{"id":21409,"date":"2025-05-09T15:57:20","date_gmt":"2025-05-09T15:57:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/21409\/"},"modified":"2025-05-09T15:57:20","modified_gmt":"2025-05-09T15:57:20","slug":"chicago-bulls-nba-basketball-history-notable-players","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/21409\/","title":{"rendered":"Chicago Bulls | NBA, Basketball, History, & Notable Players"},"content":{"rendered":"

Chicago Bulls, American professional basketball<\/a> team based in Chicago<\/a> that plays in the National Basketball Association<\/a> (NBA). The Bulls are probably most associated with former shooting guard Michael Jordan<\/a>, who led the team to six NBA championships (1991\u201393, 1996\u201398) and is viewed by many observers as the greatest basketball player of all time.<\/p>\n

(Read James Naismith\u2019s 1929 Britannica essay on his invention of basketball.)<\/a><\/p>\n

The franchise was established in 1966 and got off to a promising start, with the best record ever for an NBA expansion team\u201433 wins and 48 losses. Led by standouts<\/a> Bob Love<\/a>, Chet Walker<\/a>, Jerry Sloan<\/a>, and Norm Van Lier<\/a>, the Bulls qualified for the playoffs every year between the 1969\u201370 and 1974\u201375 seasons, but they advanced past the first round only twice. After the talented foursome left the team, the Bulls slid into mediocrity and posted losing seasons through most of the late 1970s and early 1980s.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\"Serena<\/p>\n

Britannica Quiz<\/p>\n

Great Moments in Sports Quiz<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

In 1984 Chicago drafted Jordan with the third overall selection of the NBA draft, and the team began its ascent to dominance. Jordan won the NBA\u2019s Rookie of the Year award in the 1984\u201385 season and led Chicago to the first of 14 consecutive playoff berths. However, his stellar individual play did not immediately translate to postseason success for his team, as the Bulls lost in the first round of the playoffs in each of Jordan\u2019s first three years.<\/p>\n

In 1987 Chicago added forward Scottie Pippen<\/a>, who perfectly complemented Jordan\u2019s skills and dramatically improved the overall quality of the young team. In 1989 the Bulls advanced to the Eastern Conference finals only to be eliminated from the playoffs for the second consecutive year by the Detroit Pistons<\/a>; following the season, the Bulls replaced head coach Doug Collins with Phil Jackson<\/a>. Jackson and assistant coach Tex Winter installed the \u201ctriangle offense<\/a>,\u201d an offensive scheme predicated<\/a> on the precise spacing of players and movement without the ball, which discouraged opposing defensive players from double-teaming Jordan.<\/p>\n

With the new offense in place, Jordan, Pippen, and a roster of key role players\u2014including gritty forward Horace Grant, veteran center Bill Cartwright, and three-point shooting specialist John Paxson\u2014pushed the Pistons to a seventh game before losing in the 1990 Eastern Conference finals. The Bulls finally overcame their persistent adversaries the following year, sweeping Detroit<\/a> in four games to earn a berth in the 1991 NBA Finals, where the Bulls defeated the Los Angeles Lakers<\/a> for their first title. The Bulls repeated as champions in 1992 and 1993, becoming the first NBA team to win three consecutive titles since the Boston Celtics<\/a> won eight in a row between 1959 and 1966.<\/p>\n

Chicago Bulls Results by Season: 2019\u201320 to 2023\u201324 season record playoffs 2019\u201320 22\u201343 missed playoffs 2020\u201321 31\u201341 missed playoffs 2021\u201322 46\u201336 lost in first round 2022\u201323 40\u201342 missed playoffs 2023\u201324 39\u201343 missed playoffs <\/p>\n

Jordan retired before the 1993\u201394 season, citing a lack of interest in basketball and a desire to pursue a career in professional baseball<\/a>, and the Bulls regressed in his absence, losing in the second round of the 1994 playoffs. In March 1995 Jordan returned to the team, but his late addition to the Bulls\u2019 roster was not enough to prevent another early postseason exit.<\/p>\n

