Can you be so bad that you’re actually good?

Feb 5, 2025; Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA; Minnesota Timberwolves guard Anthony Edwards (5) reacts after getting the basket and the foul against the Chicago Bulls during the third quarter at Target Center. Mandatory Credit: Nick Wosika-Imagn Images | Nick Wosika-Imagn Images

Did the Chicago Bulls fail so epically at the 2025 NBA trade deadline that they’ll actually benefit from it?

The Bulls are winless in their four games since they traded Zach LaVine to the Sacramento Kings. But they’re not just losing games. They’re getting destroyed in them.

Chicago has lost those contests by an average of 24.5 points. That includes a historic 40-point loss to the Detroit Pistons, which marked the third-worst margin of defeat for the team in three years and one of the worst in the organization’s nearly 60-year history.

The first half of that Pistons game, coupled with the second half of the team’s previous loss—a 21-point defeat at the hands of the Golden State Warriors—meant the Bulls were outscored by 77 points in 48 minutes.

To do the quick math, that’s the equivalent of losing an NBA game by 77 points.

As a franchise that should be tanking for the highest draft pick possible, this putrid display should make sense. But this Chicago front office doesn’t ever seem to do things logically.

Vice President of Basketball Operations Arturas Karnisovas, for reasons unbeknownst to the general NBA public, has stated his desire to shoot for a spot in the Eastern Conference Play-In Tournament. It seems, however, that Karnisovas may be so bad at his job that he’s stumbling into actually being good at it.

Chicago Bulls could realistically end season with top-5 NBA draft lottery odds

Karnisovas and Co. traded LaVine in exchange for Tre Jones, Kevin Huerter, Zach Collins and a first-round pick that the Bulls traded in 2021 as part of the DeMar DeRozan deal. Had Chicago been trying to offload LaVine for more than a year? Yes. Is that return inspiring? Not at all.

Regrabbing that first-round pick wasn’t insignificant, though. It was not only top-10 protected this season but top-8 protected in 2026 and 2027. The franchise would’ve spent the next three seasons walking a tightrope, trying to finish with one of the worst records in the league but still staying outside of the top 8.

Now, Chicago can lose without needing to worry about losing too much; although, clearly, losing hasn’t been much of an issue since the deadline. Whether that’s accidentally or on purpose may not end up even mattering.

Heading into the All-Star break, the Bulls are 22-33, having lost those aforementioned four straight games and 7 of their last 10. That’s good (or bad) for the eighth-worst record in the league.

Behind them are the Philadelphia 76ers and Brooklyn Nets, both 20-34 and 1.5 games worse than Chicago. The Sixers, with Joel Embiid, Tyrese Maxey and Paul George, should, on paper, have a legitimate chance to finish higher than the Bulls in the standings. If Head Coach Billy Donovan’s team continues to lose at this rate, it could very well out-lose the tanking Nets, too.

That brings us to the Toronto Raptors, who are 17-35 and five games behind Chicago. At first glance, that seems like a long bridge to gap, but the Raptors made a deadline move to improve, acquiring Brandon Ingram from the New Orleans Pelicans.

With Ingram joining Scottie Barnes, RJ Barrett, Immanuel Quickley and Jakob Poeltl, the Raptors have a team more equipped to win games than the Bulls.

Should Chicago continue to pile on the losses over the final 28 contests of the regular season and drop behind these three teams—again, not a totally unlikely scenario—it would finish fifth in the lottery odds. That would give the Bulls a 10.5 percent chance of landing the No. 1 overall pick and Duke phenom Cooper Flagg.

That same 10.5 percent chance would extend throughout the top four and also give the team a chance at Rutgers stars Ace Bailey and Ron Harper Jr.

Did Karnisovas plan to dive straight into the tanking deep end with his one trade-deadline move? All signs point to no. Is he such an awful team-builder that he may have done it on accident? It looks like that may be the case.