Patience? A timeline of the Bulls re-starting the clock since the Last Dance

Bulls general manager Arturas Karnisovas predictably preached patience Thursday after the Bulls' dreadful 109-90 home loss to the Heat in a play-in game Wednesday night at the United Center. What else could he do? If you thought he was going to throw his hands up and say, 'I quit.' you were expecting way too much.

Unfortunately, the Bulls' listless performance against the Heat undercut any argument Karnisovas had. This wasn't just any loss. With real money on the table, the Bulls were a completely different team than the one that went 15-5 down the stretch — including a convincing 119-111 victory over the Heat a week prior. They were helpless, literally defenseless against the Heat from the start when it really counted — falling behind 13-5, 28-14, 53-33 and 71-47 at halftime and rallied only mildly in the second half. They were left to pat themselves on the back for cutting the deficit to 13 points in the fourth quarter.

In short, after Coby White, Matas Bazelis and Josh Giddey provided hope the Bulls had found a core they could build around, the performance against the Heat exposed them as the tread-milling team mired in NBA hell they have been since the middle of the 2021-22 season — 137-150 (.477), including consecutive seasons of 40-42, 39-43 and 39-43.

"I'm asking for fans to have patience because we're in the first year of that transition," Kornisovas told reporters Thursday, referring to the development of White, Bazelis and Giddey as the foundation after the departure of DeMar DeRozan (free agency) and Zach LaVine (trade-deadline deal). "I thought the way we finished the year shows some promise. It's hard to win games in this league, and to finish 15-5, it's not a victory lap, but I think there's some positives. I think we've got to keep building on this group by adding another player in the lottery, by going to free agency and adding another piece."

That might be true, but it's becoming a harder and harder sell as the Bulls continue to spin their wheels and fall flat in the play-in tournament in Karnisovas' fifth season. How many re-starts do you get? By my count, the Bulls have re-started the clock 11 times since the end of the Jordan era, and only one has panned out — hiring Tom Thibodeau after drafting Derrick Rose led to five consecutive playoff seasons (with 62, 50, 45, 48 and 50 victories), a trip to the Eastern Conference Finals in 2011 and four first-round series with home-court advantage.

The Thibodeau era ultimately was unfulfilling, but still far better than anything else the Bulls have done since the Last Dance. Here's a cursory look at the re-starts the Bulls have sold since then:

1. 1998-99 — Tim Floyd hired to replace Phil Jackson and 2000 No. 1 overall draft pick Elton Brand, Ron Artest, Hersey Hawkins and Ron Mercer among others join remnants of the Jordan era. General manager Jerry Krause's goal of not becoming the post-Larry Bird Celtics immediately flopped, as the Bulls dropped to a miserable 13-37 and 15-67 in Floyd's first two seasons.

   
   

   

   
   

2. 2001-02 — In a tacit admission of failure, Krause fired his good buddy Floyd and reached back to the first three-peat for his successor — hiring former Bulls center Bill Cartwright, then drafting high schoolers Tyson Chandler (No. 2 overall) and Eddy Curry (No. 4 overall).

3. 2003-04 — Krause resigns as GM and another former championship Bull, John Paxson takes over as GM. Paxson fired his former teammate Cartwright 14 games into the 2003-04 season and replaced him with firebrand Scott Skiles. The Bulls eventually gave up on Curry (after the 2004-05 season, and Chandler after the 2005-06 season, building around a promising foundation of Luol Deng, Kirk Hinrich, Ben Gordon and Jamal Crawford — making the playoffs in 2005-06 (41-41) and 2006-07 (49-33, beating the Heat in the first round).

   
   

   

   
   

4. 2007-08 — The Skiles era peters out and Skiles is fired 25 games into the 2007-08 season, replaced by Vinny Del Negro, whose timing is at least good — the Bulls beat the odds (58-1) to win the lottery and select Derrick Rose with the No. 1 overall pick. The Bulls stagnate with Del Negro, going 41-41 in both 2008-09 and 2009-10 with Rose and Del Negro clashes physically with Paxson over recovering center Joakim Noah's playing time in 2010.

5. 2010-11 — With the writing on the wall, Paxson fires Del Negro and hires Tom Thibodeau, the architect of the Celtics defense in their 2007-08 NBA championship season. With Rose as an offensive catalyst who blossoms into the league MVP, Thibodeau instills a mental toughness in the Bulls — with Deng, Noah and a "bench mob" headed by Taj Gibson — that carries them to the Eastern Conference Finals, where they lost 4-1 to the Heat after winning Game 1.

   
   

   

   
   

6. 2015-16 — Rose's devastating knee injury takes the starch out of the Thibodeau era and after going 50-32 and losing in the second round of the playoffs in 2015, Thibodeau is unceremoniously fired by general manager Gar Forman over philosophical (and personal) differences. The Bulls start over with former Bulls guard Fred Hoiberg, whose fast-paced "Hoi-ball" offense is supposed to give the Bulls an offense they lacked under Thibodeau.

7. 2016-17 — After the Jimmy Butler-Derrick Rose combination fails to ignite the Bulls (sometimes the opposite), the Bulls sign veterans Dwyane Wade and Rajon Rondo to form the "Three Alphas" with Butler. The Bulls go 41-41 and lost to the Celtics (4-2) in the first round of the playoffs.

8. 2017-18 — The Bulls trade Butler to the Timberwolves for Zach LaVine, rookie Lauri Markkanen and guard Kris Dunn, who immediately form the foundation of the yet another rebuild.

9. 2018-19 — The Bulls fire Hoiberg after a 5-19 start to the 2018-19 season and replace him with Jim Boylen. Paxson, now the executive vice president of basketball operations, surprisingly — even oddly — announces that Boylen is a full-time replacement, not an interim coach. Boylen goes 17-41 as the Bulls finish 22-60.

10. 2020-21 — After Boylen is given a contract extension and goes 22-43 in 2019-20, the John Paxson-Gar Forman ("GarPax") era is over, as Nuggets GM Arturas Karnisovas is hired to replace Paxson (who is moved into a "senior advisor" role) and Forman is fired as GM. Karnisovas fires Boylen and replaces him with former Thunder coach Billy Donovan. Another new era begins.

11. 2024-25 — After a brief spurt (26-10 start) with a rebuilt roster in 2021-22 fizzles following Lonzo Ball's knee injury, the Bulls settle into NBA mediocrity — 40-42, 39-43 in 2022-23 and 2023-24. DeMar DeRozan is not signed and LaVine — the building block Karnisovas had signed to a five-year max contract in 2022 — is traded to the Kings in February with the Bulls 21-29. White emerges as a potential star following LaVine's departure and Buzelis and Giddey also improve to give the Bulls a foundation for the future. But after the play-in flop, all bets are off.