Six minutes and you're off, six minutes and you're off. Noa Essengue’s rookie Bulls show came to a screeching halt after only six minutes across two 2025-26 NBA regular-season games and a shoulder contusion suffered in a Nov 26, 2025, Windy City Bulls G-League game against the Sioux Falls Skyforce.
Noa Essengue suffered shoulder contusion in Windy City game, per Donovan
— K.C. Johnson (@KCJHoop) November 29, 2025
Subsequently, Essengue’s rookie season was officially declared over on Dec 3, 2025, by the Bulls when it was announced that Essengue would have surgery to repair a dislocated shoulder. With the Bulls now in their 2026 NBA offseason, Essengue’s upcoming 2026-27 NBA season is largely a do-over of a rookie season that barely materialized on the floor.
Injury Update: Noa Essengue will have shoulder surgery and will miss the remainder of the season, per Billy Donovan. pic.twitter.com/ej2he33HCF
— Chicago Bulls (@chicagobulls) December 3, 2025
The do-over will also factor in a completely different front office evaluating Essengue’s performance and development process, in the midst of a rebuild, due to the firing of the Arturas Karnisovas-helmed Bulls front office and hiring of his replacement, Bulls executive vice president of basketball operations, Bryson Graham.
Projecting how Essengue should establish NBA his career foundation
Given Essengue’s length, 6’8” at a minimum until he reports to Bulls 2026 training camp, Essengue establishing himself on the boards is a logical place to get started making his presence felt in live NBA minutes.
The Bulls' best rebounder during the 2025-26 NBA season was an aging Nikola Vucevic, who, according to Basketball Reference, averaged 9.0 rebounds per game in his final 48 Bulls games before getting traded to the Boston Celtics at the February 2026 NBA Trade Deadline. There should be an opportunity for Essengue to become the Bulls’ new glass cleaner next season.
Another immediate opportunity for Essengue to create impact in his do-over rookie season is to challenge himself to be a serviceable NBA rim protector out of the gate. Matas Buzelis became the de facto Bulls rim protector when he debuted in a Bulls uniform during the 2024-25 NBA season. However, there are limitations to the type of rim protection Buzelis offers.
Buzelis provided a solid 1.5 blocks per game during the 2025-26 Bulls season, per Basketball Reference. Buzelis usually finds his blocks through hyper-athletic rotations to the ball as a help defender. Depending on the outcomes of Buzelis’ 2026 offseason, maybe that changes, and he becomes a more physical paint protector that cuts off straight-line drives to the rim from opposing offenses.
If not, that’s where it’s in the Bulls' best interest to quickly figure out if Essengue can contribute any rim protection, given his slender 200-pound frame. Rebounding and defense translate regardless of any level of basketball, and if Essengue can quickly flash promising signals in these facets of the game, he may give Bulls fans optimism about his do-over rookie season.
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