In 2021-22, the Chicago Bulls finished the season with a record of 46-36 but lost 15 of their final 22 contests, backed into the playoffs with the No. 6 seed and lost in five games to the Milwaukee Bucks in a first-round series.
In 2022-23, the Bulls went 40-42 and made the Eastern Conference Play-In Tournament with the No. 9 seed but didn't advance to the playoffs.
In 2023-24, Chicago finished the year 39-43, again good for ninth best in the East and good enough for a play-in tournament berth. They failed, again, to advance to the playoffs.
You should be sensing a theme here.
Vice President of Basketball Operations Arturas Karnisovas and General Manager Marc Eversley have been unbelievably reluctant to escape mediocrity. They've been more content finishing with a near-.500 record, surely with the knowledge that their team had no chance of legitimate playoff success.
Why the franchise won't cut its losses is beyond comprehension.
One simple fact—but a totally believable one—shows just how frustratingly dumbfounding this Bulls regime is.
Chicago Bulls haven't made a trade deadline move in three years
Somehow, even as average as their team has been since 2022, Karnisovas and Eversley have chosen to stand pat and not make any trade deadline deals, whether to improve the roster or begin to tear it down.
Per Darnell Mayberry of The Athletic, they've been painfully indecisive:
"With three weeks remaining until the trading deadline, questions are beginning to swirl around the Bulls of whether the franchise will be active at all. Chicago hasn’t made a deadline deal in the past three seasons, opting instead for a stale status quo."
It would be borderline criminal and certainly franchise-crippling if the Bulls go a fourth season without making any deals at all, let alone deals of significance. Chicago will send its first-round pick in the 2025 draft to the San Antonio Spurs unless it lands in the top 10.
With exactly three weeks to go until the deadline, the chances of keeping that pick aren't looking great.
It sure would look much more promising if the Bulls move Zach LaVine, Nikola Vucevic, Lonzo Ball, Coby White, Ayo Dosunmu or any combination of the five. Based on the front office's recent trade deadline decisions, however, that seems like a lot to expect.