Exit Report Chicago Bulls: Six Years, No Plan, Complete Rebuild!

39 wins. 40 wins. 39 wins. 40 wins.

Four consecutive seasons. Always the same number, always the same consequence: too good for a real rebuild, too weak for a deep playoff run. The NBA's no man's land. The place where franchises slowly become irrelevant while telling themselves that patience is a virtue.

Ever since the franchise traded Jimmy Butler in 2017, Chicago has vacillated between short-circuited rebuilds and a misguided attempt to move into contention — achieving neither. Six years of Karnisovas. Six years of Eversley. 224 wins, 254 losses. One playoff appearance. And a franchise that has turned one of the most valuable brands in American sport — the legacy of Jordan, Pippen, Phil Jackson, six championships — into a medium-sized punchline.

In 2025-26, what should have happened years ago finally happened: the executives were fired. The veterans were traded. And Chicago lost 51 games — the worst season in years, and the first genuine opportunity for a reset that this franchise has deserved for nearly a decade.

Whether they use it depends on a family that has not always gotten this right.

The Organization — Six Years, Grade F

Let's be precise about what happened here.

Arturas Karnisovas and Marc Eversley were not victims of bad circumstances. They were not blindsided by injuries or an unpredictable market. They made a clearly identifiable series of poor decisions, over multiple years, in full public view, without meaningful course correction.

They made transactions that baffled the league — most notably trading Alex Caruso for Josh Giddey. They misjudged the value of their own players — Patrick Williams received a five-year, $90 million contract. They consistently waited too long to trade players coveted around the league — most recently Coby White and Ayo Dosunmu at this season's deadline.

A team source described it to ESPN with a clarity that says everything: "People didn't know the plan. They didn't know the process. We needed to move on — with a clean slate and start this thing over."

No clear strategy. No recognizable process. Short-term operational decisions without long-term consequence analysis. That is not bad luck. That is management failure, across six years, inside one of the most valuable sports franchises in the world.

The final ledger of the era: 224-254 across six seasons, one playoff appearance. Chicago's last All-Star was DeMar DeRozan in 2023. The lack of a franchise cornerstone was glaring — and Karnisovas' reluctance to launch a genuine rebuild was the primary source of frustration among Bulls fans.

The consequences arrived with four games left in the regular season. Late, but at least they arrived.

The No Man's Land — A Diagnosis

Chicago's core problem of recent years deserves a precise description, because it is the pattern that cannot repeat.

Winning 39 to 40 games per season is the most dangerous place an NBA franchise can occupy. It is good enough to miss the lottery's best positions, but not good enough to actually contend. It is the zone where franchises lose years without building anything — and end up being neither young nor competitive. Chicago spent four seasons in this zone, with a front office that either did not understand where they stood, or was unwilling to draw the logical conclusions.

The Lonzo Ball disaster is the defining episode. After the successful 2021-22 start — 38-21 before the All-Star break — the front office should have recognized that Ball's injury had closed the window. Instead, they kept the core of that team intact for two more full seasons while Ball never played a single game. By the end, they had traded all six top players from that February 2022 team — and the only first-round pick they received in return was their own.

That is the legacy of six years of Karnisovas and Eversley: a franchise that never had a clear answer to the most important strategic question — rebuild or reload — and ended up failing at both.

The Roster

31 wins, 51 losses. 12th in the East. Missing even the Play-In for the first time since 2020-21.

The season began with a 5-0 start — the best opening since 1996-97. Then came a seven-game losing streak. Then an eleven-game losing streak in February, setting a franchise record for most losses in a single winless month. Chicago was a rollercoaster without a destination — too good for the lottery, too weak for the playoffs, exactly as in previous years, until it finally collapsed.

The front office executed a league-high seven trades before the deadline, dismantling the veteran core: Vucevic, Coby White, and Dosunmu were all moved. What came back were young players and draft picks. The market had been waiting for these players. The front office delivered them too late and received less than maximum value in return.

What remains is a roster that is thin, young, and needs to be built around two core pieces.

The Coach

Billy Donovan is gone. After six seasons, he chose not to continue — making him the second major personnel question mark alongside the new front office.

This is more complicated than it appears. Donovan finishes with a 467-411 record across eleven NBA seasons — a good coach, one of the most experienced available on the market. But he was part of a system that did not work. Whether that falls on him or the management above him is difficult to separate cleanly. What is clear: Chicago now needs a coach who understands a rebuild — who develops young players, builds a culture, and thinks five years ahead rather than five months.

The next head coach is arguably the single most important individual decision the Reinsdorf family makes this offseason.

The Players

Matas Buzelis is the most interesting player on this roster. 21 years old, 77 games, 16.3 points, 5.8 rebounds, 1.5 blocks in his second NBA season. The Lithuanian forward has the physical profile and two-way instinct that defines modern NBA wings. He is not yet a star. He is a potential cornerstone piece — a player who, alongside a genuine first option scorer, can stabilize a defense and enrich an offense through athleticism and cutting. Chicago must keep him and build around him.

Josh Giddey led the team in points, rebounds, and assists simultaneously: 17.0, 8.3, 9.1 in 54 games. The triple-double profile is real — Giddey as a playmaking forward with rebounding instincts is a rare template. The efficiency is not yet there: 44.8% from the field, 36.4% from three, and only 54 games played. He is a capable NBA player. He is not a franchise player. But he is 23 years old, and the supporting cast around him was never good enough to determine that definitively.

Noa Essengue, the 12th pick in the 2025 Draft, played six minutes before suffering a season-ending shoulder injury. That is not a verdict on his talent — it is a reminder of the chronic bad luck that has followed this franchise for years. He will get his first real chance in 2026-27.

Rob Dillingham arrived in the deadline trade from Minnesota and showed in 30 games the qualities that made him the eighth overall pick: 9.6 points, 2.8 assists, scoring instinct from the guard position. He is 21. He needs a framework that allows him to grow.

The Reinsdorf Question

Here is the truth nobody in Chicago says loudly: the most important variable in the future of this franchise is not the lottery pick. It is not the new GM. It is not the new coach.

It is the Reinsdorf family.

Jerry Reinsdorf has owned the Bulls since 1985. The championships of the 1990s are his legacy. But the management decisions of the last twenty years — the mis-hires, the half-measures, the refusal to act decisively when it was necessary — also bear his fingerprints. His son Michael now runs the operational side of the organization. The firing of Karnisovas and Eversley was the right decision. But who gets hired next — and whether the Reinsdorfs grant that person genuine authority to make real decisions — will demonstrate whether the lesson was actually learned.

Chicago has real advantages. A relatively clean cap sheet. Potentially two first-round picks in this draft. And a market that is more attractive to elite free agents than most cities in the league. That is not a bad starting point. But Toronto has attractive market advantages. Dallas has them. New York has them. Market attractiveness alone does not build a championship team.

What Chicago needs is a clear, consistent, multi-year plan — with a new front office that understands it, a coach who can execute it, and ownership that sustains it even when year two gets difficult. If the Reinsdorfs hire inadequate people again, if they reach for short-term stability rather than long-term vision, then the legacy of Jordan and Pippen gradually becomes something nobody wants: a franchise permanently in the middle, permanently irrelevant, one of the greatest brand names in sport slowly fading.

Buzelis and Giddey are not a bad foundation. A good lottery pick would provide momentum. A competent front office with a real strategy would be decisive.

Six years, grade F. Now the semester starts over.