The NBA should write B.B. King a nice royalty check, because one

of his hits is the theme song for this season. The Thrill Is

Gone, baby, and it's been gone for quite a while, probably since

Michael Jordan laced 'em up in training camp. Seven weeks remain

in the regular season, but is there any reason the engravers

should not get started on the championship trophy right now?

Does anyone envision a scenario (other than an injury to Jordan)

in which the Chicago Bulls—50-7 at week's end, seven games

better than their nearest competitors, the Detroit Pistons—do

not breeze to their second straight title and their fifth of

this decade? "When the Bulls are ready to hang it up," Detroit

coach Doug Collins said a few weeks ago, "we just want to be

ready to take over for them." There's a pep talk right out of

Rockne, huh?

• MORE NBA: Tracker: Curry's Warriors vs. Jordan's Bulls

But Collins is only giving voice to what logical minds concluded

some time ago. This NBA season has been tailor-made for

narcoleptics: Fall asleep, and you won't miss a thing. In a way,

the Bulls' cold-blooded efficiency has worked against them.

While their effort to break the record for regular-season wins

was big news last year—they succeeded with a 72-10 mark—the

fact that it took them only one more game this season to reach

50 wins has largely been overlooked. There was more excitement,

more juice, connected to the Chicago crusade of 1995-96. It was

Jordan's first complete season after almost two years away, and

fans were eager to see if he was still the game's best player.

(He was.) It was Dennis Rodman's first season with the Bulls,

and fans were curious to see if he would be a cross-dressing

virus that would kill the team. (He wasn't.) And there was

belief in some quarters that the NBA's young up-and-comers, the

Orlando Magic in the East and the Seattle SuperSonics in the

West, had the guns to stop Chicago in the playoffs. (They didn't.)

There is none of that now, and the lack of a team strong enough

to challenge the Bulls is particularly disheartening for the

league. Even when the Boston Celtics were stringing together 11

championships in 13 seasons between 1957 and '69, there was

always a threat in the shadows—Bob Pettit's St. Louis Hawks or

Wilt Chamberlain's Philadelphia Warriors and 76ers. No one's

lurking this year. Chicago isn't significantly better than it

was last season, yet the gap between the Bulls and everyone else

seems wider. Seattle is running in place. Shaquille O'Neal's

move to the Los Angeles Lakers broke up the Magic. All that

seems to stand between the Houston Rockets and mediocrity is one

more injury to Charles Barkley. The New York Knicks have several

new faces but are still the good-but-not-good-enough Knicks of

past seasons. Perhaps the Lakers or the Miami Heat would look

more dangerous if not for injuries to their respective

mainstays, O'Neal and Alonzo Mourning.

At this checkpoint, then, the most intriguing question seems to

be, Is Chicago's supremacy good or bad for the NBA?

Beyond that, one wonders what will happen when the Bulls are

dominant no more, when Jordan takes to the links permanently and

coach Phil Jackson goes off to compose haiku on a mountain in

Montana. Jordan, 34, and Jackson have committed to at least one

more season, and Scottie Pippen, 31, is in the next-to-last year

of his contract. Barring an unforeseen turn of events, they will

all be back next year, and Rodman says he wants to stay in the

cast of Chicago too. But after that? Can anybody really imagine

the league without its red-and-black showpiece?

Anyone who doesn't think today's NBA is primarily a Bulls market

probably thinks Jordan is still playing outfield for the

Birmingham Barons. "People look at the Bulls like they look at a

historical landmark," says that noted historian Rodman. Don't

laugh. So utterly has Chicago bulldozed opponents that it's like

the Statue of Liberty: No one can muster antipathy toward it.

"They're a class act," Phoenix Suns forward Mark Bryant says of

the Bulls. "People love the way these guys handle themselves."

Never in NBA history—perhaps never in sports history—have

popularity and dominance so spectacularly coalesced.

"People certainly didn't have the love fest with us that they

have with Jordan and Chicago," says K.C. Jones, a member of the

Celtics dynasty of the '60s. In the '80s Boston and L.A. were

both popular and successful, but they had to share the

affection. As for the lead-dog franchise that followed them...

well, as erstwhile Detroit Bad Boy Rodman says, "When I was with

the Pistons, we were hated everywhere we went. I don't think the

Bulls are disliked anywhere in the world."

