As if the team's internal issues aren't enough, Chicago Bulls forward Jabari Parker was sent back to their hotel after sustaining a stomach illness. The Bulls are in Oklahoma City and will play the Thunder on Monday night.
K.C. Johnson of the Chicago Tribune tweeted out this development:
Jabari Parker was at the team's morning meeting at the hotel and on bus to shootaround but team sent him back to hotel after they arrived at arena when his stomach illness worsened.
Parker is just the latest of numerous members of the organization to fall ill after last week's trip to Mexico City.
The Bulls are in a swirl of a mess at this point of the season, and Parker is in the middle of it all. The 6-foot-8 scoring forward hasn't improved on defense like Chicago hoped he would when it signed him in the summer. With Lauri Markkanen and Bobby Portis recently returning to the hardwood, Parker has lost his spot in the rotation and is on the trading block.
Still, the Duke product is just 23 years old and has shown enough to make people believe that his injury history could be ignored for now. Parker is averaging a career high in the rebounding department with 6.9 per game this season. On top of that, he is putting up 15.2 points and 2.3 assists per game.
While it's safe to say that we should not expect anything more from him on the defensive end, what's alarming is Parker's measly 29 percent shooting from beyond the arc. It's a disappointing rate in today's pace-and-space flow of the game.
Follow Us
Subscribe