The Chicago Bulls have had an incredibly disappointing season, and they are currently on the verge of not even making the playoffs. A lot has gone wrong, but the common criticism that keeps coming up is a lack of toughness.
And much of that criticism has come from the team’s own players.
After the Bulls were blown out by the Washington Wizards on Wednesday, Jimmy Butler raised more of the same concerns.
“We’re not the tougher team. All the way down this roster, we’re not the tougher team and it shows, from the jump ball to the end,” Butler said, per Michael Lee of Yahoo Sports. There’s a loose ball, we’re not getting it. If there’s a rebound people have to fight for, we’re not getting it. We’re just not the tougher team, and I think it shows a lot of the time. We have a lot of guys that have a lot of potential to play hard; we just forget how hard have we have to play sometimes a lot of the times, actually.”
Butler said he still has confidence in his team and believes Chicago will make the playoffs, but he noted that they need to “start playing the best basketball at the right time.”
While injuries have once again been an issue for the Bulls, chemistry has hurt the team just as much. Butler is not the first player to call out his teammates about toughness, and there have been rumors that players are not getting along in the locker room. It typically doesn’t matter how much talent is on a roster if you have issues like that.
