Minutes after the Chicago Bulls won their seventh clutch game of the season on Saturday, the center was furious. He was tired of wasting leads and digging holes in the first quarter. And when he was called aside for a walk-off interview on Chicago Sports Network, Vucevic was in no mood to celebrate.
Vucevic had only made it halfway through his indictment of the team’s performance – “For three quarters, we were too soft” – before teammates interrupted. Matas Bouzelis leapt into frame, his fists raised above his head.
Vucevic pushed the young forward away with the ease of a father of three, and nudged the second-year forward with a muttered command: “Move.”
Buzzellis turned off the camera in defeat. Jalen Smith simply couldn’t be stopped. The backup center puffed out his chest, bearing down on Vucevic until he turned away, his jaw clenched, no trace of the smile that was threatening to break his face. But Smith kept joking and imploring his veteran player to lighten up: “Come on, man, cheer up!”
In the four years since he first arrived in Chicago, Vucevic has emerged as a mixture of scapegoat and villain in the eyes of many Bulls fans.
It is easy to blame the team’s growing problem of defensive toughness on the big players in the middle order. That buzz turned into a bummer this season as the Bulls bled points at the rim, allowing a league-high 21.8 baskets per game from inside the restricted area.
In many ways, Vucevic is unconventional. He’s not a top-5 blocker on his own team. He thrives in the pocket and behind the arc. And no, he’s not the most intimidating presence around the basket. Yet teammates and coaches don’t believe Vucevic needs to be replaced.
“People can say whatever they want,” guard Coby White said. “Everyone is entitled to their opinion. Whatever it is. Who cares? He is extremely important to what we do. We trust him very much.”
Of course, there is some truth in the criticism.
Vucevic has never been an elite rim protector. This is not his game. The center is elite on the boards – ranking seventh in the league this season in defensive rebounding – but his disruptiveness around the rim has always lagged behind his competition.
When Vucevic contests the shot, opponents shoot 64.9% at the rim, while he averages 65.6% against others – a paltry 0.8% difference that reflects the negligible impact the center has made with his close defensive efforts. Tre Jones and Patrick Williams are the only players on the Bulls roster to allow a high rim shooting percentage.
But this is not a new thing. Throughout Vucevic’s career, there has been an average of just a 0.1% difference between opponents when the center contests a shot at the rim versus when he does not. He faced only 42.7% of the total shots in his field over the last 15 seasons and blocked only 2.2%.
Vucevic made modest improvements at the height of his career – dropping this percentage to 53.6% on contested shots in 2018–19, the first season he was named an All-Star – but that number increased to 62.5% in his last season in Orlando.
This year’s team may have exposed Vucevic’s weaknesses more prominently and painfully — but little has changed about the center’s defensive presence. And while the center isn’t helping the Bulls become a better defender, he also isn’t the only source of this flood of shots at the rim.
“If we want to do this right, we’ve got to defend as a team,” guard Josh Giddy said. “It can’t all be on one man.”
That doesn’t mean the Bulls wouldn’t benefit from a defensive stopper in the post. This team can’t get better without rim protection, a fact that has already plagued this roster in the early weeks of the season. This need should define how the Bulls approach the draft and trade market next summer after Vucevic’s current contract expires.
But right now, the Bulls have to focus on what they have in the post.
When he first arrived in Chicago, Vucevic was not comfortable in the offense. He felt a loss of control when the ball was not in his hands. Often, he would be stuck in the corner watching the drama as it was happening without him.
That dynamic changed last year. And this season, the Bulls are unlocking a better version of Vucevic by once again realigning their center of gravity around the big man.
Vucevic averages the 12th-most assists of any big man in the league and currently ranks tied with Nikola Jokic and Naz Reid for the third-highest 3-point volume among all NBA centers at 2.1 per game. And the center is only better in the moments that matter. The center has already hit two true game-winners this season and his shooting percentage from behind the arc has increased to 50% in clutch moments.
“He’s like the hubs, isn’t he?” White said. “We play through him at the top of the key. He’s our coordinator. He’s our leader. And obviously – he’s shown it – he makes big-time plays. He does a lot for this team. He’s extremely important to what we do, especially on the offensive end.”
Vucevic has found his rhythm as the Bulls have found their momentum.
On paper, an uptempo style might seem like an odd fit for the 35-year-old center. Vucevic can sometimes get lost when the game opens up too much, especially if the Bulls fail to control the ball in transition and resort to rim-running for many possessions.
Vucevic doesn’t want Donovan to run plays designed to create shots for him. After serving as the offensive focal point in Orlando for years, this is no longer the center’s comfort zone. But he can serve as a metronome for the Bulls, speeding up or slowing down the pace of the game by moving the ball through half-court.
Donovan has described Vucevic’s vision for the ideal basketball as almost utopic: a high-tempo, high-tempo formation that encourages the ball to swing quickly to create a balanced amount of opportunities for each player on the court.
“A lot of times if we get a little stagnant or we’re playing a little too fast, he’s a guy you can come back to who will take the ball and get it from one side of the floor to the other,” Donovan said. “He’s going to make it.”
But the defense needs to improve. Vucevic is not arguing about this. he knows it. The entire Bulls roster knows it.No amount of clutch scoring can change that fact. But at 35, Vucevic also understands that his fundamental identity as a defender won’t change.
The other players on this roster – Buzelis, Ayo Dosunmu and Patrick Williams – are still developing into the best defensive version of themselves. Vucevic is well past that point in his career, and that’s okay. The veteran understands that he can still improve the impact of his game by focusing on the small details that separate a good defensive performance from a bad one: eliminating mistakes, moving around more efficiently and keeping opponents off the offensive boards.
“In this game, in this league, the little details matter,” Vucevic said. “They add up. You can take two points here, two points there, and maybe six, eight points per game overall. But most games are decided within 10, five, six points. If you’re able to do that, it’s a big difference.”
Many athletes profess ignorance of online chatting, even though they read headlines and social media posts avidly. But Vucevic is openly online, the kind of guy who made jokes about looking for a home in Utah after being mired in trade rumors about Rudy Gobert for months.
So yes, Vucevic sees the tweets. The good ones, the bad ones, the one where one of his photos has been edited into a cigarette being held in his mouth. And while many athletes stay off social media during the season to avoid the toxicity of this outside noise, Vucevic remains remarkably unperturbed.
“Hey, it’s funnier than it is,” he said with a shrug, after spending an afternoon earlier this year expressing his disappointment at the recent “Gladiator” sequel to X.
There is a confidence that comes from clarity. Vucevic considers himself a player. And this year he understands his role more than ever.
Sometimes, that means stepping up as a hero, knocking down a 3-pointer as the shot clock turns bright red. In others, it means playing the role of the grumpy old man, taunting the youngsters on live television and chewing them out in the locker room after games. Vucevic accepts the responsibilities equally.
“I’ve been in this league for 15 years,” Vucevic said. “I’ve seen a lot of different situations. It’s normal when you’re a young player. It’s normal that you don’t know all these things. You don’t always understand what really happens. That’s what experienced guys are for.”
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