It is now four additions that the Chicago Bulls have made to the roster in the last couple of weeks alone after signing the veteran power forward Ersan Ilyasova to a 10-day contract on the afternoon of Dec. 21. The Bulls have also added two players via the hardship exemption on the same day, with some new injury and health and safety protocol issues popping up for the team on Dec. 21.
The first player that the Bulls added via the hardship exemption on Dec. 21 was the former Los Angeles Lakers and Texas Tech Red Raiders guard Mac McClung. The Bulls snagged a player that still has yet to play in his first regular season game in the NBA in McClung.
And according to a report from ESPN NBA insider Adrian Wojnarowski on Twitter on the afternoon of Dec. 21, the Bulls are now adding Ilyasova to the roster on a 10-day contract via the hardship exemption. Ilyasova and McClung are now looking to fill the roles left open by recently injured/newly absent players such as point guard Devon Dotson, point guard Alex Caruso, and forward Derrick Jones Jr.
Chicago Bulls add their second player via the hardship exemption on Dec. 21 with veteran PF Ersan Ilyasova
The Chicago Bulls are planning to sign veteran forward Ersan Ilyasova on a 10-day hardship exemption, pending a physical and protocols, sources tell @ramonashelburne and me.
— Adrian Wojnarowski (@wojespn) December 21, 2021
It will be interesting to see if any more news arrives for the Bulls due to either injury updates or the league’s health and safety protocol. The numbers are starting to climb for the Bulls again this week, with one game left on the slate until the Christmas Break arrives.
What the Bulls are getting out of Ilyasova is definitely an experienced and proven player with more than 800 career regular season games played and more than 400 starts under his belt. Ilyasova also has more than 50 career playoff appearances and nearly a dozen postseason starts.
The last NBA action that Ilyasova saw came as a member of the Utah Jazz last season, where he played in 17 games and averaged around nine minutes on the floor per night.
Ilyasova is the definition of an NBA journeyman, with the Bulls potentially being the eighth team he’s played a regular season game for.
If nothing else, the Bulls will be looking to get some of the floor spacing and rebounding ability that Ilyasova put on display in the last few seasons with the Jazz and Milwaukee Bucks. He shot around 44 percent from beyond the arc with the Jazz last season and registered a rebounding percentage as high as 15.0 percent in the last few seasons.
The Bulls now have one additional player in the rotation ahead of their last game before the Christmas break, which comes on Dec. 22 at home against the Toronto Raptors. Second-year head coach Billy Donovan and the Bulls are sporting a record of 19-10 heading into that game after winning each outing in a set of back-to-back games on Dec. 19 and 20.