3 Eastern Conference NBA teams to watch down the final stretch

3. Chicago Bulls

Our final team to watch is the Chicago Bulls. While the Nets stood pat (aside from buyout signings like Blake Griffin and LaMarcus Aldridge) and the Heat made moves to solidify themselves in the middle of the playoff pack, the Bulls made trades like their own playoff lives depended on it.

Sitting 10th in the East, perhaps the Bulls’ metaphorical lives really did depend on swinging for the fences like they did. They were the first team to pull the trigger on a big surprise move, trading Wendell Carter Jr. and Otto Porter Jr. and picks to the Orlando Magic for Al-Farouq Aminu and Nikola Vucevic.

Even though the Bulls have a truly woeful 19-27 record, they sit firmly in the final play-in spot in the East at 10, 2.0 games ahead of the free-falling Toronto Raptors and 2.0 games behind the ninth-seeded and free-fall-adjacent Indiana Pacers. There’s room for them to move up and out of the play-in spot, but they’re 4.0 games behind the sixth-place New York Knicks.

Time is ticking on the Bulls to get their act together, but they welcomed Vucevic and Aminu to the Windy City with an ongoing losing streak that currently stands at five games.