Tanks for nothing: Competing for play-in won’t harm Bulls’ rebuilding plan
Here's the least meaningful stat you will encounter today.
Worst record by an NBA play-in team: The 2021-22 San Antonio Spurs at 34-48.
Looks like the Bulls are planning to make a run at this mark. They are 12 games below .500 after Saturday's overtime win and it doesn't look like any team has much interest in catching up to them for 10th place in the East.
Philadelphia not only announced this week center Joel Embiid will be shut down for the rest of the season due to a knee injury, they also lost at home to the Bulls by 32 points.
Toronto is now six games behind after Saturday's loss. Brooklyn is the closest at 2½ games back but has lost three in a row.
This race is far from over, though. The Bulls have 10 road games in March, starting Sunday in Indiana. They also have a two-city Florida trip later in the week, a six-game Western swing and a stop in Oklahoma City. They might be 20 games below .500 by the end of the month and still in 10th place.
After hitting a game-tying 4-point play in the final moments of regulation against Toronto, Coby White expressed a desire to land a play-in spot for the third straight year.
“It’s important for us, especially because we are a younger team, to get that experience winning and playing in those big-time games and making the play-in,” he said after the game. “Obviously we’ve got guys here who want to win.”
As Bulls fans roll their eyes, there are a couple of things to keep in mind here. First, the Bulls don't lose their lottery spot by making the play-in tournament.
If they win twice and get to the real playoffs, then they're locked into the No. 15 pick, which would be bad. At the moment they have the No. 8 slot in the lottery and a 26.3% chance of moving into the top four. That feels like far better odds than the Bulls winning a game against the top seed in the East.
The other reality is tanking is not a great way to build a winner in the NBA. Look at the most recent champions — Boston never tanked, Denver didn't, Toronto didn't. Golden State's Big Three featured no top-five picks, Milwaukee had the No. 2 pick in 2014, but Jabari Parker was long gone by the time the Bucks won a title.
The last No. 1 pick to reach the Finals with the team that drafted him was DeAndre Ayton with Phoenix. The last top pick to win a title with his original team was Kyrie Irving in Cleveland.
The one time when tanking sort of paid off was the Lakers with their 2020 bubble title. They had the No. 2 pick three years in a row and traded two of those players to land Anthony Davis from the Pelicans. Of course, the biggest piece to that championship was signing LeBron James as a free agent.
Philadelphia did all that tanking during “The Process,” ended up with one useful player in Embiid and hasn't made the conference finals since he joined the team. The current best player on the 76ers, guard Tyrese Maxey, was a No. 21 overall pick.
That's just more proof star players can be found anywhere in the NBA Draft. The players likely to finish 1-2 in MVP voting were chosen No. 11 overall (Shai Gilgeous-Alexander) and No. 41 (Nikola Jokic).
Now that's not to say winning the No. 1 pick in the lottery means nothing. The NBA is having a nice run of top selections who greatly improved their teams — Anthony Edwards, Cade Cunningham, Paolo Banchero, Victor Wembanyama. That streak might end with Atlanta's Zaccharie Risacher, but it's too soon to judge. And there have been plenty of underwhelming No. 1 picks during the past 20 years.
The Bulls have no control over how the pingpong balls bounce. But there are three things they can do to improve the chances of becoming a real playoff teams again:
No. 1 is become a team that good players want to join, such as James with the Lakers. No. 2, make smart moves. The Knicks drafted hardly anyone on their roster but are third in the East. And No. 3, don't miss on draft picks, wherever they are.
The Bulls making the play-in (or not) has nothing to do with building a winner.