Looking back on the worst playoff team in Chicago Bulls history

In the entire franchise history of the Chicago Bulls, there is no worse team (purely in terms of win percentage) to ever make the playoffs than their 1967-68 squad. Led by the 1966-67 NBA Coach of the Year Red Kerr, the Bulls finished up the 1967-68 regular season with a record of 29-53 (.354 winning percentage).

That, ladies and gentleman, is good for the worst record of any Bulls’ playoff team in franchise history.

The next worst record that the Bulls ever had, purely in terms of winning percentage, that made the playoffs in franchise history came during the 1985-86 season with a record of 30-52 (.366 winning percentage).

Just for good measure, there are nine other teams in Bulls’ franchise history with better winning percentages than the 1967-68 team that didn’t make the postseason. That includes the 2015-16 team that finished with a winning record of 42-40 but still missed out on the postseason by just two games behind the division foe Detroit Pistons.

Looking back on the 1967-68 Chicago Bulls led by Flynn Robinson and Jerry Sloan

In 1967-68, the Bulls were playing in only their second season in existence. They made the postseason in their first year as an NBA team, but still only boasted a winning percentage slightly above .400.

With the NBA only having two divisions at the time (and more than half of the league making the playoffs each year), there were many teams that got in the postseason that didn’t really deserve to on paper. That came because four of six teams in each of the two divisions made it to the playoffs.

The 1967-68 season saw the Bulls have an especially bad Western Division. The three worst teams in terms of record that season were all in the Western Division. And the Bulls were the only one of the three worst teams in the NBA that season that made it to the postseason.

For their efforts during the 1967-68 regular season, the Bulls got to face a pair of then-future Hall-of-Famers in Jerry West and Elgin Baylor. During that regular season, Baylor and West averaged a combined more than 50 points, 18 rebounds, and around 11 assists.

Those two would really prove to have their way with the Bulls in a brief five-game series in the Western Division Semifinals where Chicago actually pulled out a measly one win.

This Bulls team did actually boast some pretty recognizable names that tried to put up a good fight against the Lakers in the first round of the playoffs, though. The Bulls had a future Hall-of-Famer in Jerry Sloan that was in his third season in the NBA.

Sloan had a bit of a down season during the 1967-68 campaign, which would come between the only two seasons where he was an All-Star during his playing days in the NBA. He was really held in check during that five-game playoff series with the Lakers, averaging just north of eight points per game while shooting 32.4 percent from the field.

That was not the Sloan that Bulls fans knew at the time, who was averaging around 17 points per game on 42 percent shooting from the field in the seasons before and after the 1967-68 campaign.

Two players that were a saving grace for the Bulls, though, during that playoff series were standout big man Bob Boozer and then underrated guard Flynn Robinson. Boozer was the better player of the two, though, entering the postseason at the time.

The latter of those two Bulls players was a saving grace who the team got in a trade with the Cincinnati Royals for a second-round draft pick and Gary Rodgers earlier in the season. Robinson was averaging around just eight points per game with the Royals in his first season or so in the league. Then, he would average around 16 points per game down the stretch in his first season in a Bulls’ uniform.

There would also be a saving grace that Robinson would provide for the Bulls in their lone playoff victory against the Lakers. Robinson came up with an insane 41 point game in the Bulls’ lone playoff win over the Lakers, which specifically came on March 27, 1968. The Bulls won that game by the final score of 104-98.

Robinson’s 41 points on an amazing 18-of-33 shooting from the field was enough to outscore both Baylor and West. He had what was one of the most memorable nights of his career.

This 41-point game from Robinson is one of the most important in franchise history. He put the team on his back for the first playoff win in the Bulls’ franchise history while having one of the best individual games in any postseason game for Chicago.

To put this in perspective, there are 41 times where a Bulls player scored at least 40 points in a playoff game. Of those 41 games, 38 belong to the all-time great shooting guard Michael Jordan. The other three belong to point guard Derrick Rose, shooting guard Ben Gordon, and Robinson.

Robinson is one of the two players in Bulls’ franchise history not named MJ to score at least 40 points in a playoff game and come away with the win. Rose is the other.

That is because when Gordon scored 42 points for the Bulls in an explosive night against the Boston Celtics in 2009, Chicago still fell short.

There are plenty of nuggets for Robinson’s career pertinent to this special 41 point day on March 27, 1968, against the Lakers. For one, Robinson would never score more than even 30 points in any other playoff game in his NBA career.

And the only title he would win would come just a few years later as a member with the Lakers in 1972.

It is also fun to note that Robinson’s title he won with the Lakers in 1972 would come playing alongside Elgin. Robinson is a native of Elgin, IL, which is just about a 45-minute drive outside of Chicago.

Moreover, this Bulls team in 1968 actually made history in a number of ways. It was the last of two seasons for Kerr as their head coach. This was the first time they reeled in a playoff win. And it saw the likes of Sloan continue to gain more postseason experience before this team could actually make more noise in the league with Bob Love and Chet Walker in the 1970s.

This was a scrappy Bulls team that probably shouldn’t have made the playoffs in 1968. There were a couple of teams in the Eastern Division that had better winning percentages than the Bulls by a decent margin. But the Bulls clawed their way into the playoffs before losing to the Lakers in one of many postseason matchups between these two teams.

The Bulls would go on to lose a lot of postseason matchups to the Bulls in the 1960s and 1970s. In fact, the Bulls would not actually win a playoff series until they downed the New York Knicks in the first round in 1981 in a two-game sweep.

In a number of ways, this 1968 team is historic for the Bulls’ franchise for both good and weird reasons.