This summer, the Bulls finally, officially stopped pretending they were close to competing for anything but a play-in tournament berth.
Three years after offloading major draft capital in the hopes of becoming Eastern Conference contenders, Chicago waived the white flag. The Bulls’ front office moved probably two of its three best trade chips in two-time All-Defensive Team guard Alex Caruso and six-time All-Star small forward DeMar DeRozan. The third, 24-year-old emerging point guard Coby White, remains on the roster after a breakout individual season in 2023/24.
DeRozan agreed to a three-year, $73.7MM deal with the Kings as part of a three-team sign-and-trade with the Bulls and Spurs. San Antonio netted an unprotected first-round pick swap, as well as the contract of 3-and-D combo forward Harrison Barnes. Chicago, despite moving by far the best player in the deal, only nabbed two second rounders and reserve shooting guard Chris Duarte.
Caruso was shipped out to the Thunder in exchange for point guard Josh Giddey, who by the end of this spring’s playoffs was a barely-used eighth man, averaging just 12.6 minutes per game in Oklahoma City’s second-round series to the Finals-bound Mavericks. Giddey’s missing-in-action jumper and poor defense made him a liability in his postseason debut. Luckily for the 6’8″ Aussie, he’s not in danger of making the playoffs again any time soon.
Oklahoma City gave up a pair of second-round picks to obtain Gordon Hayward in a trade deadline trade. Caruso, on an expiring $9.9MM sweetheart deal, is one of the league’s elite defenders, and surely could have netted some level of first-round equity. The Bulls reportedly received offers along those lines but preferred to acquire an established young veteran in Giddey.
Two more veteran former All-Stars remain very available on the trade market. But the Bulls can’t seem to give away either shooting guard Zach LaVine or center Nikola Vucevic, both of whom are on far-too-generous multiyear contracts.
Armed with a core of DeRozan, LaVine, Vucevic, Lonzo Ball, Caruso and White, the Bulls went a combined 125-121 across three seasons. Chicago did make the playoffs once, during this group’s first year together in 2021/22, but was quickly eliminated in the first round and hasn’t survived the play-in tournament since.
The team has been stubbornly resistant to making significant moves to improve its defense or long-range shooting since Ball went down with a left knee meniscus tear in January 2022. He’s currently rehabbing after his third surgery, and hoping to make a comeback in the final year of his contract.
The Bulls selected intriguing young G League Ignite forward Matas Buzelis with the No. 11 pick in this year’s poorly regarded draft. The 6’10” pro was an underwhelming floor-spacer in the G League, making just 27.3% of his 3.4 three-point tries, but flashed encouraging finishing ability and athleticism during his Summer League games with Chicago.
Chicago’s only major free agent addition thus far is ex-Pacers reserve big man Jalen Smith, who signed a three-season, $27MM deal. At 24, the 6’10” Maryland alum could conceivably grow along with the rebuilding Bulls.
The Bulls also re-signed restricted free agent forward Patrick Williams to a generous five-year, $90MM new deal. The 23-year-old incurred a left foot injury in January that required season-ending surgery. Due to minimal frontcourt size elsewhere, the 6’7″ wing has often been miscast by Chicago head coach Billy Donovan as a power forward, but his skinny frame has impeded his ability to get much offense cooking against opposing defenders.
Across 43 games last season, Williams averaged 10.0 points, 3.9 rebounds, and 1.5 assists with a shooting line of .443/.399/.788. Those numbers are more or less the same as his rookie season output (9.2 PPG, 4.6 RPG, 1.4 APG, .483/.391/.728 shooting). Though he has improved defensively during his four pro seasons, the Florida State alum has been a developmental dud on the other end, hampered by a slow release on his jump shots.
We want to hear from you. Did the Bulls get enough back in their deals for DeRozan and Caruso? How should they handle the contracts of Vucevic and LaVine? Will Ball even vaguely resemble his pre-injury self? Was Buzelis the right draft pick, or will he eventually go down in Bulls history as a lottery misfire? How much more leeway should owner Jerry Reinsdorf give team president Arturas Karnisovas, who has underwhelmed during his tenure with the team thus far?
Let us know how you feel in the comments section below.
I think Buzelis will be a fine pick for this young team, but it’s nothing short of malpractice to not get one single 1st round pick for either Caruso or Deebo. AK and Eversley should have already been handed their pink slips after these last two years, and it doesn’t give me any hope for the future with them running the rebuild
They got Josh Giddey for Caruso. Odds are that most first round picks won’t be of his caliber. DeRozan could’ve just walked, to get anything is a plus.
I completely agree with your take Chuck. I’d rather have a young Giddey who’s already a proven commodity than a 1st round pick in this years ” Bad Draft” According to the writer anyway. There was no guarantee that the Bulls were going to get somebody better than Giddey. These people act like Giddey is 37 or something. He’s in his early 20’s and is a great talent if surrounded by the right players. Bulls had no leverage in the DDR deal so anything they got was better than nothing. The writer hit on one thing that I’ve been saying for 3 years now that Patrick Williams is no PF and never will be, But Donovan keeps pounding that square peg into the round hole. Bulls Management acts like the position doesn’t even exist and refuses to either draft one or trade for one. It’s mystifying. They figured out this was going nowhere but about 2 years too late. Probably because they want to charge people to buy their new TV station and who would want to pay to watch that same crap anymore so they had to change. Still a long way to go.
