The Bulls, looking to defy the odds and hit No. 1, were holding out hope that the draft-lottery gods would smile on them. It didn't happen, with executive vice president Arturas Karnisovas getting exactly what he deserved.

On February 5th, the Bulls looked ready to finally enter the Cooper Flagg sweepstakes. After years of uninspiring mediocrity, the front office finally looked willing to commit to a rebuild, dumping Zach Lavine and his $44M+ annual salary to Sacramento in exchange for some grossly overpaid role players with the financial flexibility to reset the books faster.

Late last month, the Dallas Mavericks and Chicago Bulls squared off in a seemingly inconsequential coin-flip, with little attention paid to a small tiebreaking matter between two teams that didn’t even reach the first round of the NBA playoffs.