Fact or Fiction: The Chicago Bulls are for real

Each week during the 2025-26 NBA season, we will take a deeper dive into some of the leagueâ€s biggest storylines in an attempt to determine whether trends are based more in fact or fiction moving forward.

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Fact or Fiction: The Chicago Bulls are for real

Ah, the once-proud Chicago Bulls.

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We call them that because they are the team of Michael Jordan. Of Scottie Pippen. Of Horace Grant. Of Dennis Rodman. Of Steve Kerr. Of Toni KukoÄ. They won six championships over a span of eight years in the NBA’s third-largest media market, cementing themselves as modern basketball’s greatest dynasty.

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We call them that because, since then, they have won a total of five playoff series in 27 years, almost all of which occurred over a five-year stretch during the rise and fall of their No. 1 draft pick, Derrick Rose.

Otherwise, the Bulls have mostly fought from the NBA’s middle, cycling through rosters that boasted Zach LaVine, DeMar DeRozan or Nikola VuÄević as their best player. It has been a sad state of affairs, highlighted mostly by persistent calls for the firings of longtime executives John Paxson and Gar Forman, who served Chicago’s front office until 2020, when Bulls owner Jerry Reinsdorf finally replaced them at the helm with ArtÅ«ras KarniÅ¡ovas.

Josh Giddey celebrates during the first half of the Emirates NBA Cup against the New York Knicks on October 31, 2025, at the United Center in Chicago, Illinois. (Photo by Melissa Tamez/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)

(Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)

Following DeRozan’s free-agency departure in the summer of 2024, KarniÅ¡ovas traded LaVine last season for Kevin Huerter, Tre Jones, Zach Collins and a 2025 first-round draft pick (Noa Essengue). It signaled a fresh start for Chicago, one built on the back of another lottery pick, Matas Buzelis, the 11th overall selection in June 2024. He is a promising young player, full of boundless energy and bounce, but far from the type of prospect who can command a winner … yet. We figured the Bulls for last in our League Pass power rankings, the type of team that can only compete for a fourth straight play-in tournament berth.

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Then, a funny thing happened on their way back to the middle. In a watered-down Eastern Conference, where its last two champions, the Boston Celtics and Indiana Pacers, are missing their best players, the Bulls have started 6-1, owners of their bracket’s best record. Only a single other team, the defending champion Oklahoma City Thunder, has lost so few games through the season’s first two-plus weeks.

Which begs the question: Are these Bulls for real?

They are for real as their record is, because wins stay on the ledger. In an East landscape where not even the clear favorites, the New York Knicks and Cleveland Cavaliers, can claim to be world beaters, effort goes a long way in the early going, and Chicago’s success through seven games may be enough to inspire that determination for a full season, so long as they can remain in the hunt for a guaranteed playoff spot.

Already with wins over the Knicks, Detroit Pistons, Orlando Magic and Atlanta Hawks — all should-be East contenders — the Bulls, like every other team in the conference, save for the Washington Wizards and Brooklyn Nets, should believe they can win on any night. Enough of them earns you a playoff bid.

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The Bulls play fast in an era when everyone does, and that is unlikely to change. Outside of VuÄević, they are a young team, as most everybody was born after 2000. Coby White, their up-tempo combo guard, has yet to play a single possession. Do not be surprised if they rank higher than 10th in pace by season’s end.

Playing fast is one thing. Playing efficiently is another, and the Bulls have done that in spades. They are shooting 40.3% as a team from 3-point range, best in the East. VuÄević, Buzelis, Josh Giddey, Ayo Dosunmu and Patrick Williams are each shooting better than 40% and making multiple 3s per night.

That will fall back to Earth, where the Bulls ranked 13th in 3-point percentage last season. They are one of the NBA’s worst-shooting teams from midrange, though they take fewer attempts from that area than any team but the Charlotte Hornets. The shot diet is good. They are just eating more than they should.

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Giddey, for example, is shooting 56.3% on catch-and-shoot 3s though seven games. He shot 38.4% on them last season. Even improved shooting does not explain a leap that large. Likewise, only two teams in the past decade — the 73-win 2015-16 Golden State Warriors and the pandemic-shortened 2020-21 Los Angeles Clippers — have shot better than 40% for a whole season. The Bulls will regress to the mean.

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A few percentage points could cost them several points per 100 possessions, which would drop them from a top-10 standing (117.2 offensive rating) to the middle of the pack. Or worse. Last season, after the All-Star break, the Bulls scored 116.6 points per 100 possessions, good for 14th in that span. In their last two games, a loss to the Knicks and a win over the Philadelphia 76ers that required a 20-point comeback, the Bulls are scoring 112.8 points per 100 possessions. Pick which small sample size you think is accurate.

