The Chicago Bulls kicked off the season with one of the most favorable schedules in the league, featuring five of their first six contests against teams that missed the playoffs last year. Unfortunately, they didn’t take advantage, walking away with just one win in five tries.
And now, predictably, their easiest days are behind them.
Moving forward, the Bulls’ competition will only increase, and nothing better demonstrates that reality than this diagram shared on Twitter:
NBA 2019-20 strength of schedule until today, from now until the all star break, and the rest of the season pic.twitter.com/reZXCQIELn
— Ed Küpfer (@EdKupfer) November 28, 2019
The Bulls competition over the course of the season is on a straight climb, culminating in a five-game road stretch against the Jazz, Nuggets, Suns, Lakers, and Clippers at the beginning of April.
In other words, the schedule doesn’t just get harder … it gets A LOT harder.
A site called Tankathon calculates any team’s remaining strength of schedule, providing the winning percentage for all upcoming opponents – a higher percentage means a team has a tougher schedule ahead of them and, thus, is in a prime position to “tank.”
The Bulls – right now – have the No. 4 most easily “tankable” schedule, with an opponent winning percentage of 51.9 percent.
The site also lists the Bulls’ toughest competitors left as the Lakers, Bucks, Raptors, and Nuggets. They’ll play those teams a combined seven more times throughout the remainder of this season.
If the Bulls are going to flip the script, it’s going to have to be now. If not, they can just start playing for another 7th pick … or whatever. Sigh.