The Chicago Bulls have lost eight of their last 10 games. In the past nine months, they've dealt away DeMar DeRozan, Alex Caruso and Zach LaVine, arguably their three best players.
Head coach Billy Donovan transitioned from a half-court, isolation offense centered around DeRozan to a high-paced, up-tempo, transition scheme led now by Josh Giddey, Lonzo Ball, Coby White and Ayo Dosunmu.
They drafted Matas Buzelis with the 11th pick in the 2024 draft, and the 6-foot-10 forward has earned a spot in the starting lineup and has shown real flashes of star potential. Giddey, meanwhile, has morphed into one of the best point guards in the league over the past month-plus. Truthfully, he's been one of the best overall players in all of the NBA since the beginning of February.
Unfortunately, the Bulls are still in an all-too-familiar situation—10th place in the Eastern Conference standings with a good hold on the final spot in the Play-In Tournament.
If Chicago does back into the postseason for the fourth year in a row, there's a chance the franchise becomes one of the most notorious in league history.
Bulls are on pace to make NBA history
Chicago has arguably become the league-wide example of mediocrity, and it might as well own the Play-In Tournament's logo as well.
In 2023, the Bulls finished with the 10 seed in the East and beat the Toronto Raptors before falling one win shy of the actual playoffs after losing to the seventh-seeded Miami Heat. In 2024, Chicago earned the No. 9 seed, again won its first game in the Play-In Tournament and, again, ended the year one game short of the playoffs after a loss to the Heat.
So of course the franchise would be on track to land the 10-seed. Again. And almost certainly not make the playoffs. Again.
If it happens, the Bulls could make the kind of history that would befit the franchise since it's been under the rule of Arturas Karnisovas and Marc Eversley. As John Hollinger of The Athletic points out, Chicago could become the first 50-loss team to make the Play-In.
As of Feb. 27, the Bulls are 23-36 and 1.5 games ahead of the 11th-place Brooklyn Nets. To avoid finishing with 50 losses, Chicago must go 10-13 over the season's final 23 games.
The Bulls are 2-8 in their last 10 and 1-7 since they traded LaVine.
Winning 10 games over the next six weeks seems like an impossible mountain to climb for this team. At the same time, the Nets, who are openly tanking, seem unlikely to bypass the Bulls in the standings. The Philadelphia 76ers, who are 2.5 games back of Chicago, are playing without Joel Embiid and with an injured and unproductive Paul George.
Everything appears to be shaping up for the franchise to suitably go down as the worst team in Play-In Tournament history.