In the season's final stretch, the Bulls are a NPC

how to find meaning in meaningless games

It’ll be almost a calendar year since this blog was jettisoned from SBNation, and one of the benefits I’ve enjoyed in regained independence is there’s no external expectation for content. I can’t even count anymore the yearly streak the Bulls have sustained in having interest dwindle as the season went on, to where even the baseline expectation of covering every regular season game was a chore. So this season I’m back to writing about what I find interest in, and it’s clear “Bulls games” are not inspirational.

I wrote this exact same thing last week, struggling to find meaning in these remaining games.

In terms of pure record, all that’s plausibly making a material difference the rest of the way is whether they can fall to 10th to where there’s no choice for the paying customer to support this franchise with a home postseason matchup.

Deeper “meaning” beyond that is hard to fathom, because what means something to a reasonable person means something different to Arturas Karnisovas. AK reads too much into everything, especially late regular-season NBA, and almost always learns the wrong lessons. He propels a longstanding organizational philosophy that it’s better to be gritty than great.

It’s dismaying that someone so incapable is at the wheel of this thing, to where we can’t even have shared rooting interest. Yet they’ve successfully lowered the bar to where there’s also no hope of things being so bad to where there’d be a management change.

It turns out that having no direction or laudable goals really makes things difficult to interpret! They opted out of the buyout market, signaling they’re not that interested in being the best possible 9th seed they can be. They are playing a style totally antithetical to their preseason aspirations of getting out of 2002. There wasn’t any retool (let alone rebuild) at the deadline, so the only reason any young players are getting a chance is due to the injuries piling up.

So, really, nothing to even think about when it comes to this team. Both good or bad, I’m similarly assuming Jevon Carter will be unbroken next year. I don’t begrudge anyone who enjoys the entertainment product (even paying for it: it’s a fun night out!), but I will begrudge anyone who suggests there’s meaning here.

The Bulls are not difficult to predict or “weird”. They’re actually more predictable than most teams due to never changing their roster and (in an earnestly praiseworthy trait) rarely giving up.

pictured: Sean Kilpatrick doused by Justin Holiday

So while not teaching us anything new, the Bulls can possibly supply meaning for the other franchises in the league. The organizations who are actually trying for something and who we’ll be watching in May and June.

It’s clear league-wide coverage reflects this. The latest Lowe Post podcast with Nekais Duncan has like an hour on the East's middle/lower class, giving a great ten minutes on every team....except the Bulls (and Nets). Even the Raptors received more interest because they are at least trying a younger/different team in this stretch run. Dunc’d On featured the Bulls win over the Cavs last night, but only in the context of what it means for Cleveland, and how their struggle against a steadily-mediocre Bulls team (including an outright choke job in OT) could portend for another playoff flameout. More casual observers like myself can more simply put the Pelicans and Timberwolves on #FraudWatch (joining the Bucks from earlier this season, we’ll see how they do under their new coach Friday). Better teams lose all the time in the NBA, it’s only AK who doesn’t understand there’s schedule context necessary, especially late in the season.

Bulls fans don’t have similar concerns, their best case scenario is a stomping at the hands of the Celtics. So I guess we’re to instead use these games as some scouting for the playoff teams. But not any of their players, as we don’t actually change the roster anymore.