On some level, Chicago Bulls fans probably wish their team was worse off. If their obvious cultural fissures were deep and intractable, instead of just the naggingly average holes that they are, maybe somebody important would start losing their cool, and loudly. Then we’d be in for something more impassioned than what the Bulls offered this year. Instead, a C-minus effort offers just enough evidence for the team to say that they’re passing, and keep moving in their current direction. It wouldn’t be the end of the world if they did so this offseason, but stasis at this point would definitely send many fans—who briefly brought their basketball spirits back alive for this franchise, in the Fall of 2021—right back into hibernation.
Since that great resurrection of Bulls optimism, Chicago has gradually returned to form as a place of lowered hardwood expectations. When their season ended on Friday, at the hands of the Miami Heat, no one who regrettably spent dozens of their evenings watching the latest iteration of the Bulls was surprised by what they saw. A glaring strategic advantage was available to Chicago, but inexplicably ignored: Nikola Vucevic was 6-for-9 in the game, but ball-handlers looked away from him when he had position in the post nonetheless.
The Heat, knowing they lack the size to guard Vucevic, aggressively fronted the big man all night long; they knew, also, that the Bulls are mostly incapable of recognizing the best place to butter their bread, and at making incisive entry passes. Vucevic appeared apathetic and defeatist about his lack of touches, which is typical. By now he knows what we know, which is that when things get tight for the Bulls, DeMar DeRozan and Zach LaVine will take turns trying to be Goku, and that the team will win when one of them can pull it off, and lose when they can’t. If their scoring margins were consistently higher, it might be different—but the Bulls are the worst three-point shooting team in the NBA, so they get into these crunch-time spots more often than not. That’s how it went, yet again, during the Bulls’ final indignity of the season. The mercy of these brutally predictable losses coming to an end, at least until October, is appreciated.
It’s unclear if we’ll see the team in its same shape, come Fall. The front office offered few specifics during season-ending press media availability, which is typical for an organization that now prefers to operate behind the scenes, and give little to reporters. For all the bad luck and design defects of the team during this new era, begat in 2020, there is at least that: a constant professionalism, contrasting greatly with what came before it. But, again, the die-hards grow tired of such buttoned-up stuff. Accustomed to something more bloviating and woundedly self-important from both their sports front offices and their elected officials, Chicago fans seem ready for more drastic, freewheeling affairs. Something more alive.
It probably won’t get too noisy in these parts, though. A subtler, incremental approach is more likely. Among the bigger possible changes, trading DeRozan seems most logical. His proclivity for long dribbling sessions that lead to deep two-pointers is the central ingredient in their losing offensive formula, and everyone in the league knows the Bulls aren’t going anywhere without attempting more three-pointers in 23-24. No team could benefit more from an influx of one-skill players, who can launch from deep without hesitation, if nothing else. Little will improve until their mid-range austerity makes way for a jubilee of three-point lasers.
Elevating Coby White, who the Bulls will probably retain in restricted free agency this summer, should help. Patrick Williams, heading into this third season, will need to add serious volume from beyond the arc to make the most possible money in a “prove-it” contract year, so the motivation is there for him to help his team in this way. But they need to bring in shooting from outside the roster, too. Wherever it comes from, more respectable spacing could allow LaVine to fully blossom and show the world that he’s in the 100th percentile of scoring slashers. That action is made better by screens from Vucevic, so if he leaves in unrestricted free agency, the Bulls will need someone else for LaVine to run pick-and-rolls with.
If they nail it, the Bulls will top out around where they landed last year: just good enough to avoid the play-in. There are scenarios, defined by the extreme luck essential to every title contender’s story, in which they exceed this outcome. But they are too implausible to take seriously. They will remain in the middle, which is hellish to many, but it need not be—a decade ago, Bulls fans found joy in this place, because they loved the team’s inspiring characters; their medium-sized triumphs, the brief but indelible dazzles of their Sisyphean quest. The 2023 version of the team is not drastically worse than that one, but it has failed to plant such a pole in the heart of its city. Championship contention is not coming to Chicago this summer, but a return to the vigorous, winter-busting essence the 21st century Bulls have sometimes carried is an attainable goal, and one worth hoping for.
