Chicago Bulls: Is pushing for the playoffs the right move?

Despite having an immensely disappointing season, the Chicago Bulls are only 3.5 games out of the playoffs. Is pushing for the playoffs the right move or should they tank?

Calling the 2019-20 season a disappointment for the Chicago Bulls would be a massive understatement. In the eyes of many, the Bulls came into the season as a darkhorse playoff team and at the very least, a really fun League Pass team. 54 games into the season, they’re still competing for that playoff spot, but they’re one of the least fun teams to watch. The product they’re putting out on the floor every night is a miserable excuse for a professional basketball team.

In a league that’s all about offense, the Bulls are 28th in offensive rating at a dismal 105.2. Some of that can be chalked up to injuries. Missing Otto Porter Jr. — the best wing player on the team, a solid playmaker in the pick-and-roll and an elite floor-spacer — for the majority of the season definitely hurt. It’s a small sample size, but the Bulls had a 111.3 offensive rating with Porter on the court during his nine games this season.

Not all of the offensive woes can be blamed on injuries, though. Part of the blame needs to fall on Jim Boylen.

Can the coach make shots for the team? Of course not. That’s on the players. But it’s the coach’s job to design a system that puts the players in position to knock down high-percentage shots. Boylen isn’t doing that.

When you watch the Bulls’ offense, there’s a lot of standing around, waiting for someone to make a play. That might work on the Rockets. They have an all-time isolation player in James Harden and a pretty solid isolation player in Russell Westbrook. But that doesn’t work on most teams.

Check out this play that Stephen Noh of The Athletic pointed out from the Bulls-Kings game in January:

The LaVine-Felicio two-man game with Kris Dunn, Coby White and Thaddeus Young hovering on the 3-point line is going to get something close to zero points every single possession. If you replace Felicio with either Wendell Carter Jr. or Lauri Markkanen, that’s better, but there still needs to be more action off the ball from the other three guys.

The dysfunction of this season leads to the question: Should the Bulls keep pushing for the playoffs or should they join the tanking pool?

In some recent years, this type of Bulls season would warrant an all-out tank, but this year is different. The Bulls absolutely should not tank. They need to keep pushing for the playoffs.

The 2020 draft class is incredibly weak. It’s often compared to the 2013 draft class, the one where Anthony Bennett, Cody Zeller, Alex Len and Nerlens Noel were all drafted in the top six. There were some good guys to come out of that draft, and there will be some good guys that come out of the 2020 draft, but it’s hard to predict who those guys will be. There’s no Zion Williamson or Ja Morant in 2020.

The weak 2020 draft class is only a small part of the reason why the Bulls should avoid tanking, though. The biggest reason is they need to learn how to win.

Winning in the NBA is tough. It’s not something that just happens. Guys like Zach LaVine, Lauri Markkanen, Wendell Carter Jr., and Coby White don’t know how to win yet. They need to play in every game possible, learning how to play four quarters of solid basketball and how to make winning plays down the stretch in close games — both on offense and defense.

With Porter, Markkanen and Carter hopefully returning to the court soon, the Bulls still have a chance of making the playoffs. If they do slide into that eighth seed, they’ll promptly get blown out by Milwaukee in four games. If they don’t grab the eighth and final spot, they’ll drop into the lottery and learn a lot of lessons on the way.

The outcome of the season doesn’t matter much. What does matter is that the Bulls try to win every game to the best of their ability. That’s what will help them in the future — not tanking.