1998–99 Chicago Bulls season

The 1998–99 Chicago Bulls season was the 33rd season for the Chicago Bulls in the National Basketball Association.^[1] Due to a lockout, the regular season began on February 5, 1999, and was cut from 82 games to 50 games.^[2][3]

The Bulls entered the regular season as the three-time defending NBA champions, having defeated the Utah Jazz in the 1998 NBA Finals in six games, winning their sixth NBA championship, and completing a second three-peat in the 1990s. During the offseason, Phil Jackson's resignation as head coach, the departures of Scottie Pippen (who was traded to the Houston Rockets), Dennis Rodman (who signed with the Los Angeles Lakers as a free agent), and Michael Jordan's second retirement marked the end of the Bulls' dynasty.^[4] During the off-season, the team signed free agents Brent Barry,^[5][6][7] and Andrew Lang, acquired Mark Bryant from the Phoenix Suns,^[8][9][10] and hired Tim Floyd as their new head coach.^[11][12][13]

Under Floyd, and with the addition of Barry and Bryant, the Bulls were a shell of their former selves, losing eight of their first nine games of the regular season, which included a seven-game losing streak in February. The team posted another seven-game losing streak in April, and lost 14 of their final 17 games of the season. The Bulls finished in last place in the Central Division with a 13–37 record (roughly the equivalent of 21–61),^[14] missing the NBA playoffs for the first time since the 1983–84 season;^[15] the Bulls were just the second defending champions to miss the postseason, behind the 1969–70 Boston Celtics.

Toni Kukoč became the team's scoring leader, averaging 18.8 points, 7.0 rebounds, and 5.3 assists per game, while Ron Harper averaged 11.2 points, 5.1 rebounds and 1.7 steals per game, and Barry provided the team with 11.1 points per game. In addition, Dickey Simpkins contributed 9.1 points and 6.8 rebounds per game, while Bryant provided with 9.0 points and 5.2 rebounds per game, and Randy Brown contributed 8.8 points and 1.7 steals per game. Meanwhile, Hungarian rookie power forward Kornél Dávid averaged 6.2 points and 3.5 rebounds per game, second-year guard Rusty LaRue contributed 4.7 points per game, and Lang provided with 3.8 points and 4.4 rebounds per game, but only played just 21 games due to injury.^[16] Brown finished tied in tenth place in Most Improved Player voting.^[17]

On April 10, 1999, the Bulls set an all-time NBA record for the fewest number of points in a game during the shot clock era, in an 82–49 home loss to the Miami Heat at the United Center.^[18][19][20] Before that night's game came and went, the NBA had only 12 notable moments where a team scored under 50 points in a match, where most of them occurred during the league's first season of play while they operated under their original Basketball Association of America name (including two different matches where a team scored less than 40 points in a match), while the two lowest scoring teams in a match happened in an infamous match on November 22, 1950 between the Fort Wayne Pistons and the Minneapolis Lakers, which resulted in the lowest-scoring NBA match ever recorded in a 19–18 Pistons victory.^[21]

The Bulls led the NBA in home-game attendance, with an attendance of 560,012 at the United Center during the regular season.^[16][22] Following the season, Barry was traded to the Seattle SuperSonics,^[23][24][25] while Harper signed as a free agent with the Los Angeles Lakers to reunite with Jackson, who was hired to coach the Lakers,^[26][27][28] Bryant signed with the Cleveland Cavaliers, and Lang and Bill Wennington were both released to free agency.^[29]