if a team collapses but nobody is around to see it...

we're still doing Bulls games? It's not even the new year?!?!?

In their typically hilarious fashion, the Bulls and Atlanta Hawks¹ put on another wild ‘basketball game’ with a truly historic finish. With a win probability over 99% at multiple points in the second half, the Bulls managed to lose the lead and then the game (by 8 points!) after giving up 50 in the fourth quarter to the Hawks.

Head coach and executive-whisperer Billy Donovan, who I think should get more credit (though more blame, too), put in his veteran pseudo-AllStar duo of LaVine and Vucevic back at the seven and a half minute mark with the team still up 16 points.

Let’s take a look at the bloodbath that followed:

One of LaVine’s makes in this time was his shamefully-identifiable unimpeded layups when the team was down 8 with twenty seconds to go.

I don’t know how Vuc was credited for zero turnovers, I suppose only because passes never got to him? He also received a technical for poutingly tossing the ball after he committed a foul.

Both, if looking at the box score, had productive games. LaVine had a massive 3rd quarter and finished with 37 (again, 2 should be stricken from the record). Vuc hit 7 of his first 8 attempts and finished with 19.

But, man, they are just losers. Or, to be more fair, they’re stuck on a losing team and not good enough to make that situation change. No hustle either, skip:

On the bright side, this doesn’t matter:

1. The unintentional tank is rolling and will have these lucky (either way) fluctuations. They’re not getting to bottom-4 (top odds) lottery and not going to win the play-in.

2. There is no ‘showcase’ to be had here with LaVine and Vuc. We, and far more importantly the rest of the league, all know who these players are. Would Zach look better (and look more interested) on a better team with less responsibility? Absolutely, but everyone knows this and it wasn’t a perception to be corrected. The question for trade suitors is whether they’d want to pay that kind of player $40M, and that isn’t changing. (And nobody wants the Vuc kind of player, for even half that)

What may matter, though not too much:

1. The ‘young guys with experience’ cohort isn’t doing much. Coby White rebounded from a rough first half to shoot well, but it’s just one game in a weeks-long downturn. Patrick Williams returned from injury a few games back but damned if you could even tell. Dalen Terry got the start in place of an injured Ayo Dosunmu to be the first defensive assignee on Trae Young, and wound up with nine scoreless minutes and 4 fouls. Josh Giddey and Matas Buzelis were out.

2. Devon Carter with an actual ‘showcase’. Carter hit 6 threes in his first quarter stint, and finished with a Bulls-career high of 26 points for the game. Like I said regarding Torrey Craig earlier this season, playing Carter has a legitimate chance of raising trade value because he is literally M.I.A. for most of the time, and this provides game tape that he can still contribute. Unfortunately that value would only get to, like, a second round pick, and Arturas Karnisovas has shown to be historically uninterested in those.

It’s not even January and this season has so clearly gone irrelevant. After LaVine declared his team was good, they’ve lost three straight (including another embarrassing home performance) and most fans either can’t see the game on TV and/or don’t want to (Bears were on…) and instead merely look up the score, point to their temples and say “tank win, smart”. Most reporters covering the team - I’m shocked that both the Sun-Times and Tribune sent reporters to Atlanta - are not doing much more analysis than that. They’re certainly not calling for anyone responsible to face consequences, it would disrupt the comfortability of this whole situation.

And this aimless drift is not changing anytime soon. They’ll play some good teams and lose, and some bad teams (or good teams resting players) and win. There’s probably no trades until mid February, in the meantime it’ll just be looking to see if any young players develop, or veterans get hurt. I don’t think we’ll have to look too hard, I’ll poke when there’s anything interesting.

1. Atlanta is patient zero for this AKME disease where they think their Bulls are competitive. They’re only competitive against the Hawks! And Atlanta has so much more talent and will have a better finish this season, it dupes AKME into thinking they’re as good.