Bulls fans are the most unhappy fanbase in the NBA

[drosestruts]

I do think Chicago fans in general tend to be pretty pessimistic and unhappy.

This is not unique to the Bulls.

There's a big "championship or bust" mentality in sports today that I feel zaps a lot of the fun out of being a sports fan.

Watching the Cubs playoff games was a lot of fun.

Bears not only not looking like garbage, but actually winning a prime time Monday night game is fun.

Yet, much like with the Bulls, for many it won't be good enough because it's not a championship

Don't miss the trees for the forest people

Giddey, Coby, and Matas provide a lot of hope and are fun to watch

Ayo and Noa could provide even more hope and excitement.

[Jcool0]

I do think Chicago fans in general tend to be pretty pessimistic and unhappy.

This is not unique to the Bulls.

There's a big "championship or bust" mentality in sports today that I feel zaps a lot of the fun out of being a sports fan.

Watching the Cubs playoff games was a lot of fun.

Bears not only not looking like garbage, but actually winning a prime time Monday night game is fun.

Yet, much like with the Bulls, for many it won't be good enough because it's not a championship

Don't miss the trees for the forest people

Giddey, Coby, and Matas provide a lot of hope and are fun to watch

Ayo and Noa could provide even more hope and excitement.

I am pretty sure most Bulls fans would be okay with making the playoffs. But the Bulls have missed the playoffs in 8 of the last 10 seasons and the last time they got out of the 1st round was 2015.

[The Force.]

The Bulls are a bottom 5 NBA franchise with a diehard fan base. This equates to misery.

The owner simply doesn’t tolerate tanking but also doesn’t hire personal that can build a playoff team via trades and mid-tier picks. Indy and Miami also don’t tank but those teams have been to the finals in the past 5 years. Teams like the Pistons and Rockets have recently been on equal footing with the Bulls and yet both are now playoff teams.

Then they have the gall to build this new team around Giddey and tell the fanbase that we should be excited about the new “core.” And that’s after wasting 3 years of all our lives with the previous “core.”

AK has cart blanche to lie to the entire fanbase and say he wants to build a contender with 10 really good players but fails to actually acquire said players.

Of course these are things that diehard fans care about. Most fair weather fans have just tuned the Bulls out completely because they’re irrelevant.

[drosestruts]

I do think Chicago fans in general tend to be pretty pessimistic and unhappy.

This is not unique to the Bulls.

There's a big "championship or bust" mentality in sports today that I feel zaps a lot of the fun out of being a sports fan.

Watching the Cubs playoff games was a lot of fun.

Bears not only not looking like garbage, but actually winning a prime time Monday night game is fun.

Yet, much like with the Bulls, for many it won't be good enough because it's not a championship

Don't miss the trees for the forest people

Giddey, Coby, and Matas provide a lot of hope and are fun to watch

Ayo and Noa could provide even more hope and excitement.

I am pretty sure most Bulls fans would be okay with making the playoffs. But the Bulls have missed the playoffs in 8 of the last 10 seasons and the last time they got out of the 1st round was 2015.

I agree and the most common call to action from that is to "tank" which we certainly were doing in some of those years. Should we count missing the playoffs as a negative when we were intentionally missing the playoffs?

There's context and nuance to all these seasons - tanking, injuries, sometimes just poor roster construction. We had some all-time bad coaches prior to hiring Donovan.

[League Circles]

I mean i guess that is something and you are entitled to think you should be happier as a fan because of it. But it really isn't enough to expect everyone to change their thinking.

Don't worry, I don't expect it. I've long since given up on people in general changing their opinions even when the evidence changes.

For all you equally frustrated today as you were when AK was doubling and tripling down on an old, non-playoff roster with awful chemistry and less than all of its own draft picks, enjoy your misery. I'm just here to judge you, not change you.

The Bulls team is still the Bulls. That really hasn't changed despite Zach and DeMar being gone. This is still as of right now at best a play in team. Now the NBA created that for a reason and if that is enough to keep you interested as a fan great. But i am kind of expecting more from the Bulls then the play in each year and i have yet to see anything they have done the last two years to fundamentally change that. Now if Matas breaks out and is playing at an All Star level and the Bulls are winning because of it then i am sure all Bulls fans will be excited. But if they start off 8-16 then i cant fault anyone for being upset.

Yeah, at best this young team that wildly overperformed that benchmark as a group last season cannot possibly do better.

[League Circles]

Hilarious to have a discussion about what Zach **** Lowe casually thinks about our mental health.

