The Chicago Bulls’ seeds of relevance are rapidly growing thanks to Caleb Wilson

With each passing day, the vibes in Bulls Nation feel very un-Bulls-like relative to the last six seasons of Chicago Bulls basketball, thanks to the surge in popularity rookie forward Caleb Wilson is garnering in NBA media.  

Wilson’s awe-inspiring 2026 summer league performance was canonized on Tuesday when NBA communications announced Wilson’s selection to the NBA’s All-Summer League First-Team. 

Great news, of course.  Even greater news: slowly but surely, the franchise buzz that comes with selecting a top NBA Draft lottery pick such as Wilson is resurrecting the Bulls’ NBA relevance.

Case in point, on Tuesday, The Ringer’s Zach Lowe, with guest Rob Mahoney on his The Zach Lowe Show podcast, gushed about the intrigue factor in what eventually will be the 2026-27 Bulls roster. 

Both Lowe and Wilson cited Wilson’s summer league showcase as a core reason why the Bulls are intriguing, although Lowe was a bit more demure about Wilson’s summer league minutes.  

Yet, Matas Buzelis is also another factor boosting the intriguing dynamics in the roster, given the potential for Buzelis and Wilson to form a super-charged NBA wing tandem.  

Mahoney also put an explicit focus on the parallels of Tiago Splitter’s coaching job with the Portland Trail Blazers, who effectively used forward Deni Avdija as their primary on-ball player to an All-Star effect, catalyzing the possibility of Splitter maximizing Giddey’s NBA production.

Perhaps the most encouraging tidbit from Lowe and Mahoney’s Bulls conversation was the level-headed discussion about newly acquired Bulls center Nic Claxton, which, on one hand, acknowledged that his defensive prowess waned over his final years with the Brooklyn Nets.

At the same time, the presence of Claxton on the Bulls roster creates an opportunity for the Bulls to lay the foundation of a reliable switching defense.

The big picture takeaways from Lowe and Mahoney on the outlook for the 2026-27 Bulls is the team will still be bad regardless of all these intrigue factors, and yet they could be a “sleeping giant” on the future horizon of the NBA.

Here’s the rub from Lowe and Mahoney

There is still too much fat in the Bulls' roster to get overly excited about the future.  Patrick Williams, Isaac Okoro, and Rob Dillingham were explicitly called out by Lowe as players that one would begrudgingly watch as a condition of witnessing the potential greatness of Wilson.  

Although both Lowe and Mahoney were relatively neutral on second-year forward Noa Essengue, there might be a strong argument to be made that his existence on the Bulls roster is quickly heading towards obsolescence. 

The Bulls are growing in relevance, and like any plant or gardening effort, a time will come when the weeds require removal from the garden.

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