Keep Building or Go All-In? Chicago Bulls Attack the 2025 Offseason
Photo courtesy of Pixabay.com
2024 Season Recap
The Chicago Bulls finished their 2024/25 season with a 39-43 record and once again earned themselves a spot in the Play-In Tournament as the 10th seed in the Eastern Conference. Unfortunately, their push for a playoff spot was stonewalled instantly after an embarrassing 109-90 loss to the Miami Heat in the 9/10 match-up. That loss sparked a lot of social media outrage amongst Bulls fans who would have much rather seen the team “tank” the last month of the regular season for better odds in the upcoming Draft Lottery where whichever team earned the number one pick would get to draft Duke Freshman phenom Cooper Flagg.
Current Young Core to Build Around
One thing Bulls fans can look forward to going into the next few seasons is their promising young group of players in Coby White (age 25), Josh Giddey (age 22), and rookie Matas Buzelis (age 20). In my opinion, all three of these guys have a good chance at becoming a top star in the league for the next decade plus. White has put together back-to-back seasons where he could have easily won the Most Improved Player of the year award as he averaged 20.4 points, 3.7 rebounds, and 4.5 assists per game this past season.
The Bulls acquired Josh Giddey in a one-for-one swap with the Oklahoma City Thunder for veteran Alex Caruso last year. Initially, many NBA fans thought Chicago got “fleeced” in this trade because they did not receive any additional draft picks from OKC. But Giddey has changed a lot of those opinions following his brilliant 2024 season where he averaged 14.6 points, 8.1 rebounds, and 7.2 assists per game and was a walking double-double machine. So, he has quickly established himself as one of the main pieces of this young core in the Windy City.
2025 NBA Draft
Photo courtesy Chicago Bulls
Unfortunately, Chicago did not find any luck in this year's draft lottery, as they ended up with the 12th overall pick. But what made the lottery result such a gut punch for Bulls fans was the fact that Chicago lost a coin flip with the Dallas Mavericks for who would have a slight boost to their lottery odds due to both teams finishing with the same regular season record. The Mavs won the tiebreaker and won the first overall pick and the rights to draft Cooper Flagg this summer.
As for some of the other prospects that I like as options for the Bulls at 12, Derik Queen out of Maryland is one of the top Centers in this class which I believe is the Bulls biggest position of need going into next season. Queen is a terrific target in pick-and-roll action, can create his own shot when facing the basket with a wide array of moves, and has intriguing passing ability. Some other names to watch are Kasparas Jakucionis, Egor Demin, and Khaman Maluach.
Continue the Youth Movement?
In my opinion, there are two realistic paths the Bulls’ front office can take the team down this summer. The first and the far more likely one is to just continue developing the young core that they have already established in 2024. In this scenario, I think they should try to extend Josh Giddey to a long-term deal somewhere in the range of $30M per year. Acquiring Giddey in a swap for Alex Caruso last off-season seems to have been a major win/win for both teams. Giddey is going into this summer as a restricted free agent so Chicago should have the upper hand in getting a deal done with the Aussie guard relative to other teams who plan to pursue him. If it were up to me, getting this deal done would be a no-brainer for Chicago and I expect them to do so. That way, they can have him and Buzelis under contract together for at least the near future, which would be huge.
Make an Aggressive Move for a Superstar?
The other route that Chicago could take is to abandon the “mini rebuild” and go all in with a blockbuster off-season trade for a franchise altering player. As the Association heads into the 2025 off-season, there is one massive name that is expected to be at the center of trade rumors from pretty much every team’s fanbase, Giannis Antetokounmpo of the Milwaukee Bucks. Following yet another disappointing and premature postseason exit this year in the Cream City, Giannis has visibly and verbally expressed his growing frustrations with the direction that the Bucks organization is going in. So, many fans and analysts are expecting the 30-year-old superstar to request a trade this off-season, with one of the potential destinations being the Chicago Bulls.
While the chances that the Bulls would make this type of move are very low, it is not completely out of the realm of possibility. Following their major move at the 2024 trade deadline sending star shooting guard Zach LaVine to the Sacramento Kings, the Bulls finally have full control of their current and future first round draft picks along with a few rising young stars in White, Giddey, and Buzelis. A trade package centered around all of those pieces might be enough to land a deal with Milwaukee for the Greek Freak, but once again, I think it is very unlikely to actually happen.
With all of that being said, I believe that while it would be very exciting as a fan for Chicago to somehow pulled off a trade for a mega star like Giannis, the safest and most likely route for the front office to take is to continue developing and building around their current young core of Giddey (if they extend him), Buzelis, and White. And draft well.
