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Did the Bulls Thursday in the NBA draft put the next building block in place for a new, exciting, versatile perimeter game with the drafting of Michigan State’s Denzel Valentine to pair with Jimmy Butler and newly acquired Jerian Grant?

“We talked about the changes we want to make with our team, wanting to get younger and more athletic and …

The start of the last season of that old Bulls gang we came to both love and despair over so much probably went something like this message, perhaps more understated, unsaid, if also apparent.

It was that you guys have been in this run for five or six years. You haven’t gotten there. We added a center with a championship …

The Bulls will get the No. 14 pick in this year’s NBA draft.

That came as a result of the annual lottery drawing in New York. The Sacramento Kings kept their draft pick since the Bulls were to get it if it fell outside the top 10. The Kings get selection No. 8.

The Philadelphia 76ers won the No. 1 …

It wasn’t how the Bulls hoped it would be eight years ago when they drafted Derrick Rose and with a future league Most Valuable Player were soon on the verge of the NBA Finals and perhaps another, at least, mini-dynasty.

But it officially ended Wednesday after a 115-105 victory over the Philadelphia 76ers that gave the Bulls a 42-40 record, …

The ball, shot by Doug McDermott bounded high over the rim where Cristiano Felicio glided in, jumped, and as the ball reached its zenith like a balloon floating away, cupped it in his large right hand and in one motion slammed it back through the basket. Then Justin Holiday, step back 14 footer, transition three from Jimmy Butler. And then …

Perhaps the opponent ledger says it all—even if it’s mostly indecipherable—about this 2015-16 Bulls season that remains one Bulls loss or Indiana Pacers win from being eliminated from the playoffs. With Saturday’s 105-102 win over the conference leading Cleveland Cavaliers, the Bulls finish 7-1 against against the top two teams in the Eastern Conference, 3-1 over the Cavs.

But the …

And then there was one, one Bulls loss or Indiana Pacers’ win separating the Bulls from a destiny they and most everyone else around the NBA never considered possible six months ago.

“Just (not) the way we wanted the season to end up, not (what) we wanted,” said Jimmy Butler with 25 points as the Bulls were overrun down the …

Who figured when Thomas Paine famously wrote, “There are the times that try men’s souls,” he may have been looking toward Fred Hoiberg and the Bulls’ 2015-16 season.

“It’s tough, tough,” Hoiberg was saying at practice before the Bulls were to play in Miami Thursday. “I’ve always been a guy that…as a long shot to make it in this league, …

Jimmy Butler Wednesday didn’t quite say the Miami Heat has no chance Thursday against the Bulls. But to paraphrase the Bluto speech from the Animal House movie that was been used—unsuccessfully, mostly–for motivation this season, “He’s not taking this anymore! Wade, he’s a dead man! Whiteside, dead. Deng…”

Of course, the only actual dead man walking anyone has seen around …

It’s now with Tuesday’s 108-92 loss in Memphis time for the tragic number for the Bulls—the number of games to be eliminated from the playoffs—in a season that started with joy and hope and appears to be ending as a basketball tragedy.

“I told the guys,” related Bulls coach Fred Hoiberg. “I said, ‘I never quit in my life and …