| The next two years saw the Bullets continue to play mediocre basketball as they finished with losing records but they made the playoffs in the new expanded format that involved the 16 best teams to make the playoffs; the Bullets were eliminated in both years in the first round | After losing the first two games on the road in the first round of the to , the Bullets fought back and forced a fifth game with two home wins |
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| The franchise was established in 1961 as the Chicago Packers based in , , and were renamed to Chicago Zephyrs the following season | They finished with a winning record, but in a highly competitive Atlantic Division they finished last and missed the playoffs |
The Bullets kept the "Stars and Stripes" uniform until 1987, although they made a minor tweak prior to the 1985—86 season with additional thin stripes, the "Bullets" logo on the right leg, and thin shorts stripes replacing the three stars.
19| After that , they changed their geographic identifier name to the Washington Bullets | Those uniforms also featured large horizontal stripes on the chest of the jerseys, and three stars on the side panels of the shorts |
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| Later in the off-season, the team acquired the ' all-time leader in three-point field goals, and the draft rights to forward in exchange for the draft rights to | On January 6, 1989, the Bullets franchise played its first regular season game in since ; this would be the first of 35 regular season "home" games the Bullets played in Baltimore from 1989 to 1997 |