The Bulls Are Back or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Being Decent
A history of what happened after The Last Dance
I grew up as a spoiled basketball fan. Born in the suburbs of Chicago in 1990, my earliest memories of watching the game are the Chicago Bulls leaving their competition in the dust en route to their second three-peat. Michael Jordan was king, Dennis Rodman was a cult hero, and when I would get my haircut, I’d ask the barber to make me look like Steve Kerr. It was an idyllic basketball childhood.
My world came crashing down as the Bulls dynasty unraveled. Michael Jordan, Scottie Pippen, Phil Jackson, and even my beloved Steve Kerr all left town. Jerry Krause finally got his long-awaited rebuild. The results were disastrous, especially for me as a young fan who didn’t understand team-building. Even if I did understand team-building, I’m not sure I would have been much happier. I grew up watching the Bulls routinely win well over 60 games in a seasons; in the three whole seasons following their collapse, they would win 45 games total, while tallying 169 losses.
Often times when a team goes through that sort of a multi-season losing skid, there is good news on the horizon; the young players the team acquired while picking near the top of the draft are developing, and there is hope. With the post-Jordan Bulls, that was not the case. Instead, the team began a rebuild-within-a-rebuild, a re-rebuild if you will. They traded their best young player, future two-time All-Star and Second Team All-NBA power forward Elton Brand to the Clippers for the number two pick in the 2001 NBA Draft.
Thus began the Baby Bulls Era, which brought me the most depressing memory of my basketball life. I was at my grandparents’ house one night, and the Bulls were on TV. My grandpa was always more of a football guy, and told me that he didn’t think he’d watched a Bulls game since Michael Jordan retired. Wanting to catch up on the last several years, he asked me, “Who’s their best player these days?” I responded, “….I guess Ron Mercer?”
Eventually, the Bulls became a winning team again. Despite struggling as a rebounder and defender, Eddy Curry became a polished scorer with soft touch around the basket. Tyson Chandler never turned into “The Next Kevin Garnett” like he was billed coming out of high school, but he was a solid bench defender who brought up intensity and energy. Kirk Hinrich embodied the lunch pail work ethic that midwesterners love to tell you they have. Ben Gordon was an absolute bucket off the bench. Loul Deng came into the league a ready-made contributor thanks to his intellect and savvy. Antonio Davis and Othella Harrington provided a veteran presence. Andrés Nocioni played with an unmatched determination, constantly diving for loose balls and grabbing rebounds he had no business getting. Eric Piatkowski was also a professional basketball player who was on the team. The 2004-2005 Bulls were a breath of fresh air. Head Coach Scott Skiles had them playing a gritty, in-your-face style of basketball that the fan base had been craving. Skiles also gained a great deal of favor with the general public by calling out subpar efforts from players. Famously, when asked how Eddy Curry could be a better rebounder, he answered, “jump.”
Although their initial playoff campaign flamed out with a first round exit, the sun was shining brighter. The Bulls would be back the next year, but meet a similar fate. The year after that, they would finally win a first round series, defeating the defending champion Miami Heat squad in four straight games before bowing out in the second round.
During the 2008-2009 season, however, the bottom fell out. Scott Skiles’ intense, aggressive style had worn on the team, and he was fired after a brutal start to the season. Jim Boylan (remember that name for later!) took over as interim coach and couldn’t right the ship. It had also become clear that while the Bulls had drafted well, they had hit numerous singles and doubles, but no home runs. The true “team” feel that sprung out of the Baby Bulls had grown stale, as there wasn’t a lead superstar who could put the squad on their back. Some nights Ben Gordon could do it, but he was limited defensively and never performed as well as a starter. One good thing came out of this frustrating season, though; the ping pong balls were on our side, and the Bulls acquired the number one pick in the NBA Draft during that year’s lottery. They would use the pick to take hometown star Derrick Rose, and yet again, a new era had begun in Chicago basketball.
The Bulls reconstructed the roster around Rose, who entered the league as an elite point guard out of the gate. Management also kept a tight leash on the coaching front, and fired Vinny Del Negro when it became clear he wasn’t cut out for the job. In his place, they hired Tom Thibodeau, a man heralded as a defensive guru and helped orchestrate the Boston Celtics’ defense during their 2008 NBA Championship run.
