What do the Chicago Bulls and a romance novelist have in common? More than you think.

I started watching the Chicago Bulls this year for no real reason.

My husband has been a lifelong fan, so the Bulls have always been part of the soundtrack of my life—pregame chatter humming in the background, trade debates sneaking into dinner conversations, late tip-offs that somehow feel louder once I’m already in bed.

United Center, circa 2009 (if you couldn't already tell based on the photo quality)

I grew up in Chicagoland, so the Bulls have always technically been “my team,” even in the years I wasn’t paying close attention. And if you’re from here, you don’t just watch the Bulls—you inherit certain memories. Mine start in the Jordan era of the 90s, when winning didn’t feel like hope so much as an expectation, like inevitability came standard with the red and black.

But this month feels different.

The Bulls have not had a single win in February. Trades happened left and right, and at one point the Bulls were left without a true center—one of those details that even casual fans can feel in their bones. The paint gets exposed. Rotations get weird. Matchups get ugly.

On paper, it looks messy. On the floor, it looks transitional.

But if you understand basketball—roster construction, player development, cap reality, timelines—you know it’s not random. It’s a rebuild—language sports executives may avoid because it feels like a four-letter word in lieu of an innocuous seven. But oddly enough, I think that’s why I can’t stop watching.

Because the Bulls aren’t just playing games. They’re telling a story.

When the record isn’t the point

Rebuild years aren’t built for highlight reels. They’re built for evaluation.

Success looks less like the scoreboard and more like the questions a front office must answer in real time:

• Who fits the future?

• Who can grow into bigger minutes?

• What system is worth committing to?

• Which pieces have trade value versus long-term value?

A rebuild isn’t a tantrum. It’s a decision. It’s leadership choosing discomfort now, so the franchise doesn’t stay stuck later.

That’s not giving up. That’s direction.

Why this feels personal

I’m not only watching the Bulls. I’m watching a team admit that “kind of working” isn’t the same as working. And that’s the exact headspace I’ve been living in as I rewrite my Inkspell titles.

When I first published these books, I wrote in third person. At the time, it fit who I was as a writer. But over the years, my voice shifted toward deeper intimacy, emotional immediacy, character-first narration—so I’m re-releasing my backlist in first person POV.

It’s not a surface refresh. It’s a structural decision.

Revision is its own version of roster management: you keep what still fits, you trade out what doesn’t, and you rework the system so the whole thing can run cleaner.

Sometimes that means admitting a foundational truth: you can’t build something new with an old framework just because it’s familiar.

The “missing center” moment

United Center, circa 2009

Basketball fans don’t need a stat sheet to understand the problem: playing without a center changes everything. A center anchors the paint—rim protection, rebounds, defensive stability. Even in modern “positionless” lineups, you still need interior presence. A missing center doesn’t just change one position; it changes everything around it.

That’s what rewriting can feel like.

When you change POV, you remove a structural anchor you once relied on. Suddenly scenes don’t behave the same way. Dialogue hits differently. The pacing shifts. You’re forced to rebuild the architecture—not just repaint the walls.

It’s disorienting. But it’s also clarifying. Because you find out what actually holds.

The long game

The Bulls aren’t trying to recreate the 90s. That era belongs to NBA history. Nostalgia doesn’t win games in today’s league. This roster has to function under this cap, in this conference, against this level of speed and spacing. The front office isn’t building for a documentary—they’re building for sustainability. For optionality. For flexibility two and three seasons from now. That’s what the long game looks like in professional sports. It’s not glamorous. It’s not instantly rewarded. It’s deliberate.

And I’m not trying to recreate the writer I was when those books first came out.

I’m not interested in protecting an earlier version of myself just because she once got it across the finish line. I’m building the writer who can sustain this for decades—book after book, season after season—without leaning on yesterday’s voice or yesterday’s comfort zone. The rewrite isn’t nostalgia. It’s infrastructure.

Because here’s the truth: rebuild seasons are rarely loud. They happen in the quiet. In the practices no one televises. In the weight rooms without cameras. In the film sessions that don’t trend online.

And in writing? They happen in early-morning revisions. In line edits no one applauds. In drafts that get torn down and rebuilt because “good enough” isn’t the standard anymore.

This April, I’ll stand on the TEDxNormal stage and talk about what I call the messy middle—the silence after the applause. That space where the trophy has already been handed out, or maybe it never arrived, and you’re left alone with the work. No highlight reel. No confetti. Just the question: what are you going to do now?

That’s where the Bulls are. That’s where I’ve been.

The messy middle isn’t failure. It’s formation. It’s the stretch where identity gets refined instead of announced. It’s where leadership decides whether it wants quick optics or long-term health.

And the choice is rarely obvious.

You can chase noise. Or you can build.

So yeah, maybe that’s why I’m watching. Not because they’re winning. But because they’re committing. Because becoming is more interesting than dominating.

Foundation work still protects the paint—even when the scoreboard’s against you and the arena feels empty.