The Chicago Bulls played their second of five nationally televised games yesterday in Milwaukee. With the increased attention usually comes some fresh opinions on the franchise, and last night did not disappoint. The NBA Countdown crew asked the prompt, “How do the Bulls return to relevance?” as everyone in the NBA knows they’ve been a lackluster franchise for nearly 15 years. Richard Jefferson, who played in the league for 17 seasons and won an NBA Championship with the Cleveland Cavaliers, had plenty to say about the organization. Not only did he specify where the problems in Chicago lie, but he also compared them to one of the most disappointing teams in American sports. Lucky for the fans of Chicago, they both happen to share an owner.
Jefferson hit the nail on the head with his breakdown of where the Chicago Bulls franchise currently sits. After briefly explaining how the NBA is a constant battle to stay out of the “middle zone,” as he refers to it, he details how the Bulls have been stuck in that mediocre state for almost 10 years. With only five players on the court at a time, the Association is a superstar-driven league, and Chicago doesn’t have any. They’ve only had one All-Star selection in the last three seasons and still haven’t had a top-five draft selection since whiffing on Patrick Williams in the 2020 NBA Draft with the fourth overall pick.
Jefferson also made a profound statement when comparing the Bulls to the Chicago White Sox, another underperforming organization with the same ownership. The White Sox infamously just had the worst season in the MLB since 1962 and the fifth-lowest winning percentage in Major League Baseball history with seemingly no direction for the future. The former NBA Champion and current ESPN analyst says the Bulls could be headed for a similar fate, and he’s not far off. Stuck under the lucrative contracts of an aging Zach LaVine and past-his-prime Nikola Vucevic, tied to a mediocre Patrick Williams for several more years, and no young talent to speak of outside of Coby White, this franchise is lost.
The ESPN panel discussed ways this disappointing team could redirect its future, and there’s only one sensible solution. Dumping LaVine’s contract is an absolute must. As the only player in the top-20 paid players without an All-NBA nod and no All-Star selections for three years, this contract alone has prevented the Bulls from pivoting, adding talent, or competing in the playoffs. Trading Vucevic to a contending roster while he’s playing some of the best basketball of his career is next on the agenda. At 34 years old, he doesn’t offer a team that is not in contention much moving forward and is much more valuable in the form of draft stock or young assets.
While shipping off some of their most talented players will ultimately result in fewer wins, the team has missed the playoffs each of the last two seasons and hasn’t been beyond the first round of the postseason since 2014-15. Another reason LaVine’s contract is an absolute waste is because he’s produced one lone playoff win during his tenure with Chicago.
Can the Bulls weasel out of LaVine’s contract, give White and Matas Buzelis more time to develop, and swap Vucevic for future draft stock? Will they ride out the current roster to an inevitable third consecutive playoff absence? Richard Jefferson said what every Bulls fan has been thinking for over five years.