The team added flamboyant<\/a> and controversial star rebounder Dennis Rodman<\/a> in the 1995 offseason, and the reenergized Bulls, with the help of stellar side players such as Steve Kerr,<\/a>, tore through the league the next year, setting an NBA record with 72 wins and only 10 losses (which was broken by the Golden State Warriors<\/a> in 2015\u201316). The Bulls capped their run by beating the Seattle Supersonics<\/a> in the 1996 NBA Finals. Chicago<\/a> advanced to the finals again in 1997 and 1998, and the Bulls defeated the Utah Jazz<\/a> to capture the NBA title on each occasion.<\/p>\n

After guiding the team to six championships in eight years, Jackson\u2014who had grown unhappy with the team\u2019s management, especially with general manager Jerry Krause, to whom some had ascribed<\/a> much credit for the Bulls\u2019 success\u2014decided to leave Chicago after the 1997\u201398 season. His departure spurred Jordan\u2019s second retirement, Pippen\u2019s demand to be traded to a new team, and Rodman\u2019s decision to sign with the Lakers. Without Jackson and their three best players, the suddenly talent-depleted Bulls finished with the worst record in the Eastern Conference the following four straight seasons.<\/p>\n

Derrick Rose<\/a>American basketball player Derrick Rose of the Chicago Bulls driving for a shot attempt against Dwyane Wade of the Miami Heat in game five of the Eastern Conference finals during the 2011 NBA playoffs in Chicago, May 26, 2011.(more)<\/p>\n

A slow rebuilding process resulted in Chicago\u2019s returning to the playoffs three consecutive times beginning in the 2004\u201305 season. Behind the play of star point guard Derrick Rose<\/a>, the Bulls posted the best record in the NBA during the 2010\u201311 and 2011\u201312 regular seasons, but the team lost in the Eastern Conference finals in the former season and was upset by the eighth-seeded Philadelphia 76ers<\/a> in the latter after Rose was sidelined with a severe knee injury late in game one of the series.<\/p>\n

Rose missed all of the following season, and a separate injury knocked him out of all but 10 games in 2013\u201314, but the tenacious<\/a> Bulls managed to qualify for the playoffs without their superstar in both seasons. Rose appeared in nearly a third of the team\u2019s games during the 2014\u201315 season, and the Bulls again made the postseason only to lose in the second round. The franchise made a coaching change during the following offseason in an effort to stem the Bulls\u2019 diminishing returns<\/a> on the court, but Chicago finished with a 42\u201340 record in 2015\u201316 and ended its seven-season streak of qualifying for the playoffs.<\/p>\n

In the following offseason, the team let Rose leave in free agency and added hometown hero Dwyane Wade<\/a> to play alongside burgeoning star Jimmy Butler<\/a>. That combination led the Bulls back to the playoffs in 2016\u201317, which resulted in an opening-round loss. The team parted ways with Wade<\/a> and Butler in the following offseason, and the Bulls entered another extended rebuilding effort. They had losing records and missed the playoffs from 2017\u201318 to 2020\u201321. Chicago had a brief return to relevance in 2021\u201322, finishing with a 46\u201336 record and returning to the postseason for the first time in five years. However, the team went back to its losing ways in subsequent years.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Chicago Bulls, American professional basketball team based in Chicago that plays in the National Basketball Association (NBA). The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":21410,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3771],"tags":[1297,7,4922,920,919,329,3824,4921,4920,6],"class_list":{"0":"post-21409","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-chicago-bulls","8":"tag-article","9":"tag-basketball","10":"tag-britannica","11":"tag-bulls","12":"tag-chicago","13":"tag-chicago-bulls","14":"tag-chicagobulls","15":"tag-encyclopeadia","16":"tag-encyclopedia","17":"tag-nba"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/114478700690627424","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21409","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21409"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21409\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21410"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21409"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21409"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21409"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}