Chicago Bulls: Looking back at their long road back to contention

Vinny Del Negro was named the next head coach for the franchise and the Bulls selected the hometown kid, Derrick Rose with the first overall pick in the 2008 NBA draft.

Rose brought a spark to the franchise as he won rookie of the year and the Bulls hadn’t felt a spark in a player since that guy with the number 23 was playing for them.

The very next year in the 2009-10 season, Rose and the Bulls made the playoffs once again and Rose made the all-star game, being the first Bull to make it since Jordan in his final season for them in 1998.

In the following season, Rose made history and cemented himself as the youngest MVP in NBA history and became the fifth player in history to post at least 2000 points, 600 assists, and 300 rebounds in a season.

All that success ended in the Eastern Conference Finals as they lost to LeBron James and the Miami Heat in five games.

The Bulls just never seemed to get over the hump and the nightmares came back during the 2012 playoffs. Chicago ended tied with the Spurs for the best record in the NBA and faced the eight seed 76ers in the first round.

During that series, Rose tore his ACL. Other injuries had hurt the Bulls, but losing their reigning MVP put everything in jeopardy as they were the last number one seed to lose in the first round of the playoffs.

Furthermore, after the ACL injury to rose, a plethora of injuries followed. Rose missed the following season recovering, and then in the next three seasons, Rose appeared in just 127 of the 246 games played in that span.

Luckily, the Chicago Bulls core was strong enough to still reach the playoffs through the 2015-16 season. They also had drafted a young star by the name of Jimmy Butler in the 2011 NBA draft.

During the 2017-18 season, the Bulls traded Jimmy Butler for a young star named Zach LaVine who has proven to be a key piece in the future of the franchise.

The Chicago Bulls have not made the playoffs since the 2016-17 season, but fast forward to the present time, the Bulls are for real.

Chicago traded for star big man from the Orlando Magic, Nikola Vucevic, and traded for DeMar DeRozen last off-season, forming a new big three and it has worked so far.

The Bulls sit fourth in the Eastern Conference and will reach the most wins for the franchise since that 2016-17 season. They have an MVP candidate in DeRozen, a key bench, and two lethal permit defenders in Lonzo Ball and Alex Caruso.

Although the Chicago Bulls have a record of 811-933 post-Jordan era and not including this season, the future is bright, the Bulls are competitive and the fans have a reason to have hope and be excited about this upcoming playoff run.