LOSING TOUCH
Bulls’ Bulls problems start at top, trickle down, cripple entire entire organization
Losing teams lose games. Loser teams turn everything and everyone around them to rubble.
Can you guess which sentence best describes the Bulls?
This is a loser team, from top to bottom. From Jerry Reinsdorf to Michael Reinsdorf, from John Paxson to Gar Forman, from Rajon Rondo to Fred Hoiberg and, yes, from Jimmy Butler to Dwyane Wade. Losers, all of them.
Backbiting, finger- pointing, selfpreserving losers.
And so the Bulls finally did what all dysfunctional teams do, going up in a mushroom cloud, thanks to a public calling- out of teammates by Butler and Wade, followed by a kneecapping of Butler and Wade by Rondo on Instagram, followed by the typical nothing from vice president Paxson and next to nothing from general manager Forman, the duo who built this mess in their own image.
I guess this means Derrick Rose wasn’t the guy who tore the Bulls apart last season.
Friday was spent listening to Wade, Butler and Rondo try to explain away the latest droppings on the floor and hearing Forman say he was ‘‘ extremely disappointed’’ that team laundry had been aired publicly. Then Forman refused to take questions from the media because that’s how this square- tired bus rolls.
When Butler and Wade met the media after a terrible loss Wednesday to the Hawks, they wanted the world to know that they weren’t to blame for what was happening to the Bulls, that they were above it all and that, by God, they weren’t going to have their reputations tarnished by the failings of players who weren’t trying hard enough. That was the gist of it, no matter how much they tried to dress it up as two guys sick of losing.
The pair were mistaking a lack of talent for a lack of effort, something gifted players often do. Things have come easily for them; they can’t understand why it doesn’t come easily for others. But they were lashing out at the wrong targets. That would be Gar- Pax and the father- son Reinsdorf duo, the foursome of silent partners responsible for putting together a team that doesn’t fit and never was going to fit.
Rondo piped in via social media, criticizing Butler and Wade, though not by name, for ripping younger players in public. Rondo surely will be seen as the biggest villain here because he always is seen as the villain. He’s an easy target, a man who is a degree or two off normal. Everybody knows that, excluding Bulls management, apparently. But he was right. Butler and Wade shouldn’t have criticized their lesser teammates in public. And how can Wade talk about players not working hard when he takes practices and games off, a fact Rondo implied in his post?
The Bulls apparently fined all three players for their outbursts and benched them for the start of their game Friday against the Heat, which should solve everything. My eyes aren’t rolling so much as rolling back into my head.
Wade still is acting like a superstar, which he isn’t anymore. Before his outburst Wednesday, he had said he wanted to see whether Butler would be back next season before he agreed to another season in Chicago. Is he kidding? How many teams covet a 35- year- old who can’t play back- to- back games and doesn’t practice regularly?
Butler is a great player who is in love with being a star. You can hear it in almost everything he says. It’s all about the Bulls being his team and has been since he and Rose passive- aggressively fought about who was the alpha dog. And, frankly, Butler seems more concerned about which celebrity he is hanging out with than who is on the court with him.
The biggest question, the one no one in charge wants to answer, is why Wade and Rondo are here in the first place. Rondo was a bad fit in terms of temperament and style of play. Wade is in the twilight of his career and would be the third or fourth option on a good team. Here, he’s the first or second option. That, not a lack of hustle from teammates, is the reason the Bulls are a .500 team. With this roster, they always were going to be a .500 team.
The Bulls chickened out of rebuilding, perhaps because chairman Reinsdorf couldn’t stomach the thought of the United Center being as empty as the White Sox’ ballpark will be this
season as that team goes through its own rebuild.
And here we are, kneedeep in a disaster.
The Bulls must turn people crazy. That’s all I can come up with. There’s either something in the Gatorade, or Michael Jordan put a hex on the franchise when he left. Did Butler and Wade come here as losers? They certainly did not. But this organization has brought out their inner loserness. And it’s excruciating to watch and hear.