteers

Coach Billy Donovan doesn’t know who’ll pick up the slack defensively with Alex Caruso gone to the Thunder.

But a few days into training camp, there were some volunteers.

“Obviously, I’m never going to be an Alex Caruso-type defender, but I think it’s the effort you put into that side of the ball,” guard Josh Giddey said when asked about playing defense. “It’s never been my game, [being] an elite lockdown defender, but I think everybody can be a positive on that side of the ball. That’s something I’ve always wanted to get better at.”

Giddey was the player acquired from Oklahoma City for Caruso, a first-team All-NBA defender.

He lost key playoff minutes last season for the Thunder because of his defensive struggles and seems to have taken it personally.

“There comes a point in a player’s career where the fork is put in the road of where you are at,” Giddey said. “You don’t want to get to the point in your career where you are known as that guy, the weak link at that end of the floor. I’ve never wanted to be that. I don’t think I was a weak link, but if you look at the defenders we had, teams had to go at somebody. It was probably going to be me on that team. That’s the guy I don’t want to be, and at the Olympics, I took a lot more pride in that side of the ball, keeping my man in front of me, being engaged off the ball, and it’s something [I want to continue with] the Bulls.”

The other volunteer was guard Coby White, who is always working on his weaknesses. He made defense a priority during the summer.

“I’m always working on that end of the court,” White said. “I think I made leaps after my third or fourth year, one of those. But, for me, it’s just continuing to work on my entire game. I still have a long way to go. So this summer, I really homed in. My No. 1 goal was to home in on my conditioning, so I could become that two-way guy and put forth the same effort on both ends.”

The reality of the situation is that Patrick Williams will have to step forward as the team’s best wing stopper, then it will come down to Giddey and White chipping in.

No one was pretending that Caruso can be replaced, but that doesn’t mean the team effort couldn’t improve.

“It’s going to be a collective effort to make up for [Caruso], but that’s a side of the ball I’m really willing to buy into and will buy into,” Giddey said. “Other guys, too, and we can have a really strong collective defensive unit.”

Chipping away

Guard Zach LaVine sounded like someone who sat back and listened to all that was said about him after he opted to have season-ending surgery on his foot last year.

It will be a win-win for LaVine and the Bulls if he can use that as motivation to fuel himself back to All-Star status.

“I mean everybody uses fuel and motivation differently,” LaVine said. “I always have a chip on my shoulder. I’ve played that way since I was 12 years old.

‘‘I think not just for me but for us, we’ve got a lot to prove. When people doubt you, you get a little satisfaction by shutting people up. That’s a mentality we can take moving forward.”