At this point, it’s just sad. You can’t even be upset or ticked off anymore. Sorrow is the only emotion left.
Soon Noa Essengue, 18, is going to slide himself into a Bulls uniform, all 6-9, 198 pounds of him. He’ll look confident as well as lost. We’ll look at him with empathy and sympathy, saying internally: “Young man, we’re so happy you met your dream by making it to the NBA, but we only wish we coulda holla’d at you to warn you before they called your name at the 12th pick.”
The “Ace Bailey” plan might not have been a bad option for Essengue to play if we think about it, anything to avoid landing here. But how — like all of us — was he to know the Bulls would pass on Derik Queen if he was still on the draft board? Lesson: Stop listening to draft “experts.”
Oh, wait, one more: Stop waiting for anything the Bulls do to make sense until it makes sense.
This year’s draft was another raised-eyebrow lost moment for the organization and the fan base — or what’s left of it. Another “once again” in what seems to be the Bulls’ perennial quadrupling-down on mediocrity being their religion. Trading back draft slots for cash in the second round, passing on Rocco Zikarsky or Amari Williams in the second round and, more egregiously, on Queen, the player so many wanted the Bulls to select in the first round, or doing nothing to move up three slots to get Collin Murray-Boyles, whom they reportedly wanted. That’s so them.
At this point — four years into not making any commitment to real growth — it seems like the Bulls don’t look at advancement the same way almost everyone else in the NBA seems to see it. It’s as if their “we won’t change” or “we won’t pivot” is a part of the five commandments chairman Jerry Reinsdorf placed in front of every Bulls executive and attached it to their job security.
When’s the last time — if ever — you heard the term “draft flop”? And when does that term begin to be strictly applicable to a team instead of a player? Or how about “draft tanking”? Not saying that the players the Bulls just selected aren’t quality picks (Joe Cowley in the Sun-Times did write, though, “What’s the French word for ‘meh’?”), but what will this draft do to move this team any closer to competing just in the Central Division with the four teams who’ve distanced themselves?
Let’s be completely honest, when it comes to player development in comparison to the Pacers, Pistons and Cavaliers alone (scarily similar to what the Bears are going through in the NFC North, but that’s a whole soon-to-be column), the Bulls are easily the worst and in consideration for one of the bottom spots in the NBA. What are they really going to do with Essengue to save him and his potential? Something different than what they’ve done with Patrick Williams in developing him? Or Lauri Markkanen or Wendell Carter Jr. before that?
The Bulls have now gone beyond the head-scratching and entered into the laughing-stock space occupied by the Hornets and reoccupied by the Knicks. A team that purposely (a word that’s important) wants to not only stay where it is in the NBA power rankings, but is comfortable being looked at as an organization that holds true to its worldwide perception.
The sad part here is that Essengue is innocent in all of this. He has no idea what he’s walking into and what being drafted by this team in the first round can do to him instead of for him. And, sure, Nikola Jokic was a second-round pick at 41, Jalen Brunson was pick No. 33 and Draymond Green was selected 35th, but do any of us honestly believe the Bulls will have that type of luck with Lachlan Olbrich, whom they picked at No. 55?
Even Nico Harrison has more luck than us. (And might be better at his job.)
Maybe the plan for the draft is as evident as it seems — for Arturas Karnisovas to build a team experimenting with the non-American movement replacing what once was considered American excellence in the NBA. Waiting for the moment 2024 draft anomaly Matas Buzelis, Josh Giddey, Nikola Vucevic, Essengue and Olbrich are on the floor together — and on the regular — to see if they can get this team above .500 for only the second time in the last eight seasons and win a play-in game for the first time.
Until then, this whole “boom or bust,” “high risk/low reward,” ‘‘possible gem,” “needs time to develop,” “intriguing,” “value project,” “may have a future in this modern NBA,” “will possibly play the first half of the season in the G League” draft strategy needs to end. No disrespect, but not one of the two new draft picks is going to stop the Bulls from stinking more, stop this compounding sadness or stop us from soon becoming Pistons fans.
