Nikola Vucevic and the Chicago Bulls are looking to bounce back after what was a frustrating 2022-23 campaign. Although Vucevic and his teammates all put up respectable enough individual stats a season ago, Chicago ultimately found themselves losers in the NBA Play-In Tournament, missing out on the playoffs altogether.

Now, Vucevic is speaking out about some of the criticism he and his teammates have received.

“All the negativity I’ve seen has been on Twitter … well X now,” said Vucevic, per Joe Cowley of the Chicago Sun-Times. “And honestly, for me I can understand it because people expect what I was doing in Orlando. But I don’t have that same role, I’m not utilized the same way, don’t have the same amount of touches or the touches where I was getting previously.”

Vucevic has indeed seen his usage rate go down considerably since being traded from the Orlando Magic to Chicago, where he now shares the floor with volume scorers Zach Lavine and DeMar DeRozan. Despite having no realistic avenues to improve enough to compete in the Eastern Conference this season, Chicago's front office elected to run it back with the trio for 2023-24.

While DeRozan, Lavine, and Vucevic are all very solid pieces, they've shown little ability to coexist as a cohesive unit, especially with point guard Lonzo Ball injured and out of the lineup. Few will predict Chicago to make much if any noise heading into 2023-24. However, it seems that Vucevis is prepared to do his part to help make the most out of the Bulls' questionably-constructed roster.