Nikola Vučević doesn’t always wear his frustration well.
The center knows it. He’s a bit of a hothead. When he gets mad — at the referees, at teammates, at himself — he’s known to rip a towel in half or aim a middle finger at the bench. He has to remind his eldest son, Filip, not to follow his stead of arguing with the officials in his rec soccer games.
But lately, Vučević’s frustration has become more acute.
It was a problem before the veteran center was benched in Friday’s road win over the Charlotte Hornets, spending the final 18 minutes, 58 seconds on the bench as backups Zach Collins and Jalen Smith anchored the fourth quarter to help the Bulls break a seven-game skid.
He’s the lone veteran on a roster otherwise committed to rebuilding around young talent. The team’s breathless pace of play sometimes leaves him behind. And in recent weeks, it has been hard to escape the question nagging at the back of his mind: What am I doing here?
“It’s not always easy, to be honest with you, when the team is struggling, when you are struggling, when things are not going your way,” Vučević told the Tribune. “It’s happened a couple times now and sometimes it’s hard. Those questions do creep into your mind and you think about it and you get caught into it, especially when things are not going well. I think it’s natural, it’s human nature, but you just have to find a way to limit it as much as possible.”
It doesn’t help that the question is often being posed to Vučević — by a fan, by a friend, by the media, even by his wife. And he knows this clamor will only get louder in the weeks leading up to the Feb. 5 trade deadline, and the Bulls should be major sellers after a disastrous start to the season.
Vučević doesn’t obscure his outlook on the future in Chicago. He has been bluntly open for months about his reticence to spend the final years of his career in a rebuild. At 35, Vučević has played in only 16 playoff games. He would like to increase that number — substantially — before he retires from the game.
For the most part, that desire for competitiveness hasn’t seeped into the center’s performance. He has missed only 27 games since being traded to the Bulls in 2021. He committed wholeheartedly when the Bulls completely revamped their style of play. And he recorded the best shooting season of his career last year.
But this season, there has been a disconnect. Sometimes, it’s fatigue. The Bulls were missing seven primary rotation players because of injury at one point. Even so, they are still attempting to maintain a rigorous pace of play that particularly challenges a center.
Bulls center Nikola Vučević (9) reacts on the floor in the second half against the Nets on Dec. 3, 2025, at the United Center. (Chris Sweda/Chicago Tribune)
And the problem is also internal. Vučević can feel himself struggling to engage. He’s tired of losing. He’s tired of feeling helpless on defense. And he’s tired of questioning whether he’ll even end the season in Chicago.
“I’m not going to sit here and be like, ‘Nah, it’s not happened to me.’ It has,” Vučević said. “You get frustrated and you shut down. But you try to regroup and find a way to stay locked in because we all have a part in this.”
When a game is going poorly for the Bulls, it’s easy to nitpick one consistency — the team’s lack of rim protection with Vučević in the paint.
This isn’t new. Vučević was not a defensive star during his decade with the Orlando Magic. The Bulls did not scout him in 2021 to improve their defense. But this season, the center’s greatest weakness has ballooned into a critical liability for the Bulls.
The Nuggets’ Nikola Jokić shoots over the Bulls’ Nikola Vučević on Nov. 17, 2025, at Ball Arena in Denver. (AAron Ontiveroz/Denver Post)
Vučević has never blocked shots at a prolific pace, but his resistance at the rim has plummeted to only 0.3 blocks per game this season. Opponents have made 66.4% of their shots in the restricted area with Vučević as the primary defender this season.
“He has not been a great rim protector,” coach Billy Donovan said. “He’s tried to play his verticals, but he’s not a shot blocker. He’s not a rim protector. It’s not who he is. In order for him to be productive in pick and roll, it’s a partnership between him and the guard.”
It might seem like a reflection of effort. When the center threw a lackadaisical pass straight into the chest of a Hornets defender. When opponents bound easily to snag an offensive rebound over the center’s outstretched hands. When he struggled to stay off his heels while attempting to keep in front of a player away from the rim.
Sometimes it is. But in reality, Vučević is struggling with a mix of lacking both skill and intention.
Vučević does not close out to open shooters on the perimeter. When he does, he gets blown by with apparent ease. The center has to play in drop to successfully navigate the pick-and-roll, which places a higher burden on guards to get into the ball and avoid getting stuck on the screen. If a screen creates separation and allows the ball to get below the guard, Vučević is in trouble.
In previous seasons, the Bulls could somewhat obscure this weakness with a stronger slate of defensive guards. But without players such as Alex Caruso and Lonzo Ball on the court, the weakest points of Vučević’s defense are on display every night.
“I’m aware that my defense is not my strength on the court,” Vučević said. “I try to do my best. There’s some things I’m good at, some things I’m not. I know when the team is struggling and we haven’t played well, some of it defensively I could have done better. I know that sometimes maybe I have a little bit of a bad rap about my defense in general. It’s just the way it is. What’s most important to me is talking to my coaches, to my teammates and trying to do the best I can.”
It’s not only defense. Vučević can’t contest the backboard with the same rigorous intensity as younger centers. He logs only 2.2 offensive rebounds per game, an output that’s too low for a team that desperately needs to create additional possessions for its offense. Smith and Collins still can’t match the purity of Vučević’s outside shot, but they wreak havoc on the interior.
Change might not be immediate for the Bulls. Donovan did not want to overreact to a couple of quarters — even if they resulted in the Bulls’ first win in almost three weeks.
“I wouldn’t want to take one game and sit there and say, ‘OK, after one game, we’re going to change everything.’ I don’t think that would be fair,” Donovan said.
But that doesn’t mean any rotation is set in stone. With all three centers available, Donovan is prepared to try different versions of two-big rotations with Smith operating at the 4, a different look that helps the Bulls combat opponents on the offensive glass. And both backups could be vying for increased starting and closing minutes in the coming weeks.
In the meantime, Donovan said he was encouraged by how Vučević reacted to his decision to sit the center in Charlotte, noting his positivity and encouragement as a leader on the bench.
This has been a consistent aspect of Donovan’s relationship with the veteran center. Even when Vučević is struggling internally, he seeks out his teammates and coaches with the goal of making improvements. During the most recent losing streak, Vučević requested a meeting with Donovan to discuss how he could help the team break out of its rut, focusing on solutions rather than frustrations.
“That’s not a guy that’s disengaged,” Donovan said. “There’s no reason for him to do that if he was disengaged.”
The Bulls still need Vučević. He’s the most veteran player on a young team craving leadership. He has been the most clutch shooter on the roster this season. And even if his future in Chicago doesn’t extend beyond this season, the center is still a key to consistency on offense.
But as the Bulls prepare for the next step of their rebuild, they might need to begin envisioning a new version of this roster — one without Vučević.