{"id":768016,"date":"2022-12-09T15:46:26","date_gmt":"2022-12-09T20:46:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.slamonline.com\/?p=768016"},"modified":"2022-12-09T15:46:29","modified_gmt":"2022-12-09T20:46:29","slug":"taj-gibson-on-the-love-he-gets-from-chicago-bulls-fans","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.slamonline.com\/news\/nba\/taj-gibson-on-the-love-he-gets-from-chicago-bulls-fans\/","title":{"rendered":"Taj Gibson On &#8216;the Love&#8217; He Gets From Chicago Bulls Fans"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/www.slamonline.com\/the-magazine\/knicks-taj-gibson-giving-back-to-fort-green-brooklyn\/\" data-type=\"post\" data-id=\"728724\" target=\"_blank\">Taj Gibson<\/a> left the <a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/www.slamonline.com\/nft\/artist-keezerfeld-releases-nft-honoring-90s-chicago-bulls\/\" data-type=\"post\" data-id=\"748639\" target=\"_blank\">Chicago Bulls<\/a> in 2018 and has bounced from team to team over the past few years. This year, he&#8217;s hooping for the <a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/www.slamonline.com\/nba\/kristaps-porzingis-shines-in-washington-wizards-debut\/\" data-type=\"post\" data-id=\"740102\" target=\"_blank\">Washington Wizards<\/a>. No matter what jersey he is wearing, Chicago never forgets to celebrate his return to the United Center.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Drafted in the first round of the 2009 NBA Draft, Gibson remained with the Bulls for 8 years. While he may not have put up all-star statistics in Chicago, averaging 9.4 points and 6.4 rebounds, his value and legacy to the franchise are palpable.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Gibson enjoyed special moments in the United Center, playing alongside all-time Bulls greats Derrick Rose and Joakim Noah. The 37-year-old was a consistent contributor during the Bulls&#8217; 62-win and conference finals season in 2011-12 and during the 2013-14 season when he was runner-up for Most Improved Player (averaging 13 points and 6.8 rebounds). <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Hard-working and loyal, Gibson was a steady supporter, a confidante, and a respected leader in the Bulls\u2019 locker room. One of the most beloved players by coaches, teammates, and fans, Chicago never fails to make Gibson feels special during his \u201chomecoming\u201d games.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;The love stays the same. The love gets better and better every time\u201d, Gibson said Wednesday after losing 111-115 in Chicago, per <a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/www.msn.com\/en-us\/sports\/nba\/former-chicago-bull-taj-gibson-relishes-the-love-every-time-he-returns-to-the-united-center\/ar-AA155dPy\" data-type=\"URL\" data-id=\"https:\/\/www.msn.com\/en-us\/sports\/nba\/former-chicago-bull-taj-gibson-relishes-the-love-every-time-he-returns-to-the-united-center\/ar-AA155dPy\" target=\"_blank\">MSN<\/a>.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Despite the loss, Gibson had a special feeling being back in United Center while Bulls fans gave him love.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-twitter wp-block-embed-twitter\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\"><p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">In a better world, Taj Gibson would have spent his entire career on the Bulls<\/p>&mdash; Ricky O&#39;Donnell (@SBN_Ricky) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/SBN_Ricky\/status\/1600683094163324929?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">December 8, 2022<\/a><\/blockquote><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>The vet returns to Chicago on February 26th.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Taj Gibson left the Chicago Bulls in 2018 and has bounced from team to team over the past few years. This year, he&#8217;s hooping for the Washington Wizards. No matter what jersey he is wearing, Chicago never forgets to celebrate his return to the United Center.&nbsp; Drafted in the first round of the 2009 NBA [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":492,"featured_media":768027,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[62697,18,63826,62493],"tags":[13005,267,371,1979,105],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-768016","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-chicago-bulls","category-nba","category-news","category-newswire","tag-chicago-bulls","tag-derrick-rose","tag-joakim-noah","tag-taj-gibson","tag-washington-wizards"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.slamonline.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/768016","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.slamonline.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.slamonline.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.slamonline.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/492"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.slamonline.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=768016"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.slamonline.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/768016\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":768109,"href":"https:\/\/www.slamonline.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/768016\/revisions\/768109"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.slamonline.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/768027"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.slamonline.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=768016"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.slamonline.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=768016"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.slamonline.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=768016"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.slamonline.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=768016"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}