The Chicago Bulls have not won a game in nearly a month, and their best player came awfully close to blaming that on the coaching staff following the team’s latest loss.
After the Bulls fell 117-103 to the Miami Heat on Saturday for their 10th consecutive loss, Zach LaVine called attention to the fact that the Bulls have as good of a roster as they have had all year but somehow look worse than ever.
#Bulls' Zach LaVine: "Something's obviously wrong. We weren't losing (by) double-digits earlier in the season. We might have been losing — and we didn't even have a full roster. I don't know. We're a better team now, and we're getting blown out. It doesn't make a lot of sense."
— Cody Westerlund (@CodyWesterlund) January 20, 2019
If the roster is better now, what could account for the even worse performance? It seems fairly obvious that LaVine is referring to coaching.
For any other team, LaVine’s comments might be a surprise. However, it has already been well documented that Bulls players do not see eye-to-eye with head coach Jim Boylen, who took over after Fred Hoiberg was fired earlier in the year. Chicago’s front office has supported Boylen and given him the freedom to run the team with his disciplinarian style, but that nearly led to a mutiny earlier in the season.
At one point, it seemed like LaVine was trying to take on a leadership role by playing the middle man between Boylen and frustrated Bulls players. His latest remarks indicate he, too, has run out of patience.
