{"id":592605,"date":"2026-02-09T14:20:18","date_gmt":"2026-02-09T14:20:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/592605\/"},"modified":"2026-02-09T14:20:18","modified_gmt":"2026-02-09T14:20:18","slug":"chicago-bulls-players-not-into-rebuild-narrative","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/592605\/","title":{"rendered":"Chicago Bulls players not into rebuild narrative"},"content":{"rendered":"

The new Chicago Bulls played well for three quarters Saturday in their first game at the United Center since Thursday\u2019s trade-deadline fire sale<\/a>.<\/p>\n

They hustled and rebounded and showed some grit, like when Matas Buzelis tried to wrestle the ball from the Denver Nuggets\u2019 mountain man, 6-foot-11 Jonas Valan\u010di\u016bnas, during a dead-ball timeout in the second quarter.<\/p>\n

It was man-child against beast, and Buzelis would give no quarter.<\/p>\n

NBA trade grades: Did the Chicago Bulls get enough for Coby White? And what\u2019s with all the 2nd-round picks?<\/a><\/p>\n<\/p>\n

The Bulls eventually collapsed in a 136-120 loss to the Nuggets<\/a> before a sellout crowd of 20,939, but the start of the latest rebuild that can\u2019t be called a rebuild was off to an interesting first step nonetheless.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was definitely hard to sleep last night,\u201d guard Collin Sexton said. \u201cI was so ready, I was super, super excited. So today was definitely a good day.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sexton, one of the seven new players who took the court Saturday, scored 17 points in his debut after coming over from the Charlotte Hornets in the Coby White trade<\/a>. Buzelis led the Bulls with 21 points, including four 3-pointers, and Guerschon Yabusele, the former New York Knick, scored 12 on four 3s.<\/p>\n

The Bulls took a seven-point lead into the fourth quarter before the Nuggets scored the first 12 points of a 24-4 run that sealed it. The Bulls were held without a field goal in the fourth until Buzelis\u2019 3 at the halfway mark. Nuggets center Nikola Joki\u0107 had a triple-double with 22 points, 14 rebounds and 17 assists, passing Oscar Robertson on the all-time list with the 182nd triple-double of his career.<\/p>\n

The Bulls (24-29) have lost seven of their last eight games since briefly going over the .500 mark and have given up 130 points or more in three of their last four games. They fell a game behind the Hornets for 10th place in the Eastern Conference and find themselves on the outside looking in for the play-in tournament.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve got to get much better defensively,\u201d coach Billy Donovan said, though he cut the players some slack since it was the first time the Chicago 7 had played together.<\/p>\n

The Expenda-Bulls aren\u2019t willing to feed into the rebuild narrative.<\/p>\n

Photos: Denver Nuggets 136, Chicago Bulls 120<\/a><\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\u201cWe definitely can be very special,\u201d Sexton said. \u201cI feel like for us to have one walk-through and to go out there pretty much jelling and making the right reads and doing this together. \u2026 It was super fun. At the end of the day, I know something good is coming.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sexton has taken it upon himself to serve as the de facto social chairman, saying it\u2019s his personality to get the guys together to bond. They\u2019ll head on a mini-trip Monday with a game in New York against the Brooklyn Nets, followed by Wednesday\u2019s matchup against the Boston Celtics and old friend Nikola Vu\u010devi\u0107<\/a>. Then comes the All-Star break and the second-half auditions to find out who will stay and who will go.<\/p>\n

Donovan said it\u2019s still strange to walk into the locker room.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe first guy I see is Vooch, and he\u2019s not there,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Isaac Okoro moved into Vu\u010devi\u0107\u2019s locker, and some others moved around as well. The Bulls began to deal with the reality that new veteran leadership must emerge.<\/p>\n

Perhaps the player making the toughest transition is Buzelis, who is suddenly expected to be the focus of the offense with former teammates gone and Josh Giddey sitting out with a left hamstring strain.<\/p>\n

