The Chicago Bulls have broadly received the worst feedback from analysts among the three teams that participated in the De’Aaron Fox-Zach LaVine trade.
To recap the Bulls’ return: They received Kevin Huerter, Zach Collins, Tre Jones and their own 2025 pick back, which they kind of owned anyway since it was top-10 protected.
For that, they sent out Zach LaVine and a 2025 second-round selection.
By pulling the trigger on that deal, it becomes downright crucial the Bulls follow with more deals before Thursday’s 3 p.m. ET deadline for multiple reasons:
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This appears to be a rebuild attempt, with heavy emphasis on the word “appears” and that lone deal is simply not good enough. Chicago has no path toward a chance at real competitiveness with its current roster, and even its tanking process — if that’s what this is — looks dreadfully uninspiring.
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Coby White is in a peculiar contractual situation, which is just screaming for the Bulls to pull the trigger on a deal now to optimize a trade return. (The TL;DR version: White’s play is worth more than what he can earn in an extension from the Bulls, thus he will with absolute certainty become an unrestricted free agent in 2026. If the Bulls trade him now, the receiving team gets him for two possible playoff years, instead of just one, meaning more value.)
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The expiring contract of Lonzo Ball is an obvious way to take on long-term money for the price of draft equity. Ball’s $21.4 million are coming off the books this summer, and with apron teams surely looking to save money in the future, Chicago could ask those teams for draft compensation by taking on matching contracts that run for much longer.
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Nikola Vučević is playing some of his most efficient basketball. It’s not sustainable, but when has that ever stopped NBA teams from trading for a player who’s clearly performing above his usual level? The Bulls absolutely need to pivot off the center now, especially as a team like the Golden State Warriors appears outright desperate to make a roster upgrade.
So, let’s discuss the broader issue here.
The Bulls are set up for a rebuild in the way the Washington Wizards were a year ago: poorly.
While they now control their own future in terms of draft equity, they have no additional incoming value. They have a Portland pick that’s likely to never convey as a first-round selection, as it’s lottery protected through 2028, after which it’ll morph into a single second-round selection.
The Bulls do have young and exciting rookie Matas Buzelis. But that’s … well … kind of it.
Patrick Williams still hasn’t broken out during his fifth NBA season, and that’s right on the heels of signing a new deal worth $90 million over five years. Very few teams would be willing to take that on now unless they’re being paid to do so.
Ayo Dosunmu is good, albeit unspectacular. He’s, coincidentally, in the same contractual spot as White, meaning the Bulls should be motivated to trade him too, unless they wish to risk losing him for nothing in the summer of 2026.
As for last offseason’s major acquisition, Josh Giddey, it’s gone about as most expected. The guard will put up big raw numbers, but his actual impact is levels below that, and he might be among the worst group of defenders in the league, regardless of position.
All of this paints an extremely depressing picture of the Bulls, a franchise that’s perpetually behind the eight ball when it comes to direction and a plan under the ownership of Jerry Reinsdorf.
These Bulls should have leaned into a rebuild two years ago, yet they stubbornly maintained their path toward irrelevance. Even going back to the Giddey acquisition, when they shipped off Alex Caruso to Oklahoma City, they failed to make draft picks a part of the equation, knowing full well the Thunder had a war chest of draft capital at their disposal.
The Bulls aren’t just inept or lazy. They’re both. They don’t appear to do their due diligence, they’re horrible negotiators, and they let their assets turn into dead weight by sitting on them for too long, never realizing the rest of the NBA world runs at a significantly higher speed than they do.
If the NBA were a jungle, and most teams were apex predators, the Bulls would be sloths, sitting high in tree tops, looking down at everyone, never realizing the value of seizing the moment.
Even if they were to get lucky, win the lottery and get Cooper Flagg, questions about the franchise’s ability to build around him should be raised Day 1.
This Thursday marks a huge opportunity for the Bulls to shed some of the above criticisms. They should be proactive, think exclusively of how to optimize draft returns and show the league they’ve finally understood they need to up their game.
If they don’t — or worse, relinquish White for a return that’d make the Dallas Mavericks blush — then the organization will quickly find that their fan base, which is already approaching peak apathy, will begin to shift its focus elsewhere and perhaps rightfully sever the bonds of attachment.
It’s only fair, after all. The team oozes arrogance and superiority, looking down at fans and the NBA at large while winning 35 games a year. The Bulls didn’t play into analytics until they were half a decade late to the party, and their seeming inability to dig a few inches deeper in their draft preparation consistently puts them at a disadvantage.
Yet, despite their obvious struggle to run an NBA franchise, they never get out ahead of things. They’ve never been proactive. Will that change under current president of basketball operations Artūras Karnišovas? Only time will tell.
It must be nice to live off Michael Jordan’s legacy 27 years later.
