Chicago Bulls point guard Josh Giddey took a significant step forward last season, at times looking like an All-Star. But this is a new organization with new priorities, and right now, he's halting Chicago's evolution, not helping it.
Giddey had a career year in 2025-26, averaging 17.0 points, 8.3 rebounds and 9.1 assists as the lead guard of a run-and-gun offense. As a facilitator and true throwback floor general, that scheme and roster suited his skill set to a T.
Head coach Tiago Splitter has this year’s squad playing a similar high-tempo style, but he's not getting the same Giddey. The Aussie looks like a poor fit for a roster built around athletic young forwards Caleb Wilson and Matas Buzelis rather than the likes of Coby White, Ayo Dosunmu and Nikola Vucevic.
The Bulls can't wait around and watch him slow down a long overdue rebuild.
Josh Giddey has massively underwhelmed to start this season
Giddey is averaging just 7.6 points, 5.6 rebounds and 8.0 assists through five games heading into the Bulls' NBA Cup opener on Oct. 30. He’s reportedly dealing with a wrist injury, although Splitter has admitted it hasn’t affected the 24-year-old’s play.
Regardless, he’s not gelling with the offense, and his defensive deficiencies aren’t doing the team any favors on the other end of the floor either.
On the surface, Giddey's fit alongside Wilson and Buzelis makes sense. He’s a highly skilled initiator of offense, and the two franchise cornerstones are lob threats out to the 3-point line. (That's what it seems like anyway.) He should be able to help them feast on easy buckets at the rim.
But Splitter has given Wilson and Buzelis the ball and the freedom to make mistakes. They rank first and third on the team in usage rate at 27.0 percent and 23.2 percent, respectively, among players who've appeared in at least five games.
Giddey sits at 16.2.
Sure, he's an elite and creative passer, but he can't make any passes if he doesn't have the ball. The No. 6 pick in the 2021 NBA Draft has become a passable shooter, but spotting up behind the 3-point line isn't what he does best.
He also just completed the first year of a four-year contract that pays him $25 million annually and runs through the 2028-29 season. If he gets shoehorned into being a reserve guard who leads the bench unit? That's a hefty price tag.
For the same reasons, Giddey won't be in demand as a trade asset. But whatever executive VP of basketball operations Bryson Graham — who didn't acquire Giddey, by the way, and has no loyalty to him — can land in exchange might be worth the price of letting the rebuild move forward.
Add us as a preferred source on Google