The Chicago Bulls have been blessed by the basketball gods multiple times in the draft. Michael Jordan fell to their lap in the 1984 NBA draft, they were given the No. 1 pick to draft Derrick Rose, and many more. However, when a coin flip determines the Bulls’ draft odds, the result has been quite the opposite.

Bulls missed out on Magic Johnson by losing a coin flip with Lakers in 1979

The moment the Bulls stepped foot in the NBA, they were a solid team. They made the playoffs in nine of their first 11 seasons and even went on a streak of four consecutive 50-win seasons from 1970 to 1974. However, during the 1978-79 season, a coaching change and injuries got the best of them, causing the Bulls to finish 31-51, good for last in the Eastern Conference. Luckily, a man named Magic Johnson was making the leap from college to the NBA.

Before the lottery process, the method to determine which team gets the number one pick was through a coin flip between the two worst teams of each conference. The Bulls were the worst team in the east. On the west, it was the Los Angeles Lakers.

If it were up to Bulls GM at the time Rod Thorn, Johnson would’ve been a Bull.

“Any time I had ever called anything myself with a coin, I always called tails,” said Thorn.

But since fans were losing interest, they decided to hold a contest to vote on whether they should call heads or tails.

“Bill Sharman and I were on the call with the league,” Thorn recalled. “He was representing the Lakers at the time. The people in New York were asking us who wanted to call it. I immediately said we had this fan vote and, Bill. If it’s OK with you, let me call it. I called it heads.”

As we already know, the result came out to be tails. In hindsight, the loss of that coin flip was a blessing in disguise for the Bulls. In the 1979 NBA draft, they selected Dave Greenwood. For as good as he was to start his career, he didn’t do much to improve the Bulls record. This eventually opened the door for them to select Jordan four years later.

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Bulls missed out on Luka Doncic by winning a coin flip against Kings in 2018

Sometimes, winning the coin flip doesn’t give you the player your team is looking for. In 2018, the Bulls were in a tiebreaker with the Sacramento Kings to determine who gets the 6th best odds of the draft. Here, the Bulls won the coin flip. But once the draft lottery took place, the Kings, who had the 7th best odds, jumped to the second pick.

While the Kings did pass on Doncic due to personal reasons, we’re pretty sure the Bulls wouldn’t have made the same decision since they desperately needed a PG. For context, the Bulls finished that season with Ryan Arcidiacono as the team’s starting point guard.

Bulls missed out on Cooper Flagg by losing a coin flip with Mavericks in 2025

The odds of this happening were always slim. The Bulls entered the lottery with a 1.7% chance of getting the first pick. Their odds of moving up into the top four was just 8%.

They did have a chance to increase their odds by 0.1% through a coin flip with the Mavericks who shared the same record as them (39-43). Unfortunately, the Bulls lost the coin flip and are now left to contemplate what could’ve been.

With the way the ball bounces in the NBA lottery, some years you get lucky and draft Michael Jordan. Most times though, you’re just hoping the player you drafted in the lottery won’t be a complete disaster.