[chrbal]

I don’t see how Bulls fans would be the most unhappy, not going to guess the most unhappy fan base. As a Pistons fan, you have a good mix of young guys, you managed Giddey into a reasonable contract.

My only issue I can see is the frontcourt. Noa is interesting, but he’s still an unknown. Beyond that you just have options, might be a captain obvious statement but the focus should really be on rebuilding your frontcourt depth. While hopefully getting something out of Patrick Williams.

[Jcool0]

Don't worry, I don't expect it. I've long since given up on people in general changing their opinions even when the evidence changes.

For all you equally frustrated today as you were when AK was doubling and tripling down on an old, non-playoff roster with awful chemistry and less than all of its own draft picks, enjoy your misery. I'm just here to judge you, not change you.

The Bulls team is still the Bulls. That really hasn't changed despite Zach and DeMar being gone. This is still as of right now at best a play in team. Now the NBA created that for a reason and if that is enough to keep you interested as a fan great. But i am kind of expecting more from the Bulls then the play in each year and i have yet to see anything they have done the last two years to fundamentally change that. Now if Matas breaks out and is playing at an All Star level and the Bulls are winning because of it then i am sure all Bulls fans will be excited. But if they start off 8-16 then i cant fault anyone for being upset.

Yeah, at best this young team that wildly overperformed that benchmark as a group last season cannot possibly do better.

Bulls haven't made the playoffs in 3 years not sure how they "wildly over preformed that benchmark" losing the Play-In game by 19.

Here is ESPN this week & sure seems a lot like the last few seasons:

Chicago Bulls
Projected wins: 38.0
ESPN BET over/under total: 31.5

Why they project to be better than their total: This feels like a case of the market not paying attention. Chicago has won either 39 or 40 games across each of the past three campaigns, and they went 17-10 after the All-Star break last season without Zach LaVine. The Bulls have made it clear they'd rather pursue a play-in berth than a high spot entering the lottery. Chicago's direction leaves much to be desired, but the Bulls should be competitive.

https://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/46521096/nba-2025-2026-season-win-projections-all-30-teams#chi

[League Circles]

The Bulls team is still the Bulls. That really hasn't changed despite Zach and DeMar being gone. This is still as of right now at best a play in team. Now the NBA created that for a reason and if that is enough to keep you interested as a fan great. But i am kind of expecting more from the Bulls then the play in each year and i have yet to see anything they have done the last two years to fundamentally change that. Now if Matas breaks out and is playing at an All Star level and the Bulls are winning because of it then i am sure all Bulls fans will be excited. But if they start off 8-16 then i cant fault anyone for being upset.

Yeah, at best this young team that wildly overperformed that benchmark as a group last season cannot possibly do better.

Bulls haven't made the playoffs in 3 years not sure how they "wildly over preformed that benchmark" losing the Play-In game by 19.

Here is ESPN this week & sure seems a lot like the last few seasons:

Chicago Bulls
Projected wins: 38.0
ESPN BET over/under total: 31.5

Why they project to be better than their total: This feels like a case of the market not paying attention. Chicago has won either 39 or 40 games across each of the past three campaigns, and they went 17-10 after the All-Star break last season without Zach LaVine. The Bulls have made it clear they'd rather pursue a play-in berth than a high spot entering the lottery. Chicago's direction leaves much to be desired, but the Bulls should be competitive.

https://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/46521096/nba-2025-2026-season-win-projections-all-30-teams#chi

It's pretty straightforward - the current Bulls AS A GROUP last year performed better than a play-in team. See the 17-10 mark after the break. Now there are reasonable debates about why, but the Bulls are a very young team, with a guy who projects to be perhaps their best player entering his second year. Projecting the Bulls to be a play-in team, or even worse, is fair. But it's crazy to say that's what they are "at best". I mean the 6th seed last year won 44 games. You don't think it's possible that the Bulls can beat that?

[Jcool0]

Yeah, at best this young team that wildly overperformed that benchmark as a group last season cannot possibly do better.

Bulls haven't made the playoffs in 3 years not sure how they "wildly over preformed that benchmark" losing the Play-In game by 19.

