Preseason games are in the rearview mirror for the 2026-27 Chicago Bulls. Wednesday, the Bulls officially tip off the regular season phase of the franchise’s 61st NBA season with a road game against the Toronto Raptors.
The Bulls gave fans plenty to get excited about during their five 2026-27 preseason games, from Caleb Wilson and Matas Buzelis’ slam-dunk reel to Josh Giddey’s passing feats. Yet there are also compelling questions about the Bulls roster that emerged from preseason play that Bulls fans should get answered in regular-season games sooner rather than later.
Josh Giddey - ready to turn down?
An unsurprising ripple effect of the Bulls adding rookie forward Caleb Wilson to their roster emerged during preseason play: Josh Giddey’s shot volume encountered a stark recession.
Giddey averaged 6.0 field goal attempts per game during the 2026-27 NBA preseason, according to NBA Stats. For context, Giddey averaged 12.2 field goal attempts per game over his first two Chicago Bulls seasons, according to Basketball Reference.
The questions to be answered when Giddey takes the floor for his third Bulls regular season should center on whether his austere shooting profile is here to stay or was his preseason shot diet simply Giddey being overly deferential to a new Bulls roster in the name of forming offensive chemistry?
If Giddey's shot attempts this season are due for a definitive decrease, then he should be prepared to find a strong contribution that consistently delivers an advantage to the Bulls’ offensive possessions.
Two options for Giddey to reinvent himself as a lower shot-volume player are to optimize his shot attempts to mostly catch-and-shoot threes or lead the team charge in crashing the offensive glass to extend the Bulls’ offensive possessions.
If he can’t be an advantage creator in either of those departments, then Tiago Splitter and Bryson Graham should critically question Giddey’s long-term roster fit with Caleb Wilson and Matas Buzelis.
Leonard Miller - is the breakout here to stay?
Bulls fan preseason darling, forward Leonard Miller’s second act in a Bulls uniform, after a strong close to the 2025-26 season, was a 2026-27 Bulls preseason performance averaging 16.4 points per game, shooting 62.0% from the field on 6.2 field goal attempts per game.
The answer Bulls fans should be looking for over Miller’s first 20 games of the 2026-27 NBA season is whether the scoring trend Miller established late last season and throughout the preseason is what an every-night Leonard Miller performance will be this season.
Can Jaylin Sellers win a standard Bulls contract?
Bulls two-way contract guard Jaylin Sellers has been nothing short of electrifying every time he has taken the floor in both his Las Vegas Summer League games and preseason games for the Bulls.
Given the energy Sellers has delivered on both the offensive and defensive ends of the court, the mystery for Sellers to solve throughout the 2026-27 NBA season is whether he can get himself promoted from a two-way contract to a standard Bulls player contract.
Is Nic Claxton a growing Bulls opportunity cost?
Here’s perhaps the most uncomfortable result of the Bulls' 2026-27 preseason stretch of games. Bulls fans still have not seen any Nic Claxton game minutes, and he’s not expected to be ready for the Bulls' opening-night road game in Toronto.
Given the modest amounts of Bulls fan polarization that emerged about the 2026 NBA offseason move to acquire Claxton into cap space, a prolonged injury absence by Claxton has the possibility of triggering anti-Claxton trade Bulls fans into renewed questions about what roster-building opportunities the Bulls sacrificed by aggressively slotting the veteran center into their ample offseason cap space.
Add us as a preferred source on Google