It once again felt like a wave of basketball magic had washed over the city. The 2010-2011 season was special. Derrick Rose truly broke out, leading the team to a 62-20 record and winning the league’s Most Valuable Player award. Free agent acquisition Carlos Boozer provided a secondary scoring option. Loul Deng and Joakim Noah continued to progress, slowly adding more tools to their game. Kyle Korver was a lethal sharpshooter who could inject a scoring punch off the bench. Keith Bogans started all 82 regular season games for some reason. It was a blast! Much like the Baby Bulls breakout squad, the city identified with this group of players; that feeling was intensified by Derrick Rose being a local product.
Unfortunately for the city of Chicago, the Bulls peak ran concurrent with the LeBron/Wade/Bosh era for the Miami Heat. The two teams met in the Eastern Conference Finals, and an overmatched Bulls team was sent packing. At the time, it felt palatable. This was only the beginning. Derrick Rose was young and on the rise; surely, we would be back.
During the lockout shortened 2011-2012 season, everything was going to plan. The Bulls locked up the number one seed in the east, which would be crucial for when they inevitably re-matched the Heat in the Eastern Conference Finals again. Except…the Bulls didn’t get that far. Derrick Rose tore his ACL at the end of the Bulls’ first playoff game. Without him, the team was lost offensively, and they dropped the first round series to a mediocre 76ers squad. The Bulls would never get back to the Eastern Conference Finals. What we thought was the beginning was actually the end.
Derrick Rose would miss the entire next season, but the Bulls held steady. When Rose came back, he wasn’t the same. The man who once attacked the basket with reckless abandon and floated through the air, contorting his body to convert difficult layups was gone. In his place was a timid, tentative player who lacked burst. Rose shot under 36% from the floor before suffering a meniscus tear after only playing 10 games.
Thankfully, a previous late first-round draft pick in Jimmy Butler started to emerge as a solid player. Joakim Noah also proved to be more than just a defensive specialist, adding a quirky ball-handling and passing element to his game that was exceptionally rare for a center. The Bulls brought in free agent Pau Gasol to try and bolster their roster in the 2014-2015 season, and that same year Jimmy Butler broke out as a legitimate leading man. Unfortunately, Derrick Rose never got back to his peak form. The Eastern Conference Finals remained out of reach.
The next year, changes were afoot. Tom Thibedeau was given the boot by Bulls management despite being considered one of the best coaches in the league. There were valid criticisms of Thibs, namely that he would play his stars way too many minutes during regular season games, and there would be nothing left in the tank when the playoffs rolled around. Sadly, it seemed like the bigger reason for his firing was the petty organizational, namely his feud with lead decision makers Gar Forman and John Paxson (collectively known as GarPax). Fred Hoiberg was hired in his place. Hoiberg was a former Bull who had succeeded as a coach at Iowa State running a modern, well-spaced, fast-paced offense. His first year was a rocky one, though. Joakim Noah was decimated by injuries, and management had seen enough. The organization began to pull at the threads of the team, and another rebuild felt imminent.
Thankfully, in Jimmy Butler, the Bulls had a centerpiece for their rebuild. Management also came out in strong support of Fred Hoiberg, proclaiming that they would use the off-season to get younger and more athletic, fitting the scheme Hoiberg ran at Iowa State. Management followed up on this promise by…bringing in a past-his-prime Dwyane Wade and Rajon Rondo. Hoiberg needed young, fast shooters to surround Butler; he was given two older players who couldn’t shoot and wanted to dribble the air out of the basketball. For reasons that I’ve never understood, the Bulls also gave their low-end back-up center Cristiano Felicio a 4-year, $32 million dollar contract. The season ended with a 41-41 record and a first round playoff exit.
GarPax then decided it was time to rebuild in earnest, shipping out Jimmy Butler to the Timberwolves for Zach LaVine, Kris Dunn, and a pick swap in that year’s draft. LaVine was an exciting dunker with low feel for the game and horrid defense. Dunn was 23, trying to bounce back from an awful rookie season where he played good defense but couldn’t do anything on offense. They used their draft pick on Lauri Markkanen, a sweet shooting tall dude who was too slow to guard forwards, and also lacked the subsequent rim protection skills to play center. The team stunk. The next season, they drafted Wendell Carter, a skilled center out of Duke. Unfortunately, he never showed the projected range on his shot to stretch the floor, and he was constantly battling injuries. The team stunk again, so Fred Hoiberg got fired. In his place, they brought in Jim Boylan, a wannabe hardo who had previously failed as an interim coach for this same team, and also did tacky stuff like setting up a punch clock. He ran players into the ground, and the team quickly turned on him. GarPax responded by giving him a contract extension. With the seventh pick in the draft for seemingly the 30th year in a row, the Bulls drafted Coby White, an exciting guard out of North Carolina. While Zach LaVine got notably better in all areas and morphed into an All-Star, Wendell Carter was always hurt, Lauri never improved, and Coby White struggled to make reads as a point guard. The team felt stuck.