Here is ESPN this week & sure seems a lot like the last few seasons:

Chicago Bulls
Projected wins: 38.0
ESPN BET over/under total: 31.5

Why they project to be better than their total: This feels like a case of the market not paying attention. Chicago has won either 39 or 40 games across each of the past three campaigns, and they went 17-10 after the All-Star break last season without Zach LaVine. The Bulls have made it clear they'd rather pursue a play-in berth than a high spot entering the lottery. Chicago's direction leaves much to be desired, but the Bulls should be competitive.

https://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/46521096/nba-2025-2026-season-win-projections-all-30-teams#chi

It's pretty straightforward - the current Bulls AS A GROUP last year performed better than a play-in team. See the 17-10 mark after the break. Now there are reasonable debates about why, but the Bulls are a very young team, with a guy who projects to be perhaps their best player entering his second year. Projecting the Bulls to be a play-in team, or even worse, is fair. But it's crazy to say that's what they are "at best". I mean the 6th seed last year won 44 games. You don't think it's possible that the Bulls can beat that?

I would love to be wrong but, they looked really good against mostly bad teams to end the year and they got blown out in the play-in against a below average Miami team that got swept in round 1. If Matas makes a big jump maybe they might have something but that is asking a lot.

[dougthonus]

Derrick Rose wasn't a superstar after his rookie year.

To break it out in between two real superstars:

A casual fan would look at LeBron James in his rookie year and go "This guy could lead us to a championship". A casual fan would not say the same thing about Nikola Jokic. Matas may or may not go on to be a star or superstar, but if he were to become a future MVP, a casual fan wouldn't be thinking that right now.

Or if you want to use a negative example, if you take someone like Greg Oden, he likely prompted a ton of hope even though he failed to deliver, because people thought he would become a superstar while someone like Anthony Bennett didn't make a bunch of casual fans think "oh we got our superstar now".

Generally casual fans are just less likely to have a good feeling a grasp of less obvious possibilities and instead assume things are just similar to what they were the most recent year.

[Ice Man]

The Bobcasts/Hornets franchise is MUCH worse than the Bulls. In 21 years, that franchise has made the playoffs only 3x (!!) and was knocked out in the first round each time. It has never won 50 games and barely even had a legitimate star. Its fans would be delighted to swap the past two decades with us.

[Jcool0]

Seems like a good thing to add here from the game day thread:

FWIW the Bulls are -25 in the first quarter of their 4 preseason games and -33 in the first 8 minutes. To me, those are the only meaningful minutes in pre-season games.

Turns out other teams run fast too.

I guess Coby will help?

[MikeDC]

The Bobcasts/Hornets franchise is MUCH worse than the Bulls. In 21 years, that franchise has made the playoffs only 3x (!!) and was knocked out in the first round each time. It has never won 50 games and barely even had a legitimate star. Its fans would be delighted to swap the past two decades with us.

Put yourself in the perspective of a kid who's an NBA fan who is maybe ~20 years old and might have memories of about the last 10 seasons.

The Hornets have 325 wins (41%) and one 1st round playoff appearance.

The Bulls have 349 wins (44%) and two 1st round playoff appearances.

This whole generation of fans literally wouldn't notice one bit if you swapped the teams!

And crucially, this generation is the future generation. And to them, being a Bulls fan is the functional equivalent of being a Hornets fan. They don't even have a memory of Derrick Rose, let alone MJ.

Truly, the Bulls have utterly squandered an amazing legacy.

[NZB2323]

I do think Chicago fans in general tend to be pretty pessimistic and unhappy.

This is not unique to the Bulls.

There's a big "championship or bust" mentality in sports today that I feel zaps a lot of the fun out of being a sports fan.

Watching the Cubs playoff games was a lot of fun.

Bears not only not looking like garbage, but actually winning a prime time Monday night game is fun.

Yet, much like with the Bulls, for many it won't be good enough because it's not a championship

Don't miss the trees for the forest people

Giddey, Coby, and Matas provide a lot of hope and are fun to watch

Ayo and Noa could provide even more hope and excitement.

I am pretty sure most Bulls fans would be okay with making the playoffs. But the Bulls have missed the playoffs in 8 of the last 10 seasons and the last time they got out of the 1st round was 2015.

I agree and the most common call to action from that is to "tank" which we certainly were doing in some of those years. Should we count missing the playoffs as a negative when we were intentionally missing the playoffs?

There's context and nuance to all these seasons - tanking, injuries, sometimes just poor roster construction. We had some all-time bad coaches prior to hiring Donovan.

The issue is we haven’t made the playoffs and we haven’t tanked to get a superstar. We’re the team that loses the play-in tournament, which is the worst spot to be in as a NBA fan.

Trading away Jimmy Butler and seeing him take 2 Heat teams to the finals doesn’t help either.

I told my uncle to bet the over/under at 32.5, and my main argument is that 33 is not a lot of wins, so I’ll be happy with my uncle making money if we win 33 games.

