The undefeated Bulls

The problem with the first week of an 82-game NBA season is that everybody is right, still. Everyone is correct. Every misstep is a merely blip, never a sign, rather a one-off to be attributed to luck or novelty. Every small fissure drips with an easy, in-house, fix.

Everyone is golden, even the Pelicans, who still haven't fired the coach because above all other NBA teams New Orleans is sensitive to the holiday, Halloween. Better off letting those flying in for Friday's Memnoch Ball flap out of town first.

Doug Christie's job is "Sacramento Kings head coach" and for goodness sakes, give this man some candy. Doug is the 13th person with this gig in 19 years and he's already wrapped himself in knots trying to explain Sacto's third loss of the season late Tuesday, to the champs in Oklahoma City.

The Kings blew another fourth quarter lead because, shit, look at the players the Kings play in the fourth quarter. Christie merely saw perfection within paw's reach:

“When I look at this, we should be 4-0, but we’re not ready to be 4-0. And we have to look in the mirror on that because 4-0 means all that little stuff that I said gets handled when it’s winning time.” 

He was right, still. Small fissures. The Kings were in each game they worked this season, even if Sacramento shouldn't have won a single dang one of them.

The Kings were 1-3 after Tuesday and 1-4 after Wednesday's loss in Chicago. The Bulls loss required no fourth quarter faffing from the Kings, even if Sacramento trailed by only 10 after 36 minutes, because Wednesday's victory was another scheduled win for undefeated Chicago, again taking rested advantage over a team which worked the night before. Also, duly noted, Chicago's twice hopped all over a team most-recently cuffed by the Thunder.

Chicago's problem is the 78 scheduled games to go, not all of them featuring whiplashed foes flying outta OKC the night before.

Yet the 4-0 Bulls are not a mirage, they should not be 0-4. The Bulls should absolutely beat the Magic on the second night of Orlando's back-to-back, Chicago should slap Sacramento on the same schedule. Bulls should bop the Hawks in Chicago on an evening where Trae Young clangs 9-10 from deep. Definitively destroy Detroit on a night where Cade Cunningham, Tobias Harris and Duncan Robinson combined to miss 12-14 three-pointers amidst an unsupportive road crowd.

Is this opponent futility from long range (teams miss three-quarters of attempted threes against Chicago, far and away the league's most insipid mark) an acknowledgement of confirmed execution? The running Bulls (second in pace in 2025, No. 9 so far this season but with similar possessions per game) wearing opponents out until they clang those expected three-pointers?

No. Bulls fans are the league's most insipid marks. We are far, far and away.

Chicago is undefeated, which requires as much respect as the mark of Adem Bona's similarly-scratchless 76ers, 4-0 even with Joel Embiid out there standing on defense, trying to keep his creeping cartilage from creating another convergent boundary. Better yet, Chicago's victory over Sacramento was its broadest of the season, both in terms of point-differential and appeal, ex-Bulls Zach LaVine and DeMar DeRozan visiting for the lone time in 2025-26.

It was LaVine's first appearance in Chicago since his trade from Chicago and it was like he was never traded from Chicago: Zach received a tribute video, but during a timeout where Kings assistant coaches were yelling at everyone about defense (but only really talking to Zach).

The Bulls don't trade often. Chicago doesn't like to "return salary" or "take on expectation," or "reveal themselves in any meaningful or collaborative way." Bulls front offices, in this century at least, would prefer not speak to sports' lone artistic risk, valuing one veteran over another and dealing to make it happen. I think Joe is better than Jim and I'm gonna prove it.

The Bulls don't take those leaps, not with Jerry Reinsdorf around. He'd sometimes step in and step in it during the title years – goodbye, Horace – but otherwise trusted Jerry Krause to put himself out there. What resulted was the most emotional front office run in the history of sports, Krause weeping over every canvas.

Which is why Bulls fans aren't used to rooting against returnees, be they Zach LaVine or Scottie Pippen and his six rings. Because Bulls fans know that, just like the Bulls, these guys are no threat.

No intrigue, though, no drama, no bellying up for a statement. No trading Lou Brock to St. Louis and watching him return to Wrigley Field nine times per summer. Hell, the Sox traded Sosa to the Cubs because you bet your ass George Bell was better than Sammy Sosa. The Bears traded Jim McMahon to the San Diego Chargers early one morning and he showed up in Soldier Field the next night, with bolts.

Bulls don't do that. What the Bulls do, Reinsdorf's specialty, is public value judgments. Some of those result in trades, most in free agent flights, sometimes a mixture of both.

