Chicago Bulls hold players-only meeting after 20-point loss in season opener

After reaching the playoffs just once in the past six seasons, the Chicago Bulls are hoping for better results in Billy Donovan’s fourth year as head coach. But they enter the season in a similar place as last year, on the fringe of playoff contenders in the Eastern Conference.

Facing the Oklahoma City Thunder for their regular season opener gave the Bulls a fair shot at starting their season off with a win. But the end result, a 124-104 loss to the Thunder, wasn’t what any Chicago fan at the United Center had in mind.

The Bulls know they don’t want to head down this road again. So when Coach Donovan entered his team’s locker room following the 20-point loss, he likely wasn’t surprised to hear players already embroiled deep in discussion. Then, Donovan was asked to leave the locker room so players could continue getting everything out in the open after the tough loss.

Part of that heated discussion included two-time All-Star Zach LaVine, the longest-tenured member of the team.

“Guys want to win. You put up a game like this in game 1, 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 1. It happened, and we got to go from there.”
Chicago Bulls guard Zach LaVine

Coach Donovan had no issue with the fact that his players took it upon themselves to try and figure out what went wrong or the fact that he was asked to leave his own locker room.

“I’m not going to sit there and say that it was bad, like people were tearing up the locker room. It was nothing like that. They were in there talking. I walked in and they said, ‘Hey, Coach, can we talk?’ I said sure and I left. There’s nothing personal about any of this stuff. These guys do care, and they want to be better, but they know there’s habits they’ve got to change, and they’ve got to break. And they’re talking about trying to do that collective as a group.”

The Bulls’ next game comes against the Toronto Raptors on Friday, who started their season 1-0 after a three-point victory over the Minnesota Timberwolves.