What the NBA Finals matchup says about the Chicago Bulls

What's happening: The Denver Nuggets are making their first Finals appearance when they take on the Miami Heat starting Thursday night.

The connections: Bulls executive VP of basketball operations Artūras Karnišovas was poached from Denver in 2020. He built the team that's about to play in their first championship.

• But before this year, the Nuggets had a hard time getting over the hump, losing several playoff series while Karnišovas was at the helm.

Meanwhile, former Bulls superstar Jimmy Butler has become the hero of this year's playoffs, making his second appearance in the Finals with the Heat.

• The Bulls gave up on Butler in 2017, sending him to Minnesota for a young Zach LaVine.

Flashback: There was optimism when fans were introduced to the new front office in 2020, after several years of Gar Forman and John Paxton, who were constantly on the hot seat.

• When the team brought in Lonzo Ball, DeMar DeRozan and Alex Caruso after trading for Nikola Vucevic, it felt like progress.

Yes, but: Two years later, the Bulls have a lone playoff appearance and first-round exit to show for the rebuild, and the immediate future is looking bleak.

Lowlight: Ball has missed almost two seasons now with a knee injury, and some in the organization reportedly believe he'll never play again.

• Over this period, the league has appeared to have figured out how to exploit the Bulls' lack of size and their lackluster three-point shooting.

Furthermore: The Bulls got a bad bounce when they didn't get a lottery pick in the upcoming NBA Draft. Instead, the first-round pick was automatically awarded to Orlando as part of the deal for Vucevic.

• And they don't have a second-round pick, because the Bulls front office was penalized for not following free agency rules.

The bottom line: The Bulls have no draft picks, no salary cap space, Ball's lingering injury and an aging roster that finished under .500 last year.

• In 2023-24, Bulls management is back in the hot seat.