Chicago Bulls: Who stays and who needs to go?

This summer, the Chicago Bulls find themselves in one of the most miserable positions possible in pro sports. The Bulls have missed the playoffs, don’t have a first-round draft pick, and do not have enough cap space to sign a splashy free agent.

However, the Bulls have two certified All-Stars on the team, a few promising young players, a coach with NBA Finals experience, and a front office with a clear plan to restore the prestige of a team with a rich history of success.

With young blossoming teams like the Atlanta Hawks, New York Knicks, and Memphis Grizzlies beginning to enjoy the fruits of playoff success, the blueprint to contention lies right in front of our very eyes. This is a tumultuous time that could easily launch Chicago back into contention, or inevitably stall yet another rebuilding phase.

If the Chicago Bulls intend to turn this roster into a genuine playoff contender, who is worth keeping around, and who needs to go?

The answer to this question isn’t always so simple. It requires understanding the nuance of building a team with chemistry, as well as optimizing the team’s minimal cap space. To do this, we’ll be looking at players in groups of three, each of which finds themselves in a similar situation this summer.

We’ll classify each player on the Bulls roster into one of three categories, “Keep”, “Out”, and “On The Fence”.

Hopefully, this will help building a picture of what the roster construction might look like three months from now, and give a better idea of what to expect when president of basketball operations Arturas Karnisovas’ molds the team according to his vision this summer.