CHICAGO -- Jimmy Butler thought about the question for a second, repeated it to himself to buy some more time and still couldn't come up with a solid answer.

What is the single biggest issue facing the struggling Chicago Bulls after dropping their fourth straight game, a 115-94 embarrassment to the Houston Rockets on Friday night?

"I don't know," Butler said.

"I think everybody's trying to play their role. It's hard because we are playing a lot of guys. Night in and night out you don't know what it's going to come down to. Who is going to play what minutes with what lineup. I think that's hard. We've just got to keep playing, man. No matter what your role is on any given night, you've got to be a star within that role. It's tough. I'm not going to say it's easy, but everybody's got to be ready."

There was no joy on the Bulls bench during Friday's embarrassing loss to the Rockets, a scene that has become common in Chicago. AP Photo/Nam Y. Huh

There are so many issues facing the Bulls right now that it would be hard for anyone to pick just one, but let's try to work through some of the layers:

First and foremost, the roster just isn't very good. Since the beginning of the season, the roster felt like a puzzle that didn't fit together. Dwyane Wade, Rajon Rondo and Butler haven't found much of a rhythm together. But what has become even more pronounced after a trade-deadline deal that sent Taj Gibson and Doug McDermott to the Oklahoma City Thunder is that the rest of the roster simply doesn't have enough consistent talent to compete on a nightly basis.

Bulls coach Fred Hoiberg used 12 players over the first 13 minutes of the game Friday night and still couldn't find any answers. Niko Mirotic, whom the Bulls hoped could earn a starting spot out of training camp, didn't see the floor for the second consecutive game. Jerian Grant, the Bulls' starting point guard for much of the last two months, was 0-for-5 from the field. Joffrey Lauvergne, one of the players the Bulls acquired from the Thunder, was 1-for-6 from the field. Cameron Payne, the centerpiece of the Bulls' deal with the Thunder, looks like he could use some time in the D-League.

Wade acknowledged that it is difficult for players, especially young ones, to deal with the constant uncertainty surrounding the rotation. As a 14-year veteran, he knows it's his job to play with whichever players are on the floor, but his admission strikes at the heart of much of the confusion the majority of the roster feels regarding Hoiberg's substitutions.

"It's tough because guys don't know how many minutes they're going to play," Wade said. "Jerian played two minutes, came out; mentally it's tough for guys as well. When you've got younger guys doing that, it's hard to bring them back.

"But we stick with it, man. We're a team. We win together. We lose together. No matter who Coach puts out there on the floor. We've just got to be prepared for -- he's trying to figure it out. It's tough for the [coaching staff] as well, with making the move at the deadline and trying to figure out guys, who to play. So we've got to take some lumps. And it's a part of it, it's a part of the youth movement."

Bulls executives Gar Forman and John Paxson put Hoiberg in an unenviable position at the deadline regarding that youth movement. They traded away the most respected player in the locker room, and the most dangerous, albeit inconsistent, 3-point shooter in McDermott, for a player in Payne who doesn't appear to be NBA-ready.

The line between good and bad was thin to begin with, given the roster's initial construction. Now, after the trade, the talent gap is even more pronounced between Butler, Wade and everybody else. The roster problems belong to Forman and Paxson because they are the architects trying to build a team that can compete, while also trying to rebuild on the fly.

Butler admitted that the process was both "different" and "difficult," but held to a similar stance as Wade in that the Bulls have to stick together as the season winds down. When Wade was asked after the game if he had signed with the Bulls to be on a developmental team, he drew a laugh from the assembled media.

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"I'm not getting in trouble no more," Wade said, failing to take the bait.

What has become more pronounced in this latest streak isn't just that Hoiberg can't settle on a rotation, given the inconsistencies of the roster Forman and Paxson put together. It's that Hoiberg's messages simply aren't getting through to his team. Hoiberg said after the game that he felt the Bulls had their best shootaround of the season Friday morning. The fact that they responded in such embarrassing fashion, coming off their worst defeat of the season in a Wednesday loss to the Orlando Magic, makes it even more difficult to see the progress that Forman and Paxson tried to sell recently regarding Hoiberg's perceived improvements in his second year.

The Bulls are a mess for many reasons, but the group has shown no reason to believe Hoiberg is the right long-term answer for this job. Younger players have regressed under his watch, while Butler, Wade and Rondo never seemed to click with the coach and relay his direction to their young teammates.

The Bulls players look lifeless on the bench many nights. The unity that was within the group earlier in the year was shattered weeks ago after Wade and Butler's public comments questioning the group's work ethic.

With the loss to the Rockets, the Bulls fell out of the eighth spot in the Eastern Conference, a half-game behind the Milwaukee Bucks. They've got a coach the players don't seem to believe in and leaders, in Wade and Butler, whom some of their teammates don't seem to respect or trust. And the problems are compounded by the fact the Bulls' front office can't decide which direction it wants to go.

Instead of rallying around each other down the stretch, the Bulls look and sound like a group that is falling apart. And everybody involved deserves blame for that.