Tough Road Ahead For Hopeful Chicago Bulls

After getting bounced in the Play-In tournament by Miami, the Chicago Bulls are seemingly planning to roll most of the roster over to next season.

During his end-of-season press conference, Team President Arturas Karnišovas noted that the team wasn’t looking to enter a rebuild, instead preferring to keep the organization competitive.

Setting aside the validity of the plan – which should be heavily questioned – it’s fair to wonder if the Bulls will even be able to retain their third-best player, Nikola Vučević, this summer. The former All-Star is an unrestricted free agent, which allows him to sign wherever he wants without giving Chicago the chance to match.

The Bulls will also be without Lonzo Ball, acquired in the summer of 2021, who has missed all of this season, as well as most of last season, to a severe knee injury. Ball doesn’t have a timeline for his return, which could put his 2023-2024 season – and overall career – in jeopardy.

Making matters even more complicated is the fact that Chicago likely won’t have their draft pick this summer, unless they move up considerably in the draft lottery. They owe Orlando this year’s selection, unless it ends up as a Top 4 pick, from the Vučević trade. For an aging team in short supply of assets, the Bulls won’t have anything incoming unless they hit on their 8% chance to move into the Top 4. This seems unlikely.

Finally, the Bulls also have to handle Coby White and Ayo Dosunmu, both of whom are restricted free agents this summer. Should the Bulls re-sign both, that would put them awfully close to the luxury tax line, a threshold the organization has historically avoided despite being one the biggest sports brands on the planet.

Essentially, there are a lot of factors currently working against them. The easier path towards something sustainable would be to cash in on the current star market, where quality players are fetching tremendous returns. Both Zach LaVine and DeMar DeRozan would command a haul – LaVine especially – which could allow the Bulls to start over, with a strong baseline. Even Alex Caruso would provide a ton of value in a potential trade.

However, Karnišovas seems determined to not walk that path, and instead face steep odds of transforming the current squad into an elite unit.

With Ball presumably sidelined for most, if not all, of next season, now might be the best time to re-sign White and hand him the keys to the point guard position. The 6’5 guard made notable improvements this yest on the defensive end of the floor, developed more patience as a playmaker, and had the most efficient season of his career. Should White continue to take steps forward in his own evolution, he’d be far more ready for the position than he was two years ago where he started in 54 of his 69 appearances, but looked overmatched.

As for fixing some of Chicago’s other needs, Karnišovas did note that the team needed to get more three-point shooting, which is a correct analysis considering they ranked dead-last in the league in three-point attempts on the season. DeRozan, a notoriously shy three-point shooter, operates predominantly inside the arc, which doesn’t allow Chicago to ever become one of the league’s most aggressive shooting teams for as long as he’s around. Instead, they’ll need to work around the presence of DeRozan.

Enter LaVine.

The 28-year-old played some of the best basketball of his career during the second half of the season, and is a shooter of such quality that head coach Billy Donovan could easily justify asking the two-time All-Star to up his attempts from range. LaVine took 7.1 three-point attempts per game this season, which was on the conservative side. Should LaVine take 10 or more per game next season, that would dramatically help the Bulls assert themselves from the outside.

And yet, even if Vučević is kept around, White should enter the starting lineup, and LaVine take more shots, this Bulls team come with a set ceiling unless someone suddenly morphs into a superstar, or a young player becomes something more.

As such, it’s time to discuss Patrick Williams.

Out of anyone currently on the Bulls roster, there isn’t a bigger x-factor than Williams. The 21-year-old turned into a quality defender this season, and his shot selection remains steady and ahead of his age. But due to the presence of LaVine, DeRozan, and Vučević, Williams is often the forgotten man. Sometimes by choice, as he willingly takes a backseat to the aforementioned group.

That has to change next season if the Bulls are to flip their own narrative.

Williams, who averaged just over 10 points per game this season, needs to return next year with a more ambitious mindset, preferably to overtake the role of one of Chicago’s current big three. Another year of letting everyone else have their turn should be unacceptable to both him, and the organization.

We’ll see what the Bulls end up doing this summer, but if they’re determined to level up, they’ll have to pull an ace out of their sleeve.

Unless noted otherwise, all stats via NBA.com, PBPStats, Cleaning the Glass or Basketball-Reference. All salary information via Spotrac. All odds courtesy of FanDuel Sportsbook.