It’s no secret that the Chicago Bulls massively revamped their roster over the summer, with only three players from the 2020-21 season opener returning to play for the team this season. Even Nikola Vucevic, who the team traded for at last year’s trade deadline, did not have much time to acclimate to the environment in Chicago.
For those reasons, many expected the Bulls to struggle when it came to developing early team chemistry. Despite Billy Donovan’s impressive track record as a defensively-minded head coach, it was a stretch to assume that all of these pieces could fit together so quickly and come together to build a contender.
Well, it appears they’ve done just that. After an electric 11-5 start to the season that included a five-game West Coast road trip and the NBA’s third most difficult schedule, the Bulls have proven they are a legitimate threat in the Eastern Conference.
The Chicago Bulls’ early-season success has been one of the biggest surprise stories of the NBA thus far, a movement led largely by these 5 players.
Of course, much of this success comes on the backs of the new members of the team that joined via free agency and trade over the summer. Nine members of the current roster had never donned a Bulls jersey until this season, while an additional three only had a minimal amount of time to acclimate after last season’s trade deadline.
It has been a dog fight every step of the way to receive minutes on this new-look roster, but that competitiveness seems to have trickled from the top all the way down the 15th man this year. This Bulls team is playing with a level of energy that we have not seen in the Windy City since the hallowed years of Derrick Rose and Most Valuable Player Awards.
While no player has stuck out thus far as a negative value acquisition for the Bulls just yet, quite a few have left a positive imprint on the organization in a very short amount of time. Here’s a look at the 5 players I believe have impressed the most in a Chicago Bulls uniform.