At 29-47 on the season, the Chicago Bulls have been eliminated from play-in contention, which means they will miss the playoffs for the fourth straight season. Overall, the Bulls have made the postseason only once in the previous seven campaigns.
Chicago has not gotten past the first round of the playoffs since 2015 and if you look further back, they have not had a superstar player since Derrick Rose. And so with the Bulls headed to the NBA Draft Lottery, former Bull Stacey King wants NBA commissioner Adam Silver to “give the Bulls a hand.”
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“There’s a ton of good players out there,”said King.
“The Bulls are going to have an opportunity to get someone good. We just don’t want them to be drafting in 11 or 12. We want them up there where they have a shot. Adam Silver and I keep saying this and I know it’s crazy to think of this, but Adam Silver got to help the Bulls out. They helped Dallas out last year. And anybody who says they didn’t is lying, okay? No way in the world they should’ve gotten the No. 1 pick last year,” he explained.
The Spurs and Mavs miraculously won the lottery in 2023 and 2025
The Mavericks entered the 2024-25 season with high expectations after they made it to the 2024 NBA Finals. However, they stunned the NBA community by trading superstar guard Luka Doncic to the Los Angeles Lakers for Anthony Davis. Unfortunately, Davis got hurt and so did Kyrie Irving. The Mavs struggled, missed the playoffs and ended up in the Draft Lottery.
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In a stunning turn of events, the Mavs won the Draft Lottery despite having just a 1.8 percent chance of winning it. A couple of years back, the San Antonio Spurs also won the draft lottery, moving from their original position of number three to number one. San Antonio ended up picking Victor Wembanyama, who is now their franchise cornerstone.
Last year, the Mavs ended up drafting consensus top pick Cooper Flagg and he is also the guy they will build around for the future. Meanwhile, the Bulls have plenty of talented young stars, but no one like Wemby or Coop.
“It’s time for the Bulls to get the same kind of treatment. The Bulls need to be in the mix in the playoffs. They need to be back on Christmas. Their brand is in the Top 5 in the NBA. It’s world known. They’re part of that big equation of big market teams that need to be in the playoffs,” King added.
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King doesn’t believe in lottery luck, only lottery help
Since drafting Rose first overall in the 2008 NBA Draft, the Bulls’ highest draft picks have been Patrick Williams at fourth overall in 2020, Coby White at seventh overall in 2029 and Wendell Carter Jr. at seventh overall in 2018.
In fact, those three are their only Top 10 picks during that span.
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As it stands right now, the Bulls will get the eighth or ninth pick in the Lottery, based on team records. But as we saw last year, the Mavs incredibly moved up 10 spots to get Flagg.
The NBA Draft Lottery has been rocked by rumors of being rigged ever since the start. The 1985 Draft Lottery was famously won by the New York Knicks because, allegedly, the league wanted to put Patrick Ewing in a big market and the NBA wanted to “help” the struggling Knicks.
It’s also worth noting that in 2008, the Bulls moved up eight spots to get the chance to draft Chicago’s own in D-Rose. So it’s not that the Bulls have not been blessed before. But it may be the right time to bless them again.
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This story was originally published by Basketball Network on Apr 2, 2026, where it first appeared in the Latest News section. Add Basketball Network as a Preferred Source by clicking here.