I like Giddey, and taking my family to the game where he hit the game winning shot helps, but Rondo is probably a realistic ceiling for him. I guess we’re not that far off from the 2001 Celtics, who only really had Paul Pierce, but were able to later acquire KG and Ray Allen.

[NZB2323]

At least we don't have Bronny James on our roster

The Lakers have won 6 championships since 1999 and have Luka and a desirable market.

[Ice Man]

The Bobcasts/Hornets franchise is MUCH worse than the Bulls. In 21 years, that franchise has made the playoffs only 3x (!!) and was knocked out in the first round each time. It has never won 50 games and barely even had a legitimate star. Its fans would be delighted to swap the past two decades with us.

Put yourself in the perspective of a kid who's an NBA fan who is maybe ~20 years old and might have memories of about the last 10 seasons.

Well, OK, but Zach didn't specify 20 year old fans (in which case I would agree). If you're 30, you had Rose, Lu, Jo, Pau, and Butler, along with an ECF appearance and 2 seasons with the best record in the league.

[NZB2323]

The Bobcasts/Hornets franchise is MUCH worse than the Bulls. In 21 years, that franchise has made the playoffs only 3x (!!) and was knocked out in the first round each time. It has never won 50 games and barely even had a legitimate star. Its fans would be delighted to swap the past two decades with us.

Put yourself in the perspective of a kid who's an NBA fan who is maybe ~20 years old and might have memories of about the last 10 seasons.

Well, OK, but Zach didn't specify 20 year old fans (in which case I would agree). If you're 30, you had Rose, Lu, Jo, Pau, and Butler, along with an ECF appearance and 2 seasons with the best record in the league.

Even older fans don’t have a good feeling about the team. The Last Dance ended in frustration that we wouldn’t bring back Phil, Jordan, Pippen, and Rodman and try again. We probably don’t beat the 99 Spurs with a washed up Rodman, but we weren’t even given the chance. “Players don’t win championships, organizations do,” and they haven’t delivered since they wanted to rebuild.

Then other fans who were fans of Jimmy Butler saw the Bulls not want to pay him and then he carried 2 teams to the Finals.

I think most of us are around the same age, because the only people who really use online sports forums are Millennials, who are between 29 and 44 years old, because that became a thing around the millennium.

[Ice Man]

I think most of us are around the same age, because the only people who really use online sports forums are Millennials, who are between 29 and 44 years old, because that became a thing around the millennium.

Oh, we Boomers also figured out how to use this Internet thing.

Maybe I am more sanguine about the Bulls because I was fortunate enough to be an adult through the entire Jordan era, watching every game that he played unless I was out of the house at that time. That era alone puts my lifetime franchise experience ahead of those from fans of almost every other team.

[MikeDC]

The Bobcasts/Hornets franchise is MUCH worse than the Bulls. In 21 years, that franchise has made the playoffs only 3x (!!) and was knocked out in the first round each time. It has never won 50 games and barely even had a legitimate star. Its fans would be delighted to swap the past two decades with us.

Put yourself in the perspective of a kid who's an NBA fan who is maybe ~20 years old and might have memories of about the last 10 seasons.

Well, OK, but Zach didn't specify 20 year old fans (in which case I would agree). If you're 30, you had Rose, Lu, Jo, Pau, and Butler, along with an ECF appearance and 2 seasons with the best record in the league.

I don't think it's the sort of thing that needs a lot of specification. It is what it is, and while you're right that the prior 10 years were better, it's also another 10 years further in the past even for those who were old enough to remember it. And while some of those folks have made up, pretty much all of those guys departed with some of the characteristic animosity and bitterness the Bulls organization seems to engender.

Which is probably didn't much help with older fans, who have also abandoned the team in large numbers. But maybe they will come back.

That's really the key, and why securing the younger demographic has outsized importance.

And to that younger demographic, the Bulls are league worst bad.

This is pretty straightforward.

1. Young people tend to have the most time on their hands and are the most optimistic. The Bulls young fan generation is smaller and less devoted than in the past because the Bulls have been trash for the entirety of their youth.
2. The older generations of fans have more good memories, but also a more than necessary amount of bad feelings about the organization. And the good memories are in the relatively distant past.

Put it together and the Bulls have eroded their fanbase at a time when competition for people's time and entertainment dollars has only grown. Of course the Bulls still sell a bunch of tickets and corporate boxes, because every team does. Even the Hornets. And even the Hornets have plenty of fans.
It's not that they aren't making money, but they're milking their existing base much more so than growing it.