Bulls: Lowly Lotto Odds Leaves Lotta Room For Resignation
If Coby White’s rehabbing shoulder is any indication of how things will break for the Chicago Bulls this off-season, fans may want to brace for more tough luck ahead of the 2021 NBA Draft Lottery tonight.
Of course, the 79.7 percent chance that the team’s first-round pick lands outside of its top-four protections and into the hands of the Orlando Magic, in itself, doesn’t leave much room for optimism.
Yet the temptation to build castles in the sky continues to float around.
A season that somehow ended in a 12-17 tumble out of postseason contention after the additions of Nikola Vučević and Daniel Theis at the trade deadline begs for a silver lining.
Oklahoma State’s Cade Cunningham, Gonzaga’s Jalen Suggs, Southern California’s Evan Mobley, and G League Ignite’s Jalen Green or Jonathan Kuminga would be just that and then some — perhaps part of an even dreamier scenario for Artūras Karnišovas and Marc Eversley than had the Bulls actually advanced past the regular season for the first time in four years.
That break in the clouds is less than a quarter wide though, with a significantly smaller crease for a beam of sunlight to escape from if we’re talking about Karnišovas and Eversley getting their hands on the top pick.
The Bulls did squeeze Derrick Rose out of a needle-sized opening in 2008, but you know what they say about lightning striking the same place twice. (Actually, it can, and often does, but for sake of argument…)
So, hope for the best tonight.
But prepare for the worst.
That way, should luck be an Eversley tonight—like it was a Karnišovas last year when the Bulls scored the fourth-overall pick after being slotted seventh—it’ll be that much more gratifying.
Drew Stevens is a Senior Writer for WARR Media, he lives and works in Chicago