The Chicago Bulls want to be real.
Their 6-1 record, best in the Eastern Conference, should be convincing enough on its own. Only the reigning NBA champion Oklahoma City Thunder (8-0) have won more games. Yet the Bulls can’t escape the specter of uncertainty cast by the last three years of mediocre, myopic and ultimately meaningless basketball.
Winning isn’t reliable in Chicago. Distrust invades every conversation around the Bulls, a clunky asterisk hanging over the rare delight of winning six games in less than two weeks.
Even the players don’t want to get ahead of themselves. In the locker room and on the sidelines and at the podium, they repeat the same dampening reminders — the season is long, it’s only seven games, they haven’t proved anything yet.
Here’s what is clear about the Bulls so far. The offense is outshining its more optimistic expectations. But it’s the defense that is truly surprising — and is defining how this team wins.
By the end of last season, the Bulls had figured out how to run coach Billy Donovan’s new up-tempo offense — a style that began to thrive after the departure of Zach LaVine. A team-first approach is fueling this season’s balanced offense, as the Bulls are fifth in the league in assist percentage (67.4%).
Coby White remains sidelined. Matas Buzelis is still hot and cold as he works through the typical growing pains of a sophomore season. But between consistent 20-point performances from Josh Giddey and ruthless 3-point shooting from Nikola Vučević — who is averaging 2.1 3s per game on 48.4% shooting — the Bulls are cobbling together enough scoring to edge out their opponents.
The defense, on the other hand, is a strange mix of effort and execution that allows players to outperform their individual abilities in the aggregate.
This is not a strong defensive roster. Donovan is the first to acknowledge that reality. The Bulls have one player, newcomer Isaac Okoro, who is considered a defensive stopper. The rest of the roster is mostly offensive specialists or high-energy utility players who have yet to evolve into truly elite defenders.
Despite all of that, the Bulls rank 11th in defensive rating (112.5), seven spots higher than last season (115.6).
For Donovan, the difference comes down to simplification.
Last season he entered most games prepared for his players to be overwhelmed on the defensive end. The Bulls weren’t physical enough at the point of attack or at the rim. As a result, they found themselves in the passenger seat as various NBA stars caromed through the defense like a bowling ball striking down a light assortment of pins.
In response, Donovan often switched the Bulls into specific defensive sets — zone, box-and-one, triangle-and-two — to alleviate pressure from individual players. Sometimes it worked for a play or two, but by the end of the season opponents had plenty of film on these gimmicky counters.
“We got into a little bit of trouble last year with that,” Donovan said. “Sometimes we were trying to scheme stuff too much. You don’t want to be a team that has no identity and all you do is try to trick teams out. Teams figure that out after a couple possessions.”
In the offseason, Donovan embraced the fact he couldn’t shield his players from the reality of their defensive situation — if they want to stop an opponent, they have to meet it head on. No more passive possessions. No more games lost on the boards. The Bulls had to stop looking for bailouts and toughen the hell up.
Identity is a bit of a canned buzzword in the NBA. But at its core, crafting a definition for a team — solid, tangible, repeatable — is the primary task of the season. Winning games matters. How those games are won matters more. And in the early weeks of this season, the Bulls have defined how they want to win.
The transformation is visible on the stat sheets. The Bulls rank third in defensive rebounding (36.1 per game). They might not be the savviest team at steals (17th, eight per game) or blocks (14th, 4.9 per game), but they make up for it with simple hustle statistics — reducing second-chance shots, contesting 45% of all attempts and drawing the second-most charges in the league.
“Teams are hitting us and we’re hitting back,” forward Patrick Williams said. “But I think we can hit first.”
Some of the defensive success still might read as a fluke, especially behind the 3-point arc. Opponents have shot only 34.2% on 3s and were below their season average — by an average of seven percentage points — in all six Bulls wins.
Teams are scoring 54.3 points in the paint per game against the Bulls, leaving this defense vulnerable if an opponent heats up from 3-point range. But so far, that hasn’t happened.
Okoro believes the opponents’ inaccuracy is a credit to the Bulls’ pace of play, which ranks ninth in the league. Teams are run ragged by the end of games, and Okoro argues that exhaustion seeps into their shooting.
“We’re wearing their legs down to the point where, when it’s time to shoot 3s, they’ve got no legs,” Okoro said.
If some prefer to label those poor shooting nights as luck? Well, Okoro doesn’t think the Bulls should worry about it.
“Whatever you want to call it,” he said with a shrug. “Everyone has their own opinions.”
Here’s the counter to any question about the authenticity of this 6-1 start: Does it really matter?
The Bulls are winning. More importantly, they’re fun. They throw down reverse dunks and mean-mug after nasty blocks and draw charges with a gusto typically saved for buzzer-beater shots. This isn’t a team of stars, although the roster certainly has budding talent. Their wins are built off the type of cliched hustle normally reserved for after-school specials.
So why make room for pessimism? Those first six wins were real. And the foundation of this team’s success — physical defense, balanced offense, mental fortitude — is certainly replicable.
For now, these Bulls are as real as they want to be.