Bulls beat Grizzlies, shedding more light on front office malpractice

It’s easy to nitpick the Bulls front office the last few seasons.

They’ve brought most of it on themselves and seem to save their best work at incompetence for the month of March.

Last year at this time they were in the midst of a 15-5 finish, including a half-court prayer by Josh Giddey to beat the Lakers at the United Center. All that finish did was fool executive vice president of basketball operations Arturas Karnisovas into thinking it was a solid decision to run this all back. All that Giddey prayer did was put the Bulls in a tie-breaking coin flip with the Dallas for lottery draft position. The Mavericks won the toss and won Cooper Flagg.

A year later, and a lot of the same nonsense was going on. While visiting Memphis was just one spot in front of the Bulls in lottery position, they seemed to understand the assignment by losing their eighth consecutive game 132-107.

The Bulls?

“Competitive integrity” to chase down organizational failure.

Behind Josh Giddey’s 12^th triple-double of the season (30^th of his career), the Bulls (28-40) improved to 4-4 in March so far, and moved to within a half game of Milwaukee, who was holding down the No. 10 spot in the lottery position.

While on the surface it means very little for somehow falling into lottery gold and hitting No. 1, as teams have shown in the past, odds are meant to be broken. Ask the Mavericks.

Currently, Memphis has a 6% chance at No. 1, the Bulls 4.5%, and Milwaukee 3%. As for falling into the top four of this draft – really the heart of this ’26 class – Memphis is at 26.3%, the Bulls 20.3%, and Milwaukee 13.9%.

If the Bulls do end up jumping over the Bucks that means over 7% chance at hitting top four lost.

No big deal still? If this front office hasn’t had so many draft misses, sure. That’s not the reality they swim in, however. Karnisovas & Co. not only need the fat crayons that are easy to hold, they need the book to be color by numbers.

Billy Donovan wasn’t exactly the right one to ask about that very topic after the game, especially since coaches and players don’t tank – front offices and medical staffs do. With Karnisovas not expected to speak again until the end of the season, Donovan was left holding the bag after the latest win.

“We’re giving all these guys an opportunity to play,” Donovan said. “Rob (Dillingham) played 26 minutes. We used Yabu (Guerschon Yabusele), used Nick (Richards), used Patrick (Williams). I mean we played Yuki (Kawamura) in the heart of the game, so we’re utilizing everybody.

“And like I’ve mentioned to you guys before, everything I’ve gotten from the front office has been about going out there and competing, trying to win. That’s what the discussions have been.”

Again, further evidence that this is on the front office.

If they “controlled” the playing time of Giddey and Matas Buzelis (who scored 29 points) a bit smarter maybe they wouldn’t be 4-4. While it wouldn’t have mattered much against the Grizzlies dumpster fire, it could matter down the stretch.

Donovan won’t stray from what he’s doing, and that’s win games.

“It hasn’t been, ‘Hey, play this guy, this guy, this guy,’ or ‘Do this, this, or this,’ “ Donovan added. “I’m not that familiar with all the (draft) odds or percentages, things like that, but I just know organizationally – and I respect it – these guys come here every night, they work hard, and they want to compete. I respect that.

“From my conversation (with the front office) there is a professional integrity that they feel we have a responsibility to go out and put our best foot forward.”