The Chicago Bulls head into the final few weeks of 2024 with a 12-15 record. That's just good enough to put them into the Eastern Conference Play-In Tournament and give the franchise a solid chance at losing a top-10 pick in the 2025 NBA Draft.
In other words, right where the Bulls have been the last few seasons, stuck in NBA purgatory. Except this year, that mediocrity could be cataclysmic to Chicago's future.
Losing the chance to pick near the top of the draft would rob the Bulls of a shot at landing a star who could change the franchise's future and pull them out of this constant averageness.
The opportunity to finally trade Zach LaVine is reportedly on the table.
Whether Chicago's asking price for Nikola Vucevic lowers and the team decides to let him go is to be determined.
The question of whether to tank or not to tank is more relevant than it has been at any point in the last few seasons.
Five of the Bulls' six remaining December games could force the front office to finally lean completely in one direction or another, whether that's cave and trade players for an unideal return or hold on and continue to fool itself into the notion that tanking while remaining competitive is a realistic strategy.
Bulls next 5 games could make or break the future
Chicago's next handful of games come against three of the hottest (and, frankly, best) teams in the NBA right now:
- Thursday, Dec. 19: At Boston Celtics
- Saturday, Dec. 21: Vs. Boston Celtics
- Monday, Dec. 23: Vs. Milwaukee Bucks
- Thursday, Dec. 26: At Atlanta Hawks
- Saturday, Dec. 28: Vs. Milwaukee Bucks
That's back-to-back contests against the defending champs, who have the second-best record in the league. It's also consecutive contests against a team that fires up threes, makes a good chunk of them and doesn't turn the ball over.
That's a recipe for disaster for this year's version of the Bulls.
Another two games on that slate are against the recently crowned Emirates NBA Cup champion Milwaukee Bucks, who have won 13 of their last 16 and feature a seemingly extra motivated Giannis Antetokounmpo.
The "easy" game in this run comes on the road against the Hawks, who made the Cup semifinals before losing to the Bucks. Atlanta has won seven of its last nine games and has an endless supply of big wings, which the Bulls do not.
Can Josh Giddey, Coby White, Zach LaVine, Patrick Williams and Matas Buzelis slow down Trae Young, Jalen Johnson, De'Andre Hunter and Bogdan Bogdanovic? If Dyson Daniels holds LaVine in check, how will the Bulls score enough points? Well, they probably won't.
If Chicago wins more than one of these five games, it will be a small Christmas miracle. On the flip side, if they go 0-5, it wouldn't be a surprise at all.
Should the Bulls fall to 12-20 or even 13-19, they'd likely slide out of a play-in spot with less than six weeks to go before the trade deadline. With the Denver-LaVine link now in the ether, a postseason spot fading away and the need to finish with a bottom-six record to be certain its first-round pick remains in Chicago, the organization could finally be forced to reckon with the truth:
It's time to let go.