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Pau Gasol Says Chicago Bulls Showed ‘A Lack Of Awareness’ And ‘Maturity’ This Season

By Jonathan Franks
Published on: 15:24 PST, Apr 9, 2016

NBA star Pau Gasol apparently did not hold back about the Chicago Bulls during a recent interview.

According to ESPN Staff Writer Nick Friedell, Pau Gasol claims that the team is lacking in several key areas, including awareness and maturity.

Based on Gasol’s statement and overall line of reasoning, the chain reaction of the Bulls’ performance decline began earlier in the season when they lost games, especially at home, that Gasol feels they should have won.

“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.”

Gasol further explained that the common way of thinking is to believe that “there’s still 40 games to play” or “there’s still 50 games to play” during those unnecessary losses. However, according to Pau Gasol, the games played during the early stages of the regular season are just as valuable.

“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.”

Like many NBA fans and critics, Pau Gasol did not hesitate to admit that the regular season for the Chicago Bulls has not gone well for them in a number of different ways. Even though he wishes that the team was in a different position at this stage of the season, it is apparently clear that they are not.

The 35-year-old center claimed that his approach at the start of every season is to “give it your best” and “try as hard as you can.” If you are able to do that “and things at the end collectively don’t work out,” Pau Gasol claims that he would “never consider it a wasted season.” He went on to say that he has done exactly what he needed to do this season – his very best – even though the team’s overall performance made it hard for Pau’s contribution to add more wins to the scoreboard.

“I feel bad about it, but I feel like I’ve done what I could and I still feel proud of the effort and the work that I put in, that we put in. So disappointment? For sure. It’s still not over.”

Many Chicago Bulls fans approached Saturday night’s game against the Cleveland Cavaliers with high hopes, strongly believing that a win against the Cavs could turn things around for the Bulls.

Even though the Bulls were successful at beating the Cavaliers in their 105-102 victory, the odds of them making it to the playoffs are still stacked pretty high against them.

In addition to the Bulls winning their final two games of the season, the Indiana Pacers would have to lose all three of their last games in order for the Bulls to be added to the playoff brackets.

There are still a lot of rumors and speculation circulating online about Pau Gasol possibly opting out of his contract with the Chicago Bulls once the current season ends. At this point, only time will tell what the two-time NBA champion and six-time NBA All-Star will decide to do with the future of his professional basketball career.

[Image Credit: Andy Lyons/Getty Images]

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