Time for the Bulls to be real with themselves: It’s a soft roster

ORLANDO, Fla. — Veteran forward DeMar DeRozan remains confident about where his head was during back-to-back embarrassing losses for the Bulls this week.

He can only speak for his own mental space, of course. But even so, he’s determined not to allow an outside narrative to seep into the locker room and become reality for his teammates.

“If you think like that, and you give into that, you become that,” DeRozan said. “We cannot become what everybody says we keep doing. I’m always a big, firm believer in, ‘As long as you’ve got time, have an opportunity going forward, you’ve got a chance to change whatever needs to be changed.’

“It would be different if we had a deadline [of] five days to change something so big. No, we have opportunities. [Losing] sucks. . . . We’re just waiting for that opportunity. Not even necessarily waiting — I think we’re fighting for it instead of trusting that it’s going to come. As long as it comes at the right time, that’s all that matters. It’s just got to come.”

Does it?

That kind of faith could come back to bite the Bulls, who were 22-26 and in the 11th spot in the Eastern Conference standings as of Friday. Multiple wins over the Bucks, Heat, Celtics and Nets this season can’t be downplayed. But they also can’t blur some underlying issues with the way this team is constructed.

Coach Billy Donovan uses terms and catchphrases such as “need to play desperate,” “ramping up the compete level” and “playing with physicality.”

Translation: This team is soft.

Talented? No question. But this isn’t a foxhole team that understands what it takes to win games late, let alone advance in a playoff series. Back-to-back losses to the Pacers on Tuesday and the Hornets on Thursday were frustrating but also followed a pattern that’s a direct indictment of the Bulls’ lack of edge, which less talented teams have picked up on.

Go at the Bulls hard late in the game and they’ll break. It’s not every game, but it’s often enough.

“[We need to be] setting a standard of play where we shouldn’t be letting another team dictate what level we need to play to,” Donovan said. “I always think that’s really dangerous inside of a team, when you get to that place where you’ve got to at least be, ‘OK, here is the level we know we’ve got to play to.’ ”

The Magic, who host the Bulls on Saturday, have already beaten them once this season, pulling the win out late Nov. 18 with Zach LaVine benched. Does anyone think the Magic will be at all intimidated?

The real intrigue is that after Saturday’s game, the Bulls have just five more before the Feb. 9 trade deadline. Arturas Karnisovas, executive vice president of basketball operations, has been committed to the “continuity” the Bulls emphasized last offseason and believes a healthy Lonzo Ball, who hasn’t played a game since last January, would cover up a lot of weaknesses that have been exposed.

But roster construction is a fluid business. Would a third straight loss to another team that’s less talented on paper be the final straw? Only Karnisovas can answer that, and he has less than two weeks to think about it.

“How do we just turn that into every single night, no matter who we’re playing against, with that element of knowing we have what it takes to compete against the best?” DeRozan said. “That’s what gives me hope.”

At this point, it might not be enough.