It’s apparently never too early to break out the players-only meeting for the hapless Bulls.
Following a season-opening 124-104 home loss to the Thunder on Wednesday night, Chicago’s players asked head coach Billy Donovan to allow them to have the room to discuss the humbling defeat, according to ESPN.
“Guys want to win,” Bulls guard Zach LaVine said. “You put up a game like this in game one, you’re going to have some conversations. Guys are frustrated and you should be. … It’s a good thing, but sucks that it happened game one. It happened. We got to go from there.”
Hosting a payers-only meeting is usually a tactic employed during an extended losing streak or the dog days of the season when it seems nothing is going right.
To break out this tactic after just one game is a bit concerning for a once-proud franchise that is no longer a championship contender and instead dealing with constant turnover and coaching changes.
On Wednesday, Chicago trailed by six at the half and nine after three quarters before Oklahoma City ran the Bulls out of the building in the fourth quarter.
Thunder star Shai Gilgeous-Alexander led all players with 31 points, while LaVine paced the Bulls with 20.
Bulls center Nikola Vucevic called the players-only conversation “constructive.”
“I think it was really good for us we had those. I think it was needed, ” said Vucevic, who tallied 11 points and nine rebounds. “It was regular conversations of what needs to be done. A lot of guys said a lot of good things, things that need to be said. I think we can really use this to learn and change some things we need to change. It was nothing crazy, no fighting or none of that. It was really constructive and maybe one of the first times since I’ve been here that this was like this and it was really needed.”
Vucevic and Donovan even got into a heated exchange during the third quarter after the center received a technical foul.
Vucevic was upset with a lack of touches.
Donovan tried to paint the Vucevic conversation and the team’s meeting as positives.
“I will say the one thing I think was good with some of the heated conversations and confrontation is that would’ve never happened last year. Ever. They would’ve been a quiet group,” Donovan said. “So, the confrontation piece is a sign that it’s important to them.”
The Bulls have made the playoffs just once in the last six seasons and twice in the last eight, and have not won a playoff series since 2015.
They have 130/1 odds at FanDuel to win the NBA title, in line with the Nets and Raptors.