The Chicago Bulls have a new boss, a new coach, and a shiny new No. 4 pick named Caleb Wilson. But before you get too excited about the future, it’s worth understanding why the past looked so bleak for so long. And it turns out the old front office had a very specific excuse for refusing to tear things down: the Detroit Pistons.
According to a report from ESPN’s Jamal Collier, multiple current and former Bulls executives said the organization consistently pointed to the Pistons as a cautionary tale against tanking. The logic went something like this: Detroit spent five straight seasons losing on purpose, averaging just 18.8 wins per year from 2019 through 2024. And for what? A whole lot of nothing. So Chicago’s old brain trust figured, why bother?
“It was always communicated that we had to compete and that tanking was not an option,” one current Bulls front office executive told ESPN. “Even the word ‘tanking’ or the word ‘rebuild’ — that word was never uttered.”
The same source added that ownership pressure played a big role. “There was always some sort of ownership pressure in terms of competing and winning games. That was always a thing. So while they can talk about how it’s been the VP or GM’s decision, that hasn’t really been the vibe.”
So Chicago stayed stuck in what staffers called NBA “middle ground.” They weren’t bad enough to land elite draft picks, but they weren’t good enough to scare anyone in the Eastern Conference. The result? Three straight Play-In Tournament exits from 2023 through 2025. That’s not a rebuild and it’s not a contender. It’s just treading water.
Former chairman Jerry Reinsdorf defended the approach publicly after letting Artūras Karnišovas and Marc Eversley go earlier this year. “That’s just not who we are as an organization,” Reinsdorf said. “Sure, there are some fans, many fans who might say, lose games on purpose, tank, do whatever you can to hopefully win the lottery. But there are a lot of fans that go to the games who aren’t there to see us get blown out every game.”
But here’s the thing. The story doesn’t end the way the old front office thought it would. The Pistons turned around hard. They made the playoffs the last two seasons and in 2025-26 they finished 60-22 as the Eastern Conference’s No. 1 seed. That’s not a fluke. That’s a full-on contender built from the wreckage of those five awful years.
Instead of hoarding draft picks, Chicago’s previous regime tried to speed things up by trading for young guys with NBA experience. That led to moves like swapping Alex Caruso for Josh Giddey in 2024 and later adding Rob Dillingham and Jaden Ivey. “We knew exactly where we were,” one source told ESPN. “Everybody knew it. We were constantly explaining that we’re getting young players on rookie scales and we’re trying to minimize the timeline.”
Whether that strategy actually made things worse is up for debate. But with Bryson Graham and Tiago Splitter now running things, the Bulls look ready to actually build around Wilson and a younger core. It took a while, but Chicago might finally be ready to try the thing they spent years avoiding.
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