The one night of the year you don’t mind if your team was bad is draft night. If you are a fan of a bad team then draft night is like your Super Bowl or World Series. You most likely have a high pick and if your GM is competent you should get a player that will help turn your franchise around.
For the Chicago Bulls they are on the opposite end of that spectrum. In a draft that doesn’t appear to have many future all-stars, the Bulls had the 28th and 30th selections in the first round. When your team finishes with the best record in the league, you are in a position to maybe find a diamond in the rough or most likely add depth to your roster.
The Bulls went with the depth option both in the short term and long term. With the 30th selection the Bulls went with a shooting guard/small forward selecting Jimmy Butler from Marquette. Although Butler doesn’t really solve the Bulls need for a scorer, he is a fantastic defender who can shut down most small forwards and shooting guards. Butler should contribute to the Bulls rotation at some point in the 2011-2012 season.
To possibly help in the long term, the Bulls packaged their other two picks and traded for the rights to the 23rd pick Nikola Mirotic. It will be interesting to see if and when this selection will come to the Bulls. Mirotic is currently under contract with Real Madrid in Spain for a few more seasons. The Bulls would have the option to buy out the contact, but reports are that it would be very expensive.
Mirotic probably would have been a lottery pick if it wasn’t for the uncertainty of his desire to play in the NBA and the expensive buyout he has with Real Madrid. The 6’10", 210 pound forward is a great shooter who is probably NBA ready, but if he does have plans to play at the power forward position will probably need to bulk up.
Since the Bulls only will have the one first round pick on their books in 2011-2012, this should allow them to upgrade the shooting guard position through free agency. This is all of course depending on what happens with the Collective Bargaining Agreement and if/when there will be a lockout.