Not even in Cleveland, where anti-Bulls vitriol, directed

primarily at longtime Cavaliers tormentor Jordan, used to run

deep. Cleveland fan Joe Morford, a lawyer from suburban Shaker

Heights, took in the introductions before the Bulls-Cavs game on

Feb. 27 at Gund Arena and shook his head. "Jordan got a bigger

hand than any of the Cleveland starters, even [All-Star guard

Terrell] Brandon," said Morford.

After the Cavs pulled off a 73-70 upset, Brandon was

philosophical about Bullmania. "It's a problem when the home

fans cheer for the opposing team," he said. "But there are a lot

of part-time fans who just want to see the Bulls."

Fans like Neishal Kumar, an Alexandria, Va., teenager who says

he spent $1,000 to buy a pair of seats behind the visitors'

bench at the Washington Bullets' USAir Arena for the Feb. 21

Bulls-Bullets game. Kumar bought his tickets from none other

than superheckler Robin Ficker, who said he passed up the game

to watch his son in a high school wrestling tournament. So it's

come to this in the National Bulls Association: Taking the place

of a man who shouts insults at Jordan & Co. was a worshipful

pilgrim wearing a number 23 Bulls jersey. President Clinton was

also at the game, prompting this thumbs-down comment from

Bullets point guard Rod Strickland: "We've played [25 home]

games. He came to see Mike. He didn't come to see us." Gee, Rod,

he really wanted to catch that Bullets-New Jersey Nets classic a

week earlier, but he was busy.

Theories about the Bulls' universal popularity vary. "If you

took Jordan off that team," says former Celtics coach Red

Auerbach, "they'd be booing the crap out of them all over the

place." That from someone who, except in Boston, got the crap

booed out of him all over the place.

Another oft-booed expert, Suns coach Danny Ainge, agrees that

there are Bulls haters but not Jordan haters. "Michael is the

Muhammad Ali of the sport, the prince of basketball," says Ainge.

Denver Nuggets swingman Bryant Stith eloquently sums it up.

"People don't hate [the Bulls]," he says, "because their leader

appeals to the majority of people in the entire sports arena."

Yeah, that's what Red meant.

Jordan disagrees, though here his diplomatic instincts might be

doing the talking. "Every facet of our team has its own little

support group," says Jordan. "You have Phil's Zen followers.

Dennis has his followers. I have mine, and Scottie has his. Even

Jud [Buechler] has his. Winning brings more attention, but it

has to do with the personalities." Is there any doubt, though,

that the single fact of being a Bull has turned Rodman from an

eyesore into an icon? What might be called the Nike-ization of

the NBA is also at work here. Whatever foibles a player has,

they can be expunged or magically transmogrified into positives

through movies (Space Jam) and countless feel-good ads. When

you're a Bull, you're a champion, and when you're a champion,

you're a winner as a human being. Image is everything.

Unbalanced neurotic becomes lovable pet rock.

Whatever you think of Rodman, he has become an important patch

in the Bulls' quilt, part of the free-flowing, gung ho,

all-for-one style that is another reason for their popularity.

"The Bulls are fluid, fast-paced, fun to watch," says Nets

assistant coach Don Casey. Yes, Chicago is a rare open tap in a

clogged-up league.

"They can freelance, and their coaches give them freedom," says

the Cavs' Brandon. "A lot of coaches—way over half in the

league—don't allow that." Indeed, there's almost as much

play-calling in the NBA as there is in the NFL. And while most

coaches are slowing down the game in an attempt to isolate their

best players, Chicago's triangle offense gets everyone involved.

Of course, the Bulls have one huge advantage: Jordan ("the great

eraser of mistakes," as Nuggets coach Dick Motta calls him)

could bail out any offense. But with the exception of sixth man

Toni Kukoc, it's doubtful that any of Chicago's role

players—Steve Kerr, Luc Longley, Bill Wennington, even

Rodman—would be more productive playing on any other team.

