Chicago Bulls

An expansion side that refused to behave like one

The Bulls were founded on 16 January 1966 by Dick Klein, Chicago's third attempt at an NBA franchise after the Stags and the Packers/Zephyrs had both failed. The first game came on 15 October 1966 against the St Louis Hawks, and the first season ended 33-48 — at the time the best record any expansion team in league history had managed. Klein's team made the play-offs in year one, which no expansion side had done before.

Through the late 1960s and 1970s the club built its reputation on defence and grind under Dick Motta, with Jerry Sloan and Bob Love as the faces of it. Those sides reached the Western Conference finals in 1974 and 1975 and then fell away; the 1976-77 run included a 0-10 November that stood as the franchise's worst winless month for nearly fifty years. Home was Chicago Stadium, on West Madison, until 1994.

The 1984 draft changed the arithmetic. Michael Jordan arrived third overall, Scottie Pippen followed in 1987, Phil Jackson took the head coaching job in 1989, and the team that had never reached a finals won six of them.

The work that matters

Six championships, in two clean sets of three: 1991, 1992 and 1993, then 1996, 1997 and 1998 after Jordan's baseball detour. The 1995-96 side went 72-10 in the regular season, a mark that stood for twenty years. Those teams are the reason the club's trophies and statues are now a tourist route rather than a trophy cabinet.

Five numbers hang in the rafters: Jordan's 23, Pippen's 33, Bob Love's 10, Jerry Sloan's 4 and — since 24 January 2026, raised after a win over Boston — Derrick Rose's 1. Rose's own era, from his 2008 arrival through Tom Thibodeau's four full seasons and the 2011 Eastern Conference finals, is the closest the franchise has come to the top of the league since the break-up.

What followed has been a long middle. The DeMar DeRozan and Zach LaVine period from 2021 produced one play-off series and a run of play-in exits, and the roster that reached 2025 was still built from its pieces. Jerry Reinsdorf, who bought control of the club in 1985, remains the owner.

The season that forced the issue

The 2025-26 campaign opened 5-0, the best start since the 1996-97 championship year, and then collapsed. The Bulls lost all eleven games they played in February 2026, a franchise record for a winless month that beat the 0-10 of November 1976. The defence finished 28th in the league. Matas Buzelis led the team in scoring across 77 appearances; Josh Giddey, the intended organiser, managed 54 games.

At the February deadline the front office ran seven separate trades and emptied the veteran core — Coby White, Nikola Vučević, Ayo Dosunmu, Kevin Huerter and others out, Jaden Ivey, Anfernee Simons, Collin Sexton, Nick Richards and eight second-round picks in. Elimination from play-off contention came on 27 March after a defeat to Oklahoma City. The final record was 31-51, fourth in the Central and twelfth in the East: no play-in for the first time since 2021.

The clearout reached the executive floor on 6 April 2026, when Artūras Karnišovas and Marc Eversley were dismissed. Billy Donovan stepped down on 21 April after six seasons in the job.

A new front office, a new bench, a 21-year-old centrepiece

Bryson Graham was installed as executive vice-president of basketball operations in May 2026, alongside Stephen Mervis as senior vice-president and Acie Law as vice-president of player personnel. Graham hired Tiago Splitter as head coach on 16 June 2026 — the Brazilian's first NBA head job — with Taj Gibson joining the staff.

Graham's first draft brought Caleb Wilson out of North Carolina at number four and Dailyn Swain from Texas at fifteen. Wilson averaged 23.5 points and 7.3 rebounds in Summer League and made the All-Summer League first team. Around them the roster was rebuilt again: Nic Claxton arrived from Brooklyn in a four-team trade to address the defence, Norman Powell was signed as a scorer, Zach Collins re-signed, and Rob Dillingham went to Charlotte on 26 September for Buddy Hield and cash. Simons and Sexton left in free agency.

Nobody involved is selling a play-off run. At media day at the United Center in late September, Graham said of Wilson, "We have to be OK with giving him grace throughout this year. He's going to have some ups and downs." Splitter was warmer: "Every day he's showing us why he's the No.4 pick." Previews of the season put the realistic ceiling at 35 to 40 wins and play-in contention, with the actual objective being to work out which of Wilson, Buzelis, Swain and Giddey the next team is built around.

Splitter named Giddey, Powell, Buzelis and Wilson as starters for the preseason opener against Phoenix at the United Center on 7 October. Preseason continues at Denver on 11 October, at Milwaukee on 14 October and at home to Minnesota on 16 October. The regular season begins at Toronto on 21 October, with the home opener against Washington on Saturday 24 October.

Still the biggest room in basketball

None of the above has dented the gate. The Bulls led the NBA in total attendance in 2025-26 with 829,997 admissions, ahead of Denver on 812,868 and Miami on 808,063 — this while finishing twelfth in their conference. The United Center, which opened on 18 August 1994 at a cost of $175 million, seats 20,917 for basketball and is the largest arena in the league; the 2023-24 season averaged 20,624 a night, also a league high.

The building itself is now the centre of a construction site. The 1901 Project, the Reinsdorf family's $7 billion redevelopment of the surrounding car parks, broke ground in June 2026. Phase one covers a hotel, a western garage and a purpose-built 6,000-capacity music hall across three levels, due to open in 2028, with roughly 9,500 homes planned across the full scheme. New interior renderings for the music hall were published on 18 September 2026.

The dates worth circling

The schedule is light on television and heavy on reunions. Only three Bulls games are on national broadcast this season: New York at home on 1 December, Indiana away on 4 January and Brooklyn away on 20 January. The reigning champion Knicks visit on 28 October, Philadelphia on 8 November and San Antonio on 11 November; Miami come in on 14 December.

The returns are where the last twelve months get awkward. Dosunmu plays his first regular-season game back on 14 January, Coby White returns to the United Center on 6 March, Vučević with Orlando on 15 March and LaVine with Sacramento on 22 March. NBA Cup group play runs from 30 October to 25 November, the trade deadline falls on 11 February, and the season ends at New Orleans on 11 April.