Bulls' latest rebuild echoes the Jordan-Krause dynasty: Telander

CHICAGO - The Chicago Bulls finally won a game, so there’s that.

They had 11 straight losses and seemed hard on the path to breaking the franchise record of 16 losses in a row.

This team is really bad, in total disarray, with a roster of new fellows most folks couldn’t name. During the streak, many of us wondered—before the 120-97 wipeout of the Milwaukee Bucks—if there was any team in the NBA the Bulls could beat.

Whipping a Giannis Antetokounmpo-less Bucks team at home maybe shouldn’t even count as a win. But we all know the NBA and home court advantage and load management and so on.

At any rate, what we have with these 2026 Bulls is a dismantled team that once tried to go for the big time, failed miserably, and now the pieces have been tossed away as a rebuild begins.

Gone are Nikola Vucevic, Coby White and Ayo Dusunmu. Goodbye to Zach LaVine, DeMar DeRozan and human floor burn Alex Caruso.

CHICAGO, IL - MARCH 1: Josh Giddey #3 of the Chicago Bulls shoots a free throw during the game against the Milwaukee Bucks on March 1, 2026 at United Center in Chicago, Illinois. NOTE TO USER: User expressly acknowledges and agrees that, by downloadi

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If you want one key moment when Bulls vice president of basketball operations Arturas Karnisovas’ plan for the future likely went to hell in a handbasket, it was Jan. 14, 2022 when point guard Lonzo Ball hurt his knee against the Golden State Warriors. Nobody thought much of the injury when it happened. Indeed, Ball even finished the game.

But it took over 1,000 days for the injury to be healed, and that was it for the team. As Karnisovas said last month about one trap of chasing a dream, "It's being in the middle. That is what we don't want to do."

There are young guys like Josh Giddey and Matas Buzelis to build around, but the current Bulls are reminiscent of the 60-or-more loss teams from the 2000-01 and 2018–19 seasons. Those teams had some young guys too, and everybody hoped for good luck in rebuilding. But, as with most teams starting over, good luck didn’t happen. The dreaded middle arrived.

This takes us back even further, to the six-championship Bulls led by Michael Jordan, with titles all through the 1990s. Those Bulls likely had one more crown in them at the end, the lockout-shortened 1998-99 season, but the team had been broken up by its main architect, general manager Jerry Krause. The issues were money, player age, egos, personal relations and—let me mention it again—egos.

The Chicago Bulls team celebrate with their five Larry O'Brien finals' trophies they have won over the last seven years 13 June after beating the Utah Jazz in game six of the 1997 NBA Finals at the United Center in Chicago, IL. Michael Jordan was nam (JEFF HAYNES/AFP via Getty Images)

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The personality clash between Jordan and Krause—so incredibly different in age, height, build, athletic skill and appearance—was one that Shakespeare himself would have craved as melodrama. The irony, and there’s always irony in these matters, is that the publicly-hated Krause and the publicly-worshipped Jordan were so close in temperament and drive that they were very nearly peas from the same pod.

Even with that similarity, or maybe because of it, the problem between them was likely intractable. It was simple in nature. Jordan had joined the Bulls as the third pick in the NBA Draft in 1984. Krause joined the Bulls staff in 1985.

Who came first? Yep, we all know. Who built the team around Jordan? Krause. Who led the league in scoring 10 times? Duh. Who put coach Phil Jackson and assistants around Jordan to nurture and assist him? Yep.

In a fascinating new book, "Jerry Krause and the Chicago Bulls: The Scout Who Built the Dynasty of the 1990s," author Lukasz Muniowski, a professor of American Literature at the University of Szczecin, Poland, makes the case that the still-reviled Krause (in Chicago, anyway) put together a masterpiece which perhaps no one else could have. And yet, Muniowski, posits, the late GM is unfairly criticized for all the things he did wrong interpersonally and PR-wise, but Jordan and his manic need to be top dog—always, always, always—skates away untouched.

So as these current Bulls tank for the lottery, dream up trades, scout youth teams in Serbia and Nigeria, check baby growth charts in Spain and China, dissect free agents, etc., remember the Bulls–and Krause and Jordan—once made it happen.

It took sidekick Scottie Pippen, big men Bill Cartwright and Luc Longley, lunatic rebounder Dennis Rodman, steady Horace Grant, three-ball experts Steve Kerr and John Paxson, sixth man Toni Kukoć, and, of course, "sacred hoops" preacher Jackson to make it happen. Human dynamics—and Krause—got the Bulls to the pinnacle. Human dynamics—and Krause — got them to tumble off the cliff.

As the latest rebuild begins, try to enjoy the ride. As Muniowski writes, "A bad Bulls team is bad for the league."  Without a doubt. There is less attendance on the road, less revenue, less excitement, less eyeball-focusing drama.

Chicago needs a great Bulls team. Chicago needs the next Jordan.

And, yes, Chicago even needs the next short, fat, homely, humorless, maniac scouting-genius Jerry Krause.

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Want more? Read some of Rick Telander’s recent columns for Fox 32:

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