Donovan said Buzelis got his first \u201ctaste of this (league) as a business\u201d and was \u201cstill processing\u201d what had happened.<\/p>\n

Who are the 7 new Chicago Bulls? Meet Jaden Ivey, Anfernee Simons and the rest of the deadline additions.<\/a><\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s tough, of course, but at the end of the day you\u2019ve just got to accept what happens,\u201d Buzelis said. \u201cThat\u2019s just what it is. I\u2019m happy to see these guys here. I think we\u2019ve got something special and we can make it work, but it\u2019s tough, losing all my brothers.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is what it is, and you\u2019ve got to accept it. \u2026 Those guys are always going to be part of my circle. They impacted me as a player. I\u2019m never going to forget the relationships I\u2019ve built with them over the years. They were great vets to me.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Bulls are no doubt in a rebuild, even as management prefers to call it \u201ca stage.\u201d But Donovan is not coaching like someone who is interested in tanking for a better draft pick, and the players aren\u2019t accepting that notion.<\/p>\n

\u201cCoach made it a point to say that if we want to win, then that\u2019s what we\u2019re going to do,\u201d guard Rob Dillingham said. \u201cI want to win. I don\u2019t play games to lose.\u201d<\/p>\n

Art\u016bras Karni\u0161ovas embraces change with Chicago Bulls after making 7 trades: \u2018The play-in is not our goal\u2019<\/a><\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Dillingham, acquired from the Minnesota Timberwolves in the Ayo Dosunmu deal<\/a>, played 22 minutes and scored nine points with four assists, including some nice lob passes.<\/p>\n

While the players are all too young to know much about this team\u2019s history, the Bulls had a famous episode in the 1985-86 season when they were accused of trying to tank it for the draft. The one accusing them was none other than star Michael Jordan, who was returning from a broken foot and was placed on a minutes limit.<\/p>\n

Chairman Jerry Reinsdorf had said in December 1985 that he wouldn\u2019t allow tanking.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s losing, and I don\u2019t like losing on purpose,\u201d Reinsdorf said. \u201cI don\u2019t ever want to be party to losing on purpose. Losing breeds losing, and pretty soon you\u2019re losing respect for yourself.\u201d<\/p>\n

But the story took a wild turn when Jordan eventually came back from the injury that spring and fought with management over the minutes restriction, claiming the Bulls were trying to lose.<\/p>\n

\u201cLosing games on purpose reflects what kind of person you really are,\u201d Jordan said. \u201cNo one should ever try to lose to get something better. You should always try to make the best with what you have. If they really wanted to make the playoffs, they\u2019d have me in there whenever we had a chance to win a game.\u201d<\/p>\n

General manager Jerry Krause then criticized Jordan in a comment that would haunt him for years.<\/p>\n

\u201cJerry Reinsdorf is running this franchise,\u201d Krause said. \u201cNo one player is bigger than the franchise, no matter who he is.\u201d<\/p>\n

That, of course, was the season Jordan scored an NBA-record 63 points in a double-overtime loss to the Celtics in the first round of the playoffs. If there was one player bigger than the Bulls franchise, it was Jordan.<\/p>\n

Times change, but 40 years later, some are thinking the Bulls need to tank to get a better pick next summer. But the new Bulls aren\u2019t buying it.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe want to win every game,\u201d Buzelis said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The new Chicago Bulls played well for three quarters Saturday in their first game at the United Center…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":592606,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3771],"tags":[7,3363,920,919,329,3824,1585,4744,973,935,6,446,79410],"class_list":["post-592605","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-chicago-bulls","tag-basketball","tag-billy-donovan","tag-bulls","tag-chicago","tag-chicago-bulls","tag-chicagobulls","tag-collin-sexton","tag-jerry-reinsdorf","tag-matas-buzelis","tag-michael-jordan","tag-nba","tag-nba-basketball","tag-rob-dillinghmam"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116041116855286565","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/592605","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=592605"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/592605\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/592606"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=592605"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=592605"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=592605"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}