Josh Giddey faced his former team for the first time back in October, when the Bulls hosted the Thunder during the first week of the regular season. But Monday’s contest represented the first time that Giddey had returned to Oklahoma City since the two teams completed the trade sending him to Chicago in exchange for Alex Caruso last June.
Giddey was a former lottery pick who had started all 210 of the regular season games he played for the Thunder through his first three NBA seasons, but his unreliable three-point shot and inconsistent defense resulted in him being pulled from the starting five during the second round of the playoffs last spring. He was traded about a month later.
“No player wants to be in the position where you’re the one that’s getting adjusted to in the playoffs,” Giddey said ahead of his return to Oklahoma City, per Paul Sullivan of The Chicago Tribune. “That was a tough pill for me to swallow, but it was probably what I needed at that point of my career. It’s better to learn that lesson as you get deeper into your career.
“Looking back in hindsight, it was probably the best thing for me. Most of the time you feel like, ‘Oh, you don’t want to go through that.’ But … they made the right decision in what they did, in terms of the playoffs, that whole series, and matchup-wise they did it for the right reasons. I don’t ever look back in anger or whatever towards OKC. I had nothing but great things to say about OKC.”
Given that Giddey was coming off a playoff demotion and Caruso had just earned his second consecutive All-Defensive nod, the trade was widely viewed as a steal for Thunder general manager Sam Presti, with fans and analysts alike calling out the Bulls for not getting more in return for one of their top trade chips.
However, as Joe Mussatto of The Oklahoman writes, Presti didn’t necessarily view it that way. His comments at the time of the deal suggested that he hadn’t really wanted to move Giddey and only did so because the former No. 6 overall pick asked about the possibility of a trade after he was informed that he’d likely be coming off the bench in 2024/25. According to Mussatto, Giddey’s play in Chicago during the second half of this season has shown that Presti was right to be hesitant.
Since the All-Star break, Giddey has averaged 21.3 points, 10.1 rebounds, and 8.9 assists per game with a .507/.470/.805 shooting line, leading the Bulls to a winning record during that stretch and bumping his full-season averages to 14.2 PPG, 7.8 RPG, and 7.0 APG on .464/.376/.776 shooting. Giddey’s usage rate, which was 19.9% prior to Chicago’s deadline-week trade of Zach LaVine, has jumped to 24.4% since then and the fourth-year guard has thrived in his increased offensive role.
The Thunder believed Giddey was capable of playing like this — in the press release announcing the trade, Presti referred to him as having “All-Star potential.” But Presti’s front office knew it was unlikely to happen in Oklahoma City, where the Thunder were at their best with Shai Gilgeous-Alexander serving as the team’s lead ball-handler.
Caruso’s offensive numbers this season (6.9 points and 2.6 assists per game on .447/.354/.814 shooting) pale in comparison to the ones Giddey are putting up, and the veteran combo guard is playing a relatively modest rotation role, averaging fewer than 20 minutes per game. But his defensive impact has been exactly what the Thunder were hoping for.
Oklahoma City’s 106.0 defensive rating leads the NBA by a wide margin and Caruso has played a key role in that unit’s success. Among players who have appeared in at least 40 games and logged at least 500 total minutes, only Dyson Daniels has averaged more steals per 36 minutes (3.3) than Caruso (2.9). And Caruso is actually slightly ahead of Daniels in deflections per 36 minutes (6.4 to 6.3).
Nearly a year after the trade was finalized, it looks like a clear win-win, according to Joel Lorenzi of The Oklahoman and Rylan Stiles of SI.com. The Thunder got the type of role player they needed, while the Bulls landed their potential long-term point guard.
It seems like the deal should be a win-win for the two players involved as well — Caruso signed a four-year, $81MM extension in December, while Giddey has taken on the sort of primary play-making role that best suits him and appears poised to cash in as a restricted free agent this summer.
As Lorenzi points out, there can sometimes be hard feelings or bitterness when a player returns to his former home city for the first time, but there was none of that on display on Monday when Giddey played his first game as a visitor in OKC, a testament to the fact that everyone involved was happy with last June’s one-for-one trade.
It’s still fair to wonder if the Bulls could’ve extracted an extra asset or two from the Thunder in their negotiations last June or what the return might have been if they’d sought a return heavier on draft picks. But there’s certainly no guarantee that any of the other deals Chicago could have made would have netted the team a more valuable potential cornerstone than Giddey.
However, as Joel Lorenzi of The Oklahoman tweets, one player not listed on the injury report is rookie guard Ajay Mitchell. The 38th overall pick of last year’s draft, Mitchell has been out of action since January 3 due to a turf toe injury.
Daigneault’s Thunder and Mazzulla’s Celtics have been the NBA’s two hottest teams in recent weeks.
Gilgeous-Alexander continued to bolster his Most Valuable Player case in March by averaging an eye-popping 34.7 points per game on a scorching-hot .517/.413/.929 shooting line across 14 contests. The Thunder won 13 of those 14 games, with Gilgeous-Alexander also contributing 7.4 assists, 4.3 rebounds, 1.1 steals, and 1.0 block per night.