Bulls blurt out

There was no way not to do it this way, they thought, Chicago’s score was settled the second it gave up two first-round picks to Orlando in 2021’s Nikola Vucevic deal. This miscalculation cost the Bulls a lottery choice in 2021 and all of its senses in 2023, encouraging Chicago to keep it together the last two months of 2022-23, forcing them to make the best of a middling combination. It is a stretch which could haunt them for years.

Chicago’s hopelessness at the trade deadline — stuck ninth in the East, lottery pick overwhelmingly fated to fly to Orlando — forced the team to compete, to hope for the best in the Play-In, to make the most of the Nikola Vucevic era.

The Bulls coulda traded Vuc, a free agent playing his best ball in years, at the trade deadline. It coulda dealt DeMar DeRozan, an aging star the Bulls still owe a first-round pick for. Or Zach LaVine, who after re-signing for five-years, $215 million, and 410 games, had to ask out of the first two of those 410 due to knee soreness.