After 15 tries, the Chicago Bulls search could be over

The Chicago Bears are feeling good with the arrival of Caleb Williams. The franchise has hopefully found the signal caller they have dreamed for after decades of failed attempts. Hopefully, this will be the last year that fans have to endure the graphic on Sunday afternoons that would show the painful number of quarterbacks the team has rolled out over the last 30 years.

Just down the road on Madison street, the Chicago Bulls have faced an eerily similar situation the last decade and a half. In 2008, the Bulls were able to beat the odds and secure the number one overall pick and select Derrick Rose. In a few short years, the Bulls would have their best stretch as a franchise since the Jordan era. The Bulls faithful thought this would be a long period of success, but ultimately the peak of the D-Rose era was all too brief.

In 2012 , the Bulls finished with top seed in the Eastern conference and was gearing up for another long post season run to unseat LeBron James. The plan abruptly ended when Derrick Rose suffered his first knee injury just one game into the playoffs against the Philadephlia 76ers.

It's one of the biggest what-ifs in recent NBA history and Rose's injury created a hole that the Bulls have not been able to fill.

The Chicago Bulls search for a point guard continues

The struggle from that point on to find the franchise point guard has been real. First, there was the hope that Derrick Rose would return to his MVP form and make the Bulls a contender again. They tried to piecemeal the situation by bringing in the likes of CJ Watson, Kirk Hinrich (again), Nate Robinson, DJ Augustin and Aaron Brooks with the hopes that D-Rose would return to the helm at some point.

After the Bulls decided to move on from Rose, they have had one play caller after another run the show, but none would hold the position too long. This list would include Rajon Rondo, Michael Carter-Williams, Kris Dunn, Denzel Valentine, Ryan Arcidiacono, Tomas Satoransky and Coby White.

In 2021, the Bulls committed $80 million to Lonzo Ball to solidify the position that had turned into a revolving door. The first real attempt to find a long-term solution to the point guard position since the drafting of D-Rose. Arturas Karnisovas was aggressive in building a team that he believed made sense. He brought in Nikola Vucevic and DeMar DeRozan to accompany Zach LaVine with Lonzo Ball to run the show. In theory, the plan was logical and seemed like it would work.

However, much like Derrick Rose, the Ball era started with great promise with the Bulls jumping out to the best conference record in Janaury of that year. That would be the only time that core would represent the Bulls as one of the league's best. We are all too familar with what comes next and the Bulls inability to be perform at a consistent level over the last three years.

With the loss of Ball, the Bulls have operated with DeMar and LaVine becoming ball dominant guards while they attempted to fill the positions with a combination of Coby White, Alex Caruso, Ayo Dosunmu, Patrick Beverly, Goran Dragic and Jevon Carter.

The Bulls have started 15 different point guards since the Rose injury 2012. When Karnisovas decided to trade Alex Caruso for Josh Giddey it really should have not been that shocking to the fan base. The front office attempt to try and find a solution to a long term problem should be a primary objective. There is debate whether Giddey is that player to give the keys to the offense, but he does represent the second substantial commitment to the position since 2012.