Record predictions for every NBA team

Chicago Bulls (Projected Record: 29-53)

These Bulls stink and they are likely to be much worse than even this original dismal outlook imagined. They traded a top 15 player, Jimmy Butler, for a guy with a torn ACL who looks to be a low impact player and an older prospect coming off a very disappointing rookie season. Not great. Then to make things worse, when I ran these numbers prior to the season, I didn’t have time to adjust the minutes allocation to account for Nikola Mirotic’s broken face or for Bobby Portis’s suspension for inflicting the aforementioned face-breaking.

Losing Bobby Portis has very little impact on the bottom line, as he’s projected to be below replacement-level on the court, even if he’s nice with his hands. Mirotic, on the other hand, has long been much more beloved by plus-minus impact stats and their adherents than he is by the casual fan. Threekola, prior to his injury, was forecast to be far and away the Bulls best player this season. Now that honor goes to Robin Lopez, a completely fine player, who should never be anyone’s best guy. Given that Mirotic’s now not returning his teammate’s phone calls, it looks like he and Chicago may be headed for a divorce. (If you’re a smart GM reading this for some reason, go get him!).

Lauri Markkanen’s college numbers look like a player who may struggle early but then develop quite nicely. This year his impact could be rough. The early returns look very much like this. Markkanen has done some nice scoring and has hit the glass, but his Box Plus-Minus is quite poor, owing largely to poor defensive statistics and his registering just one assist through four games. He should be enjoyable to watch anyway, so there’s your ray of sunshine, Bulls aficionados.