The Chicago Bulls aren't tanking on purpose -- they're just really bad at basketball right now. And that must make the NBA's rebuilding franchises crazy jealous.
Bulls Executive VP of Basketball Operations Arturas Karnisovas has built a roster that can't win, despite its best efforts to do so. He brought in seven new players, four of them guards (not counting the addition of Mac McClung on a two-way deal).
Chicago has an unbalanced roster filled with players who weren't getting regular minutes with their previous teams. The group has never played together. They're learning a new system. Most, if not all, aren't in good enough shape to even run the up-tempo scheme coach Billy Donovan employs.
And that's without mentioning the injuries to Josh Giddey and Tre Jones, who won't return until after the All-Star break, and Zach Collins, who may not return at all.
In other words: The Bulls are about to pull off the perfect tank.
Bulls have accidentally created what tanking teams fantasize about
Despite its best efforts to win -- and Donovan's teams will always try to win -- the Bulls are about to lose. A lot.
Anfernee Simons, acquired from the Celtics in the deal that sent Nikola Vucevic to Boston, started his first game for Chicago -- a 16-point loss to the Toronto Raptors -- and played 32 minutes. Guerschon Yabusele came off the bench and played 33 minutes. Jaden Ivey started next to Simons in the backcourt and played 33 minutes.
Two nights later, that trio started and, along with fellow newbies Collin Sexton and Rob Dillingham, helped the Bulls build a 104-97 lead going into the fourth quarter of a game against the Denver Nuggets.
They were promptly outscored by 23 points in the final 12 minutes and lost by 16.
Two nights after that, the Bulls lost to the Brooklyn Nets -- owners of the fifth-worst record in the league -- 123-115 in a game that was tied entering the fourth.
Three games, three losses, two beautiful displays of tanking basketball.
Chicago's roster can't win ... and that's good
Simons has started all three of his games in a Bulls uniform and played 32.7 minutes per contest. Sexton has averaged 30.5 minutes off the bench. Ivey is averaging 29.0 minutes (three starts), Yabusele 27.3 minutes (three games, two starts), Nick Richards 22.5 and Dillingham 22.0.
As Joel Lorenzi of The Athletic points out, none of Yabusele, Dillingham and Richards were playing even 10 minutes per game a week ago.
The Bulls have lost five in a row and have five more coming against Eastern Conference playoff teams (Boston, Toronto, Detroit, New York and Charlotte). If the season ended today, Chicago would have the ninth-best odds at landing the No. 1 pick in this summer's loaded draft.
Karnisovas has accidentally accomplished what teams like the Nets, Washington Wizards and Sacramento Kings have tried to do for years: Be so bad at winning that you can't help but lose.