Chicago Bulls lose again and Dwyane Wade and Jimmy Butler are mad
The Chicago Bulls blew a ten point lead late against the Atlanta Hawks. Dwyane Wade and Jimmy Butler then blasted their teammates for giving a lackluster effort.
It appears, just like last season, that the Chicago Bulls are imploding. They blew a ten-point lead in the final three minutes against the Atlanta Hawks on Wednesday night. Afterward, the Bulls’ two stars, Dwyane Wade and Jimmy Butler, both blasted their teammates for their lackluster effort in the game.
“If you don’t come in this (expletive) pissed off after you lose any game, if you’re not pissed off that you lost, man, something is wrong,” Butler said. “This is your job. This is what you’re supposed to love to do, and I don’t think that everybody looks at it that way.”
“I don’t know what happened,” Wade said. “But we continue to be in these kinds of situations and lose games like this. Everyone don’t care enough. You got to care enough, man. It’s got to mean that much to you to want to win. And it doesn’t. So I don’t know what happened.
“I don’t know how you fix it. It just doesn’t mean enough to guys around here to want to win ballgames. It pisses me off, but I can’t be frustrated, and I can’t care too much for these guys. They have to care for themselves… You got to do better with knowing where your shot’s coming and knock them down. You got to do better with knowing film, knowing personnel. Just as a team, just got to do better, man.”
Wade and Butler directed their anger at the younger Bulls, maybe trying to get their professionalism to come out.
Most of the team showered and dressed and left the locker room while Wade and Butler continued their rants. This is certainly a fractured locker room.
It appears this is something that finally reached its boiling point. After last Friday’s loss, also to the Hawks, Butler spoke about full effort. “We have to start playing better from the jump, a full 48 minutes,” he said, via the Chicago Tribune. “It’s so disappointing because the way we practice isn’t the way we play in the game. Don’t ask me why, I don’t know. Starting from me going all the way down the line we have to be better as a whole. Otherwise, we’re just going to keep getting our a**es beat.”
Teammates respond?
After the Wade-Butler tirade, some teammates took to Twitter to perhaps answer the accusations.
Point guard Jerian Grant:
"Tough loss, that hurt for sure. But I play hard TO WIN every second I’m out there, and grind everyday for everything I haveI’ve played this game since I was 4yrs old. Basketball is in my blood and means way more to me than just a paycheck.The ONLY way I know how to play, is to win.My point is I work hard, I play hard, and I play to win for our team."
Isaiah Canaan, another point guard, also responded in a tweet he later deleted. “Tough Loss!!! We Win & Lose Together #FreeSip”
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This is something that brewed in one way or another for the past several years. Things are now public and threaten to get very ugly. Hopefully, management takes the right action to take care of the situation. I believe Gar/Pax are the cause of all this, but that is a story for another time.