NBA Power Rankings: Here comes the trade deadline

The Bulls have officially entered the tank zone, trading Nikola Mirotic to the New Orleans Pelicans for Omer Asik and a first round pick. They lost both of their games this week, missing Lauri Markkanen and Kris Dunn, with Markkanen out due to personal reasons and Dunn recovering from a concussion. Without good players, the Bulls saw CJ McCollum go off for 50 points in a 124-108 defeat, and he did it in three quarters to boot.

The Bulls second game of the week was a loss as well, with the new look Clippers pulling out a 113-103 win in a game the Bulls never seemed to interested in winning. The good news is that they are tied for the sixth-worst record in the league, and they didn’t do too much damage to their lottery odds with that hot streak they went on a few weeks back.