Something Happened to the Bulls….And We Need to Know Why

Something Happened to the Bulls….And We Need to Know Why

Look, we can all agree that this Bulls team has been incredibly frustrating to watch. This is probably one of the worst stretches of Bulls basketball we’ve seen, dating all the way back to the Jim Boland days if we’re being honest with ourselves, which is insane because I would argue that the start of the season at that 5-0 stretch, I would argue was one of the best stretches of basketball we’ve seen in years with their level of play, the energy, the compete level, the fun and excitement, and watching the Bulls play for the first time in a long time. All of that completely evaporated in an instant and has turned into one of the laziest, loweffort, poor displays of basketball I’ve seen in my time watching this team. But what’s baffled me in all of this, what I cannot wrap my head around is even if you thought the beginning of the season was a fluke, even if you thought that wasn’t real, that they wouldn’t be able to sustain that level of play, that they still don’t have enough talent to truly compete. What should not change, what should remain even through some injuries is the fight, the toughness, the energy, the compete level we saw at the start of the season, like regardless of the talent, regardless of their opponent finally hitting shots or the Bulls falling off and no longer being able to hit their own shots, the effort should still remain, the tenacity should still be there. And it’s not. And as Bulls fans, the fans who keep this team going, the ones who keep this franchise in business and pay to watch this team play, we need an explanation for it. We deserve an explanation for what the hell happened to this team and why the effort level has fallen off the face of the earth. Like, we can speculate all we want. Oh, they had a rough stretch of schedule where they played five games in seven nights and that’s what’s caught up to them. The injuries are throwing off the team chemistry and they’re no longer able to go as deep as they once did. Yeah, maybe teams have quickly figured out how the Bulls want to play and the beginning of the season other teams just weren’t used to it and have since then tailored their game plan and scouting report when they’re going up against the Bulls. Sure, there might be some truth to that that can explain their sudden drop off in play. But no, man, there has to be more to it. Something changed with this team. Something switched off with these guys because you can see it in their demeanor, their body language, their mentality. They’ve checked out and looked completely lost as a team. So, what the hell happened? Now, I have a few theories of my own, some that I’ve hinted at before on the channel. I’ve talked about how, you know, ever since that game against Detroit where the Pistons had the majority of their rotational guys out of the lineup and the Bulls came out completely flat, playing down to a bunch of two-way players and lost that game. At that time, that was really the Bulls first bad loss. Like, they had losses before that, but they were at least competitive losses where they just couldn’t put things away in the fourth quarter against some of the better teams in the league. But that was their first bad loss. And even though the Bulls won some games after that, they had that impressive win in Denver. But outside of that game, the Bulls as a team have looked off. They lost to the Jazz in double overtime. They blew that massive 21-point lead to the Blazers and probably should have lost that game had not been for the bailout heroics of Vuchic’s game winner. Uh they then come home and get embarrassed by the Miami Heat in a cup game and then narrowly escape the worst team in the league who had just one win at that time and were on a 13-game losing streak in the Washington Wizards. A game that I talked about was more or less the equivalent of a loss, a bad win if you want to call it that. And wouldn’t you know it, that was the last time the Bulls have won a game. November 22nd, over two weeks ago. And really, ever since that game, things have just gone downhill even further. The Bulls don’t play with a sense of urgency. They’re not fighting for loose balls. They get outworked on the glass and giving up a ton of offensive rebounds. Guys aren’t coming to the ball. You see these passes that are getting picked off because guys are too lazy to make hard cuts to the basket or the reverse lazy passes that a middle school defense could read. They’re no longer making aggressive drives to the basket. And when they are, it just looks sloppy and out of control. And the defensive effort, my god, it’s honestly embarrassing to watch. Like, I cringe watching this team play defense. The amount of blowbyss to the basket, the missed assignments on back door cuts, the pick and roll defense is atrocious. No effort, no physicality. They play defense like it’s optional. Like, meh, I don’t get paid to play defense. And the lack of defensive effort, that type of mentality is contagious. It’s the same as hard-nosed effort on the defensive end, being infectious where the rest of the team wants to play at that same level to not be the guy bringing the team down on that end of the floor. Something we talked about during training camp is Isaac Aoro being that guy that sets the tone defensively for this team. The opposite is also true. If guys see that no one else is putting in that effort on that side of the ball, why should they why should they go all out if no one else gives a But anyway, you get my point. Something has switched with this team when it comes to their effort and compete level. And I’ve hinted at this before, but I refuse to believe that a team that came out with so much energy, so much vigor to start the season could have just stopped playing that way just because just because