It was quite the Friday evening for the Tortured Fans Department (Jerry Reinsdorf’s Version).
The White Sox (3-16) got shut out for the seventh time in their first 19 games, while the Bulls got routed 112-91 by the Miami Heat in the final Eastern Conference Play-In Tournament game.
GO DEEPER
Four takeaways from Heat’s win vs. Bulls to set up Celtics matchup
At least the Bulls season is mercifully finished. The White Sox have months and months of losing baseball left. Mercy!
After an entertaining home win over Atlanta in the first Play-In game Wednesday, the Bulls were just 2 1/2-point underdogs going into Friday’s game because their old friend Jimmy Butler was out after injuring his knee in the Heat’s Play-In loss to Philadelphia on Wednesday. So it was anybody’s game.
Before it began, the Bulls were +115 to win. By the end of the first quarter, they were +600. A 26-2 Miami run will do that to your odds. As it turned out, the Bulls were still a sucker’s bet. Miami pushed them around all night.
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The Bulls couldn’t score, which puts them in the same category as Reinsdorf’s other team, the Woe-Woe White Sox, who got blanked 7-0 to start what should be a lopsided series in Philadelphia.
Their seven shutouts (one for each series they’ve played thus far) is a major-league record of sorts, though if the Sox manage to score a run in their next game in Philadelphia, they will only be tied with the 1907 Brooklyn Superbas and 1987 Kansas City Royals, which both got shut out in their 20th game of their respective seasons.
The Sox, who are giving The Athletic’s Jayson Stark major ’62 Mets vibes, have scored just 38 runs through 19 games, which ties them with the 1972 Brewers for the sixth-fewest amount of runs in that same span to start a season. They are one of 20 teams with 16 losses in their first 19 games and only four teams in baseball history have more.
But maybe the Bulls should give the Sox hope. They were 5-14 through their first 19 games and look, they almost made it to the playoffs. Then again, while there is a third wild card in baseball, there’s no Play-In Tournament. The Sox have the same odds of making the MLB playoffs as your 16-inch softball team.
We have plenty of time to make fun of the Sox, so let’s focus on the Bulls.
Given that they went 39-43 and were in ninth place in the East seemingly all season, there were plenty of lowlights to forget: losses to Detroit and Washington, poor defensive efforts, awful shooting nights. Recently, we had Torrey Craig and Andre Drummond colliding on an ill-conceived alley-oop off the glass in a home loss to the Knicks. That was an all-timer.
Adam Amin & Stacey King react to the worst Bulls fast break ever pic.twitter.com/fhH2bRJz1B
— CJ Fogler account may or may not be notable (@cjzero) April 10, 2024
It was a fitting play for a team that never found its cohesiveness. Sure, the Bulls rebounded after that woeful start, but not enough to be relevant. And when they had this golden opportunity to play the Heat without Butler, they got punched in the mouth early and couldn’t respond.
During the Bulls’ early struggles, we got the late November reveal that “max player” Zach LaVine was as amenable to a trade as the Bulls were to trading him. Unfortunately for all parties, no other team wanted him (at that price tag) and he missed most of the season with injuries anyway. The Bulls won without him, which doesn’t say much for his trade value.
Of course, the moment that defined the Bulls season had nothing to do with the front office, coaches or players. It happened organically when Bulls fans booed the mention of former GM Jerry Krause’s name at the Ring of Honor ceremony, only for the in-arena camera to pan to his widow, Thelma, sitting on the floor, trying to hold back tears. As bad as it looked on TV, it was much, much worse in person.
Jerry Krause receiving an eruption of boos at the Ring of Honor ceremony was disgusting and classless. pic.twitter.com/u27Rl1tow8
— BullsMuse (@BullsMuse_) January 13, 2024
Though the Bulls were generally ignored by the national NBA landscape for most of the season, that incident made international news. Charles Barkley is still making fun of it on TNT.
Somehow, even nostalgia backfired on the Bulls this season.
At least the team saw real growth from 24-year-old guard Coby White, who averaged 19.1 points per game and is a favorite to win the Most Improved Player award. His 42 points in front of a raucous home crowd Wednesday was truly a memory to savor from a season to forget. White and Ayo Dosunmu are a young, fun backcourt. But what does their future hold?
You’d like to think that the Bulls front office of Artūras Karnišovas and Marc Eversley will shake up this roster in the offseason, but given their recent run of inaction, I’m more than skeptical. I’m outright dismissive. (I also don’t see Bulls CEO Michael Reinsdorf firing them, though he should consider it like his dad did with Kenny Williams and Rick Hahn.) More likely is that they’ll re-sign DeMar DeRozan and run it back with the same group, plus a healthy LaVine and a potentially mobile Lonzo Ball, who is trying to come back after missing 2 1/2 seasons with major knee issues. The Bulls also have their first-round pick this year (a rarity in the AK era), but as of now, it’s the 11th pick in what’s looking like a mediocre draft.
Next year will be the 10th season of the post-Tom Thibodeau era, and in the first nine, the Bulls have made just two playoff appearances, neither of which amounted to anything. They’re on a two-year run of losing to Miami in the Play-In Tournament.
It’s been so rough for Chicago sports fans the last three years that the Bulls have actually been the most competitive team. That’s about to change, perhaps.
The resurgent Bears are going to draft Caleb Williams this week, which should take up approximately 97 percent of the sporting oxygen in the city. It’s all we’ll talk about until September.
Until then, Angel Reese and Kamilla Cardoso are coming to town for the Sky. The Cubs should contend for the division. The Blackhawks will get some help for Connor Bedard in the draft.
But if you’re a fan of the Bulls and the White Sox, the sad teams owned by Jerry Reinsdorf, well, I can’t tell you it’s going to get better soon. But you can still put on some melancholy music, close your eyes and dream.
(Photo of the Heat’s Jaime Jaquez Jr. dunking while Nikola Vucevic and the Bulls watch: Rich Storry / Getty Images)
