Bulls continue accidental teardown as DeMar DeRozan flees for not-unserious NBA franchise

Chicago's best player heads to Sacramento

Free Agency moves quickly, so days felt like weeks when it came to following DeMar DeRozan’s decision. It’s now over, and, yep: another embarrassment for Arturas Karnisovas and the Chicago Bulls.

DeRozan’s exit was like his entrance in 2021, when as a free agent he seemingly had no suitors only to be pursued by a surprise team without cap space but with ambitions. Back then this was the Bulls, with AKME taking charge and pledging that the 3rd biggest market (that doesn’t share that market, unlike the top two) would house a player-friendly free agent destination franchise.

Now, 4 years and a single playoff victory later, after many assets used and countless hours of fans’ time wasted, the Bulls have their best player seek out THE SACRAMENTO KINGS.

In terms of making the best out of a bad situation, the Bulls certainly didn’t do the best¹ but also didn’t do the worst. By working out a sign-and-trade and taking back some salary in 27-year-old Chris Duarte, the Bulls also received two second-round picks and, of course, cash considerations. We know AKME’s history (including very recent history) suggests they don’t value draft picks, but getting some more second rounders can be useful very soon as the Bulls try to move Max Sullenballer² and likely other well-paid players.

But, oh man, what an awful situation the Bulls found themselves in.

And not only was this disaster in asset management and team building easily foreshadowed - as early as two trade deadlines ago - they are now clearly desperate and scrambling and showing themselves not only incapable of building a team properly, they can’t tear one down correctly either.

Any suggestion of a Bulls ‘pivot’ or ‘realization’ gives them way too much credit. The Bulls never intended this. They did not have some epiphany (or even basic clarity) that they were going to tear it down to where their greatest asset would be their own bad record and thus a higher selection in a purportedly-stacked 2025 draft.

Their hand was forced due to their own prior incompetence, and they keep doing incompetent things on the way down to the bottom.

Ultimately, when trying to conceive of what the Bulls should do this offseason, I wholeheartedly acknowledged that they were screwed no matter the “direction” because this front office is incompetent. They are going to screw up a rebuild just as they screwed up the last three years and now already in these teardown moves.

And it also should never be forgotten that The Chicago Bulls shouldn’t ever need to do a clumsy, too-late, teardown like this. Perhaps if it’s a new regime, ok, but AKME did not earn the chance to clean up their own mess here. All “rebuilds” mean for failed decisionmakers is a way to save their boss money and buy themselves time.

It could be argued that losing DeRozan and quickly going down the drain was inevitable. But that’d be news to the Bulls. At the end of the season after 3 years of near-total inaction, they said they were still talking up their meager goals of a 6th seed in the Eastern Conference, with DeMar was key to that. Even after the draft when speaking again, Karnisovas was certainly less committed to re-signing DeRozan but it was in the context of “the market” dictating what they could pay him.

It’s clear to me what happened, and what their intentions were:

The Bulls wanted DeRozan back. But they are ‘dorf-capped at the Luxury Tax line, and as terrible negotiators completely lacking confidence in their ability to correctly assess value in transactions³ , they were backed into a corner and had no faith they could move enough money elsewhere - mostly in a Zach LaVine trade - to pay him.

That lack of an offer was not the Bulls telling DeRozan they had a plan to move on without him, it was telling him that their plan to continue together had failed.

I was holding on to hope that absence of a public breakup meant there was still a chance at reconciliation (a LaVine deal - even a not-awful one - could happen if the Bulls were better at their jobs!). But I wasn’t factoring in DeMar looking at AKME’s most recent example of flailing failure, and smartly recognizing this is not the kind of place a serious veteran would want to commit to⁴.

After reportedly turning down a 2yr/$80M⁵ extension from the Bulls midseason, DeRozan’s new contract with the Kings is for 3yr/$76M with $27M in the final year not guaranteed. I think that is a number the Bulls would’ve loved to settle on at the outset of this offseason.

And it would’ve been a prudent move too (again, caveats apply that the whole situation is FUBAR due to AKME). The team would still strain to even be average, but DeMar’s excellence and leadership would help the development of the younger players, and like last season they would be positioned amongst the parity of the by-far-worst-of-two conferences. Maybe they get unexpected leaps and become more relevant, have some actual positive momentum again, and try to build through the middle. DeMar’s contract would also be very tradeable where you’d potentially get something better than two second-round picks.

Of course, this status applied over the entirety of last season and AKME failed then - not moving Caruso or even Drummond at the deadline - like they’ve failed at every other method of roster construction so far in their tenure.

And now they’ve fumbled roster DEconstruction as well. The Bulls may be entering a rebuild, but it certainly wasn’t their intent. And all these half-measures and screw-ups already has them looking quite hopeless: by my casual assessment, the Bulls have worst combination of “young core” and future draft capital of the not-trying-to-win teams in the league⁶.

Even selling ‘young and fast-paced and exciting’ is sabotaged because the best hope they can offer their fans is losing a lot of games this season and getting lucky on some Tuesday night next May.

I think after removing their ceiling-breaker in Caruso and now their floor in DeRozan, the losing part should be well taken care of. But that’s the only thing that will go “right”.

I haven’t thought much about DeRozan and the Kings. Chicago isn’t even competing in the same league as Sacramento.

They’re instead completely adrift, that’s the only direction they've indicated this summer. Let it not be unsaid that DeMar DeRozan is a lot smarter than Bulls fans: he got their message and abandoned ship.

1. The Spurs got Harrison Barnes and an unprotected pick swap in 2031. Not only is that much better return already, I’d bet they can flip Barnes at the deadline for even more. This is what they did when signing-and-trading DeRozan to the Bulls for Thad Young back in 2021.

2. I just came up with that! It’s staying. Do I need to explain I’m referring to Zach LaVine? If so, it ruins the joke. Dang, that is staying too.

3. big part of the job, that!

4. I don’t think DeMar has any ill will or anything, the Bulls did help facilitate this new contract, and any such “player friendly” move is overblown anyway. Also it never made sense that DeMar would publicly eliminate the Bulls as a suitor either.

5. That number is likely inflated and mischaracterized, given the source. But still it was significant.

6. And with a head coach who’s ill-suited for the task too.