MORRISSEY: Dear Bulls: The winning is tons of fun. It really is. Now stop.

Most of us have at least one behavior we know is not good for us yet can’t stop repeating. It might be entering into relationships with people we know will treat us poorly. It might be eating 12 hot dogs at a sitting, even though modern medicine tells us it’s colonic suicide.

Watching the Bulls has been thoroughly enjoyable of late, even though we know deep in our bones that winning basketball is the absolute worst thing right now for the franchise. I’ll cop to that guilty pleasure.

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Kris Dunn has taken the next step the team had hoped he would when it acquired him from Minnesota on draft night. Rookie Lauri Markkanen is good, headed toward very, very good. And Nikola Mirotic has turned into a scoring machine.

Great, wonderful, terrific.

Now, lots more losing, please.

A month ago, the Bulls had the worst record in the NBA, and life was wonderful. Now the 14-26 Bulls have the seventh-worst record in the NBA. Most experts believe that four great, can’t-miss players will enter the draft this year — Arizona center DeAndre Ayton, Real Madrid guard Luka Doncic, Duke forward Marvin Bagley III and Missouri forward Michael Porter Jr. Texas center Mohamed Bamba could crack that top four before the college basketball season is over, and Oklahoma guard Trae Young has moved up on many experts’ boards.

Let’s be charitable and say there are six can’t-miss prospects. Did I mention that, if the draft were today, the Bulls would have the seventh-most lottery Ping Pong balls, which are used to decide who gets the first three picks? Not good. Very not good.

It’s much too early to say that it would be so like the Bulls to fail at tanking. But no matter how much fun it has been to watch these young Bulls gel, the winning part is a really, really bad thing.

Coach Fred Hoiberg, who has gone from silly to smart in a month, said his players are learning how to win, which he insists is a really, really good thing. Listen, Fred, they can learn about that after the draft. In the meantime, have them read a book about winning. No more 10 victories in 12 games, no matter how good it makes everybody feel. And it does feel good. These guys play hard. They’re fun. They win games they shouldn’t.

Now stop that.

Mirotic was the force behind the Bulls’ seven-game winning streak in December. He returned from his Bobby Portis-induced facial injury and took over the scoring. Again: great, wonderful, terrific.

And when Jan. 15 arrives, the first day Mirotic is eligible to be dealt, the Bulls need to send him to another team. All this winning – the man is clearly a bad influence! The Sun-Times has reported that Mirotic is willing to waive the no-trade clause in his contract. God bless him.

Zach LaVine, the centerpiece for the Bulls in the trade that sent Jimmy Butler to Minnesota, will make his Bulls debut soon. I’m counting on some regression when the team trades Mirotic and starts playing the two-time NBA Slam Dunk champion. Here’s hoping that, for a while, LaVine is good but not that good. Here’s hoping he spends the next three months shaking off the rust from his knee-surgery rehab. Here’s hoping he’s great next season.

The Bulls could use an Ayton or a Bamba inside. Imagine a lineup that includes LaVine, Dunn, Markkanen and Ayton. In two years, we might be talking about a team with serious — and realistic — playoff intentions.

The story of a woeful sports team doing what it isn’t supposed to do might be funny on the big screen (hello, “Major League”), but it would be depressing if these Bulls were to act it out to the end of the season. There’s too much riding on the necessity of team-wide badness. They have to have one of those top four picks. They can’t count on another team’s needs allowing one of those top players to drop to the Bulls’ draft position.

The Bulls headed into a back-to-back Friday with three straight losses, which is more like it. After beating the 13-win Mavericks, they lost to the Pacers by 39. That’s certainly more like it.

Bulls players and coaches want to win, because that’s how they’re wired. But it’s not an all-or-nothing proposition. Progress can be made without winning games. Players can improve without winning games.

In this strange season, we live by two truths:

Winning is losing.

And losing is winning.

Everybody needs to get with the program. Especially the Bulls.

Follow me on Twitter @MorrisseyCST.

Email: rmorrissey@suntimes.com