Bulls tank job comes with a few surprises, and a warning

The Bulls have a clear mission to accomplish during the final two months of the season:

Convince fans that tanking can be both fun and surprising. And find a corporate sponsor for it.

Sunday's win over Milwaukee brought the surprise. The Bulls trailed by 16 points in the first half, then finished the game on an 39-8 run and snapped their 11-game losing streak.

Did the rebuilt Bulls, who added seven new players at the trade deadline, finally figure out some chemistry, or did the Bucks decide they weren't going to give up the No. 9 lottery seed without a fight?

“They missed a lot of shots,” Bulls coach Billy Donovan said after Milwaukee somehow hit 2 of 21 attempts in the fourth quarter, good for 9.5% from the field.

On Monday, the Bucks announced Giannis Antetokounmpo would finally return from a calf sprain, so maybe they do have interest in making the play-in tournament.

With one losing streak out of the way, next up on the Bulls' to-do list is start a new one. They'll host defending NBA champ Oklahoma City on Tuesday, then play nine of their next 13 on the road as the Big Ten tourney and Midwest Regional fill the United Center. All those road games except one are in Western Conference cities.

With all the losing and player departures, these could easily be bleak times for the current Bulls. Everyone was happy after Sunday's win, but there's probably no need to worry. Basketball players are generally in a great mood when they're getting the ball and hoisting shots.

Consider Isaac Okoro. He never had a green light in Cleveland, now he's allowed to fire at will. Same story with ex-Knick Guerschon Yabusele. Forward Leonard Miller barely played in Minnesota, but has become the Bulls' breakout star of the deadline deals. That's mostly by default, but it still counts.

At a slender 6-foot-10, Miller is an interesting player and the Bulls are still figuring him out. His skill set seems to fit better as a wing player, but it's not yet clear how well he can guard on the perimeter. He's set career-highs two games in a row, scoring 11 and 15 points, and had 2 blocked shots in each game.

“He's got a really good feel of how to play,” Donovan said. “With some of the guys that have been out, it's given us an opportunity to play him a little bit more.”

Donovan's comment made it sound like when those injured players (Patrick Williams, Jalen Smith, Anfernee Simons, Jaden Ivey) return, Miller will be back on the bench, which makes no sense. Figuring out if Miller is an NBA player should be at or near the top priority for the Bulls.

“I knew he could ball,” teammate Matas Buzelis said of Miller. “He played at (G-League) Ignite. He's very unorthodox the way he plays. He can do pretty much anything out there. I've been telling the guys, 'We're going to need Lenny, we're going to need Lenny.' He's a great player and he showed it.”

During the multiple rebuilds and repeated mistakes of the past three decades, the Bulls have done a good job of taking young players and teaching them losing habits. Zach LaVine is just one example of a talented player being set up to fail.

The same thing could happen to Buzelis, but for now, the Willowbrook native seems to have the right attitude about the Bulls trading away most of his close friends and launching an 11-game skid.

“Win, lose, draw, I'm coming in the next day and I'm going to go back to work,” Buzelis said. “My father always taught me that. It doesn't matter what happens the day before, you've got to move forward and move past it. The drive and ambition toward yourself and the team, it matters.”

That's good to know, since these final 21 games won't matter much to the Bulls.