The Bulls didn't win, but were draft lottery winners
another 'generational talent' heads to the Western Conference, and not to a team in their 39-win competitive tier
The Bulls didn’t win the lottery and are picking in the most likely outcome of a slot: 12th. It was telegraphed very early in the season that such mana from heaven would be a longshot, and then more clearly communicated through words and actions in the post-TradeDeadline season that the team valued ‘playing in meaningful games to develop winning habits’ versus ping-pong balls.
But they were somewhat vindicated because number one overall went to the Western Conference (AGAIN) and none of the top 3 went to any of the teams threatening them in their ambitions to get to the top of the bottom rung of the bottom conference1.
As a reminder, the Bulls tanking strategy (or lack thereof) wasn’t worth scrutinizing simply on the merits of the strategy. There are multiple ways to get great players. It’s that the Bulls are run by the worst front office in the league, so those other, more skill-requiring, avenues were already closed off. They needed the lucky path.
And not just because they are bad at their jobs but cravenly trying to keep them, AKME has tried to convince the fanbase that it’s not about the difficulty in getting a star player, it’s actually that they don’t need a superstar at all, at least to achieve their big dream of being early round JV conference playoff fodder with potential to encounter injury luck.
The ultimate question is, well: how dumb are the Bulls, or how dumb do they think we are, to believe this is good enough? But then a lesser question is even if you take their dumb mission statement at face value: how much farther along are they than other teams?
Recall that part of AK’s employment-can-kicking was to insist that they were looking for players aged 25 and younger to be in this core. This conveniently adds Coby White to Matas Buzelis, and (I suppose) Josh Giddey. They can perhaps add one more this year, as they did get Buzelis at #11 last year. But I wouldn’t consider it a likely outcome: the Bulls were somewhat lucky in that Buzelis fell to them AND he looked so promising in year one.
ranking young cores on rebuilding (ahem: “in a roster transition”) teams
Pelicans - Zion Williamson (25), Trey Murphy (25), 2025 #7 pick2
Hornets - LaMelo Ball (24), Brandon Miller (23), Mark Williams (24), 2025 #4 pick
Hawks - Dyson Daniels (23), Onyeka Okongwu (24), Jalen Johnson (24), Zaccharie Risacher (20)
[can add whatever they’d get in a hypothetical Trae Young deal?]Raptors - Scottie Barnes (24), RJ Barrett (25), 2025 #9 pick
[Pretty much entirely a “do you think Scottie Barnes is that good” question3, as Barrett is just meh, and their other ‘young guys with experience’ have graduated out of AK’s arbitrary range as Immanuel Quickley is about to turn 26]
Blazers - Scoot Henderson (22), Deni Avdija (25), Shaedon Sharpe (22), Donovan Clingan (22)
[this is a lot of 'hope trafficking with Henderson. But really they’re in the West, so, like the Pelicans are doomed regardless of this goofy ranking]Wizards - Alex Sarr (20), Kyshawn George (21), Bilal Coulibaly (21), 2025 #6 pick
[very close to the Bulls, with this year’s pick putting them over]Bulls - Coby White (25), Josh Giddey (23), Matas Buzelis (21)
Jazz - Keyonte George (21), Walker Kessler (24), 2025 #5 pick
[example of AK deserving credit for not screwing up last year: Jazz took Cody Williams one pick ahead of Buzelis, but Williams looked so bad as a rookie he doesn’t make this subjective cutoff. Same with Charlotte taking Tidjane Salaun #6 that year.]Nets - 2025 #8 pick
[they do have a lot of lower picks, future picks, and cap space so they’re in pretty good shape, but they don’t have any players I see as making this list, closest being Cam Thomas (24) and Noah Clowney (21)]
This doesn’t mean the Bulls will be one of the worst teams in the league, though I think they will be pretty terrible. Because the 2026 draft is supposed to be loaded, too, and tanking is an organizational strategy, expect these teams that lost out this year to try again. We know the Bulls won’t, and though it could happen by accident it’s not likely that they finish behind a team trying to lose.
No, if things move along to AKME’s “plan”, the Bulls should be in the bottom ten but not bottom four, and we will see after the 2026 draft how many other teams look to leapfrog them while they run in place.
But this year and this draft did not see that happen. Bulls got ‘em right where they want ‘em: with a similar amount of lottery failure but less competitive integrity.
Sixers will leapfrog them, but were going to do that regardless (or at least try)
From what I understand from those smarter than me, the consensus on this year’s draft has shifted from 3 top players to just one, and then a dropoff to the next tier and another drop to a tier of 4-10. I’ll just guess that by virtue of showing something and still being very young, Buzelis would be in the top-10 in this draft roughly?
I really like a Barnes-for-Giannis idea for both teams
You can always count on AK to learn the wrong lessons from any given scenario, and this month is providing him with a buffet of poor takeaways.
A Pacers vs. Knicks ECF should tell him that the East is wide open, so it’s time to stop aiming for mediocrity and actually build a contending team.
Instead, he’s going to ignore that Haliburton and Brunson are great, and say “Indy and New York don’t have stars and weren’t top seeds, yet they made the conference finals! That could be us!”
The Mavericks winning the lottery should be a gut punch for him since he could have had better odds than them if he would have accepted his fate at the trade deadline and pivoted towards focusing on the offseason.
Instead, he’ll say “See? A play-in team won the lottery! There’s no reason to not be happy about the play-in!”
Who needs elite rosters or top picks? We’ve got a 39-43 three-peat to win!
these lottery results on top of the season-long Lillard and Tatum injuries...the league has to step in and ban conferences
I get the motivations for the second apron (suppress 2-4 teams payroll) but it's really goofy that there aren't injury considerations. Milwaukee and Boston will own very large disabled player exceptions that they can't use. Seems like an oversight by players association to not at least get this as a small carveout. I don't think that can be renegotiated, but banning conferences is not part of the CBA.