Chicago Bulls: 3 players that won’t be playing in the Windy City in 21-22
Chicago Bulls players that won’t be playing here in 21-22: Cristiano Felicio
A long-awaited event on the Bulls cap sheet is finally about to come through this offseason. Bulls fans will no longer question why the bloated contract of the 6-foot-10 and 270 pound 28-year-old Brazilian big man Cristiano Felicio is on the books heading into the 2021-22 season. Felicio’s contract comes off the books for them this summer.
There wasn’t much that the Bulls could do in recent years to get Felicio out of the 15-man rotation besides stretching and waiving him. Felicio was paid roughly $8 million annually over the course of four years thanks to a bad contract extension that the Bulls’ former front office regime of John Paxson and Gar Forman back during the 2017 offseason.
Donovan didn’t give Felicio much playing time in general last season, with seven-dozen minutes on the floor in 18 games played. The Bulls will now have the ability to use that $8 million on the cap sheet to potentially get a more capable big man to help round out this frontcourt rotation. Or Karnisovas and the Bulls could use it for the purpose of placing another piece in a better supporting cast around the star duo of shooting guard Zach LaVine and center Nikola Vucevic.
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Felicio is one of a few Bulls big men that could be set to hit free agency this summer. Former Boston Celtics center Daniel Theis and fourth-year power forward Lauri Markkanen are also impending free agents. But Felicio is definitely the least likely of the three to come back for the Bulls heading into next season.