CHICAGO – The Chicago Bulls are in an interesting position as we begin to hit the later stages of the season. The Bulls are currently in 10th place in the Eastern Conference, and they just traded Zach LaVine away. LaVine was their best player, so when that trade went down, it looked like Chicago might be looking to embrace the tank. That is something that fans in the Windy City have wanted, but it doesn’t look like that will end up being the case.

The Bulls made it very clear this week that they want to try to make a push for the postseason. Do the Bulls have the talent to make that happen? That’s a different story.

“When you have a roster full of players, you want to at least see what you have,” Bulls head coach Billy Donovan said to the media before Saturday’s Bulls-Warriors matchup. “Maybe it’s good, maybe it’s not. But like tonight, going into the game, I, from a coaching standpoint, from a playing standpoint, our guys are all in trying to compete and go out there to play. Now whether or not we’re good enough to do that and conform well enough, that’s something else. But the message is not, ‘hey, guys, we’re just going to play all these young guys and get them some experience and roll them out there and just see what happens.’”

At the end of the day, Billy Donovan doesn’t think that is the best way to go about things, and he doesn’t think it fosters a good culture.

“I just don’t think that that’s a good culture to necessarily have,” he continued. “I think you have a responsibility to the game, to fans, to each other to go out there and try to put your best foot forward and try to compete to the very best of your ability. And then you live with the results and you try to improve. But I think it’s really, really hard when you’re asking guys to go out there and compete and you’re really not interested in competing.”

The Bulls are trying to win and they are trying to make it into the postseason, but there is obviously no guarantee that they make it happen.