When Bobby Portis cracked Nikola Mirotic’s head during a scuffle just days before the season kicked off, it was just another sign that the Chicago Bulls were going nowhere this season. Chicago was already expected to struggle for an entire year after losing the team’s top players a year ago in Dwyane Wade, Jimmy Butler, and Rajon Rondo.

Chicago fans knew that with the long season ahead, the best way for them to keep their interest up is to follow the team’s prospect of finishing with the worst record in the league, which in turn would put the Bulls in the best position to win the No. 1 pick in next year’s draft.

Lauri Markkanen
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So far, the Bulls are going as bad as most people thought they would, but apparently, two wins through Chicago’s first seven games is enough to send masochistic fans to sound the alarm because it looks like the Bulls are deviating a little bit from the philosophy taught in Sam Hinkie’s School of Shameless Tanking. Take for example some of the fans in this Reddit thread who are getting uneasy over the Bulls’ “success.”

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“I'm genuinely worried about the tank, but at least the Mavs and Kings both won last night. The Suns are still below the Bulls in ESPN's Basketball Power Index, but that's in large part because the Suns started so badly before they fired their coach and first sent home, then traded their unhappy star. I have confidence that the Bulls can make it to the bottom. And they can always trade Lopez for peanuts.”

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The NBA has made an attempt to discourage teams from tanking back in the offseason but that won’t take effect until 2019, so the Bulls’ window to capitalize on the more-tanking friendly lottery process is closing and winning games in a decidedly lost season isn’t helping their chances of getting that top pick in the 2018 NBA Draft.

The Bulls’ 2-7 record is currently only fourth worst in the league as of this writing.