they didn’t feel like they wanted to play that way anymore. Something happened internally. And I know some might say, well, that’s a bit of a stretch. But I think a lot of it has to do with Vuvich calling out the team publicly in that postgame interview with Casey Johnson after the Wizards game where he was visibly upset with Muscles and Jaylen Smith talking about how the team isn’t playing up to NBA standards. is playing soft and can’t keep doing this as it’s not a sustainable way to win. Now, to be fair, he’s not wrong. He’s not wrong at all. But part of me wonders if those comments rather than addressing the matter internally really rub the players the wrong way. Now, if that is in fact the case, I mean, that’s pretty soft and thin skin on the part of the young guys to let something like that get to them and completely impact their confidence rather than using these types of comments as motivation to be better and recognizing that a veteran player is calling out your poor effort. That said, to have this come from, of all players, Nikoluch, a guy who he himself isn’t exactly the embodiment of a highlevel effort player who gives it his all when he’s on the court and a guy who often pouts and checks out when things aren’t going the team’s way. Yeah, I would probably be a little frustrated with those types of comments coming from someone like V. Like if this was coming from someone like Alex Caruso in a postgame interview, then yeah, as a young player, I could respect that because he’s the type of guy that is always going to give you maximum effort on the floor and we should try to emulate that at all times. Vevich is right. But he probably should be listening to his own advice in that regard. But I think what really impacted these guys and why we’re not seeing this team respond to the coaching staff and playing with such piss poor effort is because I believe it was after the game against the Wizards as well where their own coach and Billy Donovan called out the poor play and citing that these guys aren’t talented enough to be playing down to their competition and that they’re not talented enough to not be playing desperate. Again, doing this all publicly, saying it to the media rather than the locker room for why the guys need to be better. I feel this has also really rubbed the players the wrong way because even if you feel the guys aren’t that talented, even if Billy Donovan himself felt that the 5-0 start wasn’t real and that these guys still have so much work to do, the last thing you want to do is lose the respect of your young players and taking away their confidence to believe in themselves because they believe they’re great. They believe they did start the season that start of the season was real. And if they now see that their own coach doesn’t believe in them or thinks that they’re not talented enough to truly compete, then they’re going to give up on you. They’re not going to respond to you and it’s going to come out on the court. Now, again, you can call it a weak mentality to have and you wouldn’t be wrong if these young entitled players are that triggered by something their coach or veteran players said about them instead of taking the criticism headon and using it as motivation to be better. But when Billy Donovan isn’t coaching this team up to par and Vuchic has been playing like absolute trash, you also expect a level of accountability on their part that I’m sure the young players aren’t seeing and are frustrated by it. That’s the only thing I can rationalize for why we’re seeing such a drop off in play. And not even just their play, because every team goes through slumps, every team goes through shooting slumps, but I’m talking about their drop off in effort, physicality, hunger, and fight that was there to start the season and it’s completely gone now. It’s either that or something else happened internally behind the scenes that they’re just not revealing publicly. Did some sort of altercation happen between the players and the coaching staff that they’re keeping quiet? Player on player altercation even. I mean, they keep saying in their postgame interviews that all the guys in the locker room get along really well and like each other. So, I can’t imagine that it’s that, but we never truly know what’s going on behind the scenes. And I’d have to think there has to be something more here to explain and rationalize for why we’re witnessing what we’re seeing from this team. At the end of the day, though, look, I don’t care what happened behind the scenes. I don’t care what was said, what wasn’t said. As a fan, this is embarrassing. I’m embarrassed as a fan to see how this team is playing. The effort is inexcusable. I don’t care how many guys are injured. I don’t care that the schedule hasn’t been kind with the amount of games and travel they’ve been dealing with. This is the NBA. You’re playing basketball at the highest level, getting paid millions of dollars, more money than most of us will see in our lifetimes. Play like you give a Like even if you don’t actually care, even if you’re just there for the paycheck to live the lifestyle of an NBA player, for the fans, at least act like you care. Give it your all when you’re on your court. make the games exciting and fun to watch. Otherwise, what’s the point in all this? We don’t get paid to see you guys play. We pay to watch you guys play. This is your job. Take it seriously. So, yeah. I honestly don’t know where the Bulls go from here. They need to find it within themselves to dig their way out of this and play like this means something because it does mean a lot to the fans. Anyway, that’s all I have to say. Let me know what you guys think. Let me know in the comments. As always, be sure to subscribe and I will see you in the next one.

Trying to understand what happened to this Bulls team

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