1. Starting the rebuild a bit too early by sending out Jimmy Butler
The most notable trade in recent memory that the Bulls front office made was also the one that sparked the rebuild, back during the 2017 offseason. During the 2017 offseason, GarPax made the move to ship star small forward Jimmy Butler off to the Minnesota Timberwolves for the infamous return of point guard Kris Dunn, shooting guard Zach LaVine, and a first round draft picks that would eventually become power forward Lauri Markkanen.
While LaVine could be firmly on a path to stardom, especially among the top scorers in the modern day in the Eastern Conference, he’s about the only success story for the Bulls from this trade so far. Markkanen has yet to come close to reaching his true potential, and he has even more trouble staying healthy on a consistent basis.
Dunn might also be out of the Windy City already this offseason if the new front office regime consisting of executive vice president of basketball operations Arturas Karnisovas and general manager Marc Eversley doesn’t want to re-sign him this summer/fall. Meanwhile, “Jimmy G. Buckets” was a dark horse MVP contender with the Miami Heat for much of the season so far.
It’s hard to say who was the real winner in this trade deal. The Timberwolves definitely didn’t get the most out of Butler in his time in the Twin Cities. They shipped him off to the Philadelphia 76ers last year, but he didn’t last long with that club either.
All in all, it seems like the Bulls ditched the idea of building around Butler too early. No one could really know where the Bulls would be at right now if they tried to build around Butler. If nothing else, they should’ve at least tried to see where that went or got a better return when they traded him.