Bulls Rumors: Grading the Nikola Vucevic trade

The Chicago Bulls made their presence known ahead of the NBA trade deadline and appear to be aggressively pursuing follow-up moves. The addition of Nikola Vucevic shocked the basketball world and made the Bulls plan moving forward quite clear.

his is a team that is going to aggressively pursue winning games and isn’t interested in bottoming out in order to build a winning culture. Arturas Karnisovas wants to win now and long term, something that has Bulls fans extremely excited about what’s to come for the organization.

A bold move no doubt, the trade for Vucevic puts the Bulls roster lightyears ahead of where it was yesterday. How does the deal grade out for Chicago, though? Bulls fans are going to like the report card.

Chicago Bulls trade grade: A

Not quite an A+, mostly because there are still moves to be made before assuming future first-round picks won’t have high upside. Until there is a core group set in stone it’ll always be difficult to give the best grade for a trade that moves future draft capital.

That being said, the Bulls did everything right in this one. Now it’s a matter of following it up with the right moves and that could certainly bump this grade to an A+ later on today.

Chicago lacked support for offensive stud Zach LaVine all season and it was beginning to show. Their 3-6 mark out of the All-Star break was no fault of LaVine’s as he continued to be the only consistent positive for the team in those games. He simply didn’t have the supporting cast around him and especially didn’t have a partner to lead the way offensively on a nightly basis.

That all changes with the addition of Vucevic, who is by far the Bulls second-best offensive weapon when he joins the team. That’s regardless of what moves come ahead of the official deadline. Vucevic will make LaVine’s life easier from day one in Chicago in addition to taking some of the burden off him night in and night out.

Wendell Carter Jr. was averaging just 19 minutes per game off the bench post All-Star break and the writing was on the wall in terms of what he could provide the team in terms of win now basketball. The first-round pick this year is likely to convey but won’t be that high, and all signs point to the future first not falling in the lottery given this front office’s commitment to winning games right now.

No matter how things play out from here, the Bulls are establishing a commitment to winning that increases their value in the coming years.