Now that the Chicago Bulls sit solidly atop the Eastern Conference, the conversation has shifted from whether or not the Bulls are a playoff team, to whether or not this team can compete for a championship. Although their offseason decisions garnered much criticism from many corners of the NBA media world, the Bulls have clearly overcome the adversity and proved they are here to stay.
While there’s still more than half the season to be played — and the standings are sure to shift greatly between now and the postseason — it’s becoming a little clearer as to who is who among the Eastern Conference’s top teams.
If the NBA playoffs were to begin today, two Eastern Conference teams from last year’s playoffs would be forced to enter the play-in tournament, while another pair of teams would miss the playoffs outright (including last year’s Eastern Conference finalist Atlanta Hawks).
This is yet another indication that the balance of power has shifted even further from the West to the East, as multiple new teams — including the Bulls — have made their presence felt.
The Bulls have started the season scorching hot, racing out to an impressive 26-10 record and building a solid lead of 2.5 games over the second-place Brooklyn Nets. Perhaps most reassuring of all, Chicago also leads the conference in victories over teams with a winning percentage of .500 or higher. They currently hold a 10-6 record in these games, with a handful of these losses being attributed to the COVID-19 outbreak the Bulls suffered earlier this season.
With the Chicago Bulls looking increasingly like genuine contenders, which teams would they match up best against in the playoffs?
That being said, the Bulls are not alone in their rise to prominence, as rival teams like the Cleveland Cavaliers, Toronto Raptors, and the Charlotte Hornets have all emerged as serious postseason threats to the incumbent Eastern Conference contenders of last year.
With so many talented teams in the East right now, it’s no easy task determining which ones the Bulls are best equipped to take on in the first round of the NBA Playoffs. Regardless, it’s a task we’re determined to resolve.
Assuming the Bulls finish with a top-four seed, we can expect them to have a home-court advantage in the playoffs against a lower-seeded team. For the sake of this experiment, we’ll also be excluding the Milwaukee Bucks, Brooklyn Nets, and Miami Heat from the conversation as they currently hold the other three top seeds in the conference.