On Wednesday, Chicago Bulls coach Billy Donovan was ordered to leave the locker room as his players convened a team meeting to discuss their 124-104 loss to the Oklahoma City Thunder.
When Donovan returned from the floor at United Center, the Bulls’ stars were already talking. After a ‘poor’ start to the season that raised issues about players’ ‘heart’ on the court, they asked the coach if they could have the locker room to themselves.
‘Guys want to win,’ said guard Zach LaVine afterward. ‘If you put this game up in game one, you’re going to have some conversations.
‘Guys, you should be frustrated… it’s a positive thing, but it stinks that it happened in game one. It occurred, and we proceeded from there.
Donovan stated that he did not feel belittled by his teammates. ‘I’m not going to sit there and claim it was horrible, like people were destroying the locker room,’ he explained.
‘It wasn’t like that. They were conversing in there. When I stepped in, they asked, “Hey, Coach, can we talk?” I said “sure” and walked away.’
‘There’s nothing personal in any of this. These guys care, and they want to be better, but they recognize there are habits they need to change and break.
And they’re talking about trying to do that collective as a group.’
On Wednesday, the Bulls lead Oklahoma City 35-33 after one quarter, only for Shai Gilgeous-Alexander to take control. He had 31 points, 10 assists, and five rebounds.
‘We just didn’t respond after that run in the second half,’ LaVine admitted. ‘It wasn’t our best performance. We didn’t do well with the ball. We didn’t play with enough heart, in my opinion. That is entirely on us.
‘It’s a terrible way to start the season, but it offers us a chance to bounce back the next game.’
Donovan had a heated discussion with center Nikola Vucevic during the third quarter, who subsequently conceded he had overstepped the mark.
‘Those occur in the heat of the moment,’ Vucevic explained. ‘You’re striving to win, and you’re doing everything you can to assist your team win. ‘I wasn’t happy with what was going on.’
‘I have nothing but respect for Vooch,’ Donovan continued. He expressed his feelings, and I expressed mine. And he’s probably not incorrect to feel that way, but how do you channel that in a way that galvanizes and lifts the group?
‘In the moment, perhaps I could have handled it better with him, and perhaps he could have handled it better with me. It wasn’t meant to be insulting or anything. I think he was just angry with how we were playing, which I didn’t blame him for.’
Leave a Reply