How you feel about Giddey as a primary option will go a long way toward telling you how you feel about Chicago’s chances of maintaining its current pace. He is averaging a 23-10-9 on 50/42/75 shooting splits, up from his 15-8-7 on 47/38/78 splits last season. Do you think Giddey skipped the All-Star leap and went straight to the All-NBA vault? Because if he continues to play like this, that is exactly what he would be.

Take nothing away from what Giddey has done. He is the face of their fun, fast-paced, egalitarian brand of basketball. Take nothing away from Buzelis, either. The kid is a rising star. Take nothing away from any of them, actually, including Williams, who is also enjoying career-best efficiency. But let us be real: They are not last year’s Indiana Pacers, even if Giddey is performing like Tyrese Haliburton. Look at this pass …

How many people would throw that cross-court pass — let alone through three defenders, on a bounce, in transition, perfectly spotted for Buzelis to catch and shoot? The Bulls are surprising teams with how swiftly they get into their actions. How long they can maintain that pace through January and February, as the season drags, as skill becomes more of a mitigating factor than effort, should still be in question.

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Same goes for VuÄević as the backbone of a top-flight defense. How long will that continue? He has twice in 14 seasons — on the 2018-19 Magic and 2022-23 Bulls — started at center for a team ranked in the top 10 on that end. Through the season’s first two games, the Bulls owned a ridiculous 98.1 defensive rating — leading the league, and a number that has not been replicated since the doldrums of 2004. Since that start, Chicago has posted a 118.6 defensive rating over five games, falling out of the top 10 on the season.

It isn’t as though the Bulls had made a defensive leap in their first two games of the season, despite allowing an NBA-worst 63 paint points per game; they were Homer Simpson jumping Springfield Gorge …

… OK, maybe not quite that bad. But the Bulls last season owned a 114.8 defensive rating, good for 19th in the league. After the All-Star break, though, when they were 17-10, the Bulls posted a 111.7 defensive rating, good for 10th. It is an improvement. And it is encouraging to see improvement in a young team.

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However, no team allows more field-goal attempts per game in the restricted area than the Bulls — by a wide margin. Opponents are shooting well below league average on those layups, which will change. While Chicago has defended the 3 well, allowing fewer wide-open tries than any other team, according to the NBA’s tracking data, opponents are shooting an abysmal 33.9% on those looks. That will change, too.

So, if Chicago’s shooting falls back to Earth, as expected, and their opponents’ shooting gets off the ground, as expected, then the compounding effects of those circumstances — including fewer chances in transition, where they have been killers — add up to a sharp turn back toward the middle. That hot start, though, could keep them in contention for a guaranteed playoff seed if they navigate the next few weeks.

Remember: The Bulls last started this hot in their 2021-22 campaign, when they added Lonzo Ball to a mix that included LaVine, DeRozan, VuÄević and Alex Caruso, a king among overachievers. That group took a 26-10 record into January, when they owned the East’s best record. Injuries derailed that promising start, though it helped them finish 46-36, outproducing a projected 40-42 record (based on a -0.4 net rating).

Let us hope that injuries do not derail this edition of the Bulls. But statistics should. Chicago will not continue to shoot better than 40% from 3 as a team. Nor will its opponents continue to shoot 34.2% from deep. Almost certainly, both numbers will creep toward league average (35.9% — around where it settles for most every season). They have already been trending that way since their first two games. Suddenly, the layup line that opponents have been running against the Bulls seems more of a problem.

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It does not help that the Bulls face Milwaukee, Cleveland, San Antonio and Detroit — with all but the Spurs coming on the road — in their next four games. Ten of their upcoming 13 games are not at home.

We could very well live in a world where the Bulls are .500 by Christmas, or even before then, and they are bound for either another play-in tournament berth, another first-round playoff exit or both. But who wants to live in that world? These are the once-proud Chicago Bulls — a massive media market for the NBA, a great fan base, dare I say a fun League Pass watch — and there is reason for pride in them again.

For now. Whether they should want the success they have had and not another bite at the lottery apple is another matter entirely. Water finds its level, and its level in Chicago is a projected win total of 41.5, according to BetMGM’s over/unders, up from their preseason projection (32.5) but still nowhere near the top. Right in the middle, actually, where they have ended for almost as long as we can remember.

Determination: Fiction. The Bulls are not for real. At least not in the “true threat” sense. But they are fun, and that is a whole lot better than they have been, and it matters in this year’s Eastern Conference, when any playoff series can be won, so enjoy this while it lasts, for the middle is an awful place to be.

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