Thanks to the Bucks winning, the Bulls hold steady at No. 9 in lottery

It’s starting to feel like the Bulls are safe in holding down the No. 9 spot in the draft lottery.

It’s almost Karnisovas-proof.

Thanks to a seventh straight loss on Sunday, falling to the visiting Suns 120-110, the Bulls dropped two games behind Milwaukee in the standings, which meant a two-game lead in the lottery process with just four games left in the regular season.

Considering the Bucks play tanking Brooklyn twice in the next week, even “competitive integrity” seemingly can’t derail the Bulls at this point. Sure, executive vice president of basketball operations Arturas Karnisovas has always insisted that the Bulls (29-49) would never get involved in the art of tanking, but that was before he realized his roster construction was again going nowhere this season.

Big picture if this order stays when the season ends? The Bulls will have a 4.5% chance to hit No. 1 in the lottery and a 20.3% chance to land in the top four.

No. 10 Milwaukee will have a 3% chance on No. 1 and a 13.9% chance in hitting top four.

Where the real hit is felt is if neither team moves up. The Bulls have a 50.7% chance to stay at No. 9, while Milwaukee has a 65.9% to stay No. 10.

So while the odds for either team hitting No. 1 is only a 1.5% difference, No. 9 is far more valuable on several other fronts.

The way this talented 2026 draft class breaks down on the surface is AJ Dybantsa, Darryn Peterson, Cameron Boozer and Caleb Wilson can all make an argument for No. 1, and each has a chance to be an organizational game changer.

Then comes a run on guards like Kingston Flemings, Darius Acuff Jr., Keaton Wagler, Brayden Burries, Mikel Brown Jr., and Labaron Philon Jr. All talented but all with a bit more question marks than the top four players.

All serious talk surrounding the Bulls but talk that the likes of current guard Tre Jones wasn’t interested in concerning himself with.

That’s why the veteran was in attack mode all afternoon against the Suns. With Josh Giddey (hamstring) sitting out, Jones was the primary ball-handler and took full advantage of it, scoring 29 points (12-of-20 shooting) and handing out six assists. Not that he snuck up on the Suns by any means, considering he dropped 21 points on them last month in Phoenix.

“The competitor in me thinks anytime we go into a game we have a chance to win,” Jones said recently when discussing his mindset whether a team is up in the standings or in the basement area. “Now being in the NBA for, this is my sixth year, I’ve kind of been around and seen that every NBA game when both teams line up, there’s enough talent on both sides. Whatever a team does, the controllable things, and plays hard on top of that, it usually gives themselves a chance to win.”

And Jones was practicing what he was preaching, putting the Bulls in position to win the game late, scoring on a layup with 3:26 left that cut the Phoenix lead to just one.

There’s a reason the Suns are sitting in the No. 7 seed in the Western Conference and the Bulls aren’t, however.

Dillon Brooks said enough was enough, hitting a mid-range to move the lead back to three and 30 seconds later connected on a three-pointer to key the 11-2 run to close out the game.

With Matas Buzelis (illness) also sidelined, that meant more playing time for surprising forward Leonard Miller. In his 33 minutes of work, Miller scored 17 points and grabbed 10 rebounds in the loss.