I agree on-balance that Giddey is better than most likely 1st rounders, but getting *just* Giddey for Caruso, especially considering that Giddey was entirely disposable for the Thunder, smacks of not trying hard enough. The Thunder have so many picks and swaps that they can’t all convey. They couldn’t get the least valuable one for Caruso, arguably the best perimeter defender among all guards in the NBA? Or at the very least a couple seconds?
Throw in the fact that Giddey needs to be resigned or you got Caruso for one year of him.
And with Ball and hopefully Vujevic gone by next year, Re signing Giddey is going to be a problem how exactly? Maybe even LaVine. Ok maybe that’s wishful thinking.
Problem is he needs to get paid a lot sooner than a first-round pick would need to be. Not smart for a team just starting a rebuild. The timelines do not match.
Giddey is 22 years old. Gimme a break. he’d be a college senior right now. Stop it.
They need to keep making trades and collecting young talent. (Young like how Giddey likes it)
Start White, Giddey, Williams, Smith and idk at C
Trade Lavine and Vooch for Peanuts and some TP.
Vooch to GS for Payton, Waters, future considerations, Cash, draft rights and two 2ñds
Lavine and three 2nds to Brooklyn for Ben Simmons
Waive Ben Simmons, Payton, Waters and Ball
Tank, get young talent, get a good pick and finish the rebuild blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah
Some of those are good ideas, but Brooklyn isn’t going to trade for LaVine. They’re trying to tank and rebuild too. Why would they give up assets for a longer-term contract on a better player than Simmons? They want to be bad, probably more than the Bulls do.
Brooklyn isn’t not giving up any assets unless you consider Ben Simmons contract a asset. Brooklyn receives 3 2nds for the Simmons deal so I’m not sure what you mean. They can still be bad with Lavine
Brooklyn receives 3 2nds to take on Lavine for Simmons
Keep Simmons. LaVine looks like Lebron compared to that POS Simmons. Nobody wants him. At lkeast Zach has some value. Simmons is a minus part.
That expiring contract is nice
Simmons has more value than Lavine. Lavine has a horrible contract and Simmons is expiring. Simmons contract has .more value than Lavine
Ah, misread it, thought they were sending out seconds. Still don’t think they’d do it. Simmons is worse, and his expiring deal has more value for Brooklyn than the seconds they’d get from Chicago in this idea. No team actually wants to add an albatross contract intentionally.
LaVine is selfish and can’t play defense or won’t but he still has value as a scorer. Simmons is a big POS and a cancer. Nobody is trading for cancer.
F-
Question for the dude who wrote the article. How is $20 million per for two more seasons “far too generous” or even long term for a guy that is a walking double double? That seems a little subjective to me.
He’s absolutely brutal on defense so as much as he brings offensively he is completely terrible on the other side.
He’s about to turn 34 and is still owed 40 million for 2 years. He’s likely not getting any better.
One of the draft picks the bulls gave up to get him became Franz Wagner who is massively better than Vucevic, especially on defense.
Lastly, it should be pretty glaring if the bulls make someone available and they can’t give him away unless they attach picks to take him.
I think it’s a bit of an overpay for Vuc, but he’s a better team defender than individual, and he does have the offensive upside, so the article is a bit overstated for him. He has value, just not a ton. But 20 million per year is becoming roleplayer money, so he’s not that far away from being a fair deal.
LaVine, however, is massively overpaid.
going from garpax i didnt think it could get worse. yet here we are.
Reinsdork sucks.
People are underestimating the Bulls, they forget that prior to Lonzo going down with injury. They were one of the top seeds in the east now they did have DeMar DeRozan but his production can be replaced all in deal to get Jeremy Grant and Ayton from the Blazers. They need to accept that there is no chance of moving Lavines contract so they might as well stay competitive.
Getting rid of your two best players in Caruso and DeRozan tells you that they’re not trying to be competitive. They’re just waiting for some dumb GM to cave in and take LaVine and Vucevic off their hands, and looks like they screwed themselves in the end.
Reinsdorf is complete idiot and should have sold the team a longtime ago , he’s truly ran this organization to the ground and mearly just putting band aids on to justifying putting a team on the court
Two teams Reinsdork ran into the ground. One NBA team, with the other an MLB team. Chicago would be lucky if this guy just goes away!
No team has as many questions surrounding it as Chicago. We have been down this road and covered all this team’s failures. The lost money with Ball’s contract just put them in a bad situation they could not get out of and they should have started the rebuild much sooner. They have been tinkering in the middle of the road with no direction at all for the past two seasons. There is nothing wrong with the moves they made this off-season, and we will have to see what the local kid Buzelis can do at this level. Recuperating from their bad decisions is still likely to take another generation to overcome. The next time we see the Bulls as a contender they will likely have a different owner, different front office, and nobody from today’s roster.
Bulls could trade Vuc and LaVine in season. Let Zach bring his value back up. Knicks would be interested in Vuc. If they wait. Go full rebuild next yr. Next yrs draft is loaded.
Clippers going to new arena. They could go for Zach. I’m Bulls I definitely consider full rebuild next yr.
The Bulls can afford to keep LaVine because he will be the only major contract problem. They can offload Vuj and Ball comes off next year. With any luck at all Portland is finally good enough so the Bulls get the pick from the Blazers to go with their own. They should be able to keep it, Top 10 protected. So they might even have 2 and all the 2nds. They have a couple of minor salaries coming off too as I think Carter and Craig are done also. So hopefully with Vuj-20, Ball-20 and the other 2 10? that’s 50 million light. So the Bulls don’t need to trade LaVine to keep building. If he wants to pout let him sit. If he wants to leave show some value but the Bulls should absolutely NOT add any picks to get rid of him. He should have enough pride to show up and get himself out.