Chicago Bulls are destined for the play-in tournament -- again. Embrace it, ignore it, but don't fight it

Julia Poe, Chicago Tribune on Mar 8, 2025

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Well, the Chicago Bulls are back here. Again.

For a third consecutive season, it’s clear the Bulls are destined to return to the NBA Play-In Tournament. With Thursday’s win over the Orlando Magic, the Bulls stretched their lead for the No. 10 seed in the Eastern Conference to 3½ games over the Toronto Raptors and Philadelphia 76ers, still reeling from the loss of Joel Embiid and free-falling out of postseason contention.

Nothing has been clinched quite yet. Plenty can happen over the next 19 games. But the standings and standard of competition between the 10th team and the rest of the East are starkly obvious.

The Bulls are bound for the play-in tournament once again. Embrace it — or ignore it — but don’t try to fight it.

There’s no use left in debating the merits of an attempted tanking. The Bulls clearly won’t be able to accomplish that feat, which they have appeared uninterested in pursuing at any point this season.

And wasn’t this the plan? This is why the front office sought to regain full control of this year’s first-round pick when trading Zach LaVine rather than acquiring future draft capital. For whatever reason — the weakness of the conference, the competitiveness of players like Coby White, the power of small-ball basketball — the Bulls never committed enough to compete for a top pick in this year’s draft.

And these are the consequences: The Bulls have severely limited their chances of landing a truly valuable draft pick. By remaining 10th in the East — and eighth-worst in the NBA — the Bulls’ odds of landing the No. 1 pick in the lottery would be 6%. That could drop to 4.5% if the San Antonio Spurs fall below them over the final stretch, a likely scenario after Victor Wembanyama underwent season-ending surgery.

Sure, the No. 1 pick might have always been a pipe dream, but landing a top-four selection was considerably more doable. But the Bulls’ current likelihood of landing there is 26.3% — and, again, that could drop to 20.3% if they overtake the Spurs.

The general position within the Bulls front office has always been that these margins aren’t worth losing games over. Even this season, with a storm of hype surrounding likely No. 1 pick Cooper Flagg, the Bulls have never expressed urgency to improve their lottery odds.

It’s easy to look at a 1.5% difference and argue it’s worthless. The element of luck in the draft selection process often provides a conundrum to NBA executives, who are terrified of taking a major swing only to have their future determined by an unlucky bounce of a ping-pong ball.

Still, the difference between the No. 9 pick and a top-four selection is obvious — and a likely casualty of the Bulls’ approach to this season.

But again, there’s no use fighting any of this. The Bulls have cast their odds. This is how the season will end. Maybe luck will shine on them. Maybe it won’t. But the only way now to get any benefit out of the remaining games is to shift focus to the development of players who can provide both short- and long-term value.

Thursday’s win in Orlando was a testament to that effect. After an initial adjustment period, White is once again flexing his ability to be a do-everything guy for the Bulls, scoring a career-high 44 points in a thunderous late-game rally to clinch a win over a potential play-in opponent.

But the most promising sign for the Bulls was a small — yet significant — play from rookie Matas Buzelis.

Things have gotten harder for Buzelis, who has averaged 27.4 minutes in his first 12 games as a starter. But despite tougher defensive matchups and a handful of off shooting nights, Buzelis is beginning to show signs of becoming a true starting option — even as a rookie. Against the Magic, he took another step forward.

With 2 minutes, 51 seconds remaining, Buzelis tried to sneak around the Magic’s Kentavious Caldwell-Pope after backing down his defender in the post, ultimately hitting a wall on his spin move. The moment Buzelis picked up his dribble, it signaled trouble — he often has floundered with the next step after a failed drive to the basket, frequently leading to a turnover or an ill-advised shot.

But Buzelis hung on to the ball, scanning for options as White sprang into a pair of cuts that provided an open lane to the basket. Buzelis dished the ball right on time, and White threw down a ferocious dunk as the Bulls danced away with a hard-fought win — the latest in a string of high-effort performances from a young group unburdened by expectations.

That type of play symbolizes significant growth for the Bulls, who finally have an obvious young piece to build around. Will that development outweigh the potential loss of a higher draft pick? That question can’t be answered until the NBA draft lottery on May 12.

But with the play-in tournament all but guaranteed, the only choice now is to embrace the impending opportunity for Buzelis, White and the rest of the young Bulls core.

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