The Chicago Bulls have been on a roller coaster ride of a season, showing glimpses of greatness and plenty of head-scratching performances along the way as well. Star center Paul Gasol believes he knows why a talent-laden team couldn’t reach its full potential — a “lack of urgency” throughout the season.
Said lack of urgency wasn’t the only contributing factor though, as Gasol laid out the team for a lack of maturity and a lack of awareness of what was going on around them this season.
“There’s been times where we dropped games, lost games, that we should never have lost, especially at home against certain teams. Those are the times that guys don’t realize how big of a price that you can pay at the end of the year and how much of a different position you’re going to be [in] by those games in November, December, January. ‘Ah, there’s still 40 games to play, there’s still 50 games to play.’ No, those games are just as meaningful as the ones we’ve been playing for the last week or two where our life has been on the line.
So that’s just a lack of sense of urgency, a lack of awareness, a lack of maturity that we have dealt with.”
It certainly has been a disappointing start to the Fred Hoiberg era in Chicago, as the Bulls go in to the final few games of the season at 39-40 overall and out of the final playoff place occupied by the Indiana Pacers. It will need a miracle run of three straight wins and three straight losses by the Pacers to make the playoffs.
For Gasol, it has been a disappointing season and has led many to believe he will opt out of his contract at the end of the year.
“Only one team wins a championship, so at the end of the day, this season has not gone well for us in many ways,” Gasol said. “I wish we were in a different position right now, but we’re not. When you go into a season, and the way I approach it, if you give it your best and you try as hard as you can and things at the end collectively don’t work out, I would never consider it a wasted season.”
However, he still hasn’t lost hope in a late playoff push despite the odds being against them. That hope must start with a win over the No. 1 seed in the Eastern Conference — the Cleveland Cavaliers.
[ESPN]
