Chicago Bulls' Lottery Luck: I Still Can't Believe It

It’s been a week and I still can’t believe how lucky us Bulls fans are.

Last Tuesday night the Bulls were more than just lucky to jump over eight teams to win the number one pick. They were lucky enough to have a new rebuilding plan fall into their laps. In two months, no matter who they draft, the Bulls will have new hope.

When the season ended, the confusion and frustration of trying to rebuild appeared certain. The Bulls had a lot of work to do and little to work with. Then, last Tuesday night happened.

If anyone actually cares, that’s why I’ve been slacking on writing for Bull Riding. I was anticipating the confusion and frustration, and because of that, I’ve had nothing worth saying. I didn’t know what I wanted the Bulls to do.

I fought the urge to just irrationally criticize the Bulls' season, and then complain about the organization’s subsequent failure to bring in my guy, Mike D’Antoni. Why? I complained about the Bulls all season long—why stop now?

I held back because nothing bothers me more than people complaining how much their team stinks without having at least a conceivable way to fix the problem. Everyone already knows that Kirk Hinrich was terrible last year and that the Bulls don’t have a good inside scorer.

Before I started ranting and raving, I was hoping to come up with at least a semi-decent rebuilding plan. Until the Draft Lottery (which instantly became the best moment I’ve had as a Bulls fan since ’98), it was difficult to figure out how the Bulls would be able to turn it around.

I had no idea how John Paxson (or any other GM in the NBA, really) could drastically improve the team and guarantee the Bulls a spot in next year’s playoffs. That alone was tough. Finding a conceivable way to make the Bulls legitimate contenders for a title before 2010 seemed nearly impossible.

And trust me, I tried. I spent as much time as school and having a life would allow me to spend on the Internet, searching for rumors and checking the trusted Trade Machine.

No matter where I looked, it was still tough thinking of a decent plan for a quick turn around. Good thing I didn’t waste any more time, because it got a whole lot easier.

When I started looking for a rebuilding plan, I thought the best thing the Bulls could do to become real contenders would be to blow it up and start over again. Just blow it up and try to get a star to build around, down the road in free agency or in the draft.

Just let Luol Deng and Ben Gordon go, and combine anyone else to sucker someone into taking Larry Hughes’ non-expiring contract. Start clearing cap space, and take the best player available because the Bulls' current roster already showed us their “ceiling.”

As long as Deng was the best player on the team, the second round was as far as the Bulls were going to go. So why not just start over. Of course, if Paxson decided to start over, be prepared to finish last in the Eastern Conference.

Not only that, but after last season it’s tough to see Paxson packaging any of those guys into an unhappy star. It seemed like their young, up-and-comer's trade value dropped after each 40 percent shooting night.

Hinrich stunk, not only as a point guard but as a player in general. Tyrus Thomas still hasn’t matured into a player worthy of the second pick of the draft. And the big contract on the Bulls' roster belongs to a guy the Cavaliers wanted to get rid of so badly, they brought in Ben Wallace’s corpse for two more years.

That’s not a whole lot to work with if you plan to bring in a go-to-guy. Thomas for Chris Paul works on the Trade Machine, but I think you have to put a gun to GM Jeff Bower’s head to pull that one off in real life.

Or, Paxson could have decided to just tinker with the Bulls' current roster, while re-signing Deng and Gordon.

The Bulls’ roster is better than last season’s record would have predicted. It’s just that a few of the Bulls’ weaknesses were mixed with a head coach that quit on his team, a rookie yelling at coaches, and a team being “led” by Adrian Griffin and Ben Wallace. Couple that with a fake head coach for the second half of the season, and a (as of right now) first round bust skipping practices.

Wow, is that all that went wrong with the Bulls this year? I could’ve sworn it was more.

Oh wait, there was more. Their backup point guard decided not to tell anyone he was traveling to North Carolina. It was the perfect storm of bad basketball as it led to a 33-win season.

Now, adding a true point guard and a semi-decent offensive threat in the block from either the draft or a decent trade, and the Bulls are a little bit better. Maybe they make the playoffs, but they’re not good enough to contend. They’re back in “Basketball Purgatory,” where they started the ’07-’08 season.

Say the Bulls take D.J. Augustin. All of a sudden, the Bulls have a pass-first point guard who can beat his defender off the dribble. Later, maybe Paxson would’ve been able to swap Hinrich for some help on the inside.

Best case scenario, Paxson makes a deal with the Clippers, Hinrich, and Drew Gooden for Elton Brand (who is able to stay healthy).

A roster of Augustin/Sefolosha/Deng/Brand/Noah and Gordon coming off the bench costs them a ton of money and probably gets them into the playoffs. But that’s it—they become good enough to make the playoffs, but not good enough to be legitimate contenders.

Blowing it up or trying to tinker, the Bulls would still be left without someone with the talent, leadership, character, confidence, intangibles, etc. to be “the man" on a Bulls' team capable of someday winning the championship.

Now, of course, all of this has changed. Bulls' fans don’t have to worry about Paxson trying to make a couple of miraculous trades like the Celtics did, or blowing it up and hoping to get lucky down the road. Because the Bulls already got as lucky as they can get.