Finally, the public had seen enough. “Fire GarPax” became a popular mantra, rearing it’s head in chants at games, trending on Twitter, and appearing on billboards. Ownership had to step in and send the two packing. Their petty drama drove away the team’s best coach since Phil Jackson, and kept the worst coach in the league at the helm for far too long. They failed to take chances, secure superstar talent, or build coherent rosters. The Butler/Wade/Rondo debacle, and subsequent trade of Jimmy Butler (who would later lead the Miami Heat to the NBA Finals) should have been the last straw. Good organizations would have let them go years before the Bulls did. Instead, the cronyism that was rampant within the team was on full display.
Artūras Karnišovas was brought in to take their place and Billy Donovan was hired as head coach. While AK was new to being a Vice President of Basketball Operations, he’d been successful with the Denver Nuggets, and Billy Donovan could at the very least be an adult in the room as a coach. Karnišovas showed some guts in his first draft, taking Patrick Williams with the fourth overall pick, despite Williams having been a reserve at Florida State in his lone college season. The gamble paid off, as the skills Williams flashed as a defender and decision maker were real. That said, the team was still struggling. Karnišovas swung for the fences again, trading the oft-injured Wendell Carter and Otto Porter, along with two first round picks, to the Orlando Magic for All-Star Center Nikola Vučević. Sadly, Zach LaVine came down with COVID right as Vučević came to town, and the Bulls didn’t even make the play-in tournament.
Karnišovas wasn’t done, though. In his first off-season, he stayed aggressive. He made a sign-and-trade deal with the Pelicans to acquire Lonzo Ball, nabbed Alex Caruso away from the Lakers, and made another sign-and-trade deal to acquire DeMar DeRozan. There were some frustrated with the approach, mostly centered around the hefty price tag and assets associated with the DeRozan deal, and that’s certainly fair to be concerned about. Still, I feel most of the sentiment has been positive. Fans are excited. After years of a lazy front office that never took chances, went back on their word, and propped up a coach that everyone knew wasn’t working, the new approach is beyond refreshing. The Bulls could strike out again, but I’m sick of striking out looking. I’d rather strike out swinging.
I haven’t seen anyone predict a championship run for this Bulls squad, and that’s because as the roster is currently constructed, it is not a championship level team. That’s been another source of criticism; what is the path to contention? To me, it’s demonstrating competence. A lot of NBA folks these days seem to think the only path is tanking to acquire stars, or clearing your cap space and signing big name free agents. Fans here are tired of losing, so the first strategy would be dicey. With the second strategy, why would anyone want to come play here after the organizational malpractice that has occurred over the last decade? The Bulls need to show players and agents that they are a smart, trustworthy organization. This is the path that allowed the Brooklyn Nets and Los Angeles Clippers to become contenders after being average teams that were secondary options in their respective media markets.
Here’s the biggest thing for me, though; my life won’t be materially different in any way if the Bulls win a championship in the next five years. It would be awesome if they did, and I’d be really excited about it; I may even shed a tear. While more and more media coverage has been centered on the premise that every single move has to be about taking a step toward winning a championship, only one team can actually win the title each season. Wrapping yourself fully in the “title or bust” cloth is a great way to set yourself up for disappointment. I’m not saying you shouldn’t have hope, or you shouldn’t want your team to win. What I am saying is that personally, I love basketball. I love the game being played on the court. And my greatest memories of basketball have little to do with the moments where the Bulls hoisted up trophies. Instead, I remember Dennis Rodman soaring out of bounds to save a loose ball, and later Andres Nocioni doing the same; Ben Gordon going on ridiculous hot streaks and being unable to miss from three; Derrick Rose spinning through traffic, launching himself into the air, and finding an impossible angle to fit the ball through to convert a lay-up; Joakim Noah leading a fast break with poise as a 7-footer; Zach LaVine throwing down breathtaking dunks. What I really want…is to watch basketball that doesn’t suck. I want to watch the Bulls play good basketball that captures my imagination; to feel like the players on the court are doing things I could never fathom being able to do myself. I just want to be able to enjoy the product on the court, and this off-season, the Bulls took steps to make that possible once again.