For the third straight season in 2024-25, the Chicago Bulls finished with a below .500 record. For the third straight season, they made the Eastern Conference Play-In Tournament. And for the third straight season, they were sent home by the Miami Heat without a playoff appearance to show for it. So it's fitting that they enter 2025-26 ranked as the 21st best team in the NBA, and, even more fittingly, 10th best in the East.
That No. 10 spot would allow the Bulls to sneak into the Play-In for the fourth consecutive campaign and continue the franchise's love affair with mediocrity.
Is it possible that Chicago follows the path often traveled and remains frustratingly average? Certainly. But there are reasons to believe this could be the season it finally breaks out of the monotony and into the playoffs for the first time since 2022.
Chicago Bulls ranked 21st in NBA preseason power rankings
With all 30 teams in full practice mode -- and with the usual early-season smattering of knocks, bumps and bruises -- there's no better time to make some preseason projections, which is what Andy Bailey of Bleacher Report aims to do, handing the Bulls the No. 21 spot.
Bailey cautions against taking Chicago's late-season surge too seriously, given the league's penchant for tanking over the final few months of a campaign. But, he acknowledges, a 15-5 record over the final 20 games and Josh Giddey's monster second half (averages of 21.2 points, 10.7 rebounds and 9.3 assists in his 19 games after the All-Star break) isn't nothing.
And he's right. It's definitely something. The question that the Bulls will need to answer this year is how much of something it really is.
Giddey is now the proud owner of job security and a four-year, $100 million contract. Coby White is finally fulfilling his desire to play the role of go-to scorer. Matas Buzelis, by all accounts, is not only expected to make a leap in his second NBA campaign but to prove why he's the future of the franchise. It's the second season for all three in head coach Billy Donovan's run-and-gun, helter-skelter, transition-centric offense, and all three have specific skill sets perfectly suited to execute it.
Chicago is still light in the frontcourt and lacks any kind of shut-down defender (although Buzelis and Isaac Okoro would have something to say about that) or rim protector. But there are enough pieces in place to presume the Bulls will be better this year than they were last year, which would put them on pace to blow past their expected win total of 32.5, and as Bailey admits, "threaten for a .500 record."