Bulls starters Nikola Vucevic and DeMar DeRozan have tried to keep Chicago’s ship steady during the season’s rocky ride.
CHICAGO — The first sign that this season was going, um, different for the Chicago Bulls came at the very start. After a 124-104 drubbing by Oklahoma City on opening night at United Center, the locker room stayed closed afterward for a players-only meeting.
That’s right, a tactic most often deployed in the depths of a losing streak or during a dreary midseason lull got unsheathed one game in.
Panic? Accountability? Reactions bracketed the moment — it was either a very bad sign or a very good sign — and frankly, that’s how this season has gone ever since for the Bulls.
Lots of bad stuff. Some pretty good stuff. Significant injuries for several players, notably Zach LaVine and Patrick Williams. Considerable development from others, particularly Coby White and Ayo Dosunmu. An early five-game losing streak, followed by a four-game winning streak.
Average it out and it explains where the Bulls sit today: At 30-32, they have sought their level once again and that level is the Play-In Tournament. Heading into their game at Golden State Thursday (10 ET, NBA League Pass), they sit ninth in the Eastern Conference, 5 1/2 games out of sixth and 5 out of 11th.
Neither terrific nor awful for more than a night or two at a time, Chicago has won the first two on its four-game West Coast trip. Which fits, because it hasn’t won or lost more than two in a row for the past two months.
“It started off like a great soap opera, you know what I mean?” veteran wing DeMar DeRozan told NBA.com recently. “We’re still going. It’s all about how you finish.”
The Bulls seem headed toward a finish remarkably similar to last season. Then, they were 28-34 after 62 games but used a decent finishing kick (12-7) to bump from 11th to 10th in the East. They went to Toronto to win one Play-In game, then to Miami where they had the Heat in trouble until the final minutes.
What Miami did from there last spring, playing its way to the NBA Finals, helped legitimize the Play-In. There’s more sheen to it now, too, thanks to the powerhouse teams and big-name stars — the Sacramento Kings, the Dallas Mavericks, the Golden State Warriors, the Los Angeles Lakers – clumped around that possibility in the West.
Few NBA players start their season eyeing the Play-In as a goal. After a few months of grinding, though, with each thrill balanced by a setback (and vice versa), through all the time spent on the road and in trainers’ rooms, even a taste of the postseason in a Game 83 and maybe 84 can start to look good to many.
“As far as the storyline, it’s always something new,” DeRozan said. “This definitely has been a unique situation. With all the injuries, the ups and downs to start, people in and out, it’s been a helluva story.”
Coby White is one of only six NBA players this season to get 35 points, 5 rebounds, 5 assists, and 5 threes on 70% FG in a game this season.
(Doncic, Curry, Brunson, Banchero, Ingram) pic.twitter.com/Ig8Gw0LF62
— Chicago Bulls (@chicagobulls) March 5, 2024
That players-only meeting, for the record, didn’t help much. The Bulls went 5-14 through Nov. 28, suffering a crushing 124-97 loss to Boston in their final In-Season Tournament group game. Yet even as LaVine went out for the entire month of December, they won nine of 14 games that month and 21-13 to the All-Star break.
Since then, they are 4-3. Still stuck in the middle, but better off than they might have been.
Asked recently how he would define “success” this season, Bulls coach Billy Donovan said: “Everything that we’re focused on right now, quite honestly, is just going each day, try to get better each game.
“To me, you always want particular results. You’re always going to be measured by that. But the biggest thing to me is, are we doing the things that this group can do? Considering that [since training camp] in Nashville, our team has drastically changed. We’re just not the same team we were.
“That’s OK. Other guys have had opportunities to step up.”
October seems a long time ago. The Bulls already knew they would be without point guard Lonzo Ball, again, with the playmaker and defender suffering through multiple surgeries on his left knee, his career in doubt since getting shut down in January 2021.
LaVine was a two-time All-Star who also finished strong in 2022-23. But a slow start this fall brought criticism about underperforming his $215 million contract. And when he opted for foot surgery weeks before the trade deadline, speculation that he might be moved got snuffed.
Then it was Williams. Largely a disappointment since Bulls VP of basketball operations Arturas Karnisovas made him the fourth overall pick in 2020, the 6-foot-7 forward got shut down Feb. 23 for left foot surgery.
Torrey Craig and Jevon Carter, role players who barely scratched fans’ itch for offseason acquisitions, also have missed time, topped by Craig’s 29 absences in two different stints.
Center Nikola Vucevic, who signed a contract extension last summer, has been performing at his career averages (save for a drop to 27.6% on 3-pointers). DeRozan continues as Chicago’s best player, an All-Star in his first two seasons and a near-miss in his third. Ace defender Alex Caruso generated serious trade interest at the deadline, but when it passed, he, DeRozan and veteran center Andre Drummond all still were Bulls.
Andre Drummond and Ayo Dosunmu have provided valuable minutes for the Bulls.
That hasn’t been bad. DeRozan still is a clutch go-to scorer and exemplary leader averaging 23 points and, at 34, a league-high 37.8 minutes. Vucevic and Drummond have given Donovan a two-big option that paid off in a 74-39 rebounding edge in the recent double-OT victory vs. Cleveland. Caruso is a crowd favorite on a value contract.
The bright spots from within have been White and Dosunmu. White, the seventh pick in 2019, worked himself into a potent shooter, has blossomed with more playing time and should get consideration in Kia Most Improved balloting. Dosunmu built himself up physically, is hitting nearly 50% of his shots and 40% of his 3-pointers and averages more than 14 points per 36 minutes.
Business, of course, is good. Chicago, with its cavernous United Center, again ranks No. 1 in average crowd size at 20,379. The franchise was valued by Forbes as this season started at $4.6 billion, sixth in the NBA. That was up more than 10% over the previous year and a bit more than the $16 million owner Jerry Reinsdorf and partners paid in 1985. So fans keep showing up.
Still, Karnisovas’ and general manager Marc Eversley’s stated goal for this team to be “competitive” frequently gets cited now with a smirk. Standing pat more or less since their flurry of activity in the summer of 2021 has led, well, to this. Nothing too high, nothing too low.
“I kind of embrace it,” DeRozan said, “It’s tough. We can make every excuse in the world, not having a star player, not having another key young piece, not having our point guard for the second year straight. There are so many things you can bring up.
“But these guys have been resilient, finding a way. Coaching staff has been great. We’re just sticking together, trying to push through. Anything can happen.”
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Steve Aschburner has written about the NBA since 1980. You can e-mail him here, find his archive here and follow him on X.
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