Bulls draft rumors are in the eye of the beholder, but for more accurate predictions we should think like AKME

there's wishcasting that the Bulls will change direction, but it's probably the usual paint-by-numbers approach to the roster

The people have spoken: we need an NBA Draft post. For the first time, the draft will take place over two nights. The Bulls, as is their way in the Arturas Karnisovas + Marc Eversley era, have fewer picks than originally allotted, with a first round selection at the #11 slot but no second round selection.

There’s been some speculation in the aftermath of the Alex Caruso trade that AKME is indicating taking a step back with his roster, maybe even a large step back to become a terrible and cheap product rebuild. I find this idea to be wish-casting (and remain far from convinced why we should wish for this in the first place?), as although new acquisition Josh Giddey is 8 years younger than the departing Caruso, sourced reporting is that it was a targeted player for a specific role. And to a much greater extent, all actions and words over the past 5 seasons have signaled the Bulls only look to improve.

There’s also been the AKME history of targeting specific players or player types in the draft.

So while the Bulls could use draft night, like their now-departed best trade asset, to do some bigger shakeup, I expect instead for it to be a one-for-one replacement. Giddey is to replace Lonzo Ball¹ , and the other departees that need replacement are Caruso and Andre Drummond. That would dovetail with the rumors of a promise to defense-first guard Devin Carter, or their interest in center Zach Edey.

It should be noted that both are older than Giddey. Also older than recent draftees Julian Phillips and Dalen Terry, also likely drafted with the intent to be replacements (Eversley publicly quoted to say Phillips was to replace Derrick Jones Jr.) but both were quickly identified as too raw to immediately fill that role.

The roster has much larger holistic issues, like the general deficit of young impact talent and their murky near-term cap/tax situation.

And perhaps this draft, widely assessed as ‘weak’, wouldn’t help much with those bigger problems.

But independent of that, AKME has proven to be incapable of doing more than one thing at a time (and barely capable at doing anything for long periods), or a move to set up a future move. That’s the only reason I can think of as to why they felt a need to do this Giddey acquisition now versus the draft or the new cap year.

There is an outside-defined time limitation imposed on AKME’s dithering, as the draft will take place.

I do think there’s one plausibly-rationalized asset play that could occur on draft night, and that would be using the protected 1st round pick from Portland to trade up, most practically back to Portland who have the #7 slot. This is the rare pick that should have more value to one team than the other. It’s looking likely that if the Bulls hold, it’ll ultimately manifest as 2028 2nd round pick. Whereas if Portland gets it back, the outgoing obligation is extinguished and therefore opens up their ability to trade future first rounders as part of their own rebuild-in-a-tax-crunch situation.

I even think there’s a good idea out there of using that pick as the asset to move Zach LaVine².

That could happen on draft night if it involves moving slots with Portland or another team. But it could also happen later (new cap year on July 1st is huge in freeing up options for uneven-salary trades). There’s a single true pivot point with this team and it’s DeMar DeRozan’s free agency. That may not resolve until well into free agency, and knowing how AKME operates, they’ll likely resist the idea of doing two things at once.

1. this is an idea from Woj, technically a ‘reporter’, but he has no basketball thoughts of his own so it came from the Bulls and/or Giddey

2. we’ve reached the semi-regular tradition of KC Johnson saying “maybe it’ll work out…this time”. No. Zach’s gotta go - if he plays not only will his own value just get lower but he’ll drag down others - and while I wouldn’t use our own firsts to incentivize a salary dump a lesser asset like this Portland pick or Dalen Terry would be acceptable.