Going into this year’s edition of the popular basketball simulation, I had originally believed NBA 2K23’s ratings would be kind to the Chicago Bulls after a bounceback year that saw the team earn a pair of All-Star bids in Zach LaVine and DeMar DeRozan, an All-Rookie Team selection with Ayo Dosunmu, and even an All-NBA nomination for DeRozan.
Unfortunately, I couldn’t be more wrong. Several members of the Chicago Bulls have been docked points to their rating from where they finished last year, with not a single player earning a ’90’ overall rating or higher.
15 players around the league earned a 90 or higher, clearly indicating the consensus opinion around the league is that the Bulls lack a true star that could lead Chicago to a championship. Even aside from Chicago’s All-Star duo, 2K seems overall dismissive of the talent on this roster.
Despite the fact Michael Jordan graces the front cover, NBA 2K23 couldn’t be more wrong about how good these current Chicago Bulls are.
2K has four current Bulls players ranked among the top 100 players in the game. DeRozan and LaVine occupy the 19th and 23rd spots respectively, while Nikola Vucevic is ranked No. 59 and Lonzo Ball comes in at No. 73. Somewhat surprisingly, Andre Drummond is rated as Chicago’s fifth-best player and also just barely misses the cut.
After that, the roster’s ratings as a whole are a trainwreck. The Bulls’ backcourt takes a big hit, as Alex Caruso, Coby White, and Dosunmu have all been demoted one point when common sense says they should all be even better next season. Dosunmu’s 76 overall rating is particularly egregious, as he just earned All-Rookie honors. Fellow All-Rookie Second Team guard Josh Giddey posted roughly equal stats to Dosunmu (and was dominated by Ayo in head-to-head matchups) as a starter but received a far superior 82 overall rating.
Rookie Dalen Terry has also been assigned a ridiculous 71 overall rating, which puts him below even the likes of former Bulls Matt Thomas, Denzel Valentine, Troy Brown Jr., and Tomas Satoransky. Three of those players aren’t even on an NBA roster, and the fourth is a minimum “prove it” contract and will soon join the other three if he doesn’t step up in a big way.
I don’t expect Terry to come out and light things up right away, but putting Dalen below these players is pretty ridiculous, all things considered.
As a whole, 2K has rated the Chicago Bulls in “Tier 2”, which means they aren’t among the league’s top 10 teams. Ironically, the Lakers are one of those 10 teams in Tier 1, in spite of how messy their roster construction has been over the last two years.
Ultimately, Chicago’s 2K rating obviously has no bearing on how they’ll perform as a team. Still, it’s quite frustrating for fans who were looking forward to playing as their favorite team that so many talking heads in the national media seem to have no clue about what’s going on with these Bulls.