Basically everyone who has ever written about basketball for The Niche Cache (and most who read about it) would have grown up during the peak years of the Chicago Bulls. The Michael Jordan years. The Scottie Pippen and Dennis Rodman years. The Phil Jackson years. The Space Jam years. I was too young to follow the three-peats – and a good thing too or else I might be a Bulls fan today… - but I for damn sure tried to copy that scene at the start of Space Jam where MJ’s shooting hoops all alone after dark.

Chicago Bulls jerseys were everywhere, they still often are. You drive by a pick-up game and there’s probably a dude rocking the red singlet. Chicago hasn’t won a title since 1998 but they did have the MVP of the league a few years back. One of the biggest franchises in the sport. Say, how are the Bulls looking now ahead of the new ssss…

… eason. Yikes.

We’ve come a long way since The Shot, folks.

Suffice to say that stuff like that tends not to happen on good teams. And it’s been a few years since the Bulls were a proper good team. Since Derrick Rose took them to the Conference Finals in 2011 during his MVP season they’ve won two playoff series in six years. They didn’t even make the playoffs in 2015-16 and only scraped in at eighth last time because, you know, it’s the East. And they shan’t make the playoffs this season.

It’s kinda sad how it’s come to this. You can probably trace the decline to Derrick Rose’s first ACL injury, which began a plague of injuries of biblical proportions. When your best player is hurt, your expectations are limited. When Rose did play again he just wasn’t the same. Eventually he wasn’t even the best player anymore – not once Jimmy Butler emerged.

That 2014-15 Bulls season still feels like a What Could Have Been scenario. They had Rose back to something close to fitness and Butler on his way to winning Most Improved and his first All Star gig. Pau Gasol, Joakim Noah, Taj Gibson, Mikola Mirotic, Tony Snell… they had some guys there. They were preseason favourites for the second seed. In the end they got third and even led the Cavs 2-1 in the second round before getting bounced in the next three. But all along the way there was tension. Rose and Butler didn’t gel, Rose only played 51 games anyway, Noah wasn’t fully fit either, coach Tom Thibodeau clashed with upper management and they really, really weren’t a fun team to watch.

The Bulls decided they needed to go in a new direction. Thibodeau was fired and Fred Hoiberg replaced him, soon causing a bit of a rift when he benched Joakim Noah for Pau Gasol. They missed the playoffs despite a decent start and Noah and Gasol both left in free agency. Then they traded Derrick Rose for bugger all, seeing as he’d become a bugger all kind of player – with no evidence that he’d ever be able to play 75+ games again. Well, not quite bugger all… they did get the worse Lopez brother at least. Other weird decisions: they traded for Michael Carter-Williams and they signed Rajon Rondo and Dwyane Wade. Then mid-season they traded Taj Gibson, Doug McDermott and a second rounder to OKC to acquire Cameron Payne and change.

Rondo and Wade, each non-three point shooters in the golden era of three point shooting, immediately presented obvious flaws to any line-up they could both feature in. Plus with both of them liking the ball in their hands that left Jimmy Butler being frustrated at their chewing up of his main man status. Cam Payne might have been a nice addition except that Payne only played 142 minutes total in the months he was there. Even still they might have been able to knock the Celtics out in the first round. They were 2-0 up and everything. But Rondo got injured and they were never the same.

Which brings us to the current time, when starting power forwards are hospitalised by teammates. Rondo, MCW and Wade all left either in free agency or by being waved after one year. Nobody they signed was of much interest… although Mirotic did pen a two year $27m contract extension. Instead their one major offseason move? Trading Jimmy Butler. They got Kris Dunn, Zach LaVine and a trade-up in the draft for Lauri Markkanen (7th overall) but they lose the last remaining face of their franchise.

Which, arguably, is what they shoulda done two years ago. Rip the band-aid off and give Fred Hoiberg a completely new team to work with, that way they might have even turned the corner before they needed to trade Butler… but oh well. LaVine has the potential to be a fantastic player if he can stay healthy (and learn to defend). Dunn was hugely rated at the draft but didn’t have nearly the rookie season he was expected to. Of course, they were playing for the defensive-minded Tom Thibodeau in Minnesota – the old Bulls coach and the new Bulls coach flaunting their different priorities in that trade for sure. Chicago, for example, doesn’t have a player on their roster aged older than 29 year olds Quincy Poindexter and Robin Lopez. Markkanen only turned 20 in May, he’s the youngest. Even the fans don’t know half these jokers…

Right now Zach LaVine is still injured after doing his ACL with the Wolves. He should be back in a month or two and there’s a contract extension coming for him soon enough. There has to be – he’s their clearest path towards being competitive again. Kris Dunn’s dislocated finger means he might miss the first week or two of the season. In the meantime it looks like a starting five of: Jerian Grant, Justin Holiday, Paul Zipser, Lauri Markkanen & Robin Lopez. Two, possibly three, starters are already missing from what was already one of the weakest few teams in the NBA. This is gonna be a top-five lottery pick kind of season, one thinks.

Times have changed for the great Chicago Bulls, alright. At least they’re being honest about it though. At least they’ve compiled a bunch of young guys. At least they’ve got a coach who knows what the situation is. At least those long-term fans have six championships to fall asleep to each lonely night. Could’ve probably done without the Bull on Bull violence though.

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