A roundup of the latest Chicago Bulls news, featuring an interesting draft lottery simulation (and why wouldn't the Bulls do this), Mac McClung's recent award and a frightening Matas Buzelis incident.
We simulated the draft lottery five times ... and the Bulls are still the Bulls
Luckily for Chicago, an out-of-nowhere 23-point win over the Milwaukee Bucks on March 1 didn't derail the pursuit of the No. 1 pick in the 2026 NBA Draft.
At 25-37, the Bulls have the ninth-best odds — 4.5 percent to be precise — of earning this year's top pick. They have about a 1-in-5 chance (20.3 percent) of selecting in the top four.
If you want to be positive about it, the Dallas Mavericks, who landed the No. 1 pick last summer, had a 1.8 percent chance of doing so. The year before, the Atlanta Hawks won the lottery with a 3.0 percent chance.
(If that's too rosy for you, the Bulls and Mavericks finished with identical 39-43 records last year, but Dallas won a tiebreaker and ended up with the pick that became Cooper Flagg).
With the help of Tankathon, we simulated the lottery five times. Here are the results:
- Lottery sim 1: Bulls stay at 9
- Lottery sim 2: Bulls stay at 9
- Lottery sim 3: Bulls jump to 2!
- Lottery sim 4: Bulls stay at 9
- Lottery sim 5: Bulls stay at 9
Staying put with exactly no movement, up or down, is a totally Bulls thing to do. But there is that 1-in-5 chance of vaulting into the top four, and in this case, it happened.
So you're telling me there's a chance.
Mac McClung wins G League Player of the Month for February
Bulls executive VP of basketball operations Arturas Karnisovas made some questionable moves at this year's trade deadline (at least he did something), but one move that flew under the radar was his acquisition of G League legend and three-time NBA Slam Dunk Contest champion Mac McClung.
Karnisovas signed McClung to a two-way deal, and the thinking seemed logical: the 27-year-old is a former G League MVP who has nothing more to prove at that level, and the Bulls are a rebuilding team with time and roster space to spare.
Well, McClung just earned G League Player of the Month honors for February, averaging 33.0 points, 4.0 assists and 2.0 steals. Chicago is 2-15 in its last 17 games and has a lengthy injury list that includes several guards.
Yet for no apparent reason, McClung is still toiling away with the Windy City Bulls instead of getting experimental minutes on a team going nowhere.
Matas Buzelis injury shows Bulls they stand to lose more than games
Buzelis, Chicago's 21-year-old franchise forward, has turned a corner over the last few weeks.
In five games between Feb. 21 and March 1, Buzelis averaged 20.4 points, 6.2 rebounds, 2.4 assists, 1.0 steals and 2.0 blocks while hitting 3.4 threes per game. So, of course, he sprained his ankle in a matchup with the Oklahoma City Thunder.
The injury isn't serious, but it gave the Bulls a glimpse of what would be their worst nightmare over the final few weeks of the season.