Bulls' Gibson: I 'poured my heart out' in team meeting after locker room rift
The Chicago Bulls had a lot of healing to do after a rift threatened to pull the team apart last month.
Jimmy Butler and Dwyane Wade called out their teammates, and were apparently especially irked by Nikola Mirotic and Michael Carter-Williams. Other Bulls players fired back at Wade and Butler, most notably Rajon Rondo, who questioned their leadership in a scathing Instagram post. Butler reportedly complained about a snitch in the locker room. Ultimately, the Bulls decided to call a team meeting to clear the air and try to get back on track.
Though it hasn't been reflected in the standings - the Bulls are still a sub-.500 team languishing near the bottom of the Eastern Conference playoff bracket - veteran power forward Taj Gibson insists the meeting achieved its purpose, in part because he emptied his emotional tank.
"I was drained because I gave my heart in that meeting," Gibson told CSN Chicago's Vincent Goodwill last week. "In general, I just gave my heart. Letting everybody know I loved them.
"I just poured my heart out. It got testy."
Gibson felt that because of his wealth of experience, and the oft-thankless role he's played in his long Bulls career, he could be a bridge from the veterans to the youngsters, the stars to the scrubs.
"Both sides were just going, just talking. I stood up and voiced how I felt,” he told Goodwill. "It got reciprocated and everybody was like, 'you know what? (He's right)' Because I put with a lot. I've been putting up with a lot. It's crazy, I can put up with a lot but I can't put up with my teammates battling each other. ...
"I wanted to start early, I wanted to play well and I didn't get my chance. I stayed with the team, I sacrificed. I gave examples and then I gave examples of guys who were leaders, how I loved playing with them.
"I told them, I broke down in that meeting, I gave it up to everybody because I understood life is too short. Everyday, people are leaving the league and never coming back. There's not that many veterans anymore. Days are numbered, it's only a matter of time, you gotta take what you can get out of it. I'm playing with a Hall of Famer in D-Wade, I told him I appreciated him. Straight up."
Gibson insists that since the cathartic meeting, the Bulls have been a different team, and his teammates have been playing for each other in a way they weren't earlier in the season.
"For real. Jimmy's coming in, dapping everybody up," he said. "D-Wade is in every huddle, giving his word, giving his input."
What, exactly made the meeting - and his words - so effective?
"It brought guys back to reality," he said. "At times when you're losing games and you got the city on your back, playing in Chicago is like playing in New York or LA. Once people get in your ear and you're losing games and people booing you, you can't look around, you wanna point fingers. In that meeting it was deep. A lot of love.”