Chicago's offense has been so successful that it has nullified

the axiom that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. No

one dares imitate the Bulls, even though NBA teams usually play

follow the leader. Quinn Buckner briefly installed the triangle

when he took over as the Dallas Mavericks' coach in 1993, but he

soon discovered that Jimmy Jackson and Jamal Mashburn each

interpreted the triangle as meaning he got three times as many

shots as everybody else.

Granted, the Bulls (Jordan included) didn't exactly take to this

offense when it was installed in 1989. Like all systems, the

triangle takes time to learn and mature players to execute. But

Chicago stayed the course, on and off the court. The Bulls are

one of the few franchises that have kept players around long

enough to run an offense that requires cohesion and timing. (The

only other team with comparable stability, the Utah Jazz, has

stuck with a predictable pick-and-roll offense that invariably

wins 50 games but bogs down in the playoffs.) Chicago ownership

has taken care of the mainstays, Jordan and Pippen, and filled

in the remaining spots with specialists who are comfortable in

their roles.

"There's a reason there's so much coach control today," says

Phil Jackson. "When you have young, inexperienced teams, you

have situations in which coaches are afraid to let the players

play. There are more talented, skilled players than ever. But

that doesn't necessarily add up to better teams."

That is why the Bulls, overall, are not just good for the

NBA—they're essential, if only to serve as a model. All over

the league young, unprepared players are being handed the ball

and, with it, the hopes of a franchise. Here it is, son. Now go

sell us some tickets! With the spectacular but undisciplined

Allen Iverson serving as bandleader this season, what chance did

the 76ers have of becoming anything other than a sometimes

exciting but deeply flawed sideshow? Do you think Iverson,

christened franchise savior, wants to hear about a motion

offense that restricts his shots? Do you think his coach, Johnny

Davis, is confident enough in his job to install a system that

takes time to work?

This situation is not unique to Philadelphia. Now that a player

can become a free agent after only three years in the league,

player movement is at an alltime high. (The Bulls, who held on

to 11 of the 12 players from last season's opening-day roster,

are an obvious exception.) Too many franchises are paying too

much money to young players who have neither the maturity nor

the supporting cast to succeed. But coaches can't take the time

to sit and school the youngsters because ownership is impatient.

Other franchises are going after quick-fix free agents and

breaking up whatever chance a coach has of building cohesion.

And too many coaches are trying desperately to keep control by

slowing down play and, consequently, turning off the sport's

electricity. After Seattle slogged by the Cavaliers 72-66 in

Cleveland on Feb. 25, Sonics guard Hersey Hawkins said, "A

couple times I looked in the stands and was amazed people were

still there."

They are for now, Hersey. But will they be when the Bulls aren't

around to build and sustain the buzz? Will the game's popularity

go into serious decline in the three or four years it might take

fans to, as Jordan says, "decrease expectations"?

Commissioner David Stern is sure it won't. "People said we were

in trouble when Oscar Robertson or Magic Johnson or Larry Bird

left the game," says Stern. "Great stars leave, great stars

replace them."

Even a skeptic such as Barkley, who has criticized some of the

league's young players, says the future is bright. He singles

out the Minnesota Timberwolves, the Lakers and the Heat as

franchises with potential and pizzazz. In fact, says Ainge,

"it'll be better when the Bulls break up. More teams will feel

they have a chance to win it all."

Maybe, but those on-the-rise teams should still study Chicago.

No, those clubs won't have Jordan, a once-in-a-millennium

player. But they should note that the Bulls built slowly, role

player by role player. They should note that the Bulls put their

coach clearly in charge. They should note that the Bulls did not

drain the fun out of the game but kept it—what was Casey's

word?—fluid, employing a style that is at once disciplined and

wide open. And the other teams should note that Rodman's

occasional transgressions notwithstanding, the Bulls played with

class and sportsmanship.

But even if there is another model franchise by the turn of the

century, it will not be enough. There had better be two or

three. No single team could lead the NBA caravan as

spectacularly as the Bulls and Jordan have. "I think some

players are just happy to be on the same court with Mike, the

fans to be in the same arena," says Atlanta Hawks center Dikembe

Mutombo. "I cannot imagine that it could be like that with

anybody else."