Chicago Bulls mired in mediocrity, strike lucky no. 7 again

The Chicago Bulls fall to the seventh pick for the third straight year in the NBA Draft Lottery. Zion will not save Chicago. This is the fate of the basketball gods.

The Chicago Bulls fate was sealed long before Tuesday evening’s NBA Draft Lottery show. The build-up to tonight’s event was marvelous. However, Bulls’ fans all over the globe took a sucker punch to the gut as the seventh pick was read. No Zion Williamson and not even room left to hope for a top-four pick, the rebuild continues.

Chicago’s front office and head coach Jim Boylen chose to develop its youthful roster instead of playing the odds and tanking. They certainly got their wish winning just enough games to move out of the bottom three teams. The league allows those teams with the best chances to win the top pick at 14 percent. The Bulls finished with the fourth worst record leaving them with only a 12.5 percent chance at the top pick.

They won a few more games, developed their core players but risked injuries and lost out on the grand prize, Zion. He is considered a generational type player, in the same mold as LeBron James. His uber-athletic game is not only expected to change the trajectory of a franchise but is supposed to put the league on notice with his human high-light reel performances. The Bulls got cute offering a glimpse of hope at the end of the season and it bit the organization right where it hurts.

Chicago now has the seventh pick in the draft for the third straight season. This is probably for the best. The Bulls have been mired in mediocrity since the Jordan era of the 1990s. Yes, there was the brief Derrick Rose era but we know how that ended. That roster never had an actual chance as long as King James remained in the Eastern Conference. They were close but no championship.

The 1990s Bulls set precedent in the modern era of professional basketball winning six titles in eight seasons with no finals series defeats. John Paxson, current President of Basketball Operations was a part of the first three-peat. He has been with the organization since 2003 as a lead decision maker. Jerry Reinsdorf has become complicit to operations ever since Paxson joined forces with Gar Forman.

The Bulls have led the league in attendance for almost a decade with nothing to show for it but hope. They have been cashing checks at such an alarming rate Michael Jordan should get royalties for the house he built. The Bulls are now on the clock and the 2019 NBA Draft is set for Thursday, June 20. Maybe a good but not great player will fall again to keep this gravy train moving. One can only hope.