In his latest mailbag, Mike McGraw shed a little more light on the locker room eating incident.

To recap, Vinny Del Negro added a team rule this season about not eating in the locker room pregame. He’s trying to preach accountability and professionalism, and that rule is probably meant to emphasize that players should be getting ready for the game when they’re at the arena and eat dinner before getting on the bus.

The players I talked to seemed annoyed by the rule and getting fined. Players eating in the locker room before games is a very common sight in the NBA; including the visitors locker room at the United Center. Ninety percent of the time, it’s chicken tenders, by the way.

Maybe more players were eating in New Jersey because the quality of hotels available in East Rutherford aren’t quite what they’re used to in other cities. So while Vinny sees this rule one way, the players wonder why they’re not being treated like adults. I’m sure everyone will get over it. I’ve heard Del Negro tries to go out of his way to communicate with the players and not hold any grudges.

Of course, a sidebar to this story is that this stuff is usually kept private, but someone chose to leak the news. I would imagine the Bulls have a suspect in mind and have already been trying to trade him.

Seems like a silly rule to institute given Ben Gordon has been eating peanut butter and jelly sandwiches before games throughout his career. Eating in the locker room has nothing to do with a lack of professionalism. It is actually but of the players pre-game preparation. They need to get some food in their body so they have energy to go out and play.

Also, if you couldn’t guess it, Larry Hughes is most likely behind the leak.