The Bulls are no stranger to flirting with Lady Luck and receiving a rose in return.
Derrick Rose, to be exact.
It was 15 years ago that they overcame a 1.7% chance in the NBA Draft Lottery to land the No. 1 overall pick, leading to them nabbing the hometown kid, Rose, and going on a legitimate playoff run for the first time since the Michael Jordan era.
The ultimate lottery upset? Almost. The Magic overcame longer odds, jumping from 11th in 1993 and drafting Chris Webber after winning the top pick with a 1.52% chance.
Considering those two scenarios, a 1.8% chance doesn’t seem so ominous. That’s where the Bulls stand going into Tuesday night’s lottery (7 p.m., ESPN) — in the 11th spot with a 1.8% chance to land the No. 1 pick, which they’d undoubtedly use on a 7-4 game-changer in French center Victor Wembanyama.
Wembanyama wouldn’t just affect current Bulls blueprints. He is a blueprint, with a combination of height, ball-handling ability, outside shooting, shot-blocking and more. If guard Zach LaVine thinks it’s tough playing a supporting role to forward DeMar DeRozan, imagine how quickly he’d be pushed to third behind Wembanyama and DeRozan.
Oui oui.
“He’s a freak,” LaVine said of Wembanyama in January after seeing him courtside when the Bulls played the Pistons in Paris.
Asked if he’d checked out any of the 19-year-old’s highlights, LaVine answered, “Oh, yeah, we all have.’’
Wembanyama isn’t the only prospect who could change the direction of the team. While G League guard Scoot Henderson, the likely No. 2 pick, promises nowhere near the immediate impact Wembanyama does, he has been compared favorably to Rose. For the Bulls to land there, they’d need to beat 2% odds.
How about a 6-9 scoring machine in Alabama’s Brandon Miller? The Bulls have a 2.2% chance to move up to No. 3 and potentially draft him. Considering DeRozan only has one more season on his contract, having Miller in the wings would be comforting.
The Bulls have a 2.5% chance of moving up to No. 4.
Now the rub: All these long shots may be fun to “what if,” but the Bulls have to deal with what is. When they acquired center Nikola Vucevic from the Magic in 2021, they also had to give up draft assets. The Magic received the No. 8 pick in the 2021 draft and are still owed the Bulls’ 2023 first-round pick, top-four protected.
What that means is the Bulls have just an 8.5% total chance of landing anywhere in the top four and retaining the pick. They have a 77.6% chance of staying in the No. 11 spot and handing it over to the Magic.
And that’s not the only draft emptiness they could end up feeling. Because of the 2019 deal that sent Jabari Parker and Bobby Portis to the Wizards for Otto Porter, the Bulls don’t have a 2023 second-round pick.
Parker: the trade that keeps on hurting.
