The Bernstein Brief: Bulls Need To Be Really Bad, And Fast
By Dan Bernstein--
CBSChicago.com senior columnist
(CBS) Take it as the best possible news that most sports betting houses have the over/under for Bulls wins this year at or around a league-low 22, because this may be the last season it matters as much.
The NBA competition committee has formally recommended a draft lottery reform plan that will try to discourage teams from tanking by diminishing the rewards, ESPN's Adrian Wojnarowski reported Friday. The bottom three teams would each have only a 14 percent chance of landing the top overall draft pick, per the proposal, instead of the 25 percent for the worst and respective chances of 19.9 percent and 15.6 for the next two. Those three teams could also fall further down in the order than they can now.
If the NBA board of governors approves with a two-thirds vote later this month, the new rules would take effect for 2019.
There are always unintended consequences to such measures, and some observers are already noting that a commitment to being bad would mean only having to be in the bottom three, now, and not a hard race to the very bottom. A team languishing close to there might now have reasonable incentive to join that group.
Regardless, the measures coincide with the Bulls initiating a long overdue rebuild, and it appears that to take full advantage of this chance while they can, they need to be the last meaningful worst of the worst.
Dan Bernstein is a co-host of 670 The Score's "Bernstein and Goff Show" in afternoon drive. You can follow him on Twitter @dan_bernstein and read more of his columns here.