One thing Chicago Bulls lead front office executive Bryson Graham has shown as a dominant habit in his early Bulls front office moves is a practice of digging into his New Orleans Pelicans history when bringing new people into his Bulls basketball operations organization.
In his most recent example, Graham acquired 10-year NBA veteran shooter Buddy Hield, who played the first 57 games of his NBA career for the New Orleans Pelicans after being selected sixth overall by the franchise in the 2016 NBA Draft.
On Friday, the opportunity for another Bryson Graham blast-from-the-past Bulls front office move emerged when the Memphis Grizzlies waived guard Jordan Hawkins, according to Spotrac. Hawkins, like Hield, was drafted by the New Orleans Pelicans 14th overall in the 2023 NBA Draft while Graham still worked in the franchise’s front office.
Unlike Hield, Jordan Hawkins shouldn’t receive a Chicago Bulls roster spot despite the connection to Graham, because, unfortunately, Hawkins' basketball career has not panned out well in the NBA, and it may never improve.
Jordan Hawkins - NCAA men’s basketball legend
An elite NCAA men’s basketball legacy was cemented in Hawkins basketball career by making a major contribution as a sophomore starter to the University of Connecticut (UCONN) Huskies, winning the program’s fifth NCAA men’s basketball Division I national championship.
What is critical to contextualizing Hawkins going into the 2026-27 NBA season is that NBA Jordan Hawkins has rarely ever looked like NCAA Jordan Hawkins.
Great talent doesn’t always translate
The value proposition for the Pelicans drafting Hawkins in the 2023 NBA Draft was to bring in a player who could replicate the same movement-shooting impact he demonstrated in helping the UCONN Huskies return to national championship glory.
Unfortunately, through 174 career NBA games, Hawkins is a career 34.8% three-point shooter on 4.4 three-point attempts per game.
Hawkins' hyper-specialty as a movement shooter never catapulted him from the ground in his rookie NBA season, and without that skill creating value for him, there has been no other means for Hawkins to meaningfully contribute to NBA games. He doesn’t draw free throws because of his reasonable preoccupation with the three-point line.
Playmaking or defense are also basketball domains that are not associated with Hawkins' game at all. If there is any optimism for Hawkins, it likely will be found in him winning a two-way contract from some NBA franchise, preferably one that is not named the Chicago Bulls, and through reps in the NBA G League, perhaps Hawkins can discover a skill set to return him to an NBA roster in the future.
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