CHICAGO — Something is deeply wrong with the Chicago Bulls.

The problem goes far beyond Wednesday’s demoralizing, disgraceful blowout loss to the Miami Heat. It goes beyond losing in the play-in tournament to the same team for three consecutive years. This team is broken. There’s no clear path forward. After a full decade without winning a playoff series — or a single home playoff game — the Bulls no longer represent winning.

So where are the consequences?

Most of the talk around the Bulls offseason is focused on minutiae — the right price tag for re-signing Josh Giddey, targets for a late lottery pick in the draft. But if the Reinsdorf family is still serious about the Bulls in any capacity, ownership should take on a bigger task this summer: determining the source of the problem and digging it up by the roots.

Let’s start at the bottom. This isn’t the fault of the players. This season’s roster bought into a new mentality and a completely fresh style of play, ran harder than any other team in the league and still finished with a losing record.

There was no extra sacrifice or strategy that individual players could have delivered to elevate their play to a competitive level. Wednesday’s 19-point play-in loss put into sharp contrast the worst aspects of this team: a dismal defense paired with an offense that is overdependent on transition scoring and 3-pointers — a simple formula any top coach in the league can crack.

If it’s not the players, then logic leads us further up the ladder to coach Billy Donovan.

Despite posting a 195-205 regular-season record, Donovan has been considered one of the safest members of the current Bulls regime. After five seasons in Chicago, the newly minted Hall of Famer is the fifth-longest-tenured coach in the NBA — a reflection of the league’s volatility as much as a statement on his dependability.

Every year, so-called gambling experts set odds that Donovan is one of the five likeliest NBA coaches to lose his job. And every year, they’re wrong.

Donovan’s presence is a constant. The front office loves him. The players love him. And his work ethic and ability to develop young players have shielded him from internal questioning even after three consecutive losing seasons.

For a different coach or team, Wednesday’s play-in loss might have signaled a change. Donovan was outcoached. Solidly. He hasn’t been in many postseason situations during his tenure in Chicago: five playoff games in 2022 and five play-in games over the last three seasons. He’s 3-7 in those games.

But executive vice president of basketball operations Artūras Karnišovas remains dogged in his belief that Donovan is the correct coach for the Bulls, who are prioritizing player development over postseason strategy as they enter another rebuilding cycle.

“He’s done an unbelievable job to transform this group and accomplish certain goals of changing the way we played,” Karnišovas said during exit interviews Thursday. “It’s a buy-in from the players’ perspective. They buy into (what) Billy’s trying to teach them and they respond to him. So he’s done an unbelievable job and I have full confidence moving forward with Billy.”

If the players and the coach are safe from the hot seat, that means only one person is left: Karnišovas himself.

Ultimately, the blame for the Bulls’ demise this season lies with the front office’s strategy. Karnišovas refused to tank to improve the team’s lottery odds in a potentially game-changing 2025 draft. He spent most of his exit interview preaching the importance of “young players with experience,” an emphasis that has stuffed the roster with decent supporting-cast players and zero future All-Stars.

And Karnišovas doesn’t seem to fundamentally believe in the value of a rebuild. For years the Bulls front office has referenced the Detroit Pistons as a cautionary tale of the risks involved in fully committing to building through the draft. Even as that argument was disproved this season — as the Pistons returned to the playoffs with a 44-38 record — the Bulls stayed the course in the middle.

Let’s be realistic about this roster. Coby White is performing to his ceiling. Giddey has improved but is nowhere close to a star who can bail out a team in a must-win game. Lonzo Ball is a potential game changer but still can’t shake the injury bug. Matas Buzelis is years away from developing into any kind of stardom. Nikola Vučević is reaching the end of his rope. The second unit is steeply limited. Patrick Williams might be flat-out hopeless.

Before the season even started, Donovan admitted the outlook was bleak for his roster. The defense was bad. The offense had to rely on an unsustainable pace of play and prolific 3-point shooting, two features that immediately dried up in Wednesday’s elimination game. The flaws were obvious from a mile away, long before the play-in debacle.

And here’s the thing — the Bulls aren’t cursed or unlucky. They just aren’t any good. And, no, it’s not a matter of injuries or continuity or competitiveness or youth development or any other excuse Karnišovas has thought up over the past four years.

This team is not good. It can’t compete with the bottom-shelf playoff teams in the league’s inferior conference. And there’s little evidence the front office possesses the creativity or pragmatism to compile a competitive roster in the next five years.

Some fans saw a glimmer of hope when the Denver Nuggets fired general manager Calvin Booth days before the playoffs, opening the top executive role at Karnišovas’ former workplace. But Karnišovas said Thursday the Nuggets haven’t contacted him: “I’m in Chicago and focused only on this roster.”

Tumult has defined this NBA season. Four coaches and three GMs have been fired since late December. When the Sacramento Kings reached the same bitter ending as the Bulls — a brutal blowout loss on their home court in the 9/10 play-in game — ownership fired GM Monte McNair within hours of the final buzzer.

Bulls ownership gave 17 years to the former front-office duo of Gar Forman and John Paxson. There’s no reason for the team to show similar patience this time. If the Bulls are going to escape the mediocrity in which they’re mired, the top seat in the front office needs to become uncomfortably hot for the foreseeable future.

This doesn’t have to mean immediate change. If nothing else, apply pressure. But stagnancy can’t remain a prerequisite for this job — even if it feels comfortable.

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