The Chicago Bulls' seemingly quiet post-summer league 2026 NBA offseason received a bold plot twist Tuesday when Marc Stein of The Stein Line reported (subscription required) the Bulls are interested in acquiring restricted free agent wing Bennedict Mathurin.
"The Stein Line on Tuesday learned that Chicago is Mathurin's other current suitor."Marc Stein
The prospect of the Bulls pursuing Mathurin via restricted free agency is a peculiar front office initiative for Bulls executive vice president of basketball operations, Bryson Graham, to steer his franchise towards in the midst of a rebuild that apparently is too good to draft for need at the 15th overall pick or take flyers on prospects in the second round of the 2026 NBA draft.
"I've been told that in Bryson Graham, Bennedict Mathurin has a significant fan."
— CHGO Bulls (@CHGO_Bulls) July 29, 2026
🗣️ @TheSteinLine on his report of the Bulls' interest in Mathurin pic.twitter.com/c0vw6y0vjg
If the Bulls are successful in acquiring Mathurin, then the Graham-led Bulls front office will close the door on their grace period for criticism and immediately open the door to fair scrutiny about what goals the Bulls are exactly setting for themselves in their rebuild.
Benedict Mathurin is a scorer and not much else. It should create pause in Bulls fans and front office alike that an NBA franchise in the thick of their own roster rebuild, in the Los Angeles Clippers, would entertain trading Mathurin only five months removed from acquiring him at the 2026 NBA trade deadline.
Either Mathurin’s asking price may be disconnected from his market, or perhaps the Clippers have already come to terms with their view on his long-term career trajectory.
Is it optionality or is it opportunity cost
Some Bulls fans have already become pessimistic with the Bryson Graham Bulls front office regime based on a perception of uninspired free agency decisions that have consumed all of the Bulls' available cap space via the acquisition of center Nic Claxton, extending center Zach Collins, and acquiring guard Norman Powell via free agency.
Graham will quickly learn that Bulls fans don’t have patience for front office decisions that don’t lead to real winning basketball or even the optics of a winner.
Flexibility, optionality, or whatever Bryson Graham wants to call it, is great messaging for a press conference. However, aimless optionality will eventually become unsustainable opportunity cost.
Bulls fans will eventually see through empty rhetoric. It is incumbent on Graham and his staff to put more intentionality in steering their roster rebuild towards a direction that delivers the Chicago Bulls increasing amounts of real roster upside, a cohesive on-court product, and the necessary assets to improve Bulls basketball operations relative to the competition.
Acquiring Bennedict Mathurin after drafting Dailyn Swain, and selling second-round picks are tactics that smell like the musty front office moves of previous Bulls front office regimes in GarPax’s penchant for selling second-round picks and AKME’s penchant for dumpster diving to acquire castoff former NBA lottery picks.
If Bryson Graham is simply going to be Arturas Karnisovas with better public speaking skills, then Michael Reinsdorf should already be working on Graham’s succession plan.
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