Jamal Crawford was drafted by Jerry Krause to play whatever the heck position Jamal Crawford eventually worked best at. By the time Crawford's rookie contract ran out four years later, Krause was gone, John Paxson in as Bulls' GM, John featured an orthodox outlook on things like headbands and dribblin' betwixt legs. So Paxson signed-and-traded Crawford to New York to clear room for second-year Kirk Hinrich and rookie Chris Duhon.

To the Knicks, where headbands were required. Haughty with superiority, we were supposed to see red in sight of the enemy in Knick blue and orange, yeah right, as if anyone could root against Jamal Crawford. As if the Isiah Thomas-led Knicks (later featuring valued, judged, signed and traded Eddy Curry) were any trouble for the blueblood, Duke-bred and Kansas-led, Chicago Bulls.

Everyone else is someone to root for. We wouldn't hold it against Wendell Carter Jr., lead center on 2024-25's second-best defense, for his role in the Nikola Vucevic blurp. Jimmy Butler is irrepressible even at his most Hollywood (FL). Luol Deng sat for standing ovations every time he returned to Chicago because no Bull fan was afraid of Luol Deng's legs after the Bulls chewed 'em up and spat 'em out. Crawford is maybe the most beloved player of his generation, so much that he's scored the role of maybe-millennial representative on NBC, national streams. Puff that with your pipe, Pax.

Zach LaVine? He's the guy with the most three-pointers in Bulls history, in the same sense that the most recent five summers were the hottest summers in history.

The Kings are still the team drawing up wide-open Russell Westbrook clangs out of a time out. Maybe they didn't draw it up that way, but it is still the Kings' fault things ended up here, this way, so far from the goal and with the ball inexplicably in Russell Westbrook's hands. I can't remember how much of this is figurative.

Sick of allegory? Zach LaVine literally stands with hands on hips while someone far less athletic than him dribbles by and dunks. And how do you let Kevin Huerter beat you baseline? Why are you reaching for Kevin Huerter, my good sir, what is there to reach for?

All this with Kings' ownership sitting courtside and GM and president in attendance because, hey, free trip to Chicago.

The Bulls are the best team in the NBA at stopping teams from attempting three-pointers, and opponent three-point percentage, no other team is close.

Caveats? The Magic always struggle to create and make threes, the Hawks began the season clanging 25 threes against Toronto, Detroit missed 25 of its own against Boston, Sacto flew in from a tough loss to the best team in the NBA the night before.

The argument, I dig. Let these fools fire away. Phil Jackson's title Bulls – buncha 34-year olds on those teams – still trapped and pressed full-court routinely. These Bulls can do the same if it is Chicago's best bid to distract the opponent from noticing Nikola Vucevic guards the front of Chicago's goal.

All season? Why not. The East is destroyed, gnawing on rinds, Chicago owns the godless suck of Matas Buzelis' black hole, alternating shots from the other side of the portal.

Patrick Williams is busting ass, he hasn't stopped moving, he is completely different thus far. Josh Giddey slightly crooks his knees and tries to dig out the loose balls Coby White (injured, calf) used to dig out. Josh doesn't succeed, but he's at least lunging. Isaac Okoro stunk badly in the first three wins but immensely enjoyed successfully driving at LaVine on Wednesday evening.

Kevin Huerter averages 15 a game off the bench, he's attempted 20 free throws in four games this season after attempting 21 free throws in 26 games as a Bull in 2024-25.

Tre Jones is utterly capable at point guard in White's absence, leads the NBA in steals, and let me insist the Cavaliers badly screwed up by not sending Darius Garland's orthopedic shoes to the Bulls for Ayo Dosunmu:

In spite of Vucevic's pass-me-the-potatoes-please arms, the Bulls are a lengthy, shot-altering outfit. And we'd guess Chicago remains strong, even undefeated, if the other basketball team continues missing an incomprehensible amount of three-pointers per game.

LaVine? Great dude, still maybe the worst defensive watch in the NBA, a trait which followed him from Minnesota. The visible parallels to Reggie Theus were in place and then they traded him to Sacramento. It wasn't a waste of time, nothing is, but it was a heartless exercise from the start, a former front office burying its problem and pleading for time with someone's ACL rehab, and nobody in the NBA buying it.

The Butler-to-LaVine burden wasn't Artūras Karnišovas' fault, but he'd make the same trade in an instant if instructed, even the Justin Patton pick. This remains the same, witless charge toward the middle.

Of our hearts.

Welcome to immortality, undefeated Chicago Bulls. Only 78 to go.

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