The worst position to be in as a team: NBA purgatory.

In the current NBA landscape, there are two classifications of NBA teams that general managers usually seek out: playoff teams/contenders and tanking teams/rebuilding.

Although it may seem strange that some teams want to tank, it makes perfect sense. Purposely being a bad team when your contention window shuts opens the door to earn top draft picks and start the foundation of your next era. Teams that have recently started tanking include the Kings and the Nets, who, after years of playoff contention, have finally exhausted all winning opportunities. There have also been teams that have recently exited their tanking eras. Teams like the Jazz and the Wizards have recently made big moves to acquire stars after building a young core, and their futures are promising.

This is how you are supposed to do a rebuild. Lose for 3-4 years, build up a strong young core while stocking up on assets, and later flip those assets into a win-now piece. We've seen this formula used countless times, and that's because it works. Purposefully putting yourself at the bottom of the league's standings puts you in a great position to be at the top of the draft lottery.

There is, however, another spot teams land in. This spot is right in the middle, too good to get a top draft pick, but not good enough to make the playoffs. This is a spot I like to call NBA purgatory, but most know it as the 11th seed.

If you land at the 11th seed, oftentimes that means you tried to make the play-in tournament, but weren't quite good enough to make the cut. Being at the 11th seed also places you at around the 8th-9th best odds in the draft lottery.

And while a top-10 pick may sound nice, in reality, most picks in the 8th-9th range are guys who have promise to be solid role-players or long-shots on star potential. Either way, these picks rarely end up having much of an effect on your team's hope to win.

The most notable case:

There is one team in the NBA that knows of this trap all too well. The Chicago Bulls.

The Bulls have, once again, found themselves at the 11th seed in the Eastern Conference, just barely missing the play-in tournament. They currently have the 9th-best odds in the draft lottery. This has been the case for many years now.

Since the 2015-16 season, the Bulls have 2 playoff appearances, both being first-round exits. Over these 10 years, the Bulls often just barely missed the playoffs, usually landing at the 10th or 11th seed.

Despite almost a decade of mediocrity in Chicago, there has been almost nothing to show for it.

The Bulls have had 6 lottery picks in the last 10 years. Only 3 of those lottery selections were top-7, and only 1 player of those top-7 picks is currently still on the Bulls, that player being Patrick Williams.

This is a perfect display of the trap the Bulls are in. They are stuck just outside of making the playoffs, and despite having stars such as Zach LaVine, Nikola Vucevic, and DeMar DeRozan, they can't seem to leap into playoff contention. So after 2 really bad years, it seemed the Bulls finally got a break, landing the 4th overall pick in the 2020 draft.

So all the Bulls needed to do now was make the correct pick, and they would finally have their future star to lead their team. The Bulls picked Patrick Williams, who never became the franchise-leading play Chicago had hoped for, and now the Bulls are back to square one.

They ended up trading LaVine, DeRozan, and Vucevic, and after several more years of losing in the play-in, it seems they have finally started to tank. So now, the Bulls have to undergo even more losing seasons.

Will their era of mediocrity ever end? Will the Bulls ever get out of NBA Purgatory?

In the NBA, mediocrity isn't neutral, it's a trap.