Pacers' Conference Finals Run Serves as a Bleak Reminder to Bulls Fans

With the NBA playoffs in full swing and the season down to its final four teams, one organization is serving as a constant reminder to Chicago Bulls fans just how far off their beloved Bulls are from truly competing.

For those in Chicago and across the state of Illinois, Indiana has served as a so-called "sister state" to the Land of Lincoln. The crown jewel of the state over the last several months has been the Indiana Pacers.

The Pacers, an organization with few accomplishments, a mediocre history, and the 25th-highest payroll in the NBA are just four wins away from a visit to the NBA Finals. As the Pacers battle the Boston Celtics, Bulls fans are left wondering how the small organization from their 'sister state' neighbor and longtime divisional opponent have passed them so quickly in terms of competitiveness and relevancy.

The NBA is an ever-changing league with teams constantly having to adapt to the way the good teams are shaping their rosters. The days of superteams seem to be in the past as teams are leaning more and more on acquiring talent through the draft and supporting those young players with functional role players and veterans. The Bulls, however, have failed miserably at keeping up with the rest of the league.

On April 13, 2020, Arturas Karnišovas was named executive vice president of basketball operations by the Chicago Bulls, a move that brought about a breath of fresh air within a stale organization. Since the hiring, however, the Bulls seem to be even worse off than under the previous leadership of John Paxson and Gar Forman.

The Pacers are led by their All-Star guard Tyrese Haliburton, a player who was acquired by the team through a mid-season trade with the Sacramento Kings, sending their then-lone All-Star player Domantas Sabonis to the Kings for the young Haliburton. Haliburton is supported by a strong cast of players around him, including players drafted by the team like Myles Turner and Andrew Nembhard and players acquired through trades like former All-Star Pascal Siakam and Obi Toppin.

The craftsmanship of the Pacers should be a blueprint for the struggling Bulls as to how to build a competitive roster, but to due a lack of aggressiveness from the front office and multiple misses in the NBA draft, the Bulls sit miles and miles away from seriously competing for NBA titles.

A look at AK's previous drafts since taking over for the Bulls provides little confidence to the fans that they will somehow make an impactful pick in an upcoming draft. Guys like Patrick Williams, the fourth overall pick in 2020, and Dalen Terry, a first-round pick in 2021, have failed to be anything more than role players on a bad team. Both picks at this point would be considered misses by many who are paying attention.

Other players like Daniel Gafford, who is now an integral part of the Western Conference Final participant Dallas Mavericks, was traded for Javonte Green and Daniel Theis in 2021. Both Theis and Green did not amount to much with the Bulls. Wendall Carter Jr, who was drafted before AK took over was let go in a trade for Nikola Vucevic, is now an important part of an up-and-coming Orlando Magic roster. In hindsight, that is a trade many fans would go back and reverse if they could, as both Gafford and Carter Jr. have gone on to be respected players on their new teams.

The recent trade history should give fans a sense of nervousness that this front office will be able to build anything from the draft, leaving much of the work to be handled through free agency and the trade market. But, as many can guess, those too have been a disaster for the Bulls over the past few seasons.

It started with the aforementioned trade of Carter Jr. and a future first-round pick to the Magic for their All-Star big man Vucevic. The trade was a beacon of hope for Bulls fans at the time as it showed the new bosses may be looking to make a serious impact. However, like many moves the team has made since the Jordan years, this too would fail.

That offseason, the team focused on finding a point guard who could be relied upon to bring this team into their next era. The player they chose for that huge task was Lonzo Ball, a player who never played more than 63 games in a season leading up to that point. That deal has been one of the worst free agency moves in all of Chicago sports history as Ball has appeared in just 35 games for the Bulls over two seasons despite making nearly $20 million a year. Ball has also picked up his $21.4 million option for the 2024-25 season.

Karnisovas has vowed to make changes this offseason after the Bulls were once again bounced from the play-in tournament.

"I'm thinking about winning," Karnisovas told reporters at his postseason press conference. "That's why I'm here. I'm not here to stay in the middle. The formula that came up three years ago, I thought it was working until a couple of injuries. And we're gonna have to find these answers in this offseason."

The question now is, how do the Bulls become the Pacers?

The Bulls now find themselves in the worst spot you can be in the NBA which is smack dab in the middle and mired in mediocracy. Going into free agency, they will sit 25th in salary cap leaving little confidence that their issues will be fixed via signings. They will hold the 11th pick in the upcoming draft, one that many experts believe is one of the worst drafts in the past decade. Fixing the roster through the trade market also seems like an impossible task due to the lack of aggressiveness in the market during the AK era and their one trade for Vucevic being a failure.

You combine the issues within player development, lack of draft success, no movement in trade markets, and lack of impact signings with an owner in Jerry Reinsdorf, whose main goal is to sell tickets and finish in second, and you get the Chicago Bulls of the 2020s, an organization who has become a joke amongst their fan base and with little room to turn around and a team who is now looking up at the